Saving Sarah

Camden turned four today.  He was really sweet and let us celebrate early before Sarah came back for chemo.  It's pretty sad not being with him today, but we have had a few little birthday celebrations already so he thinks his birthday was a couple weeks ago. ;)  He is an awesome brother. Sarah giggles  whenever she sees him.  He prays everyday for Sarah to get better, and he takes good care of Hannah while I'm away.  We are so blessed to have him in our family!! Sarah is doing pretty well.  She likes wandering the halls in the cancer unit.  She makes a new friend every day.  Some of the sweetest people I have ever met have been kids in this unit and their families.  One of them is Sarah's dear friend Oliver.  He is so kind.  The Spirit is so strong when you are near him.  Sarah adores him.  We are so grateful for him, and the many other people we have met to help guide us through this.  We see Heavenly Fa...

Sarah started round two today.  She was pretty sad when we walked into her room at the hospital, but after a couple hours she was happy. I've been thinking a lot lately about what is really important in life. I remember the morning of September 8th pretty vividly.  Sarah woke up and was asking for a drink and I really thought she was getting better.  She watched tv and drank her sippy while I drank my Diet Coke and looked at Instagram.  Just a few hours later my world was turned upside down.  I thought I was losing her, and I was SO mad at myself....I had been looking at Instagram instead of cherishing time with her.  It's sad it took something so big to make me open my eyes to what really matters. Take extra time to spend with your family today.  Put away distractions and just enjoy being together.  Cherish every moment......"Behold your little ones."  (3 Nephi 17:23)

We have loved being home together as a family this week.  I was so grateful we were home with Hannah and Camden for fall break. It almost seems like we are back to real life....almost. My parents have a picture of Payson temple hanging on their wall.  Sarah kept pointing at it saying, "temple".  So the kids and I drove to see it.  I love that Sarah already knows the temple and loves it. The kids have loved playing together.  A couple times today I've seen Sarah go up to both Hannah and Camden and just hold their hand.  She adores them!  They were able to get ice cream at the creamery, decorate pumpkins, go to Sarah's favorite place to eat, check out the new house, and go on a date with daddy.   It feels like it has been much longer than a week we've had her back home.  It's crazy how our time at the hospital seems to fly, and time at home has gone slowly....another tender mercy!!  We see heaven's hand in our lives ea...

Sarah will have six rounds of chemo.  The last three rounds of chemo will be hitting her extra hard so we can make sure we get all the cancer cells.  Those rounds will be so intense she won't be able to build her immune system on her own, so she will have three stem cell transplants. She has finished round one of chemo and her counts have recovered, so we started the stem cell harvest. The bone marrow team came in with this amazing machine that pulls Sarah's blood out and skims out her stem cells then gives her back the rest of the blood.  She had to be in bed through the process, it took about 7 hours.  She wanted to get out and play, but thankfully we were able to distract her.  She played with the nurse from the stem cell team, listened to Moana, watched mommy's phone, and slept.  We needed to collect 15 million stem cells and were able to get 21.3 million. We are officially done with round one!!

October 12, 2017 My sweet mom came to the hospital last night to be with Sarah while I went to be a mom to my other little angels.  I loved being home with Nathan, Hannah, and Camden.  We are so anxious to all be home together. Just after Hannah turned three her appendix ruptured and she had stay in the hospital for a few days. Camden was still nursing and needed me, so he and I were home during the night while Nathan stayed at the hospital, then during the day Nathan and I would trade places. It was so hard being separated for only a few days and I promised myself to never take just being together as a family for granted....but time passed and I got so used to always being together that I took it for granted.  I look back at that and wish we only had to be separated for a few days instead of a few weeks. I was able to help in Hannah's class today.  I promised her I would be there as soon as I got Camden to preschool.  I walked in about 9:45 and she hurrie...

On Wednesday September 6, 2017 Sarah woke up and threw up one time.  She was fine the rest of the day and we played outside.  That evening while Hannah, Camden, Sarah, and I were playing outside Sarah starting acting weird.  She laid her head on the cement and tried to sleep so I took all the kids in for showers and bed.  She fell asleep waiting for the shower.  She threw up, then fell back asleep.  I assumed she caught something from nursery. Thursday she was still sick.  Tired and throwing up, but nothing that had me overly worried.   Friday September 8, I thought Sarah was doing better.   She woke up and came in the kitchen asking me for a  sippy.  She hadn't had many wet diapers and I was concerned she was dehydrated   so  I texted Jana, who works at my doctors office, to ask for advice.    She said if Sarah didn't seem better by 3:00 to bring her down to the office for a strep test.  Sara...