Squishy the Plant.

Brody planted a little seed in a cup at school and now it is growing into a nice full plant. He is totally obsessed with it. When he first brought it home I asked him if he wanted to name it and he said " yes, I want to name it Squishy the Plant". We check on it first thing in the morning and numerous times throughout the day to "make sure it's still growing". He always makes sure Squishy the Plant has plenty of water and it isn't getting too much sun. I guess this is the closest thing he is going to get to a pet ha ha ( I'm not a animal person). And make sure you don't just call him Squishy, it's Squishy the Plant!! :) He is such a funny boy!

Co-Op Mommies.

It's been almost a year since I enrolled Brody in Kids' Co-Op. I remember thinking that the school was so wonderful because they let kids be kids. They didn't restrict them; they let them play, they let them get dirty, they let them be superheros and princesses. I wanted that for Brody more than anything. I wanted him to have this wonderful outlook on school, a place where he could be Brody. When the beginning of school started it was such a neat experience for him but what I didn't realize, is that it turned out to be such a great experience for me too! I never would have thought that a year ago I was going meet such great moms. I was the new girl at school (sounds so HS :) and there were a handful of them that welcomed me with open arms. All the moms have been so great during this hard time we have been going through, they will never know how much an email, a birthday party invite or a simple voicemail has meant. I never expected any sort of friendships out of this but I think I gained more from this school than Brody!

Munchkins.

There isn't much going on right now... no new updates or anything exciting. So I thought I would add a few recent pictures of the kiddos!



Brody at school.

Brody's 1st day at Karate class.

Getting ready to hunt some eggs.
(notice the mob behind him ;)



                                                                                                   



I just love this picture of Mia.

She is the swetest little thing.







Bonnie Springs.

She honestly just melts my heart.
1st pool day of the summer!

Too funny not to add!



Reno.

We heard about a really great doctor in Reno, Dr. James Forsythe. He is really a pioneer right now when it comes to curing cancer. He is not only an Oncologist but he is also licensed in homeopathy, which is exactly what we were looking for. You'll find that most Oncologist only have one option for cancer; cut it out and chemo it. And that is not an option for us. So I called his office early Monday morning to get Donnie an appointment to see him but they had no openings for 2 weeks. I was totally bummed; I didn’t want to wait 2 weeks for someone to see him. But I wanted him to see Dr. Forsythe, not someone else. I was completely torn; I had no idea what to do. I made the appointment and just figured me and Donnie would talk about it when he got home. To my surprise around 3pm the office was calling me back. The lady on the phone, who I had spoken to earlier, asked "if I had a cancelation, do you think you could make it here?" I think my heart skipped a beat, I immediately said yes not even knowing when this cancellation was. She told me "It's at 10am tomorrow" I told her to schedule us and we would be there! I called my mom and told her the news and she packed a bag and headed down to Vegas, because we needed a babysitter :) Me and Donnie left for Reno and drove all night. Stayed at the Atlantis, Not the kind of Atlantis I was hoping for but I guess I forgot we were in Reno not the Bahamas he he! Kind of reminded me of the old casino mob movies, where it was all mirrored with fake rock and low ceilings :) No complaining here though, we were just grateful to have a comfy bed to sleep in after that LOOONG drive.

We made it to the Century Wellness Clinic, it was more than I had expected. I guess I don’t really know what I was expecting. I have a hard time at doctors’ offices because i always feel like the nurses and doctors are so jaded. But they weren’t here, you could feel the sincerity. Blah blah I could go on for hours about how great they were but I’ll stop :) We finally met with Dr. Forsythe. He talked with us for a while about what we have done so far, what we want to do and just tons of information about Donnie’s cancer. He made us feel like we were talking to a great friend not a narcissistic doctor (like most of them are). He looked in Donnie’s throat and found another lump :( He called me over to look at while he held the light. I’ve just never had a doctor engage me like that; I just thought it was neat and scary at the same time. Another lump. Great. He said he wanted to start a IV Immune therapy treatment and IV Vincristine treatment (low dose chemo) before we left to break up the cancer cells while we waited for the Greek Test results to come back. Side note: the Greek test is a large blood sample that is sent to Greece. It tests your cancer cells on 18 chemo treatments and 38 homeopathic treatments to find out what treatment is the best for your specific cancer. It is actually an amazing test. The results will show what treatments will be the best fighter against the cancer and which ones won’t. This is why we love Dr. Forsythe so much. He doesn’t care what the treatment is as long as the treatment works. He doesn’t believe in full chemo (which breaks down your system and not only kills bad cells but all your good ones too), he believes in low dose chemo (10% of traditional chemo), along with mass amounts of supplements and a very strict organic only diet. He believes in having your immune system at the best it can be.

When we had made the appointment they told us we would be there all day. All day I thought, what are we going to do there all day? Little did I know we would actually be there allllll day. We closed the office. We saw 3 more doctors that day, each doctor talked about different things that need to be done in order for the treatment to be successful. He had a couple test done as well. Donnie found out that he had gluten intolerance, extremely high sugar levels, viral and fungal infections and a body that is completely inflamed. Pheeww that was a lot to get out! He also had his two IV treatments done that I talked about early and those took about 2 hours. While he sat in that chair getting his treatments, it seemed very surreal for the both of us. It’s funny because the whole time we were there everyone kept staring at us, probably because we were the youngest people there by 40 years. I could see it in their eyes that they were all thinking the same thing, "he’s so young". And at that moment watching him getting that liquid pumped into him, I thought the same thing, he is so young. I wished it wasn’t him, I wished that he didn’t have to go through that. He's the strongest man I know. He’s been taking care of a family since he was 21, working his butt off so that I was able to stay home with our kids and now he has to go through this. I would have traded places with him in a heartbeat. But you know what, this has made us stronger, we will be forever changed. And he will beat this! Anyway :) We left that place feeling so hopefully and encourage. We really felt like we had come from another world, like we are going to beat cancer, they made us feel like that. The doctors and nurses there gave us so much hope. Sometimes I feel like, did I drink the Kool-Aid? And I know sometimes that people must think we are crazy for not doing traditional treatment. But you know what, nobody is going to do the same thing we are doing and we aren’t going to the same thing that someone else did. Everyone has their own journey through cancer and this is our journey!

Where we are today..... Well we are still waiting for the Greek Test to come back, it has only been 4 days so hopefully after Easter we should hear back from them. After we get results we will be able to map out our treatment plan but until then we wait.... and wait :)

The Next Step.

So where did I leave off?!?.... Well, We left Dr. Nasri and never turned back. We were happy with that decision. We wanted a second opinion. Donnie and I did a lot of research (along with my parents) on what is out there in terms of cancer treatments. We knew we didn't want traditional cancer treatment but we had no idea what we did want. And man, let me tell you that there is ALOT out there. Our first step was to see a doctor here in town that is not only a family medicine doctor but he is also a bio-identical doctor. My parents have been seeing him in St. George for about a year to get their health in order, homeopathically. He is all about making sure your body is healthy and your immune system is as good as it can possibly be. We saw him last Saturday and he gave us a ton of information about the kind of diet Donnie needed to be on and what supplements he needed to be taking. He also did some IV supplement treatments on him. I know that it sounds totally crazy but the IV treatments build your system up so much. They repair damaged cells so your body will be able to fight the cancer at an optimal level. It was a great visit for us, we learned a lot and felt great about the treatment that he recommended. Donnie continues to see him 3 times a week for various IV treatments. The next step for us was to see an Oncologist in Reno that my mom had read about in a Susanne Sumer’s book about "Doctors that are Curing Cancer"....

The Beginning.

So it all started in January... Donnie was just sitting on the couch rubbing his neck and felt a lump. He got a little concerned because, well, lets just face it he has anxiety anyway ;) but I felt it, thought nothing of it and told him to make a doctors appointment. It took a couple weeks before he actually made it to the doctor. The doctor told him he thought it was just a infected lymph node because he had just recently got over a cold. He prescribed an antibiotic. He finished the 10 days of the antibiotic and it was still there. To be honest we really weren't concerned. We let it go for a good couple week thinking it would just go away, but it never did. Finally he went to another doctor to check it out. This is around early March. They did an x-ray, saw nothing wrong, So they sent him to a ear nose and throat doctor. (Dr. Nasri, I don't recommend).


Donnie saw Dr. Nasri after getting a blood test and a ct scan. During his first appointment with him, the Dr. said that it looked like lymphoma but wasn't sure so he wanted to do a fine needle biopsy. It was going to take a week and a half before we could get the biopsy... Meanwhile the both of us are having a heart attack thinking that it could be something awful (little did we know). We didn't really tell any of our family because we didn't want them worrying like we were. So we just prayed that it wasn't true. Finally, we were able to get the biopsy on March 24th. They said that it took 7-10 days to get results. So we waited and waited, I swear it seemed like forever! We finally got a follow up appointment with Dr. Nasri on April 4th.


The day came. It was the moment of truth. I felt like I was going to throw up at any moment just thinking of what it could be. We had finally made it to the day we had been waiting for and all i wanted to do was run away. But anyway, we get in the room to wait for the doctor and the nurse says to me (I had Mia with me). "we have a strict no child policy but I'll let it slide because you are getting biopsy results" OH gee thanks lady, that's so nice of you! This is the first time I had been to this office and I'm was already getting a bad vibe and I still hadn't met the doctor, so I didn't know what to really expect. Lets just say, him not having a good bedside manner is a compliment. He walked in, never really looked at me or talked to us, looked in Donnie's throat with a scope, looked though his results and said "You have Cancer, highly suspicious for Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma and we need to remove the mass for a biopsy on Saturday" I asked a couple questions that he never really answered and we were out of the room in a matter of minutes signing papers for the impending surgery. We left with our heads spinning and spinning. We had no idea what just happened; Does he have Non-Hodgkin's or not?, Why are they removing it? What happens after the surgery?


We called all of our family to let them know, because of course they were on pins and needles waiting to hear. Every one was just as shocked as we were to hear the news. I swear we were in a daze for hours. My dad called me later on that night and told me that he didn't think we should do the surgery and that there are really great alternative doctors out there that are curing cancer without the use of surgery and radiation and full body chemo. To say the least, I was pissed. How dare him call me and tell me what he thinks we should be doing. (he never said any of it in a mean demanding way, It was very loving and concerned but I took it the wrong way) I mulled over everything he told me that night and slept on it and did a whole lot of research. And within days Donnie and me decided that surgery was not for him. We had seen lots of people we love die from surgery and chemo and we didn't want him to be the next one......

Life is a Journey, Not a Destination.

Blogging, WOW, I never thought that I would ever enter this world... but here goes... Life has been quite a roller coaster for us lately and I guess I just want to be able to share our journey with friends and family, near and far. I want to start this blog not only to inform everyone of everything that’s going on but to also show everyone a little piece of all the joy and happiness we experience every day!

As some of you know, Donnie was just recently diagnosed with Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma (man is that hard to write). It was quite the shock; sometimes we still can’t believe it. I know a lot of people are curious as to how everything is going and what we plan on doing next. I thought that this blog would be the best way to "fill" everyone in. We know that everyone just loves and cares about us. And we feel like everyone deserves to know exactly what’s going on. It’s hard for us to call so many people all the time about his status and to be honest most of the time we are just plain sick of talking about it. It's going to be quite the journey for us but we are ready to fight! We have received so many beautiful cards and well wishes for our family and they are so appreciated. We are blessed to have all the thoughts and prayers from everyone!