Movin on out

Yesterday Danny and Lucy played at home while I drove up with my mom and Katy to Davis. Some good friends from our ward helped us clean out the apartment and I was surprised how quickly it went. It was sad to turn our keys in-Danny and Lucy haven't been there since we just walked away a couple of weeks ago. Thanks to my family for moving us out completely and thank you girls a million times over for your scrubbing, washing, vacuuming and blind wiping:)

(Sorry-I had to post the pic because everyone looks so cute in their grubs-even if we are a little sweaty:)

The other day Danny cashed in on one of the few benefits of having cancer-your mom will buy you pretty much whatever you want. Danny really wanted a juicer. So far we have juiced all of the fresh grapes growing in the garden, the apples off our tree, some nectarines and some blueberries. We're excited to get started on some veggies-we have a bunch of tomatoes to juice today. We're lovin the fresh juice taste. Good for immunity too:)

Getting Organized

Quick update. First two appointments for the week are done. After our appointments today Danny and I went to the container store and bought some organizing essentials like multiple pill holders. After feeling completely out of control of our lives-just getting the chemo schedule on the calendar and buying pill holders is empowering. Tomorrow I'm going to Davis to clean out our apartment with some good friends who are willing to help me. We're so sad to leave Davis, especially so suddenly, but it will be nice not to worry about moving anymore. Here are a couple more pics from our fun getaway.

Report/Lake Tahoe

Thanks for all of your comments. It really makes a difference knowing you are all out there thinking of us right now. I'm blogging from Lake Tahoe. We have been able to spend a glorious weekend here with Danny's family. Each family brought only one child so it has been a calm and relaxing weekend. Lucy has been the oldest and as LOVED playing with her cousins. Bennett is only nine months younger and they have so much fun together. It has been really nice just to relax a bit after the crazy past couple of weeks. I just wanted to report a bit on last week and give you an update on what comes ahead. Our first appointment last week was a PET scan. Danny sat in a comfy chair while they shot him up with a radioactive substance that the cancer cells are attracted to. He had to wait for an hour while the cancer cells ate it up and then they did a scan on his body to see where the cancer is. We will hear all the results next Friday when we meet with our oncologist but we do know that Danny's Lymphoma is a Stage 2 B. They label you in stages 1 through 4 (one being a lower amount of cancer and four being high-the stage is also determined by the location). I'm feeling just fine with a 2. The next day he had a bone marrow biopsy. It is just as bad as everyone says. At one point the NP was huffing and puffing as she cranked the saw into Danny's bone core. Sorry for the image but it was just that awful. The next day Danny went into surgery to receive a Port.
When I wrote about it before I was imagining something like Iron Man's energy core popping out of Danny's chest. Thankfully it is much smaller and completely covered by skin. The port is a small triangle that is connected to a small tube that feeds directly into his blood. They placed it right about his right collar bone. There is an obvious bump there so the nurses can find it easily to give him injections. He was given pretty light anesthesia but can't remember the procedure at all. That afternoon we had an appointment with our NP to go over the plan for his chemotherapy. We raced him out of the hospital when he was relatively coherent and had the meeting. I'm glad he was still pretty loopy because hearing the therapy plan was pretty hard. Somehow I had expected chemo to be a shot once every two weeks that made you sick. Danny's chemo plan is a 21 day cycle. He will have 8 cycles-so we're hoping to be done end of December (the day before our fifth year anniversary in fact). The chemotherapy includes about 8 different drugs-half given intravenously and the other half orally. Then he takes a bunch of other oral drugs to keep the chemo drugs from hurting him too badly. Then there are a bunch of over the counter drugs to keep him functioning. We also go in to get the intravenous drugs about 10 days out of the 21 day cycle. Then she went over the side affects of each drug. It was all incredibly overwhelming and pretty scary. We went out and immediately bought a huge calendar and I feel better having organized the information a bit more. It will take a lot of doing but I know we'll get the hang of it.
We are scheduled to start chemo on August 3. This week have to have an EKG and another test to establish some baselines so they can judge some of the drugs effects on Danny. He is also banking some sperm in case the chemo has a long term affect on our fertility. On Friday we talk to the oncologist about the heavy stuff like the likelihood of the cancer returning, future fertility and the PET scan results. We're excited to get this process started. Now that I've heard what it entails, I know why they call if 'fighting" cancer. We're ready for it though.
All weekend we've been joking about why having cancer is a good thing. We've come up with answers like better cable at our parents house, having DVR, the fall TV season starting (yes these were all my ideas:), having more time together as a family, having more time to figure out what we want to do after school etc. While we would probably never choose cancer for these couple benefits, we know that things happen for a reason. We feel really blessed for the timing of it all. We feel confidant that our faith will be strengthened and we will become closer to our Heavenly Father through this experience. Thanks again for all of your love.

Thank You!

We just wanted to thank the person or group who left us that kind note and gift last night. You were very sneaky because my mom and I were packing right in the kitchen. We both cried at your incredible generosity. Bless you.

Welcome!

Welcome to our new blog. As many of you know, Danny was recently diagnosed with Hodgkins Lymphoma. We are so grateful for all of your prayers and support. The last couple weeks we have experienced a range of different emotions, but right now we're just feeling grateful and loved. We are optimistic that in a couple of months life will be normal again.
Several people have asked about Danny's syomptoms and what led to this diagnosis. About two months ago Danny starting sweating at night. He would sweat enough that he'd have to change his pajamas and eventually move to the couch to be more comfortable. At first it was only one or two nights a week-but then it increased in frequency. It was just an annoyance really, and we figured he was just overheating or something. We thought about going to the doctor to check on it-but come on! It's just sweat! Eventually Marilyn encouraged Danny to go in(for which we are eternally grateful) and he went to see his doctor at the UC Davis health center. The doctor had him take a chest x-ray and when she looked at it said, "Wow! What is THAT!" His lymphnodes were very swollen. She gave us a couple ideas of what could be causing his symptoms: an infection, tuberculosis, and lymphoma. At this point we tried not to freak out-I'd never thought one day I'd be praying for Danny to have TB but I did! He had a CT scan several days later that determined the size and location of the lymphnodes. The doctor sent us to the UC Davis Medical Center to continue our diagnosis and explained that without obtaining tissue we wouldn't know anything. They scheduled a rather invasive biopsy a week later and told us they'd have results a week from that. We came down to Concord and got a second opinion from an oncologist here who said that they could take tissue from a lymphnode in Danny's neck and have preliminary results in less than a week. Needless to say we took the second option and are really glad we did! On Friday the results came back as Hodgkins. We are feeling very blessed that it is Hodgkins and not non-Hodgkins. Hodgkins is very treatable with a 95% cure rate. At this point it is nice to at least know for sure what we are facing so we can start fighting it.
This week Danny goes in for a PET scan, has a check of his bone marrow and gets a port.
Definitions: As Steve explained it-when you get a PET scan you ingest some sugar substance that lights up the cancer cells. They scan you body and see all the cancer cells and how far the cancer has spread.
Bone Marrow- sounds like a painful procedure that checks if the cancer has spread to your bones.
Port: no clue really-it is something that goes into your skin and you receive chemo treatments through it. It sounds like it helps because they don't have to keep poking your veins. I guess you can shower with it in and everything. We haven't met with Dr. Sirott yet to talk about Danny's treatment schedule-his scans this week will determine his treatment.
We're starting this blog so you can check in on Danny and our family and see how we're managing. We are living in Concord with the Leiningers during his treatment and are in the process of moving out of our Davis apartment. We are really sad to leave Davis and all of the friends we've made there. At the same time we are really happy to be surrounded by our family in these next months. Thanks for reading!