January 2010 - February 2012
A good friend of mine told me that when she was waiting for her mother to have her treatments she would journal on her phone. I appreciated her advice, but thought that it wouldn’t work for me! When you are sitting in a dark quiet room and you have read through all your magazines, priorities change real quickly.
A good friend of mine told me that when she was waiting for her mother to have her treatments she would journal on her phone. I appreciated her advice, but thought that it wouldn’t work for me! When you are sitting in a dark quiet room and you have read through all your magazines, priorities change real quickly.
It is hard to know where to begin.
I probably should have been
documenting events since he was first diagnosed, but it didn’t seem that dire
back then.
In another way, I can recall when, where, and what emotions I was
feeling through it all.
I thought Jason was a little crazy, wanting to deploy again
only four months after returning from his first deployment in the C-130. He explained
it to me that if he was able to go on the upcoming deployment, he wouldn’t have
to be gone on the next one, during the Christmas holidays.
He proceeded to do
all the pre-deployment preparation, including a trip to the dentist. While at
the appointment, the dentist noticed a small sore in his mouth and asked him
how long it had been there. Jason explained that he thought it was just a
canker that had been there for a couple of months. Jason had never smoked, chewed tobacco, or drank alcohol in his life so a small sore in his mouth was
nothing he was too concerned about. The dentist insisted on him getting it
biopsied however.
Jason was first sent to an endodontist to have a small
biopsy. When the results were inconclusive, they then sent him to an oral
surgeon in town to have a larger, quarter size sample taken. At the time, I
wasn’t too worried about it. I was mostly experiencing the typical emotions you
feel before your spouse deploys.
Jason’s biopsy came back literally the day before he was set
to deploy. He was actually in the mobility line when he received the call that
his biopsy had come back as carcinoma in-situ. It was explained that this was
something that was on the border between normal and full-fledged cancer. Jason
wasn’t scared, he was just irritated that he couldn’t deploy with the rest of
his squadron, and that someone else would now have to go in his place. I was
torn between being glad that he didn’t have to go, but scared of what was going
to happen to him. He met with doctors and an ENT surgeon who assured him that
they could easily remove it surgically and he would have no further problems. I
was reassured by their optimism.
Around this time I found out that I was pregnant. This was
obviously a big surprise. We had been trying for the past two years and had
given up hope. We already had two beautiful little boys and thought that was
all we were supposed to have. I told myself that this was God’s gift to us to
give us hope to go on. With the help of my good friend Catherine White and my
loving sister, I was able to stay with Jason during this time and not have to
worry about my boys. His surgery went well, but he was annoyed they made him
stay in the hospital so long. Jason soon regained his ability to eat anything
and speak just as clearly as before the surgery. We both felt this was the end
of it.
Every three months, Jason and I would have to go to San
Antonio for check-ups. During these trips, we left the boys in the care of my
friend Mary Peterson so they wouldn’t have to miss school and we looked forward
to these outing as our quarterly get away, to make up for the date nights that
we frequently missed. After six months, Jason was able to return to flying.
That was a big deal for him. He had to wait 18 months before he could deploy though.
Lucky for him, a deployment was going out a hair past his 18 month point. Jason
had just been made an aircraft commander and although he was sad to leave us
again, he was happy that he wouldn’t be around to deal with my raging hormones,
since I was pregnant again. This should have been a clue to me that God had
sent us another gift because something was about to happen.
After casually bringing up to my fellow air force spouse,
whose husband was also on the deployment with Jason, that I was going to drive
to Utah to spend the summer with my in-laws,
she said she too was driving that way. To the relief of Jason and my
in-laws, we decided to caravan up there. It was a great trip, considering I was
pregnant and traveling with three kids, it all went very smoothly. Jason was
able to call me on my cell phone from the dessert. It was very convenient, but
towards the end of July, I should have noticed that something was up.
We had just returned from our trip and I was at the pool
with my friend Alyssa and our kids. I was sitting at the edge of the pool and
out of the corner of my eye, I saw a man in a desert flight suit. That was a
little odd. I took another look and saw Jason walking toward me!! He was having
someone film us behind him. I guess he was hoping to catch a wonderful scene of
a beautiful bombshell bathing by the side of the pool jumping into his arms, so
glad that he was home. Instead he found a tired, pregnant mom with greasy hair,
stubbly legs, in total shock, only being able to say, “Why are you here? What’s
wrong? What happened?” That video wasn’t shown much!
It didn’t help that he wasn’t talking well because he had a
biopsy that morning. The ENT had come in off her leave to meet him at Wilford Hall in San
Antonio, after he was flown there from Germany. He began to tell me what he had
kept a secret from me for the last few weeks. He had noticed another sore on
his tongue and they decided to fly him home instead of doing the biopsy in
Germany, because of his history and the fact that the deployment was halfway
over. At this point, I wasn’t too worried that the cancer at returned, just
annoyed that they were being too cautious.
A week later, that was validated when the biopsy came back
negative. He was scheduled for routine check-ups just as a precaution. I was
due with our fourth little boy on December 25th and one of his appointments was
scheduled just two weeks before that. I was scared that if he went to that
appointment I would go into labor while he was gone. I guess my prayers were
answered when Harrison came to us a month early. At a week and a half old,
Harrison took his first trip to San Antonio with us for another biopsy on a
spot Jason had noticed again.
We were busy getting ready for Christmas and weren’t even
thinking about the results of the latest biopsy. It was December 21st, the
Friday before Christmas when Jason got a call from his ENT. He wrote me a note
while talking to her, that the latest biopsy had come back positive for
squamous cell carcinoma. I crumbled to the ground. Really! She couldn’t have
waited until after Christmas to tell us. Jason was trying to be positive and
tell me that it was a small tumor and that it was very treatable.
I tried to stay positive, but all I could think about was
that if it had spread to his lymph nodes that he was going to die. I stayed
like that for two weeks until he had the scans that proved it had not spread.
With my faith renewed we then had to decide which of the treatment options to
pursue. We were assured by the ENT and the Radiation Oncologist that both
treatments were equally successful. It was kind of scary, though, that each of
them was recommending the other’s treatment. The ultimate decision came down to
Jason not wanting to take the risk of not being able to speak well enough to
remain a pilot. Of course now, we are wondering if we made the right choice.
It seemed to take forever to get started. Jason was having
problems with getting lodging down in San Antonio, where he would have to stay
for seven weeks, but he eventually got started on February 5th. It was a tough
time on all of us. Luckily he was able to come home on weekends, but he was
hiding how tired he was and that just compounded the problems. We slowly
adjusted to the change in our lives. We even took advantage of the situation
and were able to move into a TLF at Randolph Air Force Base during spring
break. The boys and I were able to spend a week with Jason and did some fun
things in San Antonio. We couldn’t do too much because it would wear Jason out,
but he was able to take a nap most days and the kids were good not to bother
him.
During the last two weeks of treatment, Jason did not feel
well enough to make the five hour drive back to Abilene on the weekends, but
luckily that was when we had planned for Grandma to come visit. She and I
worked night and day to get the house ready for Jason to come home. I was so
grateful for the help. On the weekend before Jason was set to come home,
Grandma Deb, the boys and I drove down to San Antonio so I would be able to
drive Jason home.
When we got back into an area that had cell phone coverage, I
noticed that I had a message from Jason. He said that he had just got back from
the emergency room because his arm that had the PICC line in had been hurting
throughout the night and he had a fever and chills. They had taken out the PICC
line and given him antibiotics and sent him home. They said they would call
when the labs came back. He had been in the emergency room from five in the
morning until afternoon and he also had two finals for classes he was taking
for his Master’s degree due that day. He eventually got the papers finished and
was glad to have these final two classes over.
Over the next couple of days I did my best to take care of
him and let him rest. By Wednesday, the final day of his radiation treatment,
he was doing much better. He was in with the nurses receiving the Amifostine
they were giving him to protect his salivary glands when he got a call from the
doctor who had seen him in the ER. He was told that they needed to admit him to
the hospital because he had an infection in his blood. After the radiation
treatment we headed back to the emergency room.
When he got there, they put him in a room where Harrison and
I were with him, but soon they came and told him he needed to go into an
isolation room because he probably had MRSA. The nurses all treated him like he
had the plague. When I tried to walk into the room with Harrison, the nurses
tried to stop me. I told them I had been sleeping in the bed with him for the
last three days and that I would take the chance. Eventually they determined
that he did not of MRSA, but MSSA, which meant the staff infection wasn’t
resistant to antibiotics, but rather sensitive to them. Either way, he was
confined to the hospital once again, even though he felt perfectly fine.
We kept getting the run around from the various doctors that
came to check on him. It seemed like every time a new doctor came in, they
increased his stay time another day. They wanted to do a trans-esophageal echo
cardio gram to check if the staff infection had settled in his heart, but since
he had just had so much radiation to the area, they decided against it. Instead
they decided to treat him as if it had infected the heart valve and put him on
I.V. antibiotics for a month. This would involve him getting another PICC line
and having to carry a pump around with him the entire time.
Over the next month, the home health nurse struggled to keep
the site of the new PICC line from blistering and getting infected again. Jason
was having some sort of allergic reaction and we thought it was to the dressing
they were using to cover the site. We now know it wasn’t the adhesive, but the
Chloroprep they were using to clean the site that he is allergic to.
The next
month was pretty miserable. In addition to not being able to taste anything,
the constant smell of antibiotics made Jason pretty miserable. Everything he
would eat tasted like those antibiotics smelled. He eventually got off the
antibiotics and his sense of taste gradually returned. He remembers distinctly
that the last thing he was unable to taste was maple syrup, but that too came
back. At this point, we thought this battle was over once and for all and were
ready to get on with our lives.
In June, Grandma Deb treated us all to a fun trip to
Disneyland and a relaxing stay at a beautiful resort in San Diego. It was so
much fun to be together with all of Jason’s brothers and their families. Jason
and I were also coming up on our tenth anniversary and we had always talked
about taking a special trip to celebrate. Jason asked me where I wanted to go
and I told him to just surprise me. He did a good job. We left the kids with
Grandma and headed to the airport in Salt Lake City. He wouldn’t let me listen
to the ticket agents and made me wear headphones at the gates and not look to
see where we were going. When we got on the plane I received my first of many
surprises. Jason had sprung for first class seats! I really didn’t know life
could be so good.
The first leg of the trip took us back to Dallas and I
wondered why we were back there. We soon got on another plane however and
headed off to our final destination. Jason spoke with the flight attendants and
let them know that our final destination was a surprise so every time they
would make an announcement, they would give me a warning so I could cover my
ears. They even went so far as to say “Welcome to Costa Rica,” as we were
getting off the plane. I said “See, I knew we were going to Costa Rica!” That
is why I was initially confused when I heard the Jamaican accents from the
security guards in the terminal. We spent the next week at the beautiful
Couples Swept Away Resort in Jamaica. We had the time of our lives. I was able
to relax and do things I never thought I would do, like snorkeling and sailing.
A couple of weeks after we got back from the trip, Dylan got
baptized in the same place he had been blessed eight years earlier. At this
time I was having some medical issues that were bothering me and we were also a
little stressed from the drive back from Utah, but we felt like the worst was
behind us, but that all came to a crashing halt one day after we returned home.
A series of bad circumstances and events led to a tragic accident
in which Harrison drowned in our bathtub. I will never forget the feel of
Harrison’s limp lifeless body flopping in my arms as I ran outside and screamed
for help. I started doing CPR and my neighbor came over with her phone and
called 911. My screams had also caught the attention of two Vivident salesmen who
were down the street. Luckily one of them had training as an EMT and was able
to help continue the CPR. The paramedics from the fire department arrived only
a few minutes later, but to me it seemed like an eternity. Jason got back from
the store just as they drilled a hole in Harrison’s shin to put in an IV. At
that point I heard the most wonderful cry I have ever heard in my life. I was
so relieved, but when we got to the emergency room and I was unable to go in
with him, I started to panic again.
They came out and told us he was still breathing, but they
wanted to life flight him to Cooks Children’s Hospital in Ft. Worth, I came
unglued. I felt like it must be a bad dream and that I was going to wake up at
any moment. The room was filled with doctors, nurses, paramedics and flight
crew and all of them looked as scared and uncertain as I felt. We had called
our bishop and before they loaded Harrison into the helicopter, he and Jason
were able to give our baby a blessing. Jason blessed him that he would make a
full recovery and that the doctors would be guided in their course of
treatment. Despite the comfort that came from the blessing, I still had a bad
feeling about Harrison going with this crew, but I didn’t have a choice.
I was so blessed to have neighbors and friends that
immediately took my other boys into their loving homes. For Jason and me, the
two and a half hour drive to Ft. Worth was the longest of our lives. We had
been waiting for a text from one of the flight nurses who said he would text us
as soon as they landed and we wondered why it was taking so long for them to
get a hold of us. We got the text just shortly before we got to the hospital
saying they had made it. Jason dropped me off at the front and went to park the
car. I’m glad that I waited for him before I went in.
When we got to the room, we couldn’t believe our eyes. Our
sweet little boy was hooked to all kinds of tubes and wires. It was horrifying,
but it was even worse when the Dr. made sure to sit us down before he told us
we had a very sick little boy. He seemed to read my mind because just at that
moment I thought how Harrison had been breathing on his own earlier and
wondered what happened. He said that as the helicopter was landing and they
were getting him ready to move him, the
intubation tube had come out of his mouth and he had went into cardiac arrest.
He said Harrison’s heart had stopped for ten minutes and they had done CPR and
shocked him to get it started again.
He explained that they had put a hypothermic vest on Harrison
and were keeping the room cool so they could lower his core temperature and
hopefully keep his brain from swelling. We were scared, but had faith that this
procedure would do what it was supposed to do and that our baby would be good
as new again. After four days in the intensive care unit and two more at the
hospital just to make sure, Harrison was home again, crawling around and
laughing with his brothers. We felt so incredibly blessed. I actually remember
saying we have had our share of trials for the year and nothing else could
happen. I should have knocked on wood.
Maybe that’s why when Jason noticed another bump under his
tongue we thought it was everything other than cancer. This was September and
Jason was scheduled to go to Squadron Officer School for two months beginning
on the 14th of October. He had to reschedule a follow up appointment for
earlier in October so he could make the class. He met with his radiation
oncologist who wanted a second opinion about the lump. He got Jason in to see
an ENT, but not the one he had seen for the past three years. They also did an
MRI. After all these appointments, the Doctors decided that the bump was only
scar tissue and late radiation changes and nothing to be too concerned about.
With a clean bill of health Jason left for Maxell Air Force Base for two
months. We wonder now if he had seen his regular ENT if she would have insisted
on a biopsy and we would now be in a different position, but we can’t go back
and change the past.
Around Thanksgiving, Jason started complaining that his
tongue was starting to hurt more and that it was getting harder to eat certain
things. He was almost done with SOS and already had an appointment scheduled
for after Christmas for a follow up visit, so he stayed and finished his
training. On January fourth Jason had his follow up appointment with his
regular ENT. Since the kids were out of school for Christmas break we had them
with us in San Antonio. Jason went to the appointment by himself so I could
keep all four boys from running wild. After the appointment, Jason said that
the ENT wanted to do a biopsy the next day.
We had no idea how long the appointment would be, but didn’t
think it would be that long, so Jason left me and the kids at the hotel. He had
the tongue biopsy and then immediately got sent to get a fine needle aspiration
(FNA) on a lymph node in his neck. Had he not come back seven hours later than
I thought with a look of deep sadness and pain on his face, I might have
complained. He told me that the Interventional Radiologist doing the FNA had
said that it didn’t look good to him. I remember feeling like my heart stopped
beating, but I immediately said “Well, he didn’t say that it was cancer.”
I held it together for the kids, but woke up in the middle
of the night sobbing. Jason held me in his arms and tried to reassure me that
it would all be ok, but he didn’t sound as certain as I would have liked. We
tried not to think about it, but it was almost impossible. It was the first
time there was a biopsy that I was scared to have final results from. I should
have know when that next weekend Jason
was acting very different and talking like he was certain it was cancer.
I went to lunch with my friends the next Monday as happy as
can be, feeling like things were going to be ok. When Jason came home from work
that night, I started asking too many questions. He finally broke down and told
me that the results from the FNA had come back and that there was cancer in his
lymph node. He had heard the results on Friday, but wanted to wait until the
tongue biopsy results were back as well before he told my anything. I kind of
already knew, but was trying to deceive myself and think that if I didn’t know
then it wouldn’t be real. I was devastated, but again tried to hold it together
for the kids.
The next day was Tuesday and I had take Kellen to Mother’s
Day Out. Shortly after I got home, Jason came home from work. It was a little
unusual since it was only about 10:00 in the morning. I asked him what he was
doing home, but the look on his face said it all. He had received the results
of the tongue biopsy and it was also bad news. Jason had prepared himself for
the possibility of a partial glosectomy and a neck dissection, where they would
remove the cancerous part of his tongue and reconstruct it with a flap of skin
from his forearm and also take out all the lymph nodes in the left side of his
neck. He knew it would be a struggle, but was also prepared for that battle. He
was completely unprepared when the surgeon told him the only surgical option
was a complete glosectomy, where they would take out his entire tongue and he
would have a trach and a feeding tube for the rest of his life. The other
option they gave him at the time was palliative chemo therapy. That meant they
couldn’t cure it, but just make him comfortable while he died.
We spent the rest of the day holding each other and crying
and repeating that he was strong and he would survive, even though both of us
had our doubts. I said things Jason didn’t need to hear like, “I can’t live
without you. My father died when I was Kellen’s age, how can this be
happening?” I was a mess, I couldn’t stop sobbing. When the boys came home, I
hid it as well as I could. Jason stayed home from work for the rest of the
week. We talked a lot about our options and what we would do if he died. We
agreed that I would move back to Utah where the kids would have the support and
care of his family and friends. I knew that if the boys could be raised in the
same community and school that Jason had, that maybe they could turn out as
wonderful as he is.
They got us in for another appointment down in San Antonio
to discuss our options. What little hope we had was dashed after talking to the
oncologist. He said that if we didn’t do the surgery and radiation was off the
table that the chemo would just delay the inevitable and that Jason would be
dead within a year. We asked him about the chemo therapy trial that our ENT was
trying to get us into at Cancer Therapy Research Center (CTRC), associated with
the University of Texas San Antonio. He told us that it too was not curative. I
asked him if there was a trial that was curative and he said that there was one
at Baylor and left it at that. I keep kicking myself that at the moment I
didn’t say “WELL CAN YOU GET HIM INTO THAT TRIAL?” We left the appointment
hoping we wouldn’t have to return there for strictly palliative care.
We went to lunch and decided to go shopping afterwards. I
started looking at dresses that I would wear to his funeral. We even saw a sign
in the hall of the mall that said, “This is the end of the line.” Jason had me
take a picture of him next to the sign. This was a strange situation for us to
be in. We were trying to accept this fate and almost laugh at it. We then
headed back to the hospital to meet with the ENT for another appointment. As we
entered San Antonio Military Medical Center (SAMMC), we noticed a large group
of people walking towards us. Jason immediately noticed the two star general,
but I noticed Governor Rick Perry.
I went up to him and shook his hand, introduced myself and
told him why we were there. I told him that the oncologist had just told us
that Jason was going to die and then immediately began sobbing. He embraced me
and told me that he would help us out and that it wasn’t going to happen. He
told us how he used to live in Abilene and had been a C-130 pilot as well. He
had one of his aides take down or phone numbers and said he would have his
friend who is on the board of regents at MD Anderson, one of the top cancer
hospitals in the country, call us. We then went to the appointment with the
ENT.
The ENT told us that the oncologist was young and somewhat
inexperienced that she had made the appointment with him as a formality since
he was part of the team at SAMMC, but she really wanted us to talk with the
doctor running the chemo trial at CTRC. We tried to have faith in her words,
but couldn’t get past what we had heard earlier that day. They also scheduled
Jason for a PET scan to make sure it hadn’t spread to his lungs or elsewhere.
We waited two weeks for the results for the scan to come back. During that time
it was a continuous dialogue about how he could be cured or what the family
would do if he died.
Jason was also doing research on the internet, literally
grasping at straws for something that could cure him. He found a trail run by
Baylor University that he thought was the one the oncologist was talking about.
It was run out of Houston and used nano-particles of gold that would be
injected into the body and then stick in the tumor. The doctors would then use
a laser to heat up these particles and kill the tumor, but leave the normal
tissue intact. It seemed like a great option in theory, but there were a lot of
factors that had to be considered. We gave them a call and they wanted to have
copies of all his medical records and the latest PET scan.
We took another trip to San Antonio to meet with the doctor
at CTRC running the chemo trial. The thing we didn’t like about this option is
that there was only a 50% chance of getting the experimental drug. If Jason
didn’t get the drug it would be just like taking the palliative chemo therapy. Those
were odds we weren’t willing to take. Even though the doctor said he had seen
complete responses on the trial, it still would mean that Jason would have to
be on chemo for the rest of his life. We still couldn’t get over what the other
oncologist had told us and we felt like the other trial would be our best option.
We told this doctor we would think about his trial and then get back to him.
After we got home, Jason’s ENT found out we were thinking
about the nano-particle trial and she wanted us to talk with her boss at UT SA
who had actually enrolled and treated patients with the same trial. This
doctor, who was the head of Otolaryngology at UT SA, called Jason and had a
very honest conversation with him. He said that, in his opinion, the
nano-particle treatment didn’t really do anything and cautioned us against wasting
our time pursing it. He also said that the chemo trial was not curative either
and encouraged us to find a trial that involved radiation, or go with the
surgery. He told Jason to look at it this way; either the cancer would take his
tongue and possibly his life or he could have a surgeon take the tongue and
possibly save his life.
We were pretty upset since we believed that the
nano-particle trial was the answer we were looking for, but Jason decided to do
what the doctor had advised. He started looking at other clinical trials,
specifically ones that involved radiation. We were under the impression that
radiation was off the table since he had just completed a round less than a
year ago. He found a trial that was being offered by UT Southwestern Medical
Center in Dallas and also by; you guessed it, Baylor out of Dallas. The
difference between the clinical trial and other types of treatments is they are
able to take more risks during the clinical trial.
Jason read the requirements for the trial and it seemed like
he met all of them. This trial would involve chemo therapy combined with
re-irradiation. Jason had me call the contact listed on the clinical trial
website. After a brief conversation she asked us if we could meet with the
Doctor doing the trial the next day. We were thrilled that we could get an
appointment so quickly. This appointment went like every other appointment,
except they had none of our medical records. The difference is this time I had
a four inch thick ream of paper on my lap that contained all of Jason’s lab
reports, radiology reports and every other medical record he had ever had.
The doctors left the room to discuss whether or not they
though he would be a good candidate for the trial. When they came back in, I
started shaking. I knew this was our last shot. If Jason could not get into
this trial he would have to do the surgery. When the doctor first started to
talk to us, I thought that was what he was recommending, but that wasn’t it at
all. He just wanted us to know what all of our options were. He said that Jason
would be a good candidate for the trial, but still wanted us to speak with the
ENT at UT Southwestern.
This appointment didn’t come as quickly, but it actually
worked out better because they had also recommend that Jason get a feeding
tube. We were able to get it placed the next week in Abilene, but it took
longer to heal than Jason had initially thought it should. Jason was having a
lot of pain and was unable to even sit for long periods of time. He spent a few
days in bed, but eventually got up and about. We had the meeting with the ENT
in Dallas and also met with their oncologist. This was about six days after
Jason had the feeding tube put in and when we got home for the appointments,
Jason took a shower. When he got out, the opening around the tube was oozing
puss and blood and was really painful. Jason got dressed and drove himself to
the emergency room.
I felt bad that I couldn’t go with him, but all the kids
were asleep. I felt some relief when he texted me and said he felt better after
all the puss had drained out. He said they were just going to give him
antibiotics and send him home. The next day he went back to the surgeon who had
put the tube in. The problem was the clamp holding it against his stomach was
too tight. He simply loosened it a bit and told Jason to call if it didn’t get
better in the next couple of days. He also told him to alternate cleaning the
area with hydrogen peroxide and vinegar and to also blow dry the area three
times a day.
The next couple of days were spent waiting. We then got a
call from the radiation oncologist at UT Southwestern saying that they wanted
to do another MRI as well as another PET scan at their hospital since the scans
they received from SAMMC were not very clear. Of course we were upset about the
delay and thought this would push back the start date for the trial. We know
that they wanted these scans just to make sure the cancer had not spread
further and cause Jason undo suffering if there was nothing they could do.
Waiting for the results of the scan was agonizing, but two
days later we received a call from the secretary wondering if we could move the
start date for treatment up a week. We were ecstatic. Obviously this meant the
PET had come back good, but I wanted the Dr. to call us anyway. We had a great
three day weekend with the boys and got everything ready to go. The plan was to
do one round of chemo and then a week later start weekly chemo and daily
radiation for the next six weeks. Before the first round of chemo, we met with
the oncologist again and he explained the risks to us one more time. Of course
by now we were intimately familiar with them and just wanted to get started. He
wanted us to also realize that Jason needed to stay out of sunlight at all
costs and that eventually he would need powerful narcotics for the pain. We
accepted these challenges and got ready for the first round of treatment. Jason got hooked up to the IV and let the chemo start to do
its work.
I sat there and started writing this story.
I wish that I had been
able to finish it then, but it became a much bigger project than I had
anticipated.
I appreciate you sticking it out reading through this.
There are
so many people I want to thank and I don’t know where to begin.
I promise on my
next post to list everyone who has helped us and what they have done.
I want
everyone to know that we wouldn’t be where we are without all your support.
Please leave any comments if you have questions.
Thanks for your loving
support.
Love, Heather
Oh my gosh, Heather, I am so sorry for all you guys have had to go through. I'm sitting here crying as I read this. I lived across the street from the Yardleys in high school and grew up in the same ward. My dad was in the bishopbric with Mel at the time that he passed away. I have great memories of a Lake Powell and Yellowstone trip with the Yardleys.
ReplyDeleteI knew that Jason had become a pilot (I'm maried to one as well), but I had no idea you were going through all this. Your strength is amazing and you guys will certainly be in my prayers.
Love,
Sarah (Mason) Mansell
Jason and Heather,
ReplyDeleteThank you for sharing your story to this point. Both Merry and I admire your courage and strength to move forward. Jason, we have always had a deep respect for you. Even when you were younger, you were always positive and upbeat, even in the face of difficulties.
I also remember that when we were 10 years old, you told me that you wanted to be a pilot. Not many people do what it takes to make their dreams a reality -- but you have. You are a great example of hard work and dedication. This will serve you well in this chapter of your life.
We also loved seeing the picture of your beautiful family (or handsome if they prefer). Merry and I are proud to be members of Team Yardley, and we are rooting (and praying) for you and your family.
Warmly,
Cody & Merry