Living Nativity

Last night we went to a living nativity. It was really inspiring. I wasn't really in the mood to go before we went and it was sure to be crowded and cold. Earl and I had spent the afternoon at the hospital for his MRI and bone scan. I was right it was crowded and cold and I was grumpy. It was set in a gully on the east side of Salt Lake City and presented by several different churches I found this slideshow from the Deseret News this morning http://deseretnews.com/photo/slideshow/1,5587,500000000005211,00.html

If you have to pick the slide show it is "Night in Bethlehem"

By the time we got to the stable, my mood was softening. It seems that life gets so hectic and with Christmas upon us I just have not gotten into the Christmas mode. We are feeling the economic crunch so we have no money for anything. Earl's sister is paying for us to go to Seattle otherwise we would not be able to go. Christmas shopping has just not happened nor will it except for a little for Mary. The Nativity was just what I needed tonight to remember what Christmas is all about.

How do people without faith in God get through life? Some days it seems that if I didn't have my faith, I don't know if I could get out of bed. I am the ultimate pessimist. I am always waiting for the other shoe to drop. But I have faith that Jesus loves me and my family and watches over us and helps us feel loved as we are going through this challenge we call life. I don't know much more than this but I know that there is a God and that He loves each of us and he knows each of us by name.

Treatment postponed

Earl's billirubin is too high to have the treatment this week. We are working to get it down and hope that next week will be the week. We will be leaving for Seattle on the 19th and hope to have the treatment over by then. We have to trust that we are in the Lord's hand and that the treatment will happen when it should.

I am working to get all my orders done before we leave. I have 3 small orders and then a Nauvoo wardrobe for a missionary.

Here are two dresses that I have finished in the last week. The first is a version of our Sunday dress. This is the first one that I have made that is not blue. I really like it. I usually use purchased pleated trim but we wanted it to match so I made it myself. I really like the way that it turned out.

The second dress is made from the wrapper pattern. It is going to be used as a temple dress. I have thought for a long time that the pattern would make a great temple dress. I have a client that thought so as well.

The cool thing about this dress is that it is so adjustable. The front is loose with a tie belt that is attached at the side seams. The back looks like a fitted dress. The best part is that it is so comfortable.

Treatment rescheduled

Earl's treatment is going to be on Tuesday December 9. We do not have a time yet. On other issues, he is having a full body scan on Wednesday to determine if the fractured vertebra is from the cancer or from an injury. Also on Wednesday he is having an MRI on his back for the same thing.

Miscommunication

Because of a miscommunication, Earl did not have his treatment this morning. Currently we have not been able to reschedule. We are hoping to have it done before we go to Seattle on the 19th.

I thought you might want a link to see exactly what Earl is being treated with. This site has a great demonstration video as well as everything you would ever want to know about Therasphere treatment.

http://www.nordion.com/therasphere/patients-therasphere.asp

Another update

Its been quite a week. We have seen lots of doctors this week. Here's what we know:

Earl had his mapping done on Friday. Since then he has had terrible hiccups. First they would come and go. Sunday night they started being constant. Finally Tuesday we called the gastro- enterologist (Earl's main liver doctor)who instructed us to go the ER. The hiccups that had been constant since Sunday night disappeared as we walked into the hospital. They ran a bunch of blood tests and took CT scans of his abdomen and brain and couldn't find anything that would cause hiccups. We finally left at midnight. The hiccups reappeared about 2:00 a.m.

We had a Wound Care appointment this morning at 8:00. We walked into the hospital and the hiccups disappeared again. The wounds on Earl's legs are worse. They have been draining a lot. This morning they decided to change the type of dressing they are doing. Instead of changing it once a week, we are changing it every other day. I guess I am going to become a nurse whether I want to or not. I'm okay with the care giving, its the blood that gets me. Earl being very tired from having hiccups, and not being able to sleep or eat, slept through the whole thing.

After Wound Care, we went to the liver doctor. Earl's blood work looks surprisingly healthy. He reviewed the CT scans. The ER doctor noted a compression fracture on the L4 vertebra. At this point we don't know if the fracture is due to an injury or the cancer. We will be chasing that down next week after the holiday. Again Earl slept the whole time. After we left the doctor, the hiccups returned. Thankfully they have been gone for most of the afternoon and Earl has been able to sleep today. Maybe we will be able to go to Grandma's for Thanksgiving after all.

This afternoon we found out that Earl is scheduled for his next Therasphere's treatment on Tuesday December 2. He will be going in at 6:30 a.m.

Getting Ready for the next Treatment

We saw the radiation doctor last week and after some confusion, we are scheduled to start Earl's next treatment on Friday. That is when they will do the mapping. Mapping is where they use a catheter in his femoral artery to go into the liver and make sure that the path is clear and they are able to inject the Theraspheres. They also have to make sure that all the veins going from the liver to other organs are blocked so that the radiation doesn't escape and damage other organs. Since I am not very medically minded, I am not very good at explaining what they do. I only know that it works.

Earl had a CT scan before we saw the doctor and the report on that is that the tumors are breaking down. According to the doctor, the edges of the tumors are not as defined as they were before we started so the treatment is working. The do not anticipate that the tumors will completely go away but it will keep them from growing any larger for right now.

I have been working on another period dress that I will be posting soon. I am also working on a temple dress for a client. Ever since I first made myself the "wrapper" dress from my website, I have thought that it would make a great temple dress. This client had the same idea so I will post it when it is completed.


Mary entered her school's Reflections contest. She actually entered twice. Her first entry is a large ship that her and Earl put together. They made it from a large cardboard box. This was the second time that they have done this. Mary is a planner and she thought for quite a while about how to make the next one better. After she got it all planned out, they put it together. She won a second place ribbon.

The second entry was a photograph of tulips. I love this picture.

Mary loves to take pictures of flowers and I think she did an excellent job. She received an honorable mention for this picture.

Update on Earl and a new dress

Earl has had kind of a rough week. He hasn't been able to sleep much at night but he does sleep during the day. He was quite sick yesterday. The skin on his legs from the knees down, does not have much elasticity so when they swell, the skin splits open. He has open sores on one leg from the swelling. We took him to Wound Care at the hospital yesterday. They said that we were able to get it in time and has not gotten infected. He has been hospitalized twice because we let them go too long before. He has his CT scan on Monday to check on his liver and then Tuesday we have an appointment with the radiologist to determine the next step.

Earl's sister has genorously paid for us to be able to visit his family this Christmas in Seattle. We are very excited to visit family that we have not seen in a couple of years.

I made this dress for Earl's daughter as a halloween costume. I am really pleased at the way that it turned out. We copied the trim from a different style dress that was much more complicated to make than this one.