Sickness and Good Hearts

Wade did his first round of the new chemo. He went in on Monday and then had his shot on Tuesday. He's really doing great considering. He was feeling so good that he went to work on Thursday and Friday after being off for months. Unfortunately a little bug struck our family and Reagan had strep and Kaden had a fever with lots of congestion. I think Wade caught a hold of what they had and he ended up with fever too. I had to take off Thursday for Reagan and then I took off Friday for Kaden. That's usually how this works. One gets sick and then they all get sick. Knock on wood, I've been fine...just extremely exhausted from not getting sleep because I was checking on all three kids every 2 hours. But today is a good day. Praise the Lord.

For the last few weeks, my good friend Carla and my friends at my school have been working hard to collect money through our school district for our family. They offered a Jeans Week to each school. If anybody from the schools wished to participate it would cost them a minimum of $10.00. As of last week, 13 schools participated and they raised a total of $3200. Wow! I am just speechless!!! It couldn't have come a better time. My family feels EXTREMELY blessed that so many people were moved by our story and helped us out more than they could ever imagine! It literally brought tears to my eyes.

And with this news, I learned that our Sunshine Committee decided to give our family Christmas!!!!! Talk about CRYING!!! I honestly didn't even know what to say. I was told to make a list of the things the kids wanted, what Wade and I wanted AND other things that needed repairing, such as our cars. I'm not even sure how to put into words what I was feeling the moment I was told this good news. It's hard for me to think that Christmas was going to be nearly impossible for us this year. I think I stayed in denial that it was going to be fine...or maybe I just prayed REALLY hard that it would all work out somehow. Boy did it!

Though it's been a super crazy week, we're all starting to feel better. And to think we have so many wonderful people in our lives...it couldn't get any better than that. We are EXTREMELY blessed!

Though we are starting to feel better, my brother J.R. is having more problems with his eyes (see http://mylifeaskatiebaker.blogspot.com/2009/09/good-news-and-bad-news.html and http://mylifeaskatiebaker.blogspot.com/2009/10/updates.html for just a little background on the things he's been through). This past week, on his birthday, he was in the hospital for a staph infection on his face. He went home but has had an upper respiratory infection. He's been coughing quite a bit, which is believed to be the reason why he is now unable to see out of his only good eye. They believe his eye has hemmorged. The blood is covering the lens of his eye. The good news is retina is still attached but he will have to get his blood pressure and blood sugar under control. His blood pressure was 172/90 and they said if it got 175/95 he would have to go to the emergency room immediately. They are hoping the blood on the lens will clear up on its own. He goes to the doctor on Tuesday and hopefully if they blood hasn't cleared, they will be able to put a syringe in his eye and draw the blood out like they've done before. Please, please, please pray for good news!!!