Justin and his best friend there!

I was like a kid!

They were so excited they were the only kids and had Santa to themselves!

Colton kept trying to pull on his beard!

Devon's first time building a snowman!

My little snow Angels!

Justin turned 30 and you can see how happy he is about it!

Snow Princess!
We got a foot of snow in one day!

Going to be a Great Year!

I can feel it already! I probably should catch up on all that has happened, but today's news is too important to me, so I must share! Today I got results from my PET scan, this is the big one to see if the IL-II treatment worked or not and if I'll be doing it again. The results came back GREAT! Not perfect, but great! Most of my tumors have shrunk! Yay!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I am so elated, it's hard to explain! So. there are a couple stipulations to my happiness, first there's still a couple tumors in my lungs that actually got a little bigger (they are still no bigger than a pencil eraser), but Dr. Akereley dismissed them as probably swollen from previous treatment. He also dismissed them because all the others were shrinking and the areas didn't absorb as much glucose as they did on the last scan (the glucose goes where cancer cells are). This is still really good news. My second stipulation is that I will be going back into the hospital on Monday for five days and out a week and back in a week. Just like last time. Round two here we go. I know it will be hard again, but I will have a much better attitude this time knowing it's now experimental and that it's actually working! I couldn't be happier. The chances of this treatment working are pretty slim, so I say thanks for all the prayers and fasting in my behalf because it worked! We picked the right treatment and I am so glad I didn't start with the clinical trial. Also, our nurse up there, LeAnn said she went to a Melanoma Conference in Florida before Thanksgiving and they are going to be setting up places that have it similar to Huntsman where they work in teams and just for Melanoma. They are saying that IL-II is the most effective treatment for melanoma and that they will be using it more now. Dr. Akereley is still learning about IL-II, mostly from watching me and will be observing a lot this next round. I think he wants to be more involved in it in the future with more patients, especially after seeing good results today!
The only other bad/good part is that I'll be spending my birthday in the hospital (the 22nd), bad cuz I'll be in the hospital and also good because I am in the hospital and the treatment is doing good things for me!
As a side note, we had an awesome Christmas and the kids were spoiled, mostly by grandparents. I will post pics maybe later when I have time. We also had Santa stop by on the 22nd to give the kids presents to tide them over till Christmas! They thought that was the neatest thing ever! Santa even made Justin and I sit on his lap! I was afraid I was going to hurt him and then Justin didn't care and totally sat on him. I'll get those up.
I also had surgery on my eye the Friday before Christmas. Nothing major and I was feeling better pretty quickly.
We also celebrated Justin's birthday right before Christmas. Lots of busy times!

Lots of Crazy Days

This week has been pretty nuts and very full days. On Monday (last week) I went into my doc up at Huntsman to see about getting a stitch in my eyelid taken out. It's on the inside holding the weight in my eyelid in place. The weight helps me close my eye because the nerve is not there anymore. So, I got there and my doc decided we'd have to remove it surgically and not in office as I had hoped. He told me he could get me in on Friday. So, on Friday(the 19th) we got up to Huntsman at 6:30 a.m. with my surgery at 9:15. Around 9:30 we started asking what was taking so long. They told us there was a scheduling problem. Some new lady had scheduled a 5 hour surgery for only 1 1/2 hours. So, we had to wait about 4 more hours. Dr. Bentz came in and vented his own frustrations with the situation, but was nice about it too. We told him it wasn't his fault. Justin of course was getting frustrated waiting too. They finally came and got me around 1:15 and I was under for 45 minutes. Justin told me that Dr. Bentz didn't find a stitch as we thought, but the weight was sitting crooked, so he made a new pocket for it and put it back in. I woke up in more pain than I had anticipated. They also gave me Phenergen for nausea which knocks me out for a good hour every time. They did it twice. We finally left around 5 and it was snowing hard. We would normally have a one hour commute, but it took 2 hours! I was sleeping most of the way home, but was afraid I was going to throw up in the car, yuck. Luckily I didn't. I came home and went straight to bed and slept till Saturday morning.
For Christmas, Justin's mom got us tickets to Body World. We went Saturday morning. It was amazing seeing our bodies like that! I'm still thinking about it today. It made me realize how fragile our bodies really are and how all the things we put into our bodies really affects them. The smokers lungs for example were crazy. Most of the models had smokers lungs if you looked carefully too. I still am a little disturbed by the whole experience, but it was a good one. I got to see what they took out of my cheek and all the muscles and tendons and parotid gland that they took out. That part was crazy!
Saturday night I threw a party for Justin's 30th birthday with a few neighbors and a few friends. We had a big turkey dinner. If it wasn't for Devon, I would have had to cancel. She saved me! I came home from Body World and crashed, I slept most of the way home too. I still had anesthesia in my system.
Sunday we had Justin's family out for dinner to celebrate Justin's and his brother Brad's birthdays. We had a blast and Justin actually lost at Trivial Pursuit! He's such a gamer for trivia games. I for one am very bad at them! I'd rather play cards any day!
As we are getting ready for Christmas around here, and all the snow falling this morning, we are reminded of our Savior's birth. I am trying to teach my children about the giving of gifts and not the receiving. I think it was Friday night we got doorbell ditched and someone left us some money in an envelope and it said it was from the Lord. Wow, someone really will be blessed for thinking of us this Holiday season! The bishopric and Relief Society Presidency and a couple people I didn't recognize came caroling to our house last night. It brought me to tears, that they would go out in the freezing cold to sing about Christmas to us! The spirit was really strong and gave me goosebumps! What a sweet ward we live in with members who put others above themselves!

Getting ready for Christmas

It's already feeling a little hectic around here trying to get all the shopping and things done for Christmas. Don't get me wrong, I love this time of year, it's just a little stressful. I haven't posted anything for a while because it is just my normal daily routine for the most part around here.
We get to find out today if our Utes go to New Orleans or Phoenix for a bowl game. We are hoping for Phoenix because it is a slight possibility we could go. Slight.
We went to a work Christmas party for Justin's work last night and then decided to skip out on the game part with another couple and went to see Four Christmases. Funny movie!
Luckily for us, the interest rate has gone down on the housing industry and Justin has gotten a few calls on loans. This will help us pay off some of our medical bills and ease things a little bit. We were starting to get really worried we'd have to sell the house (if it would even sell). Why does one trial always follow another? It seems to never be just one thing for us. If you've known us very long, you know we've been through one thing after another that keep getting harder and harder to get through. I think back though and if we hadn't gone through any of our other trials, I don't think we'd be strong enough to get through this one.
Another hard part for me is that I can't really get out much, socially. I am not supposed to be around big groups which makes me feel a little closed in, but I love being home with the kids so much, I guess it's a trade off.
For the most part we are doing pretty well. Just getting by and awaiting New Years Eve for my results.