This song was recently adopted by Jessica as one of her "theme songs". It obviously doesn't tell the entire story about who Jessica is, but it has certainly provided some much needed motivation for her to pick herself up on those days when she feels the most squashed and then press through it.







Here's to those things that give us chances to test our strength.

Chemo........................YOU ARE no match to this girl.
And Cancer.....................well, you know where you can go.

Do you sometimes get so bogged down with life and feel like you just can't go another step. You take a look at all the things you have to do and think............"What Have I done to myself?"

I really do try to weed out the unnecessary stuff sometimes and don't regret that my kids didn't play every sport or learn to play every instrument. I love spending evenings at home with my family and I think they kinda do to. For the most part we really do cherish and protect our home time with our family.

These next few weeks will be crazy busy, but with all sorts of good stuff. Jessica continues to see her Doctors and get bloodwork done once a month until the end of time. Her scans will be on April the 30th where we will spend the entire day having PET scans, CT scans, x-rays, Echo cardiograms and EKG's and blood tests all day long. Two days after that Jaden comes home. The next day is my birthday, Bryant's Soccer Jamboree, and more Dr. visits for Jess. Two days after that, is my Musettes Concerts, Mine and David's 24th Wedding Anniversary, a baptism and two soccer games.

Jaden will speak in our home ward on Sunday, May the 20th at the North Side Building at 11:00am for those who are interested. We'll catch up with family and friends from all over the place that weekend and then 3 days later, fly out to Hawaii as a family. (well, sort of. .......we are regretting having to leave Reagan behind as he can't leave his mission in Hollywood for a week...Bummer!)



It's all a good busy. Filled with things that matter. We feel so blessed.

Can't think of any of it I'd clear off the schedule right now.........................except maybe the dishes and laundry and yardwork. Hey, that's okay. We don't really keep up on that stuff anyway.

Chemo this week was moved to Thursday in the afternoon. We're not looking forward to it, but definitely anxious to put this all behind us and move forward. This will be her last treatment if all goes well this week. I can't believe I've been blogging for a year now. I may have to take up a new hobby or start writing about something else for a change. We will be fasting as a family next Sunday for clear scans, and pleading with the Lord that this won't return. I believe scans will be the end of April to the first part of May.
We'd like to celebrate the end of Chemo, but unfortunately I don't think Jessica will be upright. We'll let you all know when that big celebration will be.

I believe that Jessica is looking forward to having energy again, taking the stairs two at a time like she used to, growing her hair out, not being nauseated, not taking meds, not being swollen,and staying FAR away from the hospital for a while. I admire her courage in tackling this head on with a smile and a sense of humor. Jessica has given up so much this past year in the fight for her life. She may even continue to give up some things due to the aftermath of the damage that has been done to her organs from a year's worth of chemo. I have to keep reminding myself that those things are in the Lord's hands and that worry won't produce peace. That can only come through faith.

This Easter Day today has been an especially meaningful one. Knowing that the Savior took upon himself more than just the anguish of sin, but that he suffered for our pains and our griefs too so that he could have that pure empathy and so that he could know how to strengthen and succor us, is really impossible for me to wrap my mind around sometimes. There really is a sustaining power that we have access to in the Atonement that comes to us in our times of weakness and sickness and adversity. It's a miracle. I don't fully understand it, but I do appreciate it.

Happy Easter Everyone






The Kids wearing their "Cancer Can Go Jump Off A Cliff" t-shirts.

Jessica is on the home stretch of her treatments right now. She's getting tired from a long year of chemo. She had treatment on Monday and we came home and waited for the Crash. She did feel really yukky for a couple of days after chemo and I was absolutely shocked when she got up early in the morning on Wednesday and went to school.
Jessica got really behind in a few of her classes last treatment cycle and she was determined to get back up and get caught up again.
It's been a real miracle, for sure, that she's been able to stay in school and do as well as she has. We feel very blessed for the chance to get to do so.
Spring break will be catch up time for her and then her last treatment will be April the 10th. It's been a really long year.

So, we are home nestling in to the relaxing part of spring break waiting for the after chemo crash that usually comes by today (the fifth day). Today will be a deck of cards day. A letter writing day, an organize the file cabinet day or maybe even a day of cleaning bathrooms. In Jessie's case, it will be a sleep off chemo day.

Happy Spring Break Everyone!!

I drove Jessica and MaKenna over to their cousin's house this past weekend to spend the night. She reminded me in the car that the last time she had spent the night at this cousin's home was exactly one year ago on the first night of spring break. It was also the same night she found the lump on her neck. And in that moment in my mind's eye, I digitally rewound the last entire year and played it through my mind in Fast Forward to now. My impulse was to say, "wow......... a year I'd just as soon forget."

But then, I visually scanned the unfolding of this past year to date and this massive flood of memories of countless blessings, lessons learned, friends discovered, and faith built I couldn't just throw all that out with the unpleasant experiences I'd just as soon forget.

I look back on where we've come as a family, as a married couple, and then as individuals through this past year and I have to acknowledge that the Lord was intricately and intimately involved. Whether we saw it or not at the time, some of our most painful moments gave rise to some pretty awesome discoveries. I believe that every person can look back on a lifetime and recall bitter experiences. Maybe even times that are just too hard to bring up again, but no one can say that those times were wasted.

No suffering is ever wasted. It adds to our bank account of learning and gives us amazing opportunities to show the Lord what we're made of. It puts us in a surreal place where as individuals, we can either fine tune our communication with God or we can turn away from him.

This past year has changed our lives forever. It has dramatically changed the way we pray. It's changed what matters. It's fine tuned our perspective, our priorities................and even our diet ha ha.

It most definitely has been a Looooooonnnnnnngggggg year for us........For Jessica particularly. The end of chemo can't come soon enough. It's like finishing the end of a marathon. You don't quite finish the race in the same posture or with the same energy as you had when you started out, but you keep going no matter what the finish line looks like.

We've lost friends and loved ones to cancer. We've seen it destroy hopes, and plans and goals. It doesn't differentiate between economic or social status and like this massive tidal wave, it leaves some pretty visual scars in it's aftermath.

However...............

This year has taught me to be grateful for our experiences with pain....................all of it. To see the end from the beginning in the small day to day random decisions in life. To put everything I can't control (and even the stuff I can control) into the Lord's hands and let him be in charge. I've learned that We are never alone and that miserable or not, our suffering can be for our good.
I believe that Jessica has learned even more than she knew before that SHE is a daughter of God and that he IS mindful of her. He knows her needs and he hears her prayers and he acknowledges her pain and succors those who turn to him. She has learned that beauty is not found in hairspray or a tube of lipstick and we are fools to judge others based on what we see.

So as I look back on the memories of what our life was like a year and a week ago, and what life is like now, I am so sure that some things are worth remembering.





I drove all the kids to Jessica's chemo appointment today. We held a family competition on the Wii, had a treat and watched tv while Jessica received her infusion.
Only one more treatment to go and her treatment protocol will be complete. Doctor's will continue to scan her and watch for any potential returns of her tumors.

Chemo will commence on April the 10th 2012 at 11:00 am and we'll let you all know when and where the end of Chemo party will be held.

Jessica's last two treatments really knocked her down hard. She walked in this morning like a happy 15 year old and left barely able to hold her self up. It was all I could do to get her home and into bed. She's got a long hard week and a half ahead.

A very good Friend of ours has done something so generous.  She has offered to host a fundraiser for Jessica to help offset the expense from her treatments.
Proceeds will also help Jessica to receive Alternative care to help her detox from the barrage of poison she has taken in over this past year.   Details for her fundraiser are at the link below.
Thanks again Lisa

Our family has been making some slow and steady changes around here. I recently read the book, "The China Study" by Colin Campbell.

















It is very telling about the effects of some of the foods we eat and consider safe. Dr. Campbell, the Author, spent40+ years of his life in medical and health related scientific research. He studied the effects of specifics from the eating patterns of people all over the world. Startling implications have recently been made in regard to how important it really is to pay close attention to the Word of Wisdom.
For those who subscribe to another faith than "The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints", the word of wisdom is a health code that we as members are encouraged strongly to study and live by and when we do, great blessings of health and protection are promised.

In his book, Dr. Campbell noticed that by eating very little amounts of animal based protein (meat, milk, cheese, eggs,) and consuming a diet high in plant based nutrition ( whole grains, vegetables, herbs, nuts, seeds, and NO processed foods, ) the effect is shrinking cancerous tumors, as well as the elimination of heart disease, cancer, diabetes, Alzheimers, auto-immune diseases, arthritis etc........
Some of his studies showed animals who had cancerous tumors and were being injected with cancer causing Aflatoxins. The one's who consumed a diet with 5% or less of animal protein did not develop any new tumors and their existing tumors began to actually go away.
The group of animals who consumed a diet of 20% or higher of animal protein and were also injected with increasing amounts of Carcinogenic toxins, grew multiple tumors and got sicker as the dose of poison increased. However, as they brought the diets back down to a 5% or less of animal protein, the tumors respectively shrunk back down to nothing and were rendered harmless --EVEN with continued high levels of Cancer causing toxins being injected.

The study showed that they could manipulate the growth of cancer, turning it off and then back on again by changing the diet. Most Americans consume diets rich in Animal protein and fat. They take in, on average, 35-40% animal protein. Many people's diets are higher than that. There are people who haven't consumed anything green or living in weeks. How scary!!!!

Massive population wide studies in China also showed that in rural farming villages of China, there were families who had lived in the same geographical area for hundreds of years and not a soul in the town had ever heard of such diseases as cancer, heart disease, diabetes and many others. These people lived off of what they produced. They consumed whole grains, beans, rice, whole foods and herbs that they grew themselves. As they began to study the population into the more modernized and westernized parts of China, they noticed that the rates of these diseases were as high as it is here in America based on affluence. These diseases became known as diseases of affluence. They show up mostly in households who consume large amounts of meat, dairy, processed and chemicalized foods, and fast food.

There is now alarming evidence to support the theory that consuming a plant -based diet rich in whole grains, nuts, seeds, legumes, herbs, and vegetables and staying away from highly processed foods and meats can not only lower your risk for diseases of affluence, but can reverse the effects of many of these diseases. The diet, in most cases, was the protection to prevent affluent diseases, but at the same time, it was also the cure for them as well.

Large food companies have added severely dangerous and highly toxic and addictive ingredients to the convenient packaged foods we consume. Even foods that appear to be whole, have been grown or sprayed with chemicals that will kill insects, make the plants prettier, and resist weeds and bugs, but at the expense of the population's health. We should run the other way from entities who could care less about our health.

So in our family, we've been making slow and steady changes over the years. I've known for years that a whole foods diet was wise and would greatly improve our health, but never really knew how to make that happen. I guess you could say, we fell off the wagon more than once and went back to consuming "what everyone else was doing". Our wake up call was Jessica's cancer, and my own body's fight to stay alive. Now, we have more motivation than ever.