Time flies when Izzy doesn't have chemo

I have been meaning to give an update on Miss Sassy Pants, but to be honest we have been enjoying the time off from chemo.

Pa and Chelle flew Dustin and Tommy to Arizona for Spring Training over the weekend and Miss Sassy Pants and I had a girls weekend. Unfortunately on Friday when the home health nurse came to draw labs and change the dressing on Izzy's picc line they found that her ANC was very low. It hasn't been this low since we left the hospital on Christmas Eve. I had to do some rearranging of my schedule because when her counts are so low they like you to keep her away from kids and crowds. So on Monday morning Izzy and I went to clinic thinking that is was a high possibility that we would have to put off the chemo for another week due to a dramatic drop in Izzy's ANC. However, we lucked out and her counts were back up. It's kinda strange to say that we were excited to get chemo done, but it was more that we were excited to be a little closer to finishing up with the treatment.



Here she is enjoying some cereal while we waited for chemo. Miss Sassy Pants appointment was at 9:30 and we didn't leave the clinic until 1:30 so it made for a LONG day. Not more than a couple minutes into driving home I turned to check on Izzy and she was fast asleep. She was exhausted!

I have been so happy to meet some Moms of cancer patients these past couple weeks. Thank you for reaching out to me! It's true that sometimes the only one who can really understand how you’re feeling is another cancer Mom. I've learned a lot from Binley's Mom Kristin who wrote this amazing post on Brinley's blog about the things she has learned. I only wish I could write and express my feeling as well as she does. Check it out, but be sure to have your tissue handy. I have read the post over 50 times and I can't get through it without tears in my eyes and my heart not pounding.

We signed up a team in Izzy's honor for the CureSearch walk on July 9th. Curesearch benefits funding for Children's Oncology Group research. They hope to "Help reach the Day when every child with cancer can be guaranteed a cure." Can you even imagine? If you'd like to join the Miss Sassy Pants kicks cancer team click on the link below. If you can't make it to the event you can always be a virtual walker or make a donation.

http://www.curesearchwalk.org/faf/search/searchTeam.asp?ievent=452894

Oh yeah, and some very exciting news is that Miss Sassy Pants was nominated for Make-A-Wish!! Our little family gets to go meet with her wish granters on Monday March 28th. I have heard some amazing things about Make-A-Wish and we are very happy to get to be apart of such a truly incredible organization.

Much Love,

Jennie

Hollywood Connections with HopeKids

This past Saturday we got to go to Hollywood Connections with HopeKids, the HopeKids and their immediate family had it all to ourselves from 9:00am to 10:30am, then your family and friends were able to come do all the fun stuff at a huge discount price and half of it went back to the HopeKids organization.

Miss Sassy Pants has been really into wearing scarfs, but most of the time she likes them draped over her head and she pretends it's her hair. Sometimes I can convince her to let me tie them, but it just depends on her mood. She liked this horse the best she told me because it had jewels on it.





They loved going on the bumper cars, Sassy Izzy was pretty good at maneuvering I was impressed. She got to where she would purposely make it so she would go around in circles. It was pretty funny.


Here's the Hoggan's minus Kimmie (she was running a race in St George).


And here is some of the Burnside's.



All the little kids tried to roller skate, but it was kind of hard for them. Tommy was much better his second time around. Here's Lyssie, I wish I would have got more pictures of all the kids roller skating because it was so cute.


My friends Destiny and Melanie brought their families, it was so nice to see them.


I always wish I would have taken more pictures when I get home and look at my camera. We had lots of family and friends who were able to come spend time and enjoy the fun things at Hollywood Connection. Thanks HopeKids!

WRD for Hope

Have seen the movie "Whip It" with Drew Barrymore and Ellen Page and have wanted to watch real women's roller derby?? Well this Sat Mar 12 at 7pm at the Salt Palace you can see Black Diamond Divas vs Hot Wheelers and the best thing is 40% of the proceeds go to HopeKids!! The half time is Mini Bout with the Wasatch Junior Rollers. The tickets are $10 in advance or $13 at the door, children 5 and under are FREE! Also Legends Pub and Grill is hosting the after party and they told me if you bring in your ticket stub after the match you can get free dessert! How aweseome is that?! HopeKids is super close to our heart right now and has made it possible for Izzy and our family to do some really neat things that normally we wouldn't be able to. So go out and support a great cause this Saturday!

Last weeks chemo appt and ER visit

Last Monday Izzy had chemo, don't you just love her fashion sense? Where is that button that reads "I dressed myself!"? At clinic we were able to finally meet Jessica. She is the little girl who has a Wilms Tumor like Izzy did. Jessica's Mom told us they were going in for a CT scan to see if they would be able to do surgery to remove the tumor. I later found out on her blog that Jessica is going in for surgery tomorrow March 8Th. Please keep their family and the staff at PCMC in your prayers, we are hoping for a speedy recovery for Jessica.

Unfortunately Izzy got sick this time from the chemo. Once we got home from the double dose she just sorta hung out. She kept telling me her tummy felt like a giant was stepping on it. She laid around most of the day and around 4:30 she started getting a temperature. I let her sleep for a bit and then all of the sudden her temp spiked and it 101.5, which is WAY too high. We are suppose to take her to the hospital if her temp gets to 100.3. So off Izzy an I went to the ER. They are always awesome about making sure we don't have to sit in the waiting room because her immune system is compromised. They give us a triage room to sit in and wait our turn away from all the sickness. While we were there Izzy did a little bit of this

But mostly a lot of this

The nurse gave her some fluids, antibiotics, and Tylenol. Around 11:30-midnight her labs finally came back, her counts were good and so they let us go home. It was a little tough lugging her all the way back to the car. It made me miss Dustin more because he is always so great to go get the car so we don't have to walk so far. It's a good thing Miss Sassy Pants is a light weight.

Izzy didn't have chemo today and she won't have it next week either. Yay for 2 weeks off of chemo. The home health nurse will still come once a week to change the dressing around her PICC line and also draw her labs to make sure her counts are doing okay.

We had a great time at Hollywood Connections on Saturday with HopeKids, stay tuned for some pictures on the next post.

Much Love,

Jennie

Benefit at W Lounge and Zumba Fundraiser

My friend from eBay put together a great benefit show for Miss Sassy Pants at W Lounge in Salt Lake City. We were so appreciative of those of you who were so willing to donate items for the raffle. Those of you who won prizes were really lucky because there was some awesome stuff. I wanted to give a huge thanks to Victor for putting some much hard work into the event. This is a picture of him below at the event where he was manning the donation table.



Then Saturday my dear friend Lesina held a Zumba fundraiser at One Nightclub/Lounge. Thanks to the owner Aj for letting us shake it there. We had the very talented Alice Lopez, Natalie Montoya, and Miss Sassy Pants very own Auntie Vanessa instruct us through 2 hours of Zumba. It was a lot of fun. I was interviewed by one of the producers of KSL Octavia Palepoi who is Lesina's sister in law. She was so sweet and helped me to feel a little less nervous for the interview. There was clips shown on the 6pm and 10pm news that day. Izzy was able to see her pictures on the 10pm news and thought it was really cool that she was on t.v. Click on the link below to see it. Sina and I go way back to Elementary/Jr. High days. I have some great memories of hanging out with the Palepoi girls playing night games and church ball.

http://www.ksl.com/index.php?nid=148&sid=14530175

These are the ones who made the funderaiser possible. Minus Octavia, who I wish I had a picture with because she was so awesome to push the story on the news.


The whole group of Sassy Pants supporters!!


Thank you to those of you who were able to come out and show your love and support to both the W Lounge Benefit and also the Zumba fundraiser! I am also always very touched and so amazed at the people who come to these events that don't even know us, I think the reason why is because you expect or hope that your family and friends will be there, but when people show up that you've never met it can really make you feel good.

Much Love,

Jennie