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

Hip, Hip Hooray!! No chemo this week

After 11 long weeks of Miss Sassy Pants having to go to the hospital for chemo we had our first week off and man did it feel good. We decided to celebrate and use the gift certificates Grandma Burnside gave to us for Christmas and go to the movie and lunch. Izzy has been dying to see Justin Bieber and the boys went to some other movie. We then had lunch at Applebee's and really just enjoyed the day.

This is Izzy and I waiting for the movie to start


This is Tommy and I at lunch


Last night after work I was trying to catch up on a few things online. I was writing back to someone who had left a really sweet comment on Izzy's blog and telling her about the things I've learned with this experience. I wanted to be able to share it with everyone because it is really close to my heart right now. Through this whole thing my Mom has continued to remind me of how important it is to learn from what we are all going through. I really believe that Heavenly Father gives a trials and experiences to teach us something. I have learned a lot and I know I will continue to keep growing from this, but this past week I've really focused on not complaining about what you don't have or feeling bad for yourself for what your dealing with in life. Sure it's not always easy, but who ever said life was easy is crazy! The thing is as sassy as Izzy is she doesn't feel sorry for herself. She has never once said it's not fair that she has to go to chemo each week or why does she have to stop going to dance or pre school and the other kids don't. And honestly not once has she told me that it isn't fair that she doesn't have any hair, in fact instead she has been putting these beautiful scarfs on her head or a long sleeve shirt to make her feel or pretend that she does. This incredible child of mine doesn't want anyone to feel sorry for her because she knows there is no reason to feel sorry for her. She is going to continue on with her life and make the most of what she is going through.







Much Love,

Jennie

Dentist appointment at Primary's

Today Izzy had a dental appointment at PCMC this picture was taken on the way there. I really hate to see her go into surgery. I know this one doesn't compare with her kidney/tumor removal or when they removed her PORT, but it is still really hard. While we were in the waiting room I'll I could think about is how tough she is. She fought us on putting on the pajamas they make her wear, but other than that she was cooperative and brave.

Maybe she didn't want to wear the pj's because she looked so dang cute in her normal clothes ;) When Miss Sassy Pants comes out of sedation she is pretty mean. Today the nurse said she was trashing and pulled out her tube that went into her nose. Hence the reason why Dustin now sends me to get her from the recovery room. Her counts are very low so they were very careful to keep us in our own separate room while she recovered. We came home and she has been sort of out of it most of the day. We were all suppose to go to the Monster Jam with HopeKids, but because of her counts and everything she went through today Izzy and I stayed home and had a girls night in. We watched the Hanna Montana movie and had chocolate ice cream. The picture below is of the boys in their HopeKids t-shirts. They told me the seats were fantastic and it was really loud, but lots of fun.

Aren't they some handsome fellas? I think so!

Much Love,

Jennie

Skating for the first time with Relay for Life

We had a great time last night at the kick off party last night for Relay for Life. Izzy had so much fun that we decided when she is done with her treatment we are going to have a huge party with all our friends and family to celebrate. We signed up a team in honor of Izzy and her fight against cancer. I am so excited to help raise funds for the American Cancer Society!! What a great way to celebrate, remember and fight back. The event for 2011 is being held August 12-13. It is an over night event where teams camp out and walk the track to celebrate those who have beat cancer, remember those we've lost and fight back with those battling now. We would love it if you wanted to become part of our team. You can email us at miss.sassypantsvscancer@gmail.com.

First time skating, it's harder than I remember.


Izzy and baby Elouise. She finally was able to meet my dear friend Kristen's baby girl.


Tommy had fun riding his scooter and learing how to skate for the first time.


Ally and Izzy. Ally is a sweet friend of mine who has kicked cancers butt more than once. She is an inspiration to us! Before we shaved Izzy's hair I showed her pictures of Ally on facebook and told her how beautiful Ally is and when Izzy saw her last night she pulled off her hat and showed her that she had no hair too. You can see in the pictures she was eventually skating without her hat on.


Tommy gave Izzy a rose. Too funny!


Miss Sassy Pants won one of the raffles. She was saying in this picture that it's too heavy.


Much Love,

Jennie

Gnomeo and Juliet with HopeKids

Saturday morning Miss Sassy Pants and I were able to go to a private screening of Gnomeo and Juliet with Hopekids.  Hopekids is an organization for children who are fighting life-threatening illnesses.  They put together special events and activities so they can meet and get to know other kids who are facing similar illnesses.  She was really excited about going to the movie.  I told her she would see kids just like her that didn't have hair and probably had a PICC line in their arm. When we were walking out of the movie she said "I didn't see anyone just like me", I told her it was probably because they were wearing a hat like she was. She also wondered why her Uncle Bobby wasn't there because she said he is special and doesn't have hair either. She is right about that, he is pretty special and we think it was so neat of him to shave his hair. I will forever love this picture below!



Much Love,

Jennie