Round Eighteen!

Yesterday marked the beginning of round eighteen.  That sounds awful!  I can hardly believe that we have done this so many times.  Hopefully this is our last...before surgery. 

After we all got over the flu Trent had about one week of feeling pretty good.  We took advantage of that and headed up to Bear Lake for the weekend.  Some friends of our generously offered their cottage for our use and we had a blast!  Zach and Trent got to go to the Priesthood session of General Conference together for the first time.  That was pretty exciting for them both.  We took a bunch of family pictures, played games, watched conference, and made great food.  Jonathan kept walking around saying, "I LOVE our new house Mom!"  Poor, kid.  He has no idea of 'our' home.  Ever since he can remember we have been living with my parents.  It has been wonderful but we are missing having our own home.  Lately that has been difficult for us.  We are ready to move on and be done with this whole mess of cancer.  So, that is why I pray for patience!

Trent is always joking with the nurses and volunteers.  There is a snack cart that goes through all the time and the volunteers offer us goodies.  It is always the same stuff and one day Trent asked the volunteer for something he knew she did not have.  We all laughed about it but about half an hour later she showed up with his request, peanut butter M&Ms.  She had to go out to the vending machine to get them for him!  She even brought him two bags!  The fact that she would do that for him made me tear up a little.  Trent jumped up and gave her a hug while I tried to wipe my tears away before anyone saw that I was crying over M&Ms!  Then yesterday,  while we listened to ABBA-per music request from Trent, he was joking about needing Mrs. Fields cookies on the snack cart.  The nurses all chimed in and laughed about how great that would be. This morning when Debbie brought Trent his "pre-meds" he got quite a suprise.  Not Mrs. Fields cookies but maybe even better....doughnuts!  Kean, yesterday's nurse, had tuned into his little joke about needing cookies on the snack cart and sent over doughnuts for his snacking pleasure.  We really love the nurses here.  They always go out of their way to make this whole experience a little easier to handle.    



Debbie and Kean hand feeding Trent his "pre-meds".

When we came down on Wednesday I had a couple of errands to run while Trent got his infusion.  As I was driving I was listening to my favorite talk on cd, yep, you guessed it, "The Fourth Watch" by S. Michael Wilcox.  I have written about this talk before, but I LOVE IT!  Everytime I listen something else jumps out at me and since I can't read my scriptures while I drive it is great to listen to talks about them.  This time I was listening to Bro. Wilcox talk about a time when Jesus' disciples were rowing on the stormy and turbulent sea.  They had rowed about 6500 yards and had stuggled greatly the whole time against the wind and waves.  From the shore, on a hill aboe the sea, Jesus watched.  He watched them for quite awhile, struggling and straining to fight through the storm.  They never left His sight and He knew exactly how they were struggling.  Finally, He went to them and calmed the storm.  As I listened, I felt a warmth surge through my whole body and make my fingertips tingle.  I KNOW we have been watched.  We have not been left to struggle through the storm alone.  We have had so much help along the way and our storm has been calmed repeatedly.  I sometimes think that the calming of our big storm will be as dramatic as when Christ calmed the sea for his disciples.  That, He will eradicate Trent's cancer and it will all be over.  But in reality, He calms the storm daily.  The steady peace and support we have been given, the answers to prayer, the engulfing warmth and tingly fingertips are evidence everyday that we are being watched.