Living Life

Round 23 has been pretty good to Trent.  Of course he has had the usual things like pain from the Neupogen shot and a bit of fatigue.  But overall things are MUCH better than before.  I am really enjoying the trend that seems to be continuing, each round getting better than the one before.  Trent had chemo last Wednesday and by Monday he was up and out of bed, even well enough to drive us out to see the baby lambs at the Jensen's farm.  Unfortunately the kids were so excited to see the lambs they ran out to see them and scared them all out deep into the field.  We didn't get to see much except their little behinds high tailing it outta there!  

Jarom, Brinley(Mallory's friend), Jonathan, Mallory, Megan, Zach, and  me in the back

After we saw the lamb's behinds, we drove into town to get some pizza and stopped by the new Ace Hardware.  It is being opened by a friend of ours from Providence.  He gave us the grand tour and sparked a little fire in Trent that hasn't been there in a while.  Now Trent wants to rent out a shop, buy a bunch of new tools, and make clocks.  Sounds fun, but oh so tedious!  I am just happy that he has something he wants to do.

 This is a pretty healthy looking Trent at Zach's band concert last night.  When he wears his hat he almost looks like he used to.  His eyebrows are getting darker and his eyelashes are longer.  He has to shave a couple times a week now but the hair on his head is thinning just a tiny bit more.  

We had such a fun time at Zach's concert.  His band is so much better than last trimester.  Trent was pretty excited to be there, he missed it last time.  It was nice to do something with Trent that parents do together.  Usually it is me taking pictures and trying to recreate it and tell all the details when I get home.  I am glad he got to go.

Yesterday Trent got a phone call from Dr. Kevin Jones from the Huntsman.  He is the one who did the surgery on Trent's hip.  Dr. Jones asked for Trent's permission to use him in a book he is writing.  I don't know all the details yet but we will meet with him next week when we go down for chemo.  He told Trent how impressed he was the first time we all met.  Trent walked right up to him, stuck out his hand and said, "You are looking at a cancer survivor."  At that time Trent was in pretty scary shape.  He had a giant tumor on his hip that was so infected with staph it threatened to take life immediately.  We all knew the odds were against us but Dr. Jones has really been the only doctor to lay it all out on the table and try to get us to comprehend and prepare for the worst.  He has definitely not sugar coated anything when he talks to us.  Sometimes that has made me uncomfortable but I know he doesn't do it maliciously, if anything it is because he cares about us.  I know that.  But it didn't make it any easier to listen to what he was saying.  There have been at least three different occasions when he has told us to go home and get our "affairs in order".  Well, we did that, and then continued to fight with everything we had.  We decided that living with an expiration date is not something we were interested in.  I will admit, it did bring a smile to my face and Trent's when Dr. Jones asked to include Trent in his book.  That means that Trent has made a difference to someone, and hopefully many more.