Happy Good Friday to you all,

We don't have much to update, but wanted to let everyone know what has been going on these past few days:

After being admitted to the hospital Wednesday, later that evening..Suzanne and Cory welcomed their first son, Cartlan Scott. He was a 6 lbs 9 oz, 20 in bundle of joy! Thanks to the technology of iPhones, Mary and Greg were able to FaceTime through the whole thing and witness the event :) It was definitely hard that they couldn't be there in person, but thankfully Suzanne had such a smooth and fast delivery, that by 10:30, we all got to meet and share in the joy together! It was a great lift of spirits!

Mary came into the hospital with such a spike in her white blood cell count..first thing they started doing was the fight to get them under control. The first night here, they pumped her full of platelets and blood and gave her oral chemo pills.

Yesterday, she underwent many tests and scans, had a pickline put in, and a bone marrow biopsy done. All these tests are what determine the plan of action that her doctor will take, but we won't know all the results until midweek. This is a prep weekend to collect all the data, do all the tests & scans, and strengthen her up for the fight to come!

We have complete faith in Jessica Altman, her amazing doctor. God has His hand in it and has blessed us by putting her doctor in our lives! She loves Mary as one of her own family and has a strong, positive outlook on getting Mary healed again.

Calling All Prayer Warriors

Hello all friends and family.  It is Bre, Adam's wife.  We do not have much information at this time, but were sure that the word would spread fast and wanted to at least let you know as much as possible.  Mary has been feeling sick for the last few weeks.  At first, she was told it was just her allergies and put on medication, which did help.  Then, this past week she was diagnosed with strep and began antibiotics to fight that.  This morning, she headed to Northwestern for her routine appointment.  They ran tests immediately as she was feeling so bad.  We are so sad to report that all tests completed so far show that Mary's cancer has returned.  She was immediately admitted to Northwestern this afternoon and has already started chemo and will get blood and platelets tonight in order to begin her fight.

As you can imagine, we are all trying to gather our thoughts and help Mary put her game face back on.  We need your prayers as our family walks this journey for a 2nd time.  We will again try to keep the blog as updated as possible.  We will also update you as Mary gets her permanent room at Northwestern in order for you to send notes / cards as this was something that meant so much to her the last time.

While you are praying for Mary, please also pray for Suzanne and Cory as they are at the Morris Hospital this evening preparing to welcome their 2nd bundle of joy into the world and make Tenley a big sister.

We are all filled with great joy and great hope and great peace knowing that God, once again in all things, is in complete control.

Until tomorrow...  Love, Bre

2 Years!!

My beautiful mom had her 2 YEAR stem-cell transplant anniversary on December 1st!  Praise the Lord :)

We were told before the transplant that that is an amazing milestone to get to and to see it come is such a miracle.  They said at 1 year she had such a better chance of not having a bad reaction to the transplant (with graphs vs host).  At 2 years the risk of the cancer coming back goes down substantially.  At 5 years they say she's "cured."  We look forward to each celebration ahead, but we are SO happy to celebrate this milestone with her!

Picture from the end of Summer at our family reunion, mom on the right with her 3 girls.  On the left is mom's sister, Sue and her 2 girls.

It still gives us a great feeling every time she goes in for a checkup (about once every 2 months or so) and gets results from her blood tests that everything looks great.  Looking back on our journey through the sickness it almost seems like a bad dream that never really happened.  We know it was very real, but it's good to see it as a faint memory rather than being in the midst of it.  Mary feels well most of the time other than the small sicknesses/allergy problems that come and go.  Her immune system is probably a little bit weaker since the cancer and treatments but it doesn't effect her on a daily basis.  She still visits her mom about every other day in Ottawa.  Grandma is always so happy to see her and Sue each day they visit.

Because God gave us this great miracle I'm blessed to live down the street from my mom as I raise my 16 month old daughter AND getting ready to welcome a new baby in April :)  My mom is also expecting her 8th grandchild in June from my brother, Adam and his wife, Bre.  She is and is going to be (even more) a busy grandma!

Thank you all for visiting our site to check in.  We hope that your Christmas season is joyful and that Jesus is on the forefront of your mind.  Thank God for sending His son Jesus to deliver us from our sins and for giving us hope through the trials of life.

Here's a music video that touched my heart.  If your life has been impacted by cancer, you'll appreciate it...

Summer

Things are still going great with Mary.  I know it's been 5 months since the last update, but thankfully, we haven't had much to report.  She was just up in Chicago to see her doctor yesterday and all her counts are great.  Her next appointment isn't for 2 months.  We are fast approaching the 2 year anniversary (December 1st) of her stem cell transplant and that is a HUGE milestone in her journey through this. God has continued to bless us and through Him, we hope to celebrate her 2nd birthday.

The picture you see is from our family vacation we just had last week up in Wisconsin.  It was a great week spent catching up, relaxing on the beach and boating, and playing games with the kids.

Thank you for your continued support and for checking in.

February Update

Hi there...thank you for checking in.  We've continued to get great reports from the doctor at Mom's checkups each month in Chicago.  Since her counts look so good Mom is now down to only ONE medicine!  What a major accomplishment from where she started a little over a year ago. 

Life is good and Mom continues to do everything she loves to do.  She visits her Mom in Ottawa a few times a week, does projects around the house, and is very much looking forward to Spring!!  Isn't everyone?  All of us kids keep her busy as well.  I'm living with Mom, Dad, and David as well and my husband and daughter until we finish fixing up our new house down the street.  So as you can imagine, we keep her busy here.  Amy is also around the house almost everyday with her 3 girls.  Julie visits whenever she can get away from Chicago and Adam and his family are going to be coming to visit from Pennsylvania in March.  We can't wait!  Dad has been very busy with work lately, as the season of outages starts this week.  He'll be working many 12+ hours over the next few months, but thankfully, he loves his job and feels blessed to have it.

We hope you're all doing well and getting through these last couple weeks of winter.  God bless you!

1 Year Celebration

Last week we celebrated my mom's 1 year anniversary since her stem cell transplant!  Wow, it's been a YEAR!  On her 1 year anniversary mom had a check-up appointment up at Northwestern.  They did a bone marrow draw to see how everything looks, rather than just looking at her blood results.  With this procedure (which she's had done a few times since her transplant) they draw bone marrow out of her hip bone.  They send it to the lab and it takes about a week to receive the results.

We found out this week that the bone marrow came back perfectly clean!  It's great to have confirmation that she's still cancer free!  We were pretty confident that she was healthy because of how she feels and because her monthly blood results continue to show the doctor she's doing well, but the bone marrow confirms everything. 

No matter what, we trust that our God is in control.  He knows my mom better than the doctor and has healed her from disease.  We continue to praise and thank Him everyday, and will no matter what the future brings for anyone in our family.  We pray that each of your holidays will be filled with honoring Jesus and appreciation for the many blessings that He pours out on us everyday.  Take some time this holiday season to share God's love with someone who needs hope in their life.

God bless!

Happy Fall

Everything is still going great for my Mom.  Her doctor is still extremely pleased with her blood results each time she has an appointment.  Her counts continue to head in the right direction and they continue to decrease the amount of medicine she has to take.
We've come a long way from a year ago, been through many hard times and experienced many blessings.  Now that we're nearing the 1 year anniversary of Mom's stem cell transplant we recognize how blessed we are to have our mother in our lives.  Her doctor says that normally they do a bone marrow draw around 1 year after the transplant, but they may not choose to do it if her blood counts continue to be so positive.  Mom was so happy to hear this.  It's a relief to her each time the doctor tells her how well she's doing.

Mom is kept busy, just as she likes it, with babysitting her grand kids (Amy and I are coaching volleyball this fall), visiting her mother in Ottawa, and managing her house.  David is still living with Adam and his family in Pennsylvania for the fall and is doing well, just a bit homesick now.  He's used to my Mom taking care of him and I'm sure he misses her a lot.  We were able to visit with him and Adam's family a couple weekends ago as Adam was inducted into the Millikin Athletic Hall of Fame.  It was such a fun weekend with them and great to see them, as always.  Cory, Tenley and I have kept my parents company, using the extra room we finished in their basement since we moved to town in the summer.  We plan on finding a home here in Seneca, but are able to keep my Mom company as my Dad works his long hours with the outages going on.

Thanks for your continued prayers and love.  We'll continue to give God all the glory and hope to bless others with the blessings we've received.