not again

Yup, here we are again--in the hospital. We had to put Will in the Twin Falls hospital. He has an infection from a sore on his leg that he got in the hospital a few days ago. He has had to have a surgeon come lance it (gross, but he didn't feel any pain) and take care of it. They took some cultures. We should know what we are dealing with Sunday afternoon. The doctor also had the radiologist put in a pic line so he could get his IV antibiotics better. He also had a chest xray and a leg xray and lots of blood work, so he has had a busy day. He is in a lot of pain right now and they are trying to get on top of it. We will have dialysis tomorrow and we don't know what this will do with our training time.

This is just another little bump in the road but he is getting good care. Will was allowed to be on the fourth floor which is the floor that he "grew up" on. Most of the nurses he has-- he has known for a lot of years. It feels like home to him and they do give him the VIP treatment. Coach and Donna came up to see if he's being taken care of (I know, Christi and all you other English majors, that you don't end a sentence with a participle but I don't care tonight -lol). They left after a few minutes because he was trying so hard to stay awake and he couldn't. Hopefully he will sleep (with the help of good drugs) for the next few days. We don't know the time frame or anything right now. I will keep you all posted.

By the way, yes, Dr. Cahill is on top of all this, and everything is getting checked by her. She said this is what she would be doing in Salt Lake if she had Will up there. So we might as well stay close to home and friends. The sad thing is the hospital isn't allowing anyone under the age of 18 to visit on any floor. So we don't get to see Kayli, I think that's where Will is feeling the real pain.

I will post tomorrow night. Happy Halloween and don't eat too much candy.
Thank you for your prayers.

GOD BLESS

home sweet home

This picture just can stand by itself as the cutest baby ever.

Oh, my gosh, I have turned into THAT Grandma---sorry.

Will got out of the hospital just in time to get over to the dialysis center for our training. We were able to get him to the driest weight yet. I hope we have the pain issue under control as we will see in the next couple of days. Will was just getting home when he had visitors waiting for him. It was great to see these three girls. He coached them his last real year of coaching. They were very special to him and now they are all in college training to be teachers. Wow, it's hard to believe. They didn't stay long enough, but Will was really tired and I think they saw that. Coach Clark and Brent came over to say hi to the girls and welcome Will back home. So everyone was gone in about 30 minutes and then Will just unwound.

Cute girls with one cute guy.

Molly, Jordan, and Kabina

Thanks for the visit, I know Will really enjoyed seeing you three.

We will be continuing with the training and we really think this is working well for Will, having dialysis six times a week, for a little shorter time. It's not so hard on the body. Can't wait until we can start training at home. My boss is so good about letting me have three afternoons a week for training. Everyone has been stepping up to help me out in the classroom. I have said it before, but Bliss is just the best school in the world!!! I love everyone there.

Tom and Will are having withdrawals. Kayli hasn't been over because Grandpa can't watch her when Will is in the hospital. So they had two days alone. They were both miserable. Kayli came over tonight and stayed awhile so everyone had a Kayli fix.

It's getting very cold out already and Halloween is this weekend. It's hard to believe. Time flies when you're having so much fun.

GOD BLESS

wonderful week and wonderful weekend and the promised pictures

We had a crazy week and even crazier weekend. Lots and lots of company just stopping by. These pictures are not in the right order but at least I got some of them on here.

Will is doing better and we hope to get him home tomorrow sometime. They need to find a pain med that he can take at home so we don't have to keep doing this. He has such a funny (not ha ha funny, but strange funny) reaction to meds anymore. Could be from the liver???

I will blog tomorrow night and tell you all how he's doing.

Now on to the pictures that I promised you. There is even some with Will on here.

This is just a cute picture of Kayli getting ready for the big game.

Here are the three cousins that were watching the Dallas game on Sunday. Shannon came down from Mnt. Home for the day and they just laughed and yelled and cursed (not with Kayli in the room). They came out at half time because it was such a beautiful day. The Cowboys were winning and Kayli needed some air.

Happy days. The guys had a great time just hanging together.

The next two pictures are of Katie Rose, her sweet baby, Bella Rose, and sis, Shane. They all stopped in because they were in town for my good friend's Susan's (their mom) birthday.
It had been a long time since we have seen them also.

Bella was fascinated with Kayli. Poke

Here is a good friend, Camille, with her new husband that we haven't met yet. Will likes him because he's a Dallas fan. I like him because he's got a good smile. It was so good to see Camille again. We hadn't seen her in over a year. They live in Pocatello and just stopped by for a minute.

Kayli had a very busy sports weekend. First we had the big BSU game and we won!

Then the next picture is the outfit for the Cowboys game--and we won!

Then the last outfit change was for the Yankees and they won!!!

I think it might just be winning because she looks so darn cute in the outfits.

By the way, Uncle Will bought all the outfits for her. He's the best Uncle.

Here is cousin Danny, with his wife, AnnMarie and her two kids, Jaycee and Tucker.

they came down on Friday night, after Will's other cousin, Joe, left on Friday morning. It was so much fun to have them here and they helped get the house ready for the dialysis program that we have set up. Also they moved furniture around so Will can start doing a little exercise program. Thanks so much guys.

We started out the week with a visit from my nephew, Joe, and his wonderful family. They came up from California to see Nino, it's spanish for god-father. Willie is Fath's god-father and very proud to be. She is something else. Very, very entertaining and loved to visit with Nino

Here is Faith with Kayli, I think she just scared the daylights out of her. Look at her eyes, or maybe it was that doll that looked ready to attach???

Here is a sweet picture of my mom, in the middle with her California gang.

Joe, Lisa, Mom, Faith and Jodi

The whole gang. Talk about a melting pot.

Here's a picture of Will with them.

There's cousin Joe in the back then Lisa, his step-daughter, Will, Faith, and Jodi, Joe's wife.

Faith and Nino relaxing together which is strange because she can't really relax---ever.

Here is a picture of Nino with Faith just hamming it up.

Below is a picture of four generations.

My mom, Eileen, is holding baby Kayli.

Angel is holding me.

AWWWWWWWW how sweet.

So hope you enjoy the pictures and again I can't say enough about how blessed we are to have such wonder, caring friends and family. I can't imagine this journey without you all.

God is so good to us.

God Bless

SO SORRY

I'm so sorry that I didn't get our pics up here. We have had a crazy weekend but it was wonderful. I do have some great pictures but we I do have an excuse for not putting them up on the blog. Will had to go into the ER again last night. His pain was very bad and there wasn't anything we could do. So they admitted him and will keep him at least over night. I will post tonight on his condition and will put pics up here if I can do that from the hopsital.

Take care and GOD BLESS

Will had a good night and I just wanted to share that with everyone. He hasn't had many of those lately. This 6 days a week might be getting us somewhere. Please keep praying for him. We had had Will's cousin, Joe, and his family up here for a few days. They left this morning and I will post some great pictures on here this weekend. Faith, three years old, is Will's god-daughter and she hasn't seen Will since right after she was born. Will and Faith have had some great visits together. She can talk and talk and talk, so I would put Will and her in the same room and shut the door. Very entertaining.

A very good friend, Megan, sent us this. Wow, talk about a gift of words. God is so amazing because He has given us incredible friends to help us walk through our journey, but more importantly He has given us His word to bring us peace. Megan, this is perfect, thank you.........





James chapter 1 verse 12, "blessed is the man who perseveres under trial, because when he has stood the test, he will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love him."

Then Megan writes to Will---You are blessed and Will loves the Lord and WILL receive that crown. His promises are the surest thing we can count on, and right here in His Word, He promises you that if you can hold strong right now, He has a blessing for you that is unfathomable to what could ever understand or comprehend.

Take care and have a great Friday. I will post pics probably on Sunday.

GOD BLESS

Tuesday night

Tuesday night and I just wanted to let everyone know that we are doing okay. We really, really appreciate all the comments and the emails that have been sent to me. I have read them to Will, so he does receive them. He has been really touched by them and the love that is shown.

Just wanted to let you know that Tom and I have been going through the training and we are doing well at it. I think we get gold stars or something. We still have a long way to go, but it isn't as scary as we thought. My boss is amazing to let me off three days a week to go in to training. Not many places would be able to do that. How extremely lucky I am. Kevin, you're the best.

Dr. Cahill called Will when we were on the way home last night from the training. She talked to me for a while and then to Will. It was very touching and everyone needs to know what a special lady (and doctor) she is. She just wanted to reaffirm that she wasn't giving up on Will or anything like it. She feels the home dialysis is going to be so good for Will because it will get more of the fluid off, give him the freedom to go places and do things he wants to do. It should also make him feel better with less cramping--so Will's excited about that.



Again, thanks for all the kind words and the love everyone has shown. We will keep you updated. Life is good because our God is good.

GOD BLESS

Sunday night

We had a great weekend with family and friends. What with Aaron's birthday on Saturday and then we had Kayli's dedication at church on Sunday morning. She was so cute in a little poofy dress and ruffles on her bum-bum. She really likes being the star of the show. Our pastor, Dion, , did a wonderful job of the dedication. Here is our family up on the stage promising that we will help Angel and Aaron raise up Kayli with God's word.

We have a great looking family. Kayli is one lucky girl to have so much love surrounding her.

Uncle Will is in the center watching to make sure Pastor Dion doesn't drop his girl.



We had a really nice lunch after church and then people started home. After everyone left, this is what Uncle Will and Kayli did. They just sat outside and were quiet. They both needed it by then.

This last picture is just a cute one. Little Carson, who is now in Kindergarten, is showing Uncle Will a ladybug that he caught. There is many more pictures of the day that I will put up here but the blog is going to be long enough already. So I had to stop with these for tonight.

*********************
Now to the tough part of the blog. I want everyone to know that it has been very hard for me to write this blog. I have prayed long and hard for the right words. So here goes.... Will has most of his tests back. One of the first results we got was the reason for his blisters. They are from a blood disease called porphyria cutanea tarda. This has something to do with the way the blood makes the enzymes or oxygen or something like that. It is a enzyme deficiency, which spills out into the blood, and builds up in the skin. Exposure to sunlight causes the blisters. It is very painful but it can be treated with a medicine. We can deliver the medicine when Will is getting dialysis. The doctors just need to figure out which meds to use. They will let us know by the end of the week. So that was good that we found this out and Will just needs to stay out of the sunlight until he gets the medicine.

We were getting ready to leave the hospital when Dr. Cahill's assistant or associate came in with some news. It's not really the news we wanted to hear.

Will won't be able to get his transplant. The reason is because he has been diagnosed with cirrhosis of the liver. The only treatment for cirrhosis is a liver transplant. He can't have a liver transplant because his lungs won't be able to survive that type of transplant. They aren't good enough to stand up to that. Then, he can't have just a kidney transplant because the liver would ruin the new kidney. So all three head doctors, Dr. Cahill, the lung doc, Dr. Shehab, the kidney doc, and Dr. Hutsen, the liver doc. got together and decided that there is just no way.

This was a complete shock to us so we are still letting it sink in. There are many questions that we left unasked for the time being but we will ask them later. If you want to know more about cirrhosis of the liver, just google it. There are some great sites out there.

As you can imagine, we have had a long, emotional weekend of letting the family know. I know there are many people we should have called instead of letting them read this news on here. And I apologize now, but please understand how hard this is for us to tell people that love Will so much. There have been lots of tears shed in our household in the last couple of days. It's amazing how strong my son is and everyone is gaining strength from him. There is no self pity with Will and one of the first things Will said to me was "I feel bad for Dr. Cahill. She worked so hard to get me here today." We left the hospital very quickly then just because Will needed to get out of there and there really was no reason to stay. Will and I talked the whole way home and he was so concerned about how much hurt this was going to cause family and friends.. Once again, how amazing is that????

Some other news is that Tom and I are going in for training to start doing the dialysis at home. We start tomorrow at the dialysis center. The doctors feel that this is the next best treatment option right now. This is going to be so much better for Will. He won't have to go into Twin Falls four days a week. This is a six week course and Will will have dialysis at home for shorter amounts of time--two to three hours a day, six days a week. It will get more of the fluid off and he should feel better. One of the big perks about this is that it is portable and Will will be able to travel when he is feeling better. This is something that he has wanted to do a lot. Will has a few places that he wants to go, and he's going to get there for sure.

************

I know there are a lot of people that are mad with God right now, just as I was at first. It doesn't seem fair but life is not about fairness. Will can handle this just as he has everything else. He is strong and we know he is in God's hands. Through Him, all things are possible.

We have to remember that God's wisdom is perfect. His plan is perfect. It is our understanding that is not perfect. Sometimes we just can't understand why God does what He does. But who are we to question His will?

Romans 8:28 And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose. Aaron gave this passage to Will last night and it just fit perfectly.

Will has a very special purpose that God has given him. Because we love Will, we don't want him to suffer any more than he has, but God will see Will through this, and us too.

I know I have used this before but it is perfect for this blog, so I use it again....

God didn't promise days without pain, laughter without sorrow, sun without rain, but He did promise strength for the day, comfort for the tears, and light for the way.

He has blessed us in so many ways and we want to thank God for all He is doing for us and through us.

Saturday night.

Just a quick note because we are all tired here.

Will got out of the hospital and he's so glad to be home.

We will blog everything Sunday night.

Sorry about no pictures but I will post them tomorrow.

Just wanted to say a very very HAPPY BIRTHDAY, to Aaron
our son-in law. He is so good for Angel and his two little girls love him so much. We just love him and we hope many, many more happy birthdays to him. I would sing right now but really, I don't think this blog could do me justice.

See you all tomorrow night. The blog will probably be a long one so be prepared.

GOD BLESS

quick update

WE KNOW NOTHING YET!

I guess just getting upset with doctors doesn't do much. Nothing was done yesterday and Will is not too happy with everyone right now. He told Dr. Cahill if they(meaning the liver, kidney, dermatologists, and the vascular doctors) didn't come up with something he is going to jump in his wheelchair and go wait in their office until they see him. They must have heard because Will had to go down to dialysis very early this morning. They didn't want to see him sitting in their waiting room. So hopefully today we have some news. I will blog tonight if we do. Hope everyone is having a great Friday.

GOD BLESS

Rainy night in Salt Lake City-

Here we are on the fifth floor of the U of U. It's a little after one in the morning. It was a busy day with lots of tests. But we got into the hospital in time to watch the BSU team whip Tulsa. Go Boise Broncos! People kept interrupting Will but he got to watch a big portion of the game. He did have his BSU shirt on and we thought of our good friends, Curt and Megan, in California. They probably they had their shirts on too as well as most of our friends.

When we got here we went to do labs, xrays, and PFTs. Then Dr. Cahill called in a favor and got us right in to see a dermatologist for these blisters that he's been having. The dermatologists all came into Will's tiny exam room to look him over because nobody could figure out where these blisters are coming from, but they know they need to be addressed so they did two punch biopsies and we should have some answers tomorrow afternoon about those. Dr. Cahill even came down to their office to see what they were doing to "her guy."

Will's PFTs (lung function tests) were down but that's probably because he's overloaded with fluid again. He will do dialysis in the morning. Right now he's in a lot of pain that just started late tonight. We will be going down in an hour or two for a CAT scan with contrast to see what might be wrong with his belly. So no sleep for the wicked tonight.

We haven't seen the kidney doctor or the liver doctor, but knowing Dr. Cahill and her wonderful staff, we will be seeing them tomorrow for sure. They really know how to get things done. I will blog tomorrow night with tests results, and hopefully, results from doctors visits.

Will really misses his little girl, he got kind of use to playing with her everyday. So they talk on the phone. Well, Will does most of the talking but this way she won't forget her Uncle's voice. It's cute. I better go and help Will, he has to drink that nasty stuff for the CAT scan.

The Lord answered my prayers for more patience. He sent me a little, let's see if it's enough to get me through tomorrow. If not, I hope someone can come bail me out. Just kidding.

I PRAY THAT GOD'S BLESSINGS ARE POURING OUT ON ALL OF YOU.

Our God IS an awesome God.

News from SLC

Dr. Cahill's chief, Tauni, called and told us that Dr. Cahill wanted Will down so they can run some tests and see what's going on with those blisters. We will "probably" be admitted and then run the tests. So we will leave early tomorrow morning, Wednesday, and go from there. He will run a PFT, Xrays, and labs before he goes in. He's not too happy about it but what can we do??

Let me just say for the record..I have the best boss in the whole world. He just tells me not to worry about my job, take care of Will first. I am very, very blessed to work in the best school in Idaho.

BUT.... Maybe while we are in we can "accidentally" bump into Dr. Hutsen (liver doc) and get some answers. Accidentally might mean sitting on his car in the parking lot. Lord forgive me now, I'm a desperate mom.

Kayli and Uncle Will were having this incredible, deep conversation (I think it was something to do with a sponge named Bob maybe??? I really don't know because they don't include me in the conversations). She was looking so enthralled that I just had to take this picture. I think she would believe Uncle Will even if he told her something so silly like Yankees are going to win the World Series (that was a dig just for Coach, all you other Yankee fans, I apologize).

I will update when we know something. Pray for Will and for God to bring me patience....I'm all out.

GOD BLESS YOU ALL

Sunday night

My Sister from California brought to my attention that I didn't post this on Sunday night. I must have not hit the right button or something. Anyway, this was Sunday's blog. SORRY. Thanks, Mickey. love ya

Well I promised on Friday that I would post more pictures, so here they are. We didn't get many with Uncle Will and Kayli. Mainly Will had a tired Sunday so he slept a lot. We had Kayli all day because mom and dad went to the motorcycle races. It was tooooo cold for Kayli so we got her. Great day for us. What an absolute joy it is to be Grandparents! We feel very blessed. We took her to church this morning and I think Grandpa pinched her so he could take her downstairs with the older kids at Sunday school I'm on to his ways. Poor Kayli.

Here is Uncle Will singing Kayli to sleep. Isn't she precious, what a great gift from God she is for this family!

Will is still suffering from the knee blister. It looks awful and we have to keep the dressing on until Wednesday. I hope it is healing up. So really there is no new news except what I shared on Friday. Please pray for Dr. Hutsen to give us a call early this week with good news that we can proceed with the kidney transplant. Our good Lord knows how much Will needs it.

I hope everyone has a great week and I will post a blog as soon as someone calls me, hopefully the first of this week.

Kayli in her purple pj's. She's all toasty warm.

Here I think Kayli is thinking of something to do to Grandpa. She kind of looks a little mischeveous, doesn't she?

I don't know what she's thinking here. It's just a funny face shot.

GOD BLESS

Friday

Here's the newest picture. The guy in red holding Kayli is none other than her Uncle Will.

Isn't this the sweetest face ever??? Oh, I think I have said this already, huh?

All week, and nothing from SLC. I know how many of you are waiting to hear and so are we. We just have to be patient some more..............Lord give me strength.

Will has been having a lot of trouble with water blisters this last couple of weeks. We don't know why. But he has a really, really bad one on his knee. It covers most of his kneecap. It makes walking very, very difficult and painful. We had a wound nurse come out this morning and dress it. It was nasty. It might take a month to heal when you are as compromised as Will is.

My school had so many cases of the flu that we had to close today. Don't worry, I am using lots and lots of hand sanitizer. So I got a three day weekend and I was so excited about watching Kayli all day today. Well, with the wound nurse spending almost 1 1/2 hours with Will, I didn't get lots of time with her. Then I had to take her in and meet Angel because Kayli had to go get her two month shots--three of them. I don't want to watch that ever again. People think I am so tough but I cried like a baby when I saw the nurse stick her three times. I put out a "hit" on the nurse but don't tell anyone. lol Angel did well, even if she kept her eyes shut.

I received a short call from the liver doc, Dr. Hutsen's nurse this evening. She just told us that she thinks Dr. Hutsen will call us the first of next week. He is waiting on another doc to get back to him. I don't know what kind of doctor or why, but I'm sure I will know when he calls (I so want to put the word "finally" at the end of this sentence, but I won't). Tauni, Dr. Cahill's nurse called to check on Will and she told me that Dr. Cahill will try to reach Dr. Hutsen and find out what's going on. So maybe next week for news on whether Will can proceed with the kidney transplant or have to do something about his liver first. ???????? I feel like I'm writing a soap opera and I keep having you all "hang on" until next week to find out what's happening. I'm sorry about that.

Will's Grandma Cherie had a birthday this week and we all wanted to say HAPPY, HAPPY BIRTHDAY to her. She's such a sweet lady. We love you lots, Grandma. See you soon.

I will get pics up on Sunday. Have a great weekend.

GOD BLESS

Saturday evening

This is the first time we used the new picture for the top of the blog. I hope you will tell me if you like it. Will bought Kayli the little shirt to watch the game tonight. Then they shared the chips (an old friend of ours gave them to us. He's a die-hard BSU fan-thanks Steven). I don't think Kayli got very many of them. Well, the Broncos won tonight--yea. I think half our town went to the games. Go Boise State Broncos.


Now to what's been happening with Will. He spent the the last three days in the hospital. It all started on Wednesday night around midnight. Will was having excruciating pain in his stomach. He was up all night with pain. By 8 in the morning he was wanting us to take him the ER. We were all worried that it might be the spleen or the liver. The pain was way intense.
So we went to Twin Falls, we didn't want to take him all the way to SLC if he was in that much pain. We spent nine hours in the ER and then they decided to admit him because the pain was so bad. He was admitted to his old floor and his old room even. It's been over two years since we have seen those friends on that floor. About four in the morning we had to move to another floor because they needed the suite. So by six in the morning we had a new room. We had never been on the second floor but it was a nice place.



One of the funny things that happen (you know you have to find "funny" in the crazy things so we don't go crazy) was that when we moved down to the second floor at 6 in the morning, after waiting two hours for the transport people, we had a nurse that said he needed to measure all of Will's scars and put them on a drawing of a torso. Why???? I don't know, but if you have seen Will recently you know he has a few. So, an hour later he had the measuring done. Will was not happy about it so he just went to sleep while the nurse was doing that. He was an older nurse so I don't know what he had going on but we have never had to do that before and I can guarantee you that Will won't let it happen again either. That's not the way Will likes his mornings. Come to think of it, Will doesn't like his mornings any way.


Will had a cat scan with contrast done that morning to see how the spleen and liver looked. They all checked out fine except that they were both enlarged considerably but they have been like that for a while now, so nothing new. We had to wait for a few days for some tests to come back but they all came out good except for the high liver tests but we knew that. It all comes down to Will getting a new kidney. I have more to talk about but this blog is long enough already so I will save it for tomorrow on the normal blog

Thought I would share a few pictures. Will didn't want the baby to come up to the hospital because of all the bad bugs around. So she stayed away for almost three whole days but then they popped in right before we got discharged. So his is Will with this little girl for her first visit to a hospital to visit Uncle Will. I pray that she won't spend too much time visiting Will in those hospitals.

Below: Here is the two just staring at each other. I think in the one below, Kayli is singing Uncle Will a song.




Below: Then a few minutes later they were both asleep.

So now we are home and we will await the doctors wishes about the transplant. I did call three different days last week but they still didn't have any answers yet. Soon Will will hear something.

All in God's perfect timing. I will have more patience this week.

We will go to church in the morning and sing His praises for all the things that has been happening in our lives.

I will pray that God pours out His blessings on you all.