07/03/2011

Well today, or I should say this weekend has brought up a lot of memories of the last year. July 5th 2010 marks the beginning of our nightmare starting in the emergency room on July 5th (twice) continuing through ER visits on July 7th & 9th. With in between visits with our primary care doctor. Searching for a reason that would explain Jeremie's terrible pain.

In some ways this last year has been the most amazing and touching year of my life, and dare I say even our families life. We have experienced the sharing of love, generosity and kindness that I can't believe we have been the recipients of.

So a quick short snap-shot of our last year...

We had some issues getting into our new home on the expected date of June 14th, 2010. We finally closed on our house on July 7th, 2010. Poor Jeremie, I told him to "act healthy" at the closing. I was sure at that point he was having gallbladder issues. Still wish he was having gallbladder issues.

It was a miracle that we got through the closing, now that I look back on it. He was hurting so bad. We rented a U-Haul truck that night, and started moving stuff over to our new home. Jeremie was too sick. Some of the shop helpers of Saville Furniture helped us load the U-Haul to get it over to our house. Jeremie, through the grace of God was able to help unload the truck, along with one of our new neighbors. This neighbor needs a medal, I decided he is the energizer bunny ;-)

Jeremie went to ER again on July 9th. His poor dad took him for me. I was sick and hurting from a minor surgery I had that day. It was such a mess! That was the night the ER doc told Jeremie not to come back, as they can't find anything wrong with him. Gotta love that. Seriously can't focus on that or I get really cranky. And that was so three weeks ago ;-)

I ended up the next day running over to my two neighbors we had met while building our house. I asked them to come and give Jeremie a blessing. These two men just popped up and ran over. At least I felt a little peace with that.

Monday July 11th I went to clinical. I just couldn't stop thinking about Jeremie. I was researching and researching and researching. I had not requested a copy of Jeremie's labs up to this point. I really just kept believing that everything was coming back normal (well except for the horribly high D-Dimer...which we were told some people walk around with high D-Dimers...seriously they told us that). Noted that one to myself, I never, ever trust that everything is normal, no matter who the person is. Jeremie was not able to go to work as his pain was unbearable. This man had not taken a day off in the 10 years he had been working at the shop. And he had not been to work since July 2nd.

Tuesday July 12th, we had an appointment with our primary care doc, as obviously we couldn't figure out what was going on with Jeremie. At one point in the visit I explained that I was starting to get very upset and paranoid as something was very wrong with my husband. That this isn't him. He pulled up the labs on the computer and said they all show normal, "oh well, all except for his hematocrit". I said "do you think it is normal for a 34 year old man to have low hematocrit?". He replied that no, he didn't, and that we would repeat the labs. Jeremie went home and I went back to work. I decided to obtain a copy of Jeremie's labs.

This is where I kick myself over and over again. Jeremie's labs were only normal on his first ER visit at 2 am on July 5th. Three hours later when we returned to ER, as Jeremie's "virus" (yup that is what they diagnosed him with first) was causing him extreme pain, they had labs pulled again. This is when his labs became abnormal (oh, and every single visit there on out they were abnormal). Grrrr....If I had just asked exactly what they were, not taken their word for it, he wouldn't have hurt for so long.

Doctor Lemon became my hero on July 12th at 4:00 p.m. It took a five minute conversation with him...explaining what was happening with Jeremie and what Jeremie's labs were over the last week for him to know exactly what was wrong with Jeremie. Of course he didn't say what he thought. He just said to bring Jeremie to the 3rd floor of the hospital, he was getting admitted and Jeremie was going to have a bone-marrow biopsy.

That night Jeremie's platelets were so low, along with an out of whack clotting time he was at risk for bleeding to death. Jeremie had sneezed that night and had a terrible bloody nose that was hard to stop. By that morning of July 13th, they knew that Jeremie had leukemia. However at that time they thought he had APML or acute pro-myleocytic leukemia (with that leukemia you look like you have DIC or disseminated intravascular coagulation, you can't clot correctly in your blood, you make tiny little clots and really thin blood, super-duper dangerous). It has a cure rate of 95% and is treated with high dose Vitamin A and chemo. But they were going to have to life-flight Jeremie to LDS hospital as he wasn't hemodynamically stable. Or he could have bled to death.

Over the next few days of being at LDS hospital we learned Jeremie's cytogenetics of his leukemia and began this new and scary road of having cancer at 34, along with a wife and five young children. I love reading about AML because it is "primarily a cancer of elderly men". Yeah right.

This emotional, scary road has been made easier and tolerable by the amazing people we call neighbors and friends. Our ward, although they didn't know us, didn't even know we were LDS came to our rescue. They brought and continue to bring us meals. They help with my kids, picking them up for scouts and activities. They have fasted for us and prayed for us. As a ward they decided to help get our back-yard finished. I can't tell you how touching this is. To be able to enjoy our home to its fullest with my sweet Jeremie here on this earth...is amazing. They are giving their time, talents and generosity, that they just don't have to do. Plus in the heat of this summer. I wish I had words to express the thankfulness in my heart for all of them.

My work has been incredible. What would I do without them? Constantly making sure we are ok. Asking if I need to take time off. And again, people generously making it possible for me to go back and forth to Salt Lake. Through their generosity, I didn't have to worry how to put gas in my gar for the 9 trips during Jeremie's transplant. And specifically my sweet Cedar office making sure I had a Christmas for my babies.

Through all these wonderful, incredible and giving people, I have been eased into being a one income household. I don't know how else it could have been done (not saying it is easy). I'm so grateful, so touched...how could I not see miracles around us. I think God does know us...my sweet mother-in-law feels that we were inspired to come to our neighborhood when we did. I think she is right.

Of course our family...how can I leave out our family? Man...mom, dad and Perry...really, what would I do without you? MeMe and PePe...I know you all would do everything in your power to fix this for us. I mean MeMe...you are working so hard on winning that $33 million! Favorite thing to do is make wish lists for MeMe for when she goes to Vegas ;-)

So stayed tuned for our next anniversary date on July 13th...Jeremie might actually blog that day!

Again, thank you all for being our rays of sunshine through our big dark gray cloud...

Lots of Love,

Cori & Jeremie