Happy Trails from us...........

Well there is alot to report. Sorry!!! Our Internet service was down for a month and it took awhile for us to figure out why? --- after all the anguish from everyone in the family Dan contacted our provider and all it was, was that our provider rerouted the box and all we had to do was put in a new number and walla!!!!

Andrew is doing great!!! In January we were given the opportunity to try a brand new medication that just came out of research that is call Nexivar. It will not save his life, but it has the ability to slow down the cancer so that you have more time with the person. The doctor's were really excited to try this with Andrew, he is only the 3rd child to start using this medicine. Only adults used it during research with great results. It does not cause sickness, or hair loss or extra tiredness, but slows down the cancer and gives prolonged life and good quality of life without to many side effects. the side effects are your skin gets extremely dry to the point of cracking, but in our situation you do anything. It is extremely expensive though, yuck!! but like all medicine, maybe it will go down in the future.
But even with the cost if it gives us more time with him and good quality time it will be worth it. Since January Andrew has been in school and attending all Young Men activities and seems to have more energy and of course his mouth still rattles out anything he wants so the medicine seems to be doing a great job. Over Presidents weekend We got to take the trailer out for the first time. Andrew was thrilled we went down to Leeds 15 minutes outside of St. George and stayed in an RV park. It was great the weather was beautiful in the low 60's and 68 on Sunday. We
now have spring fever badly. For our first experience with pulling a trailer it was not to bad a little wiggly. We arrived at about 10:30 p.m. to the RV park so it was late and dark when we hooked everything up. Andrew was right by his dad's side making sure Dan did everything just right and hooked everything up in the right place, it was great we hooked up to power, water and sewer. When we arrived after our 51/2 hour drive Spencer had to go #2 really bad but Andrew informed everyone that no one could go #2 in the trailer toilet only #1, but the office was closed along with the clubhouse when we got there and so we did not get the code to punch in to be able to use their restrooms so I told Andrew it would only be fair to let his brother have some relief and let him go #2. So Andrew gave him permission to use the toilet and Spencer was not the only one who broke it in that night, a couple of others had to also. I'm tell-en ya it was great to have a toilet so close, you all know how it is when your camping. It took awhile for us to get everything figured out and water running, but soon after we all slept very well. The next day Dan could not figure out where the water heater was so I could have hot water, it was funny Andrew was outside the trailer looking in every door and under to find it and Dan was on the inside looking under every cushion and behind every door to find it, and all at once at the exact same time Andrew and Dan yell I found it. We had a good laugh and I was grateful for hot water. We had a great time in the sunshine and enjoyed some bowling and laser tagging in St. George. Alyssa joined us late on Saturday after she got off of work, it was only a 35 minute drive from Cedar City, so it was fun to see her and visit. She is doing great loving every minute of it, from school to the boys, to dating, to dancing, to work, to being called to be the librarian at church. We enjoyed our beautiful trailer allot, it was fun to be all together in such close surroundings everyone got along really well, we played games ate a ton, and laughed allot. It was sad to come home to more snow and the cold. Of course when it was time to go home Andrew oversaw everything, made sure his dad was doing everything right because it was his trailer and it was going to stay in good condition till he is 80 years old. the funny and yucky part was cleaning the toilet and sewer pipe, we took turns pouring bowls full of water down the toilet so we could flush everything down, but Andrew would get anxious and unhook the hose to make sure all the poop was gone so it took several tries and his dad telling him to let him do it, we needed to build up the pressure. I'm sure you didn't need all these details but if you know Andrew you know it needed to be part of my story. We made it to Cedar city to see Alyssa's dorm and roommates since I was the only one who had been down their the kids were anxious to see her place. We took her to lunch and on our way apparently Dan tightened up the chains from the equalizer to the suburban and we went down a driveway we all heard a big clunk grind so Dan stopped and he completely bent both screws and bolts, of course Andrew got right on his dad's case telling him it was his trailer and he should have listed and did it how Andrew had suggested him to do it. I told Dan he had broken enough things over the weekend trip and to just listed to his 12 year old son who seemed to be getting everything right. So we found a place down in Cedar City who was so nice to cut the bolts off and put new ones on for us. We drove home fine after that. We got home unloaded and Dan went to work to get it winterized all over again before the pipes froze but by midnight he was so tired and needed a part that was not put in, so we gave up prayed the pipes would not freeze and went to bed. Dan came home early with the part and winterized it just fine and then Andrew gave his dad a good job as he inspected everything his dad did.

Back to current news as of today. Andrew has been really sick the past few days and has missed a couple of school days. I think I have figured out he has the flu because he has thrown everything up and run a fever. Sometimes it is hard to figure out if it is related to his illness because sometimes the symptoms are related to his illness and it is not uncommon for him to run a fever. Since we have gotten back from our mini camping trip Andrew's appetite has gone way down, and I have noticed he is not eating well at all, which may attribute to why I have noticed he has been more tired. He is probably only getting 800 calories a day or less I'm sure down him which in not good he is so thin it is scary to look at him naked, in fact I can't it makes me cry. The list of foods he will eat is getting very thin, I don't understand why things taste to awful to him, chemo has been out of his system for months now. We argue about eating until he cries. Even the amount of food he eats is not much for instance I gave him a pancake to eat which he can usually eat a whole one and feel stuffed he now eats 2 bites and feels so full he feels sick. Ugh!! what's a mom supposed to do. he says he is starving all the time but he eats bites here and their. our nurse said it is because he does not have any reserves in him. The minutes he is hungry he feels like he is starving no warning to feeling hungry so he demands food every hour but eats very little. Then he wants crazy things like at 10:00 at night he wants rocky road ice-cream, he doesn't like that flavor to my knowledge, I try to get him to eat healthy but he cries and his dad runs to the store to get whatever he wants. We have decided that at this point whatever he'll eat is what we get since the nurse said he is starting to starve to death. Oh joy!!! I never would spoil a child like this but we told are other children this is not normal and we have to do whatever we can so we can have him a little longer. The nurse said that when we decides to go it will be quick because their is not much to him.. We pray we will get to have him until the end of summer maybe the year but we know it will not be much longer than that. We are planning a trip to go to Yellowstone this summer, I have never been there, if anyone has any ideas to share please do so.

We love you all thank you for your continued support and prayers and patience on our behalf. (check back in a week or so I promise to be more consistent).