November News...

John was able to go out Saturday to celebrate his mom's birthday! It was great to spend some time with him other than at dialysis, chemo, or doctor appointments! This week is going to be crazy because he has appointments every day! Monday Wednesday and Friday are his regular dialysis Tuesday chemo and Thursday a ROOT CANAL! Jeeze! But we do have some good news to report. His blood pressure is great! The nephrologist (kidney doctor) really worked at getting that under control ~ by challenging him in removing lots of fluid during treatments and changing his meds around. But now that it is back in the healthy range he is able to start to slowly reduce his meds for blood pressure! The biggest side effect that John has with chemo is extreme fatigue. It also makes him feel achy all over and uncomfrontable but he is really trying to stay focused on the end result! Another positive is that John will be having his next two treatments for chemo here in the valley! We were going to Tucson every week ~ that ends up to being gone for almost 12 hours! Now it is 15 minutes from our house! The 8th treatment will be back in Tucson on December 1st. John will be having a CT scan done before that treatment and we will meet with Dr. Brown to see how the cancer is reacting to the treatment.
Thanks to all that have and continue to keep us in your thoughts and prayers!

Friends!

Greg and Linda Zehring have been so great with weekly devotions and monthly cards full of encouragement and love! They always seem to send us something just at the right time! We are so blessed to have them in our lives! Thanks ~ We love you guys!

Halloween Half Bride Half Corpse

This was one fun costume ~ thank goodness my mom can sew! This is Alaina's attempt to get both what she wanted and what dad wanted! She wanted scary dad wanted sweet beautiful... Somehow I don't think he got what he wanted at all! It was fun though with lots of detail! It was a fun Halloween, but we missed trick or treating with dad ~ he wasn't feeling up to walking around this year... We are already planning for next year's costume! Don't throw your sewing machine away Nana

She looks so pretty, but check out the "other side"

The scary side!

They cracked me up ~ such pretty girls such scary faces!

Last Mud Day of 2009

Alaina and Julia love to play in the mud, but it got a bit too cold when it came to cleaning off ~ yes that has to happen before they come in to shower! Even though it was still in the 80's washing off with a hose gets a little chilly so this is the last mud day for 2009! ~ Sorry girls there is always next year!

When You Are Sick Snuggle... :)

Wow what a week! This has been a pretty rough time for the Abram family! John is having crazy high blood pressure again. It is so hard to get it under control once it starts this cycle. He is also really struggling on dialysis. About half way through he gets an extremely painful head ache, then his pressure starts to go high. We are working with his kidney doctor as well as the nurse to see what we can do to make it bearable for him and manage the pain as well as the pressure! When John had had his first cancer treatment called Nexavar his blood pressure went so high it lead to him having the seizures. After he went off of Nexavar we were able to work with his doctors to get it back to a reasonably healthy reading. After he started taking the new cancer treatment (Torisel) it is back to a very high reading! Another concern is the glands in his neck have started to swell on both sides! They are about the size of a golf ball! We contemplated going to the ER but John felt it would be OK to wait until Monday... So hopefully we will find out what the issue is with that tomorrow. He is really exhausted and a bit frustrated with all of this. We certainly could use some extra prayers sent our way!

Also Thursday night when Alaina got home from going to the movies with Grandpa John and Grandma Kay she said she wasn't feeling very good... sure enough by 11:00PM she had a temp of 103! She ended up having to go to see Rene and received not one but two shots! Ouch! Lets just say she and John both have a huge dislike of getting shots! You can always tell when she is sick because she actually sits down! The only thing good about her being sick is we had lots of snuggle time on the couch... ! Her fever finally is down today! :)

John and Alaina had been hanging out watching TV Sunday night when my mom said I think they may have falling asleep ~ sure enough I found them both crashed out with the TV blasting! I don't know how they do that. But they looked so cute I had to take a picture! :)

The Tooth Fairy Comes...Not For the Squimish

Alaina stayed up late last night because she thought she might swallow her tooth!

OK just pull it out!

Yes!!! All of the hard work paid off ~

It looks like she is gagging but she was keeping the blood at bay!

Absolutely love that smile!!!

Pumpkins ~ N ~ Friends

John and Wade both tried to hit the target with the tomato.... better luck next time!

She is so beautiful! Has more energy in her little finger than I do in my whole body~ even after coffee!

They were thinking when is this going to be over????

Daddy's girl for sure! I get the best smiles out of them when they are together!

Alaina loves all the action! The Egglets go a mile a minute ~ so fun :)

Info on Dialysis and Current Cancer Treatment

John with the staff at DSI ~

Hi! If you are like I was before March 1st, you do not know what a dialysis machine looks like or much about kidneys other than the fact that they help you in removing fluid! Well, if you decide to read this, you will know much more than you did before! First of all living without kidneys or kidney function is a miracle...but very difficult to do. The kidneys do more than just help you get rid of fluid. They also clean your body of toxins that are in all food. There are great foods out there like bananas, peaches, pears, potatoes, pumpkin. But they have high levels of potassium. Your kidneys excrete potassium out so they are healthy and not a harm to your body. However, if you don't have kidneys, you have to stay away from the high-level potassium and phosphorus foods (nuts, cheese, peanut butter, milk, beans) plus you are limited on the amount of fluid that you can have a day as well! (four cups of fluid a day) The reason you cannot have extra fluid is because your kidneys work 24 hours a day, and although it seems like John is at dialysis everyday, the truth is he is on the machine for only three days a week for 4 hours! The rest of the time fluid is building up as well as toxins. Extra fluid is very tough on your body. Once your stomach gets too much fluid it starts to "go" into your tissue and it will eventually make your blood pressure get high as well. I am going to type this in caps JOHN ROCKS AT doing everything he can to make living without kidneys easier! He cracks me up sometimes because he looks at some of the other patients that are IN dialysis and they are eating stuff he knows that they shouldn't ~ he is like, "man, don't they know that they should not be doing that???" It makes him sad in a way because they have this shot at life and they don't seem to care. But enough about others; this is about John!
Right now he is doing pretty good. He seems to be tolerating the new cancer treatment. It is a type of Chemo. The name of it is Torisel ~ it is an injected drug so... for the time being, we are going to Tucson every Tuesday. (Makes for quit a bit of time away from the house ~ with dialysis three days a week and now this.) But, we are all trying to make the most of every situation! He really does seem to be doing well other than his blood pressure is very very high at times and he seems to be sleepy a bit more... but he continues to work and still has that beautiful smile that I fell in love with! ~ Keeps him from getting in trouble :)

Mud Buds!

Yep they all had to take a shower outside!!!

OK still beautiful even dirty!!!

Payton and Alaina making their own river

Buttercup getting her frustration out!

Blue Eyes

Alaina LOVES her Grandpa!!! ~ and he thinks she is pretty special too! :)

Grandma Kay has her own story of surviving caner!

John is surrounded by the love of family!

John's darling Grandmother....

Daddy & Alaina!

Hi! So here is my blog finally! (thanks much Lisa!) John just got out of the hospital again (his third time in ICU since April!) He started an oral tablet that we hoped would kill the cancer, but it made his blood pressure go through the roof and on Friday the 18 he had two seizures! After 4 days in the hospital we went to Tucson to see what other options we have. As soon as his blood pressure is down he will start on an IV drug that we pray will do the job without the major side effects!

We want to send out blogs so that it will be a fun easy way to keep family and friends up to date on John and our family! It is also our desire that the way John and our family is responding to this disease will inspire you!

We also want this to be a way to thank all of you for your support and love! John and I are so blessed to have the family that we have! Everyone in our family would be here for us in a minute if we needed ~ and they have been! Our friends are just as wonderful my heart is filled with unexplainable emotion as I think of all of the visits to the hospital, phone calls, letters and prayers that have been sent our way!

~ I would like to get pictures of everyone that I can on this blog so if you are not on it send me a picture!

Be sure to start at the beginning of this blog and work your way up!

Nana's Birthday!!!

Nana spends more time at our house than hers anymore! We love you!!!! And happy birthday

Debbie Dean & Ella came for a visit

Cousins! :)

Family!

Yummy seafood! And even better company!