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....