Happy Days!

Happy 9th Anniversary to Emily and Kevin! May the next 9 years be as fun as the first!

Happy ~th Birthday to Emily! Your birthday present is coming...

Home from the clinic!

So, its been quite a day, but we are home at last! We spent the night with Leah in Raleigh last night, and got to the clinic around 8:00 am. Grant is always a little queezy when we go to the clinic - his nervous stomach often gets the best of him. I can't imagine where he gets this tendency from;) So, after some anti-nausea meds and a very fun-filled sedation for a spinal tap and IT Methotrexate, we hung out for a while in the recovery room and got a little more anti-nausea meds and some Vincristine. We got a chance to visit our friend Colby and his mom and our friend John from Garner. We spent most of the day passing out Christmas gifts to our nurses and doctors.

The good news of the day is that Grant has been cleared to start school again next week, another baby step back to normalcy! His counts still continue to look good and he remains a textbook patient.

We had an OK trip home, until we hit Walmart to get prescriptions filled. This is when the nausea got the best of my little man! Fortunately, we were already back in the car AND we were at Walmart, so new clothes were only one swipe of Grandma's credit card away. You just can't script this stuff!

So, we are back at home now. My sweet husband has taken down my oh-so-dead Christmas tree for me! He's a good boy! Maybe tomorrow I'll get all of the Christmas toys to the proper bedrooms, and my house will begin to look a little more normal! And hopefully soon, life will return to a little more normal too.

Our next clinic visit will be January 22. We will continue to do daily chemo (steroids, mercaptopurine, anti-biotics, etc...) at home. Some of his meds will be do everyday for the next 3 years! Popping pills has become second nature for Grant, so he doesn't mind.

So, if I don't get a chance to post again soon, Happy New Year to one and all! May 2008 kick the pants off of 2007!!!!!

Merry Christmas from the Nelsons

Dear Friends and Family,

Merry Christmas from the Nelsons. We hope this letter finds you happy,healthy, and well. 2007 has been quite a year for our family! We thank our Heavenly Father for all of our many blessings and for the great love we have felt from our many friends this year.

As most of you know, Grant was diagnosed with T-Cell Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia in late April, just two weeks shy of his 5th birthday. As you may imagine, we were completely devastated! However, Grant responded very quickly to treatment and was in a technical remission in a week, and a full remission at the end of this first 28 days of chemotherapy. Since April he has undergone weekly chemotherapy at UNC Children’s hospital in Chapel Hill. After Christmas we will begin a more relaxed monthly schedule that will continue for the next 3 years. Grant has been a model patient and has an excellent prognosis for a full recovery. We are so grateful to the physicians, nurses, and staff who have helped to save his life and who have guided us through this tedious process. We also send our love to our many new friends we have made at the cancer clinic and remember our dear friends whom we have lost this year.
We express our deep appreciation to all of our many friends for all of the sweet acts of kindness you have shown to us. We love you all and could not have done this without you!

The other kids are doing well. Eden is in 2nd grade and loves Sudoku puzzles and spending time with her friends. She was baptized this past October by her father and was simply beautiful in her new white dress. Jacob will be 3 in January, and is in love with two things - his Grandma Susan and his Uncle Joel’s dog, Skully. He is quite a handful and keeps his mom busy, to say the least. Kevin continues to serve as the First Counselor in the Ward Bishopric and will celebrate his 8th Anniversary with Ecolab on January 1st. As for me, I am still teaching private music lessons at the Crystal Coast School of the Arts in Morehead City and keeping busy as a stay-on-the-run-mom!

We keep Grant’s blog updated almost weekly with news and photos. Please visit his website at http://www.grantnelson.blogspot.com/ so please check in! We love hearing from our friends and family!

We pray for another good year and for the Lord’s blessings to be with us and with each of you.

With love,Emily, Kevin, Eden, Grant & Jacob

Blankets!

Good morning! We are home from our weekly clinic visit. Grant's ANC was up to 1.2 yesterday, so we are breathing a little sigh of relief and are excited to be mask-free for the week.

The highlight of our trip was delivering the blankets that the sweet sisters of the Relief Society of our church had made for the kids. We felt like real life Santa's as we got the joy of passing out the beautiful blankets! Several of the kids wrapped up in their blankets right then and there! Special thanks go to all of our friends from church, led by my "Mama Marla", who gave so lovingly of their time to make this possible.

We also were able to visit with Colby yesterday. It was the first time that we had actually seen Colby since July. He has the shadow of hair growing back, and is doing great! Colby's grandparent's house was burned by an arsonist last month, so please say a special prayer for his family. The arsonist also set fire to the Fire and Rescue building in their home town, so life is more than a little stressful for his family right now.

The rest of the week looks pretty normal. We still have shopping to do! My piano recitals are next week, so I am looking forward to some wonderful performances from my sweet students. We had a great studio class yesterday. Its always so much fun when they're all together! We are also spending lots of time getting the Christmas Program ready for church and planning our family Christmas extravaganza!

Life is good! We are thankful for all of our blessings and our wonderful friends and family!