Candy Cane Lane

That's not the real name of our street. It's known as Candy Cane Lane though because every Christmas everyone that lives on the street puts up lighted candy canes in their yards. In addition to the candy canes, some of the home owners go "Clark Gridwald" as well. (Click on the title for more pictures.)

Snow Angel and New Teacher!

When you play in the snow, you just have to make a snow angel! Kerstin and Mom got to meet her new Home Bound teacher, Mr. Knobel. We think he is pretty great already. He is planning to meet with Kerstin every day. He will work closely with Mrs. Swiatek to help keep Kerstin caught up with all of her kindergarten friends. What a wonderful blessing! 

Playing in the snow

Kerstin has been begging to play outside in the snow, so we finally got out there for a bit today. Mom got to pull her around on the sled. Big fun! 

Christmas Tree

We put the Christmas tree up tonight. Little-by-little we are getting the rest of our inside and outside decorations up.

We Made It Home...Finally

Kerstin got discharged on Wednesday about supper time, but it wasn't soon enough to beat the snow storm that hit the Lincoln/Omaha area. We heard lots of reports of wrecks along the interstate and bad driving conditions, so we found a hotel and settled in for the night.

By the time we slept in, packed back up, chiseled the car out of the block of ice it was incased in, it was 10am when we got on the interstate. By then traffic was light and the roads had been cleared. Made it home in an hour and started the unpacking routine.

As far as Kerstin, her bone marrow biopsy came back clean. She is in complete remission. (Yea!!!) We are not scheduled to go back to the hospital until Dec. 27th for another 2-3 day stay. It will be good to spend Christmas at home.

Helicopter Landing

Kerstin has a good view of the helicopter pad across the street. There are not too many landings, but she got to see one today.

Learning to Swallow

It's not a very action packed picture, but it only took Kerstin one try to learn how to swallow. This new skill will help quite a bit in taking her medications now.

Playing Golf

... the card game. Kerstin has really been getting in to playing cards lately. She is getting pretty good at Golf and solitaire. Kerstin and Jeff got in a few holes of golf before bed time. (Kerstin got a few mulligans.)

Round 2

Kerstin is back in the hospital for her second cycle of chemo. She started the day off with a bone marrow biopsy and then up to the 6th floor for more pampering by the staff. The plan as of now is to be discharged tomorrow night. Two days and one night sounds much better than three weeks.

Thanksgiving 2005

Happy Thanksgiving!!! (a day late) The Leaf family did something on Thanksgiving that they haven't done for a long time: stay home and goof off. It was a very nice day for us. We slept in. Some friends from church brought us Thanksgiving dinner (Thank you Kruegers). Watched football and cartoons. Then Grandma and Grandpa Leaf stopped by to say hi and have a piece of pie. After the grandparents left, Kerstin's Uncle, Uncle's girlfriend, and Cousin came over. The girls showed us their own rendition of "One More Angel in Heaven" from "Joseph and The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat". Then all the ladies had to show off their new holiday scarves.

We hope everyone else had a wonderful Thanksgiving. We especially send our thoughts and prayers to those who were confined to hospitals, and to all the families that could not spend this day together.

God Bless You All.

Kerstin's Got A Date...

...with The Anchor. We got the call today that she is scheduled for her next marrow biopsy and round of chemo on Nov 29th. They are telling us that she will be able to go home the evening of the 30th as long as there is no reason to keep her. No U-Haul truck this time, we think just an overnight bag will do it :)

Home School'n

Just because Annie and Kerstin aren't at school, doesn't mean they aren't teaching and learning. In the hospital Kerstin got 45 minutes of school time M-Th. We are planning on doing at least that much when she is home. 

Pink Ribbon

Kerstin stopped on the way home from seeing the puppies to pose by one of the pink ribbons. (Thanks again Ron and Bonnie.)

Puppies

Kerstin got the "ok" to visit the puppies next door. The mother is a Golden Retriever/Poodle mix, and she was bred with a pure Poodle. (There are three males and four females for sale if anyone is intersted.)

Better Safe Than Sorry

Kerstin came in to our bedroom this morning and says, "I don't feel good." Turns out she was running a fever and didn't look very good either. We got ahold of the on-call doctor and she advised us to go to Children's Hospital ER for some blood work. Depending on what the blood work shows, she either goes straight up to 6th floor for admission, or back home. Turns out her ANC is over 1700 (which is great) and everything else looks good as well. They took blood for cultures and we'll know the results tomorrow. By the time we got to Omaha Kerstin's fever was gone and she was feeling better. The doctor says if the fever comes back, give her some Tylenol. So, we feel a little silly getting all the bags packed and driving up to Omaha, but... better safe than sorry. It was a good learning experience. I'm sure there are more ahead of us as we become more educated about the disease and Kerstin's individual signs and symptoms.

Doing What Girls Do...

...playing dolls and talking on the phone.

Kerstin's Bakery

Kerstin fills some of her spare time baking cookies.

First Night Home

Kerstin (and Annie) slept all night. Jeff got up a couple times just to look in on Kerstin and her sister. It was so nice not having "the anchor" beeping or the nursing staff coming in to check on her throughout the night. This morning Jeff and Annie got to prepare and mix up all of Kerstin's morning meds for the first time. We can see that there will be some trial and error until we find a good system. The day is off to a good start. Now we just need to tackle that truck load of stuff we brought home from the hospital yesterday. Thanks again to everyone for your prayers and support.

Kerstin is Home!!!

Dear Friends and Family,

There is no doubt in our minds that prayer is very powerful. Kerstin is getting to go home about one week earlier than originally expected! Her counts came up fast enough, and she has been without a fever long enough that the doctors feel she has recovered enough to get rid of “the anchor”. She is not without limits though. The doctors have placed criteria on where she can go, who she can be around, etc… It all kind of depends on her counts. (The counts if you’re wondering are her Absolute Neutrophil Count (ANC). There’s some math involved. ☺)

We are looking forward to getting her back home and letting life return to some sort of normalcy (whatever our new normalcy will be). Cards, letters, emails and telephone calls are welcome, but we will not be having too many visitors for awhile. We are sure you all can understand.

Once again we give thanks to God and to all of you for your prayers and support.

Jeff and Annie Leaf

Hair

Kerstin is started to get frustrated with her hair. It is falling out all over the place and getting in her face, her food, etc. Combing it helps get rid of the loose ones. She isn't ready for us to help her cut it all off yet. It won't be long now, and it will all be gone on its own. It's kind of a bummer, but we know that when she is well again, it will all grow back.