Silly Saturday

Kerstin and McKinsey have been having fun spending the whole day together playing! Laundry baskets are one of their favorite toys! Ha! Barbies, Polly Pockets, Model Magic and having tea are all things they like to do together. It is such a blessing that they get along so well (most of the time:). Kerstin is feeling great. Her blood infusion went well yesterday, and she is starting to get some color back. Thanks so much for all of your prayers and good thoughts! Enjoy the warmer weather today! 

Playing with Big Sister

The girls had a nice time after school today and all evening playing with their "new" kitchen. Thanks to Ron and Bonnie for cleaning the girls' kitchen and dishes which had been used in the outside play house and were in desperate need of a good cleaning. The Polly Pockets enjoyed being played with as well. Kerstin had another good day today. She is starting to eat and drink more and has kept everything down! No headaches today. She did get her dressing changed (not fun) and labs drawn here at home. Her ANC has dropped from over 3,000 on Monday to 600. The chemo is definitely taking effect. Her hemoglobin is low, so we will get to go to St. E's for a blood transfusion in the morning. Keep us in your prayers and also consider donating blood or platelets in Kerstin's honor. What a wonderful gift to give!

Feeling better today

As you may be able to tell by the previous post, Kerstin is feeling much better today. She didn't eat a huge amount of food, but was able to keep everything down. She did get a headache late this morning and actually allowed Mom to give her some Tylenol. (I think she figured out that Mom and Dad are right - it makes you feel better - don't tell her we said so!) The visit from Abby really did a lot to cheer her. She also had a great time with her sister and Mom at our first Candlelighter's meeting. We all enjoyed a nice meal. The kids got to play and make an ornament while the parents had a meeting. Kerstin made it through the day without a nap, but was really wiped out at bed time. Thanks for checking on us!

A visit from Abby!

We had 2 special visitors at our house today, Abby and Kristi! Kerstin met Abby at Children's Hospital when we were there in October/November. They became fast friends and had a lot of fun together at the hospital. One of the best things Abby taught Kerstin was how to shoot water at the nurses with syringes. It was so nice to see Abby and her Mom today when they were in town for a doctor visit. They even brought us lunch and stayed to play and chat a bit. We are blessed to have such wonderful friends, old and new! 

What goes down just keeps coming up!

Kerstin hasn't felt very well today. It started at 4:30 this morning with a headache, neck ache and some vomiting. She hasn't really kept anything down today at all. Kerstin is having a stubborn streak and doesn't want to take any extra medicine for nausea or a headache. She has chosen to take a number of naps as she has just been pretty wiped out.
We got to visit the Infusion Center at St. Elizabeth's for a scheduled blood draw today. Her ANC is over 3000 which is great! She didn't need blood or platelets either. We expect that the chemo she got last week will start to bring her counts down in the next few days.
Thanks for all of your continued thoughts and prayers sent our way. It means so much to us! Stay warm!

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.