James has Wilms' Tumors (Update 6)

Happy New Year! In our last update we shared that James completed radiation treatment for the tumors on his lungs. Since our last update, James has continued to have chemotherapy treatments, and his last chemotherapy appointment is on January 30.

We were able to complete a scan of his lungs to see the impact of the radiation: The lung tumors did not melt away or shrink, but they appear to not be growing, which is good news. The doctors were able to all come together after the Christmas holiday to make a plan and shared that they would like to perform surgery to remove the tumors in his lungs. The plan is to have a surgery to the left side first on February 17, give James some time to recover, and then have another surgery to the right side on the week of March 6. The doctors believe that after the surgery James will continue to have 100% lung function capacity, which is also good news. It's been a long journey for us, but it's hopeful for us to have an end plan and we hope that treatment will go according to plan. The hope is that we will be done with active treatment sometime in March.

Our family had a nice Thanksgiving and Christmas this year at home. For Christmas we spent a lot of time with my parents who live close, my brother and his wife, and my younger sister. David's parents joined us from Las Vegas for Christmas day where at church David and his dad sang "Mary Did You Know". It was James's first-time attending church in person in a long time (the doctors have asked us not to take him to church because of his immunosuppressed condition). We used to call James our "secret baby" because while we knew about him, no one else had seen him because of home church previously. We hope to be able to go to church as a family later this year.

Here are some photos of our family:

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Camping Adventure at Penrose Point State Park

This past weekend Mr. D and I went camping at Penrose Point State Park with a family we have been friends with for almost three years! We decided to carpool there together with our camping gear and all seven of us in their van. After we got there, we made hotdogs for dinner, s’mores and cobbler for dessert, and enjoyed spending time together in front of the campfire. The following morning we walked over to the water and had fun discovering crabs in the rocks. Here are some of the photos from the trip: Checking out an alive sand dollar Looking for crabs on the water Crazy tree and roots This was the website we used to book the reservation: https://washington.goingtocamp.com/PenrosePointStatePark -Mr. D and Mrs. M

Our Backyard Chicken Adventure

Back in February I told David we should get chickens! He told me the egg shortage would end soon and that we wouldn't save any money having chickens. He was 100% right (there are a lot of fixed costs with raising chickens like building a coop and run, but afterwards the expenses are not too bad) and the chickens have been a lot of fun. Turns out there was a lot I didn't know about chickens and I greatly enjoyed learning about them! For example, I learned the following: Why are grocery store eggs white? Most eggs we eat come from white leghorn chickens, which lay white eggs, but different chicken breeds lay different colors. Meat Chickens vs. Egg Chickens - Humans have cared for chickens for a long time. Some chickens are bred for their meat (think Cornish cross) and others for their eggs. David and I are not excited about processing chickens, so instead we went for chickens that are egg layers. Egg production vs. Collecting the rainbow of egg colors - We decided we wanted a mi...

Neil's friends visit

Our friends from Seattle were in town visiting for a work conference in Park City and they stopped by our home and stayed with us for a day. We loved seeing them and getting to have our boys play together. There was a lot to do at our home-- play with legos, practice baseball, enjoy the chickens, and read together. Hope to have them visit again next time they are here for a work trip or to ski.

Mr. D and Mrs. M

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