Updates & Prayers for Kenzi

 Another week has come and gone and it's been fairly uneventful, which we are extremely grateful for! I was able to sneak home for a couple days while Wes and Kenzi hung out together at the hospital. It was so wonderful to see Linden, Ayden and Beckham, but to be honest I felt a little lost at home. We are struggling with how to combine these 2 completely separate worlds.  Kenzi was feeling tired while I was gone and had a bit of jaw pain, which is a side effect of the chemo. She and Wes dyed their hair purple together and she even gave him a handsome haircut. When I came back on Thursday she had perked up and was feeling a lot better. She hasn't needed oxygen for the past 3 nights and when the doctors listen to her chest, they are starting to hear sounds on the left side again. God is so good and He is answering prayers!  Wes and I managed to sneak out of the hospital for an hour to check out the condo we will be staying in. It has a beautiful view and we feel so blessed...

Kenzi is officially done her first round of chemo. She handled it well so far, which we are thankful for. Just a few complaints. She's receiving some anti-nausea meds still and an injection to help her blood counts come back up, which aren't fun. The needles are the worst part for her.  We actually were allowed to take her out for a bit today, but she was feeling really tired so we just ended up walking around the ward instead. Maybe as the week goes on she will be feeling up for it. She is doing well for the most part. She usually needs a little oxygen during the night, but not during the day. She has also had 2 blood transfusions since we arrived a week and a half ago, to get her hemoglobin up. I'm sure she will be needing more as we go, so if you want to help in a practical way, please go donate blood. (Yes they have needles, but it's not that scary and they give you treats after.) I hope to head home to Vernon tomorrow for a couple days to see our other kiddos. It...

Today was Kenzi's first day of chemotherapy. She received 5 different types of drugs through IV. Some were chemo drugs and some were the counteract the side effects. She tolerated it very well so far, but this is all new, so we will see as we go. Tomorrow she will receive 2 more drugs and then have about 2 weeks to recover from this round. At the end of 2 weeks if all is well we will start with a new batch of different drugs over a 5 day period and again have about a 2 week recovery period before we repeat the whole cycle all over again.  We will continue to take it one day at a time and appreciate good days when we have them. Kenzi still has her spunk and is always making us and the doctors and nurses laugh. The staff here is amazing and we have such a great support team. (Below is Kenzi making slime and a lava lamp with one of the staff.) We are so thankful for all your continued prayers and messages. Please continue to pray for minimal side effects as Kenzi continues with treatm...

 God is good! He heard EVERY prayer that was sent up on Kenzi's behalf and we are so thankful! THE CANCER HAS NOT SPREAD!  It feels so good to share some good news and this was the best we could have hoped for at this point. The bone marrow was clear as well as the PET scan. We feel like a huge weight has been lifted and it feels easier to breathe. We are so thankful for answered prayers.💕 The road ahead will still be long and difficult, but for today, we celebrated with slushies (from 7-11 of course).  After we got the news, we carried on with our "roadmap" of treatment. We dive right into chemotherapy tomorrow, which is scary and relieving all at the same time. The plan is to do several courses of chemo to shrink the mass in Kenzi's chest, which is quite large. Once that is done, they hope to do surgery to remove the mass, then more chemo to kill any remaining cells. The course of treatment will take 8-12 months and will all take place in Vancouver, which seems so ...

 It's been a "busy" week, with a different test each day. It is something to get us out of our room at least and we are thankful for answers. Kenzi just had her PET scan this morning, so we will know later today or tomorrow if it has spread elsewhere in her body. It went smoothly and Kenzi had a little nap during the scan.  Yesterday was the bone marrow biopsy which they did in the OR. When they brought us down there, they asked Kenzi if she could climb from her bed onto the OR table (which isn't very wide). She happily obliged, jumping up and pretty much hopping across, while the entire OR staff reached out, gasping 😂. At least we know they were wide awake after that! She is still the same Kenzi, feeling well for the most part, which we are so thankful for in this moment. Wes came back yesterday afternoon after getting the kids at home settled. He knew that I needed him here with me, but it's hard for him to balance his time between home and hospital. (It's ...

 Sunday was a "quiet" day. Wes left that morning to go see the kids in Vernon and Kenzi and I hung out. She's super excited to play Minecraft and I actually had to drag her outside to sit on the patio with me. We had a movie night and we really felt God's peace that evening, so thanks to everyone praying for that.  Yesterday was hard. We had a meeting with the doctors. Her mass is called a ewing sarcoma, which is a type of bone cancer. The plan is to start chemo this Friday. Until then, they will be doing a lot of baseline tests. Yesterday she had a kidney function test, today is a bone marrow biopsy, which she will be put to sleep for and tomorrow is the dreaded PET scan to see if it has spread anywhere else in the body. Please pray that it has stayed in the chest cavity. Thursday will be a long meeting where they will lay out the "roadmap" of our treatment plan. They say to expect it to take the next year.  To be honest, it's too much to take. I don...

 This morning we were moved to the oncology ward. It was the plan to move us here all along, even before we found out the mass was malignant. It was supposed to happen yesterday, before we got the news and I wish it had. It made it so much harder knowing that we "belonged".  As we took the elevator up to the 8th floor and walked down that hallway, I felt like we were headed for a prison sentence. I think this is the saddest place on earth. To add to all my emotions, when they brought us to our room, I didn't notice the beautiful view, instead I looked down to the patio below. It happens to be the same patio where they delivered that news.  I was able to take a walk and talk to my sister, which does amazing things for the soul. We've settled in for the time being. We've unpacked our clothes and picked up some groceries. We video chatted with our kids at home, who we miss so much❤. We are continuing to prayer together and are relying on God to carry us through this ...

 It's the third day since this all started, but it feels like a lifetime. I had intended to post a small update earlier today, but now all those things that I was gonna say feel so unimportant. We were able to take Kenzi out onto a rooftop patio to enjoy the sunshine and as we were there the oncologist came with some news: It is cancer.  They don't like to use that word with kids, because childhood cancer is very different than adults and kids are super resilient, so when we explained it to Kenzi we avoided it and used the word "mass". No matter the term, it's a part of our lives now. We don't have any words, our hearts are just broken. We will hopefully learn more next week; what type of mass it is and how to best treat it. The plan is to send Kenzi for a PET scan on Wednesday to find out if it's spread or not. The oncologist is very optimistic, but it's still too much to process. Kenzi is a rockstar! She's feeling good and taking everything in st...

 After noticing Kenzi seemed short of breath a couple times Wes pulled out an old stethescope and had a listen. He couldn't hear anything on the left, even her heart, which was strange. I took her into the ER to get checked the next morning, Wednesday, April 14. Her hemoglobin was low and after taking x-rays they found out the entire left side of her lungs weren't functioning. They continued with a CT, called in the pediatrician and by 2:00pm they told me to have Wes bring some bags and we were off on an air ambulance jet to BC Children's Hospital. There is a mass of some sorts in Kenzi's left chest that is pushing her heart and trachea to the right. We are currently in the ICU so they can monitor her closely. She had a chest biopsy yesterday (Thursday) afternoon and they inserted a picc line at the same time. Wes arrived that same day after getting our other 3 kids settled and got here just a couple minutes after Kenzi came back from the surgery. She is breathing well ...