Blessed (Written over the summer)

 Tonight I layed, snuggling with my Ainsley in her hospital bed.  (She is receiving her last high dose of methotrexate!)  Tears rolled down my cheeks as I rubbed her back, and massaged her achy legs.  I am just SO grateful to be her Mom.  Ainsley is such a brave little girl.  I am so grateful that she was given strong spirit!  I know she will beat this, but watching her suffer is so painful.  I wish I could take away her pain.  I love my little bestie!
  I am also so grateful for my not so little family.  I am blown away with how much each of the girls have grown and matured.  Comparing this year to last year is night and day.  Last year, school was such a source of anxiety and now, it is something they love.  They have had to face some tough challenges, and they have done amazing.  I am so proud of my big girls!  Mr. Hudson continues to be nothing but pure joy to our entire family.  My friend even thinks he gives the perfect courtesy laugh!  I just think he know how hilarious Bryan and I really are!  Let me not forget my amazing husband.  He is my best friend.  I cannot imagine going through this without him.  He has so much stress and pressure to deal with on a daily basis, and yet he continues to be a rock for our family.  I am such a lucky girl!
 

Jumping Hurdles!!! (This was written about 2 months ago:p)

Ainsley has really jumped some hurdles in the past few months!  The biggest hurdle, being able to take her medicine!  She is such a champ!  She talks through how the process will go.  Then she takes a few deep breathes, and tells me "It's no big whoop, right Mom!"  And I say, "Right, you got this!"  A few more deep breathes, and then she will plug her nose (cause that helps her not taste the pill:)  and viola!!!  Down the hatch it goes!  Now, it has not always been this smooth.  Taking her meds, has been one of Ainsley's greatest challenges.  At first it would easily take 30 minutes to get a pill in her.  There was lots of crying and screaming and throwing up.  (Then we would have to repeat the process:(   But over the past few months she has slowly realized her own strength!  Instead of 30 minutes, it was taking more like 10-15 minutes!  She is champion of changing the subject and trying to make me laugh so that she can hold off on taking her meds!  She also yawns a lot.  I think it is a nervous thing....  Now, she will say, "Let's just take my medicine now so I don't have to worry about it!"  She is such a strong and courageous little girl!

Ainsley has also moved on to the next phase of her treatment.  She is in interim maintenance.   She has had to get some pretty rough drugs:(  The side effects have been body aches, hair loss, puffiness, hunger, and roid rage.  The steroids are slowly leaving her system, so hopefully she will be feeling a little more in control in the coming week.  Over the next month, we will spend a lot of time at the hospital.  Thankfully, only one over night though!  My Dad is coming to help out next week and then Bryan's parents will be here for a little over a week.  I am so grateful for our sweet and supportive families!  Here are some pictures from the past few months!

                                                            Ainsley's favorite pizza!

                                                       Mommy and Ainsley being silly:)

                                                 Ainsley and Boden (Besties!!) at the zoo!

 A common scene at the hospital!  Bryan has been amazing with working, helping at the hospital and taking care of things at home!

Ainsley and I LOVE to play I spy to pass time at the hospital!  "I spy with my little eye...."

We also love to play in the sun room!  We play the "guess which animal I am" game!  Thanks to a sweet friend Cheryl for teaching us!

Rapid Fire Update

Months . . . It's been MONTHS since I've been able to write an update about Ainsley.  This has been partly due to time, but mostly due to emotion.  For whatever reason I just haven't been able to go there...maybe more on that with another post.  For now, I'll just go for a rapid fire update.  

In June we had an amazing experience with the Angles for Ainsley's Army barrel racing event that my friend Carmen and her fantastic crew put together for us!  Over 150 horses came to run the barrels.  Our neighborhood and church friends went ABOVE and BEYOND in ways we never imagined.  Tubbs and Steed families, and so many more, we cannot thank you enough!

There were many highlights from that day:  Friends, horses, prayers for my baby girl...  One new friend drove Missouri to support our girl!  She was in the hospital and we were hoping to get her home in time to "see her horses run" as she had been telling us for months that she wanted to see.  That morning things didn't look very promising, but by that afternoon, and thanks to some fancy footwork by the nurses and doctors, she was able to be out that afternoon.  She arrived just after the last horse had run, but she didn't know the difference.  There were still horses in the arena and she was full of smiles.  Then, a fellow cancer survivor and barrel racer brought her horse over and asked Ainsley if she'd like to ride.  She led her around and you couldn't wipe the smile off of Ainsley's face.  She looked down, patted the horse, and said "this is awesome!"  Here's the picture of her on the horse.  As you can see, she came STRAIGHT from the hospital.  

A few weeks later we got to see fireworks!  Here in Owasso, they have the big firework show the night before the 4th!  It is AWESOME!!!  It's like Christmas Eve, it adds a whole other day to the celebration and gets you into the right mood for sure!  On the 4th of July we went over to our friends, Andy and Sarah, and had our own firework show, along with almost everyone else in Roger's County, where the high-flying fireworks are legal.  We had hours more fun!  Finally on July 6, we got invited to another firework show put on by some friends that run a firework stand.  They were firing off some of their left overs.  Ainsley was in heaven.  We held the drawing for the gun raffle that had been going for the few weeks before!  

The rest of July was a blur as we finished our preparations to move.  The lease on our home was finishing and we needed to lease a new place.  Now August is gone and we are in another house that better fits our day to day needs.  I'm so thankful for the many miracles along the way that made this move possible, especially in the short time-line that we had.  Many thanks again for the angel hands that have helped us in our move.  The kids are now in a new school and doing well.  

A couple of weeks ago we got to go to the PBR (Professional Bull Riders) event in Tulsa thanks to the Turn Tulsa Pink organization.  We got to see JB Mauney ride Bushwhacker!!!  (Reportedly the best bull in history and unridden since 2009).  It was exciting!   As we walked out at the end of the night, a kind stranger walked up and handed us a hat signed by all the riders that night!  It was a fun evening for us all.  The girls and even Hudson were troopers and stayed awake through it all.  

That picture wasn't meant to be a QT advertisement, but it looks good doesn't it?  Last week was a major accomplishment for Ainsley's battle with Leukemia!  She finished the 4th of 4 in-patient Methotrexate treatments.  Those are the weeks that have been the hardest for us since the first month of treatments.  Each is a 4-5 night stay in the hospital.  Thankfully Grandma Sue was able to be here for most of them and I was only on call for 2 of them.  The next round of treatments will be more outpatient based and only require a few overnight treatments.  There will be more at home medications as well.  

Today :) 8/7/13

A wise friend told me not to stress over "catching up" on the blog.  She said, just start from today!  That took some pressure off me!  Bryan has been really busy with work again, and has had some pretty big changes happening to his program.  He told me that he is having a hard time wanting to write.  He doesn't know why, because at first it was very therapeutic to write.  So, now you guys get to hear from me!  I am definitely to as eloquent, but I get the points across!

So, starting from today, we are finally in the hospital for Ainsley's third of four rounds of high dose methotrexate.  The common sided affects of methotrexate are mouth sores.  I'm not sure what is "normal", but she seems to get two or three bad mouth sores each treatment.  She has also complained of her legs aching.  I noticed that her right foot has started turning in much more than before.  The doctor says that the chemo can affect the muscle on the front of her leg, which then causes her foot to turn in and sometimes we might notice that she drags her feet.  I have been trying to help Ainsley stretch her legs and ankles and feet, so we can keep those muscles loose.

Bryan's mom, Sue, was able to be in town for this round of chemo.  We are SO grateful for all the sacrifices she and Terry, (Bryan's dad), have made!  Now that today, I have filled you all in, I will do another "catch up" post!  Ahhh.....  I feel so much less pressure!!!  Thank you to everyone for your continued love and support.  This is a long journey, and we SO appreciate every thought, and prayer!  Also, I would love to hear stories about how Ainsley's Army has given you strength.  If you have a story you would like to share, I would love to put it on the blog.  You can email me at btsmedley@gmail.com.  You put Ainsley's Army in the subject line!

I (Jenny), wrote this about a month after Ainlsey was diagnosed....

I have so many titles that could work perfectly for the feeling I have inside of me.  Here are a few to help you get a better idea of the week I have had!

"It's my way or the highway!"
"Count your blessings!"
"Padded room for one, please!"
"I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry, I'm SO sorry."
"Tomorrow is another day!"
"It's the small things."
"Angels on earth!"
"I think God was thinking of the wrong person when he sent this challenge our way!"
"Cancer affects us all."
"Thank heavens for Hudson!!!"
"Cancer sucks!!!"
"Ainsley is the bravest girl I know."

Tumultuous, in a word, is the feeling I have inside me.  I have felt like I have been failing, at every responsibility I have.  Thank heavens Becca was here for the beginning of the week, otherwise, I really may have needed a padded room!  She is so amazing at helping me see the positive in myself.  I know that my sweet HeavenlyI am quickly seeing how much cancer has affected our whole family.

Car Show, Concert, and Craziness!

First thing's first:  Tuesday morning we went in for Ainsley's bone marrow aspiration and to be admitted for IV methotrexate (4 day admission).  You would think 3rd times a charm, right?  Wrong.  In order to start the next phase of treatment she needed to have platelets above 75 and ANC (absolute neutrophil count--aka her immune system) above 750.  3 weeks ago the platelets were 7 and her ANC was 0.  The next week her platelets were fine, but the ANC was only 100.  Last week the ANC was up to 300.  Yesterday it had climbed, but only to 638.  So, again we had everything packed and arranged for admission and got sent home. 

My mom (Grandma Sue) has been here for the past 3 weeks helping us!  LOVE HER!  Thank you Grandpa Terry for sharing her with us!  The original goal was to have her here for 3 weeks, which would get us through 2 out of 4 of the next treatment cycles.  Instead, we didn't get any of the treatments done!  Oh well, sometimes the best laid plans of mice and men... We are sure grateful she has been here, though.  We don't know how we would have made it through the past two weeks without her. 

The good news is that since Ainsley has not been able to have another round of chemo for a few weeks, she is feeling as good as she has felt in a while.  She is starting to regain the weight she lost over the past 2 months (huge relief, because once the steroids stopped, so did her appetite).  She even got to finally ride the birthday bike that she got and that Trevor put together for her while she was initially hospitalized.  She has had a ball!

We had a visit the other day from Kayla, with Emmy's Heart.  She brought tutu's for the girls!  They LOVE them!!!  Ainsley wore her tutu all weekend!  She felt like a princess.

Over the weekend, our friends the Steeds/Tubbs families got a booth at the Collinsville Hogs n Hotrods car show!  We are overwhelmed by the outpouring of love and support we received.  The bracelets and head bands were good, but the 22 rifle and box of 22 ammunition were a HIT!  (They are being raffled off--Ainsley is drawing the winner on July 5th).  Randy, thank you for arranging that!

The most touching thing about the car show was the people that we met.  If you have been following the news lately, you will see that the people of Oklahoma are AMAZING and will do anything that they can to help you!  We had total strangers praying right there in the street for Ainsley! 

We want to give a special shout out to the Herron Crown Opry House in Collinsville, Oklahoma.  You have never seen such kindness and generosity.  Jenny and I got to attend their country music show Saturday Night.  They even raffled off a beautiful guitar on Ainsley's behalf.  All I can say is if you are anywhere near...you need to go see their show!  http://www.herronscrownoprytheater.com/ for more details.  The next show is on Saturday June 22.  If you are coming to the Barrel Race, you can go to the show right after.  It is just down the street.  Rick and the "Main Street Opry Band" put together a great evening.  While we were there, the band prayed for Ainsley.  We were so touched.  We got to see Allie Colleen perform.  Look out country music...she is AMAZING and we look forward to watching her for years to come.  There were so many people that were so kind and generous in thought, word and deed.  I know that they don't want to be singled out, so I won't.  But suffice it to say, there are amazing people in the Collinsville/Owasso area. 

Here are some of our favorite pictures from the past week:

The Barrel Race is Back On--Saturday June 22, 2013

Here is a map from down town Tulsa to the Collinsville Arena as well as an announcement.

Link to the arena information:
http://www.cvruc.org/ 

It's FREE to get in!  So come bring your whole family and share this!