Our trip to Hawaii:)

The whole family on the way to the Airport!

Well we did it!!! We are home, but we had a wonderful time! I have over 400 pictures in my Hawaii file of pictures, I won't try to post them all but, will try to give you a few of the fun one's and show you a small bit of all the fun that we had.  And it truly was a blast! But I think I want to show you the last picture I took rather than the first.  It will show you exactly how Ron felt when we finally got home.  Ron was worn out!!! Don't get me wrong he did have fun! But his body was pushed to its max I think this week.  He wanted to be with everyone as much as he could!

This is Ron (and Rocky) we got home at 8:00 a.m. on Sunday morning we took the red eye home.  

He stayed this way for a good 3 hours neither moved at all! 

So day 1, we stayed at a condo on Turtle Bay.  It was so perfect, we walked out of the back porch door, and walked 20 feet to a beautiful pool.  Or your could walk an extra 10 feet and you were on the beach! So needless to say we walked back and forth between the two places a lot.  It was so great we didn't need to get in the car to go any where! Except for the Matsumoto shaved ice that is! 

Airport waiting for the plane.

Our Beach!!! 

 Maggie decided to try the sand.  It didn't taste too good. 

 This is just outside our condo.  We really were so blessed! It was beautiful!

Day 2 we went to the Hawaii temple.  What a very special day.  Spending time serving was such a blessing! And then to have our whole family there, just added more to a wonderful day.

Lindsey and her girls.

 The top of the temple doors says, 

"Holiness To The Lord - The House of The Lord"

Ron and Lori in front of The Temple

Chase and Kaylee   ----  Logan and Lauren

 Preston and Lindsey 

 This was one of our favorite places to come! It's not just shaved ice it's so much better!!! If you go to Hawaii you must go here!  YUM!!!!!

Having so much fun on the beach! 

                                                            Emma and Grace found a turtle on Turtle Bay haha so much fun! 

Horse Back riding on the Beach too!!!

 

 Emma let Logan pull out her tooth! The tooth fairy was very good to Emma in Hawaii! 

An evening at Hawaii. 

 Who wouldn't want to grill with that view! 

The "original Beckstrand family:) We have a moto in our family "No Empty Chairs" and we are so happy that we have been able to add many more chairs to our table, both through marriage and grandchildren! We Love them All!!!!

Grace is not soooo light on her feet, she is always on the go, and on the ground!   She was showing us how she could twirl her dress and slipped and fell, she hit her eye and got a shinier! This pic doesn't show it as bad as it looked but it turned a nice purple.  Grace was actually quit proud of it! 

Last stop Friday Polynesian Cultural Center All kinds of Fun! Long Day!!!

Lindsey has told me many times that my blog gets boring because I don't put enough pictures on it! So I hope I haven't put an overload of pictures, but like I said, I took a lot! And this is just few! 

This spider was outside our door! The white lines are part of his web he made! I thought it was really cool! 

We had our own Hawaiian baby! But we deemed her our "goat" sorry Maggie she sounded like a goat when ever she cried for her Mom!  

We were so blessed to have Lauren join us! The wedding is scheduled for August 24th! So when the vacation is over we will now have another fun and very exciting thing to look forward to! We had a great chance to get to Know Logan's bride to be well this week! They are so happy and we are so happy for them.  She fits right into the family. And after spending a week with all of us she knows us well too! Welcome the the Beckstrand clan Lauren, we are so glad to add a chair for you at our table! 

 Chase and his sweet Kaylee girl!!! Such a fun and cute couple!!! They always keep us laughing! Chase and his jokes and Kaylee that she always laughs!!! 

 Pres and Diz and there 3 girls!! We love our grandchildren so very much!! We tease Lindsey that we are so glad she gave them to us (which we are) but we truly love her and Press too! They are such great parents! 

Love my girls!!!!

 Emma and her Hawaiian girl hair!

Just a few more fun pictures of the wild life we saw and fun on the beach before we had to come home! 

Turtle above seal below! The girls loved it!!!

 Pop and Maggie! 

 That is a seal behind them!!

 Fun in the sand!!

Ron always came everywhere we went. He was usually holding up the umbrella or the baby.

Chase was very proud of his dad....notice the shirt! He's trying to convert his dad to be a Kobe fan, I don't think it will happen!

And so this is all the SAD faces because we are now leaving for the airport to come home to cold and rainy Utah! But we really had a great time! What a blessing! 

Good bye to Condo 108 we had memories to last a life time!!!

Rons hands which have been so cracked and peeling are now nice and smooth! I think all the moisture in the air made them feel so much better! 30 years lots of ups and downs but all of them together!!! I love you Ron! Thanks for everything!!!

So we are now home and will begin to once again prepare for more treatments!!! We still have two weeks off before Ron goes back for his scheduled scans....MRI, CT, infusions and then the RESULTS!!!!! That will be the first week of June.  So we will now recoup from this wonderful trip and begin to gear up for that, until then we will keep everyone updated on anything else that may happen, you just never know! I am just so very thankful that we were able to have this wonderful vacation with only 1 black eye and a lost tooth! We have been so very cared for! 

FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT

Quick up date....

Who would have ever thought that back in October when Ron was told he had cancer, that we would be able to say, "How very blessed we are."  I feel like we have been given so many wonderful opportunities, these past few months that it is a bit overwhelming! So here we are, in Hawaii celebrating our 30th wedding anniversary, Ron's birthday, Mothers day and having a family vacation of a life time! The grandkids are having a ball, the big kids are too! Ron is feeling good and doing what he feels like doing, and what he doesn't feel like then he doesn't do! I have taken lots of pictures and will share when we get back but thought this one of me and Ron kinda says it all!  On the beach loving the evening breeze! 

Happy Birthday to Ron and Happy Mothers day to me.  

 We all got to go the the Hawaii Temple! It was so wonderful! 

Best day ever! Our whole family at such a special place! 

Like I said Ron is doing well.  Spending time with the family and really just watching everyone have fun! We are so very blessed.  Logan and his fiancé Lauren are to the left, then Preston, holding Maggie, Lindsey, Ron, me, Kaylee and Chase, Emma and Grace in front.  The whole Beckstrand Family. It feels good to take some time out of the fight and enjoy not having to go to all the appointments, doctor visits etc.  We know it will all resume when we get home, and prepare for session 4.  So we will begin to fight once more.  But until then Aloha!!!

May 5th home again...or not...

This has been a full weekend! Ron came home on Thursday, and was feeling ok, not terrible but ok.  Friday night our son Logan asked Lauren Moss to marry him, and she said YES!!! We are very excited about this, we love Lauren very much, and she fits right in with our family what a great day!!

Saturday Ron started not feeling well at all, meaning worse than before no improvement and a massive head ache! His BP was going up not down.  I called his nurse, and she told us to watch it if it didn't improve to take him to the ER.  Saturday afternoon we got to meet Lauren's parents who were in town for her graduation (so much fun, and congratulations to Lauren!) Evening came and a slight improvement so we decided to wait for Sunday and hope things got better.

Sunday morning no change in fact on a scale of 1-10, 10 being the worst pain Ron's head was at a 10!!!
So off to the ER we have been for the remainder of this day.  I was so scared that his brain had bled, or something like that because he was in so much pain.  They took him right back, something I'm not use to have happen at the ER.  Got him on some meds to help with the pain and find out what was going on.  The meds helped a lot took the pain down to 4 which is at least manageable, then they did a CT scan to check the brain, I was really in a panic, but good news!!!!! No Bleeding had occurred.  The brain is swollen but they think that is from the IL2, which caused the head ache, along with the high BP.  So they were able to give him some other BP medicine which began to work pretty quick, and gave him a prescription to help keep it down.

We are now back home after a very long day!  Ron is sleeping soundly for the first time in a few days.  I'm sure it will all be ok, once all this medicine begins to work.  I have to say I was very scared thinking about another brain bleed.  As always the Lord was with us today, as I was sitting in the chair in Ron's room feeling very overwhelmed, I had the most calm feeling come over me and I knew everything would be ok.  I am so blessed to know that my Savior will never leave my side.

As always don't stop praying for Ron, we felt the prayers today in such a wonderful way! Thanks to all that pray for him!

FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT

Day 4.... IL2 3B.... Going Home!!!!

This is a picture of Ron and I on day 1.  We have just arrived and getting things set up.  Ron looks great! Feels great and is ready for the week. 

 This is his medicine tree not too much on it YET.....

 This is Ron and I on day 4... he only got 2 doses this week but it was enough!  You can tell he's put on  some weight ... 14 lbs to be exact. 

 

 This is his medicine tree on day 4... a bit fuller than day 1, and I have seen it with a lot more than is here now!

Ron got a total of 7 doses between the two weeks he was here for this session.  When they said that sessions 3 and 4 are the worst they were not kidding!!! This has been harder for Ron, but in very different ways.  Nausea was a much bigger part of the weeks, and his whole feeling of just yuck was more, not that he didn't have that before but this time just seemed a lot worse! The doctor was however, very pleased with all that has taken place with Ron these last few weeks.

He is now getting ready to go HOME!!!! It will be so nice for him to get to have these extra days to recover, I have a feeling he's going to need it!  Then its off to palm Trees, beaches and sunshine!!!!

They are not going to give him as much time between this session and session 4.  He is scheduled for more scans the first of June and back in for session 4 June 10th, if all goes according to plan. Which I have learned to never count on.  However when he does session 4 the prayer is that he will be stable and begin just check up scans, etc.  He will always have to be getting his infusion for his bones once a month and scans a lot!!! But that is a lot better than ICU like he has been doing for the IL2.

May is going to go by fast I am afraid because we have so many fun things planned. But we will enjoy it and then get back to fighting cancer in June!  This has been a long 4 days and he still has much to recover from all that has gone on in these 4 days but he did it!!!

I wish I could explain in better words how difficult this really is, but I just don't have that talent.  Unless you have been able to see some of the things that Ron has gone through it is hard to understand, but I have seen it, and I will tell you that what he does is nothing short of a miracle! He is always so positive and up beat with all that they put him through.  Ron just says, "whatever we need to do lets do it, just don't hurt my only kidney."  He is so amazing!!!

As always we had the BEST nurses that there are in UTAH! They are all so kind and good with all they do to take care of Ron! Home is such a wonderful place!! Thank you all for all the love and prayers, they mean so much to me!!!

FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT

End of day 3

The update is....there is no update.  Ron's creatine level has stayed above a 2 all day, he has had labs 3 times and it has not changed.  Hopefully he can get some sleep tonight, they will redo labs in the morning 4:00 am and make a determination then to dose or not to dose.  Go home or not to go home, that is the question! Sorry for such little info I wish I knew more.  Keep Ron in your prayers, we are now just praying that they will know what is the best thing for him to do, I really don't know!

FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT

Day 3 of 3B.... May 1, 2013

It is currently 11:10 am on this Wednesday morning.  Last night they did Labs and they came back with his creatine at 1.7.  We thought wow this is so good, and began to prepare for what we thought would be dose #3 in the morning.  Labs were then taken again this morning at 4:00 am, and wow his creatine level had gone up to a 2.2 not good at all!  No dose and more waiting.  His blood pressure has been a problem this go around as well.  Keeps going down.  Utlra sound was taken of his bladder to make sure that was good and it was.

9:00 am more labs, and still no change in his creatine levels 2.2 and holding too high to dose.  It has to be below a 2 and Ron's is well above it!   They also don't like to dose if its been longer than 24 hours, Ron's last dose was yesterday at 2:10pm so, they are not saying he's done but he's getting close!  More labs will be drawn this afternoon before 2 and then the doctor will decide depending on his counts if he will dose again or go home.

We keep reminding ourselves it's not about the number of doses he gets its about the effect that he gets.   And Ron never lets us down.  It has been truly a miracle that he has been able to receive this treatment! And that it is working for him!

I wanted to thank all of the people who so kindly read this blog!  I try my best to keep it as up to date as possible, and to make it some what informative, and interesting as I can.  And it's also so nice that I don't have to explain everything that is going on over again.  I will give one disclaimer, and that is that I know I am terrible at spelling, and punctuation, so please forgive me for that.  I will say this blog has been great for us to keep our own record of all the goings on throughout this journey of Rons! And as I have said before he continues to amaze me!

Lindsey says it's boring without pictures so heres the most fun latest picture we have gotten and its not of Ron!  This is Maggie our youngest granddaughter showing pop how much she loves him!

FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT