April 22, Day T-4, Loved and Blessed

First things first...Hunter's campath drip started at 10:40.  It is almost 7, and he has had zero signs of fever, chills, or nausea.  Praise the Lord!  After rounds this morning, it was decided that Hunter should get a preventative dose of steroid before his chemo, not after five hours of battling chills and fever.  The way I understand it, Campath contains protein anti-bodies, which Hunter's body doesn't recognize and mounts an attack.  The "shake and bake" is from his body fighting off the foreign anti-bodies.  The steroids help calm his body's reaction to the battle.  Hunter feels groggy, with a headache, and full of medicine.  Understandable.

Typical Hunter, this is him doing lunges down the hall while today's Campath drips in.  He's one determined guy.  He fought yesterday, and he'll continue to fight today.

 And this is Jana and I, cheering him along.  We aren't supposed to touch him, so this is us not contaminating him.

Last night, after Hunter battled all day and finally kicked his fever, we were all emotionally and physically exhausted.  About that time, we started getting pictures of what was going on in Abilene.  

Our church organized a family carnival on our behalf.  Let me back up and say that the support we have received from Southern Hills has been unbelievable.  Before we left, we were prayed over and blessed  by the entire congregation.  A collection was taken up, and our freezer was filled to the brim with healthy food to feed our kids, as well as mom's freezer, and Mark's freezer.  We have been blessed with gift cards to our favorite restaurants.  On top of all that, our class at church is providing meals delivered to our house multiple times a week.  We are completely humbled at the way our friends have come to our rescue in our time of need.  I just can't really put into words the gratitude I feel towards our community at church.  Here are a few pictures we got from friends last night.

Someone forgot to tell Benton that butterflies aren't very manly....

twins had a blast in the jump house

the newlyweds:)

pretty little kitty

I'm pretty sure Clayton had a popsicle in each color

As you can imagine, this was the best medicine for us.  There was a lot of work put in to make the Hanner Carnival a success.  We are incredibly loved and blessed.
And then we got this video by email today.  Cue the waterworks.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nd8uMx4dojo

Sorry I couldn't figure out how to load the video right onto my blog.

We do have a specific prayer request for tonight.  Our doctor rounded tonight and said that Hunter's liver numbers were a little elevated.  We would love for that to get back into line.  His liver filters all the drugs he's been given and is getting quite the workout.  We would appreciate your prayers to have normal liver numbers tomorrow!
Love to all of #teamHanner!