One week down, one to go!

I got chemo shots (ara-c shots) Monday through Thursday this week. Today was the last shot for this week. I am looking forward to a better weekend than this week. Next week I get the shots again Monday through Thursday. I am looking forward to getting the very last ara-c shot i will ever get on Thanksgiving day. Please pray that I feel good while my family is in town and my counts are high enough to keep me from getting any infections. Our God is an awesome God!
I thought i would post a recent picture of me. This is me and Hallie, one of my best friends, up at her cabin in Pinedale. We had a blast riding around in my Samurai.
25 days left! Whoo-hoo!!
In His hands~
Nat

Our God is an awesome God!

I thought that I would update the blog today just to change things up. Today we found out that my counts are good enough to continue this phase, which means this phase will end on December 14th! I go in for a spinal tap and some other chemo on Monday. The next couple weeks I will also be getting daily chemo shots at home. We have lots of family coming into town for Thanksgiving, so please pray that I feel good and my counts stay stable while they are here.
I am going to physical therapy three times a week, and my feet are greatly improving. My goal is to not use the wheelchair when i go back to school on January 4th. Doing my school work from home has been very nice.
In His healing hands,
Natalie

TODAY IS DAY 16

We are closing in on completing 16 days out of this 57 day phase. So far things have been going great. Natalie has had a little upset stomach the last two days and her appetite is not as good but she feels pretty good and really doesn't complain about it. She is back on steroids this week along with two other chemo's she got yesterday. She does have some hard stuff coming up later in this phase so hopefully she will just keep sailing right through. It has been so nice having her feeling pretty normal the last month or so. Her feet are continuing to improve and she is walking more and more. That in itself makes her feel better. We would love you to pray for the following:
1. continued success during this phase
2. no nausea
3. feet to keep improving
4. spirits remain high
5. 100% cure!!!!
Thank you so much for praying with us and for us. God is good and He is doing great things with Natalie.

Who' s Counting? We are!

Today is day 55. So far, so good. Natalie is feeling good and going strong. We went to physical therapy today and they are so pleased with her progress. She is walking so much better. We are all super excited about that. Her stomach feels good so far and all is good. They told us that her counts would drop after a couple of weeks so hopefully we can get through that without an infection and just plug away. Please pray that she has no big side effects and gets through this easily. She so deserves a break. She has had some rough times and some big side effects. Please pray ~ No fevers. Fevers mean hospital stays and we have had enough of those. If all goes well, and it will, then 57 days is complete on December 14th. Sometimes during the phases if your counts are too low they hold the next chemo until they come up so we have to pray she stays on track and it will be a MERRY CHRISTMAS at the Erwin house.

No News is Good News!

Sorry it has been so long since my last post. We have had a wonderful couple of weeks. Natalie has felt great. We increased her physical therapy to three times a week and you can sure see improvement in her walking. We are anxious, and nervous, and excited, all rolled up into one for the phase to start on Monday. This phase will last 57 days and believe me there will be a countdown chart hanging in the Erwin house. We are so ready to be told...."Natalie is now on Maintenance." Can't wait for that. They say life should feel pretty normal then. Hair grows back, feel good, back to school, normal stuff. SOOO EXCITED! This has been a long journey but we can now see light at the end of this horrific tunnel and it feels good. We trust God to see us through and are excited to see what is next for us. It has got to be good, right? Thanks for praying and we ask that you pray now for October 19th to go smoothly and the following 57 days. We ask for Natalie to have little or NO complications or sickness. She gets a spinal on Monday and starts all the new meds. We pray that that goes smoothly and Natalie comes out smiling! Thank you so much for your faithfulness. We couldn't get through this without you all.
Love the Erwins

Oh What a Relief!

This past week as been so great. Natalie has been feeling really good and we are so glad. She even had chemo last week and she has it again tomorrow but she has been feeling great. She soooo badly needed this. We all did. We are wrapping up this phase and we will be starting the final phase soon. Final before maintenance that is. We still have two years of maintenance left. Thank God that is only once a month and they say you go back to normal life as you knew it and it doesn't really effect your everyday living. We are ready for that! The phase we are getting ready to start is called "delayed intensification". It is similar to the first month of treatment. They hit you pretty heavy so it is supposed to be one of the harder phases. We will just wait and see because so far the phases that were supposed to be easy have been terrible so we are hopeful that the hard phase is going to be easy. Nat handled the first month really well, the only reason we were in the hospital for most of it was her pick line kept getting infected. If we can stay away from infections in her port, hopefully she can sail right through.
We met with her school yesterday and got "homebound" set up. We are going to do that until after Christmas break. That will get her through the next phase and lighten her load. We are hoping after break she will be good to go back to school and start living her normal life again. So, if you will, please pray things keep going great like they have been for the past week and that we get through this next phase with flying colors. No fevers, no nausea, feet get better, smiles stay bright and life will be good. Thank you all so much.

HOME SWEET HOME!

We finally got to come home today and I can't begin to tell you how happy we are. Being there for almost two weeks is way to long.
They did an ultrasound on Natalie's stomach to make sure all is well there and thank God it is. Her pancreas is irritated from one of the chemos but it should get better within the next 4 - 5 days. She hadn't eaten much for over a week so introducing food to her system again is rough on your organs. We just have to watch what she eats and take it slow. We had to promise the nutritionist at the hospital that we would give her two Jamba Juices a day for the next few days so we know she is at least getting 600 calories just from those. We go back to the doctor on Friday for a check up and are hopeful all counts will be normal again and we can move forward and GET THIS OVER WITH!