CANCER FREE!

It is true! I am Cancer Free! We found out the results of the PET scan last week! I am so happy and so so so so thankful! Thank you so much to you all for your prayers, and the many other ways that you have helped. We have been so blessed to have such a great support system of family, friends, community, and church. It really feels like a weight has been lifted from my shoulders. I know that this will not be the end of all of our trials and challenges, but it is the end of a difficult chapter. I have learned so many things, and I have met so many great and amazing people.

A.J. is continuing to grow bigger and bigger everyday. He loves to read stories, sing songs, and of course play ball. He loves JonAaron so much and whenever he comes home from school A.J. immediately wants to play with daddy. He runs so fast everywhere now, it is hard to keep up with him in places!

We have had fun this year with the MBA wives group. We have gone to the park, gone on hikes and been to other fun events. It is nice to have other kids for A.J. to play with during the week when we miss our family and friends.

School is going good for both of us, it is hard to believe that the semester is almost halfway over. We have been so busy! But the good kind!

I am wanting to celebrate somehow so if you have any ideas let me know! Thank you again to everyone for your support, it has meant more than you will ever know!

Summer Break Almost Over!

I haven't been very good at updating this, in fact Jessica said that I need to update it more! This summer has been really good for us!

A.J. is the one in our family with the really exciting news, HE CAN WALK!! He is so cute the way he gets so excited! Next week he is turning 1 years old. I remember thinking when I got sick that if I could make it to his birthday, I could make it through anything. I am so excited to have a birthday party for him. It is going to be a Mickey Mouse Party. He loves Mickey mouse. He can also hold up 1 finger when you ask him how old he is.

Not surprisingly his first word, besides Da da and ma ma was Ball. Even if he is throwing a tantrum if JonAaron asks him to go play ball, he stops crying and crawls (now kind of walks too) over to his little fisher price basketball hoop and puts the ball in the hoop with JonAaron.

I can't believe that a year ago he was just this little baby boy and now he isn't a baby anymore! Time goes by so fast!

School starts up next week for me, and the following week for JonAaron. The break wasn't long enough. The crazy thing is that we do not know where we are going to be next year! But we will both be graduated! YAY!

I am in remission right now, and it has come with a lot more emotions than I expected. There is always a fear that it will return, in fact we thought it had come back so we did some tests early. They came out positive, but there is still a fear in the back of your mind. We got told that we will have to wait awhile to try and have another baby. As selfish as I am, I was a little upset by it. You would think I would learn by now that Heavenly Father has his own plan for me, and it doesn't always coincide with my plan.

My hair is starting to grow back, it is a shade or two darker and it is curly. I don't mind how it looks, sometimes it is cute, but the biggest problem for me is that it is a reminder of what has happened to my family. But I remember thinking a thought about how honored I was to shave my head alongside all the other cancer fighters, and it made me proud to have the experience with them. There is a picture in my Mother in law's house that is of the Savior and it says, "I never said it would be easy, I only said it would be worth it."

Lately my thoughts have been with other cancer fighters that I have met, many who did not win their fight, or who know they will not, or who do not know yet. I wish I had more words to say than that I hate cancer and that I wish they did not have to go through it. Hopefully I can help with my career choice to make it easier for families and fighters!

On a brighter note, I am trying to strengthen my lungs by running (ok and walking)

Middle of Summer!

Busy Life!

Hello! So much has happened in the last few months. A.J. is crawling now, and he is almost ready to walk! (AAAHHHH!) He gets into everything, so JonAaron and I have had to baby proof our house.

We went to St. George a few months ago as well before I started Radiation! Thanks so much to Josh, Jennica and Abby! We had so much fun staying with you guys! A.J. really loved Abby, it was really cute.

I have started Radiation, in fact I only have about a week left. It is definitely better than Chemo! It burns my throat, and it is hard to swallow, but it really isn't too bad. The people at Huntsman are awesome! The whole process of radiation therapy looks a little strange. They make a mask that goes over your head and neck. It hooks into the table that you lay on so you don't move and they can hit the same spots every time. They also bind your legs so you don't move. The whole thing takes about 15 minutes, so it's not bad at all. Better than 2 hours of Chemo! (yuck it makes me sick to think about it!)

JonAaron is still waiting on a few internships, we don't know if we will even go, but it will be exciting if we do.

We took A.J. to the zoo last week too with some friends and family. It was fun, but I don't think A.J. cared too much. We got a year pass to the zoo, though so if you want to go, let me know! I would love too!

Thanks again to everyone for all you have done for us! We are so lucky!

P.S. I would love to look at some of your blogs that are private, the address is jonaaronpaulsen@gmail.com, so if you could add us, and then let me know that would be great! Thanks again!

AJ at the zoo with Dad!

Alligator!

Radiation

A.J. and his cousin Marissa! So Cute!

A.J. talking to Abby!

Finally Spring!

Hello! I hope everyone is doing great. We have been really busy over these last few months. I ended up in the hospital for a week because one of the chemo drugs started to shut down my lungs. Thank you to everyone who helped us out and to the wonderful hospital staff and doctors. I will continue to have lung problems for awhile, but I am doing much better. The best news is that I am all done with CHEMO!! I cannot believe that I made it to this point. I remember looking back around my 5th treatment and I didn't think I would be able to handle it. It feels so good to be done! I will start Radiation pretty soon, we are meeting with the Radiation therapist next week.

A.J. started crawling last week too! He gets into EVERYTHING, but it is so much fun to watch him get around. He is getting so big! We are already working on getting him to walk, but I think that will take awhile.

JonAaron and I finished up our school semesters. It will be nice to have a break and have some fun this summer, especially after a rough year. Hopefully we will get to take some great vacations, and swim a LOT!

Happy Easter!+

New Year

These past few weeks have been full of ups and downs. We had our first Christmas together as a family! It was fun even though A.J. probably didn’t care too much. My work CVU4 did Christmas for us, and they went way over the top! It really made us feel so special at a time that has been really difficult for us. They are great and wonderful people.

We got to spend some time back in St. George! I miss the weather there, even with the flooding, which was pretty amazing to see all the damage! JonAaron and I walked a Golf Course that had been right next to the river. The riverbanks were torn away and the golf course was flooded at areas. It was nice to get some time away from the snow!

The holidays were great. We got to spend time with lots of friends and family. We made up a game for JonAaron’s family based on the show Minute to Win It! It was a lot of fun!

JonAaron has started up school again; I don’t think the break was long enough! He has also joined the dodge ball and basketball leagues. We are looking forward to going to the games.

A.J. is still wonderful! He started to sleep through the night, and it has been great. He can laugh now, and it is the best sound in the world. I can’t believe that he is going to be 5 months old! He is also starting to eat foods. He likes sweet potatoes, but he is not so fond of the rice cereal.

Treatment is going good, I am now halfway done! The last treatment was the hardest. The chemo IV came out of my arm and it burned me. It caused me to get a fever that lasted for a few days. The Chemo also was burning my kidneys, so I had to drink lots of water! Thanks to mom and Sarah for coming to the rescue last week. JonAaron really got me through this last one too, even though it was his first week back at school. It seems like I always throw something on him at the start of the semester! (last semester A.J. was born the first weeks!)

To be honest, I wanted to get on here and complain about how awful cancer is, and how hard it is, but there are a few lessons that I think I need to learn. I have had the opportunity these past weeks to meet some wonderful people who have been diagnosed as well, One of them does not know if she will make it, and the other one I met will not make it. It really put me back to when I first found out I had cancer. I was wondering what my life would be like if I only had so much longer to live. What would I want my family to know? How would A.J. ever know me? I am truly grateful that my cancer can be cured, and my prayers go out to those that are fighting even in the unknown, and that they will find a cure!

On the positive side! I am looking for ideas to celebrate when I am cancer free! If you have any ideas let me know! It will give me something else great to look forward to!

Almost Time for Christmas!!!

I probably won’t get around to updating this for awhile, so I better do it now! The next few weeks are going to be busy ones. My next treatment is this Friday. It’s number five! By the end of December I will be halfway done. On January 27^th (my birthday fyi!!) I will finish my 8^th treatment and I will undergo tests again to see where the cancer is at. I am hoping my birthday present will be that it is almost gone!

JonAaron is in the middle of finals this week. I can’t believe that the first semester has gone by. It has definitely been a crazy one for him. He has been amazing through this semester, in school, being a great dad, and supporting me. He will be going to New York sometime in January to meet with some companies, and then Boston later on. We will also find out where his internship will be pretty soon.

A.J. is great as well! He smiles and loves to play! He is growing so fast, and it has been a blast. I am looking into taking some swim lessons with him in the next few months. I can and cannot wait for him to get older. He has so many friends and cousins around him that he is going to love playing with. As long as he still likes to cuddle up with his mom, then I am happy.

I did wait to put up our Christmas decorations until after Thanksgiving, but it was hard to wait. I also went black Friday shopping for the first time. I did not want go after any hot item, I did it more for emotional support of JonAaron and his brother in law Jayson. (but thanks to my sister-in-laws for the Old Navy pajamas!) I think that everyone is crazy to wake up and wait outside in the freezing cold weather! JonAaron and I were huddled up in a blanket and we were visiting with the people next to us in line and the woman said to JonAaron, “oh your poor wife.” Because I looked cold, and JonAaron responded, “Yeah, and she’s got cancer!” We all started laughing, even though we had to explain that I really did have cancer, but it was funny. She said she hoped that I got the $500.00 gift certificate, but I didn’t, I got a $10.00 one and bought some socks!

Treatment is going good. The doctors are very positive about my progress. I will be honest that I have good days and bad days, I wish I could be stronger sometimes, but I think that is why I have so many people around me that care and love me. Your prayers and thoughts really help me through. I also am grateful for a great husband and little boy. They are the strongest reasons that help me through this and they along with all of your thoughts and prayers will be the reason I will beat this!

Wow enough of all the emotional stuff! I hope that you all have a great Christmas! I am looking forward to our first one as a family. We are also going to go to St. George and visit with some friends in between treatments. It will be nice to get away for a little bit and enjoy some warmer weather!

Merry Christmas!

Happy Thanksgiving

Hello everyone! I first of all want to say thank you to everyone that has helped so far. We are so grateful for all the help, time, meals, donations, and prayers. I am doing really well so far. This last treatment had its ups and downs, but it is nice to have another one done with. We bought a wig last Monday, although it should be awhile before you will be able to tell I am losing my hair, but A.J. is still helping.

Today JonAaron and I celebrated our 2nd Anniversary! So much has happened, and it has been the best and funnest time of my life. It has gone by so fast and so much has happened! We went out to dinner on Friday night, (which in Orem means you have an 100 min wait at Texas Roadhouse! But it was good!) to celebrate. A.J. was actually pretty good!

A.J. is doing awesome. He is getting bigger and stronger every day. He will be 3 months old this week on the 24th! He is starting to sleep a little better through the night. Usually for about 4 hours then 3 hours, then he likes to get up to play about 5 am. We are working on shooting for a few hours later! He smiles all the time now, he loves to play with his toys and he is getting better at controlling his hands, even though he hits himself in the head quite a bit. We are working on him knowing his name.

JonAaron is still working really hard at school and finding an internship. They usually hand them out in January. We are really getting into basketball again this year! Hopefully we will make it to a few Jazz games this year!

This week I will be decorating for Christmas! I will wait until after Thanksgiving, but not too much longer!

Thank you again to everyone! Happy Thanksgiving!

Sorry it has taken so long to update this. Time is going by really fast. First of all thank you to everyone that has helped so far. I cannot tell you how much we appreciate it. Thank you to all of those who have offered to help as well. We have received so much love and support.

I just finished my second round of Chemo. It was worse than the first one, but it is another one down! I have figured out that it will affect me for about 5 days total. The first day is the day I receive treatment. This day I am mainly tired and nauseous. The second day is a bit better. I have a lot more energy. The third day hits the hardest with fatigue and nausea. The fourth day I am tired, but I feel a lot better, but my mouth begins to get sore. Day five is the worst of the mouth pain, which makes it hard to eat and drink, but it usually subsides a lot by the next day.

The doctor said that everything is going great. He said the tumor is probably about half the size it was! My hair is starting to thin out, A.J. is helping by pulling some out too. Everything else with the treatment is going well. Just 10 more to go! I am still able to continue in school, and it has been going well. All of my instructors are supportive.

JonAaron has been really busy with school. It has been midterms these past few weeks. He did get to go to San Francisco and meet with some great companies. He also got to meet Steve Young, which is pretty cool. Only about a month left until his semester ends. We will be looking more into where his internship will be this Summer! I am really excited for it, I think it will be a great experience and possibly lead to a great job.

A.J. is growing so fast! He had his 2 month doctor's visit last week and everything is going great. He was so brave with his shots, he only cried for a little bit. He is still not sleeping as much as I would like him too at night, but it is supposed to get better. This past Halloween he was the Utah Jazz bear. He can also smile and "talk" a little bit! We are really looking forward to our first Holiday season together.

Thank you again to everyone for helping out and for your love and support!

Treatment Schedule

Please comment to let us know if you can help out any of the days listed below. There will be a good amount of help, so please try not to inconvenience yourself too much.

Driver will need to pick up the other person and then drive to LDS Hospital to meet Kate there at 11 AM. One of the two will take AJ (if he is there) and head to our place in Orem in either their car if they have it, or Kate's car to watch him. The other person will stay with Kate until she is done (about two hours) and then take her home in the car that is left there. Both people can then go home if they want to. (Anticipated time: Leave your home at 10:00 AM, return home at 4:00 PM)

Theses are the anticpated dates of the treatments. We need a driver, someone to stay with Kate, and someone to watch AJ. Obviously, the driver will also be either the one staying with Kate, or the one watching AJ.

11/4
11/18
12/02
12/16 We don't need anyone to stay with Kate on this day, just someone to watch AJ.
12/30 We don't need anyone to stay with Kate on this day, just someone to watch AJ.
01/13
01/27 Kate's Birthday
02/10
02/24
03/10
03/24

Updates

Hello again. This past week has been a long one. I finally finished all of the tests, including one where I couldn't touch A.J. for 24 hours. Thanks for taking care of him Aunt Trulee, it was his first sleep over. I am really glad that is all done.

W e have some new information and a set plan now. We met with Dr. Morgan yesterday, and both of us were very impressed with him. His office is also very friendly. We found out that the Hodgkins lymphoma is State 2 B bulky. This means that I have multiple sites, (stage 2) somewhat symptomatic, (B)and I have a large tumor that is is considered bulky inside my chest. This was the news that we expected to hear. He said the treatment we will be doing is Chemotherapy and after some radiation therapy. It will talk 6 months of Chemo followed by 3 weeks of Radiation therapy. Hopefully I can be all better by A.J.'s first birthday!

The worst part of the whole appointment was the bone marrow biopsy. It was definitely not as bad as I thought it would be, but it was not very pleasant either.

To Our surprise we were able to start Chemotherapy right there. It was pretty good and no problems went on. Last night I just felt tired and a little nauseous. This morning followed with more nausea, so I take some medicine for it.

We are going to try to do Chemo every other Thursday at 11:00. If you could help let me know. We would need someone to watch A.J. and someone to watch me during chemo. No pressure for anyone to help, but if you can we would love it.

Sad News

I am sure by now most of you have heard that I have been diagnosed with Hodgkins Lymphoma. We are very optimistic and from the research we have the the prognosis looks good. It all started back in June when we found some swollen lymph nodes. We went to a few doctors and ended up at an Ear Nose and Throat Specialist. We tried several antibiotics and nothing worked. After A.J. was born we went back in and decided to do a biopsy that happened on Oct. 4th. Everything went well with the surgery. Yesterday I went in to get the results and found out. We were all pretty shocked because the lymph nodes would change in size, rather than stay the same or grow larger. We are now being referred to a specialist at LDS hospital. As of Friday I will begin with some tests to determine what stage I am in, and if my body is okay to handle Chemotherapy.

We will definitely need some help in the upcoming months, but right now we are doing pretty good. Thank you so much for all of your love and support. We love you all so much. This is not an easy thing to digest, but we know that everything is going to be okay.

On a brighter note, we blessed A.J. and his cousin Marissa this past Sunday, and it was amazing. Thank you to everyone that came, and who wished they could have made it. It was great to see so many friends and family.

JonAaron is still doing great in school. He has been busy with midterms and homework. In a few weeks he will be going to San Francisco to meet with some companies. His birthday is also coming up on Oct 30th.

Keep us in your prayers and we will let you know any updates.

New Family

It has been forever since I have blogged anything! I am pretty sure everyone already knows our most exciting news, A.J. is finally here! He came a month early, exactly 36 weeks. My water broke at 12:30 in the morning of August 24th. I woke JonAaron up and said, "JonAaron my water just broke." He replied, "..Really?" We were both wide awake then. I wanted to clean up a little bit, I think I was in shock. JonAaron knew that we needed to hurry though, because the hospital was 40 minutes away. We made it to the hospital safely, and surprisingly I did not have any contractions! We checked in and went to our room. When they first checked me I was dilated to a 1. JonAaron and I were both tired from the MBA picnic the night before. After getting me hooked up to antibiotics and the pitocin, we tried to sleep. Then the contractions started and I finally got an amazing epidural. (I got the perfect one because I could still move my legs, but I did not feel any horrible pain.) I slept for a little while after that. At 6:30 they checked me again and I had dilated to a 4. The next shift came on, and when she noticed the contractions on the screen were different she decided to check me again even though it had only been an hour. I was a 9 1/2! I started pushing about 9:20 and at 10:07 I had a beautiful baby boy! He had a cone head, but other than that he was perfect. We got to take him home a few days later, but his bilirubin level was high. We had to put him under bili lights, which are basically like a tanning bed in a suitcase for babies. He only had to be under it a few days, which was good because it was hard for me to leave him in there. Life with him has been a great adjustment. We love him so much and we will be blessing him October 10, 2010.

School has been going really well for JonAaron. He really works hard, but he enjoys it a lot. He is also playing Flag Football on a BYU league. School is going good for me too. It will be nice in two years when we are all done, but I really enjoy my classes.

That is all of the updates for us. Time is going by so fast so hopefully I will be able to update this more often. It is so great to be a new family!

Bed Rest

Well... a few more updates. My doctor got concerned about the contractions, so I got put on bed rest, at least from work for a week. They then did a test to see if the baby was going to come in the next two weeks. It came back positive, which doesn't necessarily mean he will come, but if it had come back negative it would have been a 90% chance that he would not come. Our doctor sent us to the hospital to get a steroid shot to speed up his lung development, just in case. We are hoping he will make it to at least September 1st. We are also packing up everything this week to move!!! It is crazy how fast things have gone by. Last year JonAaron was barely getting started on the whole MBA process. Now we are both starting school, moving to Orem, and having a baby! I am sure I will be updating this a whole lot more these next few weeks, so keep in touch!

BIG NEWS!!!

Hello everyone! I hope that you are all doing really well. This past few weeks have been really good ones for us. Our biggest news is that we have found a place to live!!! It is a basement apartment in Orem, Utah. The neighborhood looks very nice and so does the family that is renting the apartment to us. I wish I had pictures of the backyard, it is beautiful! We will be moving around August 14th! It is crazy that so much is going to be happening in these next few months. We have also been busy with a few vacations that we have gone on. We went to Lake Mead/Las Vegas with Nick, Sarah and their little boy. We also went to Bear Lake with Judd and Cyndi for the Paulsen Family Reunion. It has been so nice to be able to get away and relax with all the big changes we have coming up. Updates on the baby: We had a scare the other night when I started having contractions about 3 minutes apart. After 4 hours we decided to go into the ER at McKay Dee hospital. They gave me some shots to stop the contractions, and we got home about 5:30a.m. We had a doctor's appointment a few days ago and everything still looks good with the baby. We just have to watch the contractions and take it easy. He is still kicking and growing, (I don't know where else he has to grow! I don't think there is anymore room left in there!) and his heartbeat is good. Updates on the Lymph nodes, more antibiotics, then another appointment in a month. I will keep you all updated if anything new happens! We are excited and nervous to start school again. We both only have 2 years left!! Hope everyone is doing good!

Wow! It has been forever since I have updated our blog. Time has gone by fast. We both start school the end of August. We are still looking for a place to live. We are planning on moving about August 7th. We are headed to bear lake this weekend for the Paulsen Family Reunion. JonAaron is looking forward to Jet skiing and I am looking forward to the Raspberry shakes. Everything is going really well with the baby and pregnancy. I am getting bigger and bigger. We only have about 9 weeks left! We are still undecided on the name, but it is looking like it will be A.J. for Aaron Jon. We went to the Paulsen cabin a few weeks ago, just JonAaron and I. It was nice to get away from everything, and just relax. It is so beautiful up there. The pictures are from Mirror Lake. There should be more news coming up shortly.

Babies"R"Us - Baby Registry

Babies"R"Us - Baby Registry

We are having...

We are having a baby boy! He is so healthy and everything is going really well. We are halfway there in the pregnancy! JonAaron has been busy remodeling his mom's deck. I can't wait to see what it looks like! My highlight this week has been that we finally registered for baby stuff! JonAaron said I couldn't until we found out for sure what the baby was. We are in the middle of deciding names for the baby. We were thinking of the following, let me know what you think:

JonAaron David (and call him J.D.)

Aaron Jon (and call him A.J.)

Maximus Vincent Paulsen (Maximus means the greatest, Vincent means the conqueror and all together the initials spell MVP.)

We also planted the garden this week. We planted peas, strawberries and raspberries. We will plant more later. That's our news this week.

Hello again. We are officially moved back to Hooper now. I hate moving! JonAaron got accepted into BYU, so that's where we are headed before August. I am back working at Intermountain Medical Center. I have already started showing quite a bit, I will get some pictures up once we find where we put the camera connector. We are looking for Summer trips this year, maybe camping or up to one of our cabins, so let us know if you are interested. I also finally graduated with my Associates Degree! We have so much going on, but it is nice to finally be moved and settled in. Only one more move to go!

Moving back to Hooper

Well, Kate and I are moving back to Hooper for a couple of months while we decide if and where I am going to school. The baby is coming along, and we will know its gender in a couple of weeks. We also got sealed in the Las Vegas temple a couple of weeks ago. We are sad to leave St. George, but there are a lot of things that are exciting as well. Kate will be working at IMC in Salt Lake, and I will continue to collect unemployment and search for a job until we make a decision on grad school. We are also making summer vacation plans, and are open to suggestion from anyone. Let us know what you think.