Fund Raiser Evening

what an absolutely wonderful,fabulous evening, just being blown away by so many people who came out to support our family & Blaine & Tamara, and the support that was raised, so overwhelming, i just never imagined ever to recieve such support, i would have loved to hug absolutely everyone who came but barely made it into the doors to get a drink, the musical numbers were absolutely beautiful, wonderful uplifting words, and it shows when we've got the Lord in our hearts we have someone who will help us through any difficult situation we are going through. Thanks to Canadian Country Sisters,( wowed away by the vocals, superior - i need to get their CD) Hank & Anne Neufeld ( Hank always adds a bit of spice into his performances, love that guy, he's serious lookin' but he sure can make one laugh, and we need that in our lives esp. when things are going a bit rough) John & Mary Martens, (they sang one of my all time fav songs God on the Mountain), my friend Colleen Wiebe ( sang a song she'd sang shortly after we found out i had cancer which has such beautiful words), Country Praise ( 3 of their crew is in Mexico serving on a Miller Missions trip, but they were able to pull it off beautifully as always with even my brave, not so little any more Holly singing a beautiful solo, & the Men's quartet (awesome awesome) Just so many people to thank, absolutely everyone who came out, the wonderful thing was, people who may have never stepped into a church came out, people from every church denomination, we are so fortunate to live in a community with such love & support, that people can come together, can set aside any differences to make a difference in so many people's lives, so incredibly awesome. gotta thank, Janice, pastor Vic, all the additional musical people who helped each of the groups, every lady/man who brought a plate of dainties to share, they had lots and lots, i'm sure i have forgotten to name someone, but have not forgotten each and every one of you.

>Please continue to pray for Blaine, as this week he had an ultra sound done to find he has more cancer if memory serves me correctly on his right hip, so they are treating it with the new lazer radiation treatment, after those are done, the next few weeks he will have two lazer treatments per week on his cancer on his spine, pray for his healing, for Tamara- she needs a lot of strength and its so tough on spouces too, & their little girl Olivia (who is 6). Also pray for Blaine's step dad who also has cancer & for his mom as she supports both her son & husband.
> pray for pastor vic as he recouperates from his surgery (hernia), every day he's been feeling a bit better, so that's great news
> pray for Darlene's mom as she continues her cancer treatments for uterin cancer, she's had mild reactions so far, to chemo so that's super news
> continue to pray for my neice Jennifer as they wait for a EEG for her,
> Mari - struggling with pain, dealing with liver cancer, pray for her hubby Agabus, and Zaphira, Caleb, & Azaria
> Matt as he continues to deal with leukemia

continue to pray for the rest of the people on my list from a couple days back, and or if you have any updates or want to add a prayer request, please let me know i'd be more than happy to have people across the world pray for you as well.

pic i took yesterday of our nanking cherry trees bloomin' in the rain, it has been so dry this spring so far and now we are receiving rain, we can use all of it i'm sure, hubby even will try seeding again today. Yesterday we had 7 tenths of rain i'm told. Our rain guage broke so will have to find another one.

prayer update

hi! i just got a new update on Matt i thought it was extremely important to share imediately, i'm assuming his sis emailed this out. Continue to pray for him.
Hi there,
I figured I should update you on anything going on with Matthew. He's not doing so good. On Monday he had a fever (39.4) and they were busy trying to lower that and figure out what was going on. As we were getting ready for bed on Monday night, the doctor called and said that his blood pressure was really low and kept dropping and they were probably going to move him into intensive care to monitor it (his fever was still just as high then). So Mom left for the hospital and stayed there all night. I was at home making all the phone calls back and forth between Dad and Karla and Mom. Mom called us after she got there to say the nurses didn't seem to be too overly alarmed by his fever and blood pressure. They said they see it quite a bit and that the ICU doctor (or nurses or whatever) were coming to assess Matthew and would decide whether or not to move him there. Mom seemed a whole lot more at ease when she called, so that made us all feel quite a bit better.

So they didn't move him to ICU, even though Matthew's doctor thought they should. The ICU people didn't want him there because they didn't think it was totally necessary, and he would just be exposed to more germs down there that would probably give him some other illness. Yesterday he still had his fever, but his blood pressure had stabilized, even though it was still rather low. They've figured out that he has another blood infection once again. They suspect that maybe his picc line is the cause of this. This is bad news. His port (the chemo line in his chest) was infected last time and had to be removed. They couldn't put in another port, so they put in a picc line. This is an external chemo line that is two plastic tubes that hang out of his upper arm. They give him chemo drugs through there. If they end up not being able to use that, they have to go back to regular IV. Matthew's veins have weakened and are much smaller because of his treatments, they are hard to find. Plus, when they find one, it ends up "blowing" within about a day, and anything that was supposed to be going into his veins goes into his soft muscle tissue and causes burning pain. So yeah, that's not good.

On Monday we also found out that Matthew will be getting a bone marrow transplant for sure. We don't know exactly what this will look like or when, but as soon as his blood counts are back up (they drop after every chemo treatment) AND they have a bed for him, they will start the process. They figure this will probably be anywhere from two to four weeks, and this has to be done in Winnipeg. So we're waiting to find out more about that. Mom did a little research on the internet and got the impression that Matthew will be stuck in hospital for about five months once that process starts. They do full body radiation to kill all of his own bone marrow cells, then put him in isolation (absolutely NO visitors) since he has no immune system. They then inject some of Karla's bone marrow into Matthew (via IV I think) and keep him in isolation until enough bone marrow grows in his bones. He'll have to take anti-rejection drugs just like any other transplant recipient.

So the whole bone marrow thing is not good news. It isn't necessarily super bad either. With chemo he would have undergone another two years of that treatment, and hoped for success. With a transplant, his marrow is gone and Karla's is growing in him. If that doesn't work, I understand it to kind of be the "end of the road". I really don't know what can be done if the transplant is unsuccessful. In theory, if his cancer is in his bone marrow, it should all be killed off when his bone marrow is destroyed. However, leukemia can "hide" in the body (like in the spine and a few other spots). So if it's hiding somewhere and isn't destroyed, it could somehow come back. I don't really understand everything, but this is as much as I've "picked up" so far.

I just wanted to let you know so you know how to better (well, not better, but you know what I mean) pray. For the most part I feel kind of emotionless. I've dealt with so much bad news that more doesn't really seem to phase me. I mean, it does, but I feel kind of defeated. Mom and Dad aren't doing so great. Mom has a hard time seeing him go through this everyday. Dad has a hard time being around and not being able to be the dad - the big strong protector guy who makes everything better. Karla's busy with her family and I think she feels distanced from everything. She was VERY emotional on the phone on Monday night, but when I called to say what the nurse had said, she said her usual "Does that make you feel better? Then I feel better too." Anyway, I must go. Talk to you later.

Cancer Care Fashion Show

i love this pic, we had almost a month of absolutely beautiful hor' frost, we've had such gorgeous temps after that, and well this weekend, sounds like it could be br.... well it is early yet i supose, but we have two birthday parties to attend, so hm... bring blankies, winter jackets, snow shovel & pails, lol!! na, forcasters have been so wrong lately we'll just have to see what happends.
well, i managed to survive the cancer care fashion show, and well actually i had a blast, at first i was so nervous, right along with everyone else, but when you have some super bubbly people and an energetic older lady to entertain and to talk to, hey!! who couldn't relax. You will be happy there are no pics to post as no camera's were allowed lol!! jk. jk. Actually after every outfit we went to have our professional pics taken, by 3 photographers, not sure why 3, but oh well, they will make up a CD for each of us of the pics they took, so maybe i'll be brave enough to post one. I'm just don't know how i could have forgotten my hat for the first run, that just sucks. oh well. we lived and all had fun, even though one of the girls was not feeling too good, from what i understood she had a treatment yesterday, two of the girls had to be replaced last min. one was in the hospital the other sick, so thankfully Daisy found replacements, see i told you she was good. There was an excellent turn out, Jodiene thought possibly 170 people attended.
Janice was there, and so we hugged and chatted a while, she misses Tom, but is hanging in there she told me, you can continue to pray for her, as she deals with the loss of Tom. Tom hand crafted a clock for the fashion show, unfortunately i forgot to check it out, i'm sure it was beautiful, maybe there'll be a pic online of it yet.
Well another busy day here, ought to get caught up with baking bread at least, as when hubby is on the field he takes his peanut butter & syrup sandwhiches every day for lunch, and little girl has toast for breakfast sometimes night lunch and sometimes even after school snacks, so i'd better get started to get it baked before lunch to bring hubby on the tractor, they are forcasting rain so see how long he'll be on if they are correct. hugz, diane

can't do it, can i?

Little girl engraced us once again for 2 hrs. on the tractor with her babblings ( not sure where she gets it from cause i still got mine lol!!) anyway and she's singing away, sitting on the arm rest and feet, tapping away on the chair beside her dad, tapping and singing, which song do you like better?? so we had to choose, now these are songs she makes up. All of a sudden she pipes up, mom you need to buy me a guitar, why i asked. well so i can play it while i sing my songs. hm... i said thinking this isn't so bad an idea, wonder who teaches guitar lessons i asked, oh, she says i don't need lessons i already know how to play a guitar, as she's strumming into her imaginary guitar, hm..... i don't doubt for a second she could play one, but lessons would definately be in order i'm sure.
Yesterday after my nap it was time to mow the lawn once again as they are forcasting rain, so as i tried to back the mower out of the shop, it was not backing straight so hm.... went forwards again and hm.... still couldn't back out the way i wanted, checked stearing to find something had come off, so i parked mower back, as i got off i saw a chain on the floor,so i thought let's see where this belongs, i found the spot just didn't know what to do with it, so i went inside text hubby situation and few seconds later hubby is calling to see what's up. I made my typical inquiry is this something i can fix? to which he gave me instructions of what to do but it all was mud to me, i did get go to the farm and 50, so i sat there a while and thought i am not able to do this, then my fav. verse came across my head, i can do all things through Christ who gives me strength so i got up and went back to the shop and took off the safety cover, got the chain and tried to get it on, hm.. is there a right way? does it matter if its upside down or is there an upside down? this pin is not going all the way through wonder if i need to use shvunk (force) so i decided to head to the farm for some expert advice, well no one was at the shop and as i put the chain on the table the pin went in, ok i said now if it goes in here i can get it in at home too, so off i went, lo and behold it fit and i put the cover on and mowed the whole lawn, (hubby tells me there needs to be a cotter pin to keep the chain from coming off again, so i guess i'll search tomorro for it) Anyway after such a long story, moral is don't think you can't do something until you've truely put your 100% behind it, God gives us strength and wisdom to do things we sometimes don't think we can.
pic of moose was taken while Edna & I were on our way to wpg for one of my radiation treatments, this moose figured he'd like to cross the hwy. but he wasn't sure where or how to go about it, thankfully Edna had her camera along to capture this rare creature, well at least in my neck of the woods i say its rare, as the last time in our area i saw a moose i was a little girl and there was one at the side of the hwy as well half way between McG and A.
Prayer:
Blaine & Tamara: Blaine started his first lazer radiation treatment today, new for wpg.
Breanne made it safetly to Turkey, pray for her & her DTS team as they minister there, she's been attacked in her dreams, pray for peacefull sleeps.
Mrs. Boehlig: had surgery yesterday in wpg. ( she had a fall a couple years ago, which lately led to pain, she is also on dialasis which makes it longer to heal, pray for healing for her & a full recovery)

changes to blog

this pic is of a mom plant, my sunday school teacher Linda gave me a couple years ago, when i brought it in in the fall it just kept bloomin' and bloomin', i put it outside last year again in a pot outside the door but unfortunately last fall just didn't have the umph to care about any plants unfortunately so it hit the bisquit, along with many others in the house as well. I think i'm back on track, have managed to keep both my plants from my neighbor going nicely so far. so yesterday i received a new plant from my sunday school teacher for an early mothers day so i have every intention on keeping this one going for years. Linda you are awesome!!

Yesterday afternoon i had nothin' but time on my hands so i decided i'd see if i could change things up a bit on the blog, so you'll be happy to know that you do not have to become a member of google or anything to post a reply now, you can sign in annonymously, just put your name in or if your a blogger or have an account you can still sign in that way, i was playing with colors think i may spend more time playing with that another day, this week is quite a busy one, today, hm... pick up some groceries, eggs, make a bunch of phone calls, write some emails for Janae's Kids can cope weekend, which she is so looking forward to, she has decided to stay night at the farm so we'll be in a camper from what i understand, i kinda like that better as one doesn't have to get up quite as early to get back to the farm for breakfast next morn. Gotta get my props ready for the fashion show, get my hair done, which i hadn't known they did that there, but oh well... i need a trim already anyway, its growing quite quickly again. Fund raiser on friday. today i need to transplant my cabbages, flowering kale & broccoli & kale quite badly already and since its cloudy great time to do it today, my peppers almost all have buds already, so early peppers will be great this year. I just need to check to see how many i kept last year and should really down size at least a bit. anyway, before i don't get my long list accomplished today i'd better get started. Oh, and hubby is on the field seeding for the farm, so lunch & supper meals on the go this week.

updated prayer requests:
^Laura Geist: author of Praying through Cancer - is going through her fourth bout with cancer, pray for her and her family.
^Sharon & Brad: Sharon got news this week her liver transplant for May was postponed so no new date as of yet, pray that they can still find a date for her very quickly & that her spirits and health will keep up
^Jennifer: who is struggling with black outs, waiting for an EEG
^April & Dwayne: April starting a new chemo (herceptin) this week via intravenous every 3 weeks for a year, pray for healing, a return to energy and side effects to new drugs.
^Dave & Tina: Dave is on the chemo pill for his leukemia and has improved, counts have dropped quite a bit, but still have a long way to go.
^Serena: got most of her tubes all out now, she's struggling with a cold, pray that it will go away quickly so she can build up her immune system to fight the cancer.
^ David: will be taking hormonal shots to shrink the tumor - one needle per month and then they will hopefully be able to remove tumor. between his eye and nose (alphonse disease)
^ Mari: still struggling with liver cancer, still dealing with quite a bit of pain and very tired.