Outline of the past 2 weeks of the Strebe life

Notice:  I thought I would give everyone a good chuckle at the last 2 weeks of our lives.  I promise, this is not made up, dramatized, or embellished at all!

For almost 2 weeks straight someone has been sick!  It all started Wednesday, 2 weeks ago when BOTH babes at the SAME time said their stomach's hurt.

YEP!  For the next 5 days, they ran fever, threw up and had diarrhea.  They were very lethargic.  They took LONG naps everyday and would sleep 12 hours at night.  Here is Ryan at 10:30AM one morning already back to sleep in my arms.  Don't hate me because I am beautiful.  LOL

On the 5th day they had one last throw up session (had not happened in a couple of days).  And then one more day of being lethargic and it was over.

BUT the last day of the babes sickness, Luke woke up throwing up in the middle of the night (this overlapped with Emma Kate's last day of throwing up).  Needless to say we were up all night with both of them.

The above picture is 8AM Monday morning.  Luke was 6 hours into his sickness and the babes were on their last lethargic day.  Don't you love the buckets!?

The above picture is 8PM Monday night.  It got worse.  They couldn't even sit up.

This was Tuesday morning.  The babes were doing a tad better--sitting up at least. It was pitiful and painful to watch at times.

Luke continued until he was dry heaving the next morning.   He was getting weak fast.  So his second day (a week ago Tuesday) he would eat something like a popsicle and it would all come back up.  On that very same day Jon woke up with a bad case of vertigo.  So he rested at home for just a little bit and decided to go into work.  It wasn't 3 hours later he was texting me reports of his situation at school and it was not looking good for him.  He finally texted and said he was coming home.  He ran a fever also and had the stomach issues.  Luke went into his 3rd day and we thought things were better.  He was drinking and holding down a popsicle.  That was until 2pm.  And everything exploded and came out (I won't describe details).  I rushed him to doctor because I thought he was dehydrated. U can imagine, I'm crying on the phone with the nurse.  I"m yelling the at babes to get dressed and go to the bathroom.  I tried to call for help to keep babes but couldn't get in touch with anyone.  On the drive there I was lecturing them not to touch one thing and to not say a word while we were there.

Luke had not moved from the couch for 3 days solid and would even wear a pull up because he had no strength to get to the bathroom in time.  It was awful and I was extremely worried about him.  They told him to take zophran but I think he needed a bag of fluids.  He was one sick boy.  And by the way the babes could not have been more perfect in the doctor's office.  Did not say a word and did not touch anything.

Thank goodness Luke started keeping stuff down and by Friday he got up and played for about 15 minutes.  He was weak as a kitten!

So we were all set to go on a little vaca to Dollywood and Asheville on Friday after Jon's work.  Well, Jon came home from school (his 4th day of the virus) with diarrhea and the shivers like you have never seen.  He packed a little and then I convinced him to lay down.  Within 30 minutes he had a fever.  So we gave him some of his anti-nausea meds from his chemo days and he went to bed.  He felt better the next morning so we left for Dollywood.

Fast forward to Sunday night.  Ryan comes down with the croup.  I could tell it was bad Saturday night but Sunday night it sounded really bad.  I did all the home tricks they tell you but nothing was working.  We decided since we were out of town and at least 30 minutes from the closest hospital we better take him.  Jon, my sister and I drove with Ryan to the hospital.  Sure enough after they determined he did not have EBOLA.  LOL.  They confirmed that he had croup with stridor (he was retracting when we got there which I didn't realize).  They gave him a breathing treatment with epinephrine.  Then gave him a steroid.  They checked him again and were not happy with the fact he was not improving like he should.  So they did a chest xray and it confirmed he had a steeple (which means his passageway was very imflamed and very narrow).

They observed him for a while and he started improving and we finally got back to the condo at 6:30AM.  Our 6 hour ER visit was scary and comical all at the same time. Karen and I had the giggles from lack of sleep.  We kept calling Marcus and waking him up all night because he was in charge of my other kids.  Jon, by the way, did not find humor in our jokes at 3:30AM LOL.

Anyways, we had to cut our vacation short and come home in case Ryan had it happen again the following night.  We were disappointed but we did get to enjoy Dollywood with our family for 48 hours:o)

We are THAT family.  We have so much drama and so many issues.  But then I look and think about how many blessings we have and I wouldn't trade these sleepless nights for the world taking care of my precious children.  I cherish every second.  I even sat beside Luke for 2 solid days on the couch so I could get him exactly what he needed when he needed it and perused facebook way more than I needed to but I have caught up on a lot of things.  My kids and I talked about how thankful we should be that this is a virus that will go away!  There are children that have diseases or conditions that do not go away and they continually stay sick.  Or children that have to take medicine like daddy and are very sick.  So it is nice to keep things in perspective and count your many blessings!

So this Thanksgiving we are grateful to be together as a family.  A year ago Jon was finishing up high dose chemo and getting thoracic surgery.  We are thankful that God has healed him.  We are thankful to not have anything worse than a virus or croup that is treatable.  We are thankful for friends and family that have prayed and supported us.  And we are thankful for a God that heals, loves, comforts, shows grace and mercy and forgives us and gives us an opportunity to accept Him as Lord and Savior to live eternally.

We are blessed to be...

GODSTRONG!

**Just as an added humor, In the middle of writing this blog, I had major stomach issues (won't explain).  The whole time we have been praying I would not get this.  But I'm finishing this blog 12 hours later and I have been fine.  It was just funny I was writing the blog and it came over me!  LOL

"Who dies of testicular cancer anyways?"

That was my response when Jon was first diagnosed with testicular cancer metastasis to the lungs.  As I looked up the statistics there are about 300 men a year in the US that die of testicular cancer.  In my mind I was trying to say it was all going to be OK.  I mean I'm sure those 300 people that died just declined treatment or let it go so far that there was nothing the doctors could do.  That was my justification and my way of believing that no matter what Jon had to go through the outcome was going to be just fine and he was going to live a long life.  

Well, as Jon's situation got more desperate and the first round of treatment did not work and the chances of his survival went down, I became more afraid and fearful of what the future would hold.  I mean, now Jon was one of those rare people that would have to seek more intensive treatment to try and kill this cancer.

Along the path of Jon's journey with high dose chemo and double stem cell transplant, we have met a lot of great men.  Some young, some older, some metastis to the brain, some with a more aggressive type of TC,  from all walks of life with all types of careers, some even right out of college, men from all over the country that we have connected with and in hopes that we have been able to minister to  in some way.

Who dies of testicular cancer?  Unfortunately 2 of these very young men (24 yrs old) whom we have had the priveledge of getting to know have passed away.  I asked you in an earlier post to pray for both of these men.  I will ask you again to please lift up the Waghalter family in your prayers.  Mark passed away a couple of days ago.  He graduated from college a year ago, has a fiancee and should have had such a long life ahead of him.

We have been very open and honest with our children but the one thing we have never directly told them is that cancer has the potential to be fatal, or that daddy could have been one of these men with TC that we know that could have died.

So our children have been praying for Mark.  I received news of his passing the other night while I was out by myself running errands.  It really hit me hard.  This could be Jon.  My heart went out to these parents that lost their young son, this fiancee that lost the love of her life and her future husband, this brother that lost his brother, and so on.  Then I received a message from Candace, Mark's fiancee and this is what it read:

Well, I was in the grocery store when I read the text and I started bawling!  I'm walking through the store, cannot control my tears, everyone is looking at me and I'm trying my best to focus on what I was actually supposed to be buying at the store.  So finally when I was checking out I got a hold of myself.

I walked in the door and little sweet Luke, my 5 year old runs out of his room and says, "O momma, I'm so glad you have your Godstrong shirt on because I have mine on too!"  Well, I lost it again.  I start bawling thinking about what an impact Jon's journey and story has made on so many people.  Luke says, "Momma, what is wrong?"  I blew him off and told him nothing.  He is a very insightful little boy and relentless so he asked me again what was wrong.  I bent down and told him Mark had passed away.  Oh the look on his face.  He was truly sad.  I told him what Candace had told me in the text about the Godstrong bracelet and he just hugged and hugged me and said he was so sorry.

Fast forward to the next morning:  Luke announces to the babes at breakfast that Mark had passed away.  And Ryan says, "Daddy, I'm glad you didn't die because I wove (LOVE) you!"  Well, Jon then lost it.  So we might not have directly told them that cancer can be fatal but they get it.  They know that cancer could have taken Jon's life.

Jon celebrated his 38th birthday today.!  Such a blessing.  We have celebrated!  We have rejoiced for another year that God has given Jon.  We don't understand why God would save Jon's life and not Mark's (or Jaron's).  We have lots of questions but we know beyond a shadow of a doubt that God is a good God and He loves us more than anyone!  His plan for us is greater than we could ever imagine.  And some of these answers we may never know on this earth.

We are so thankful for the people that we have been able to encourage, minister to and love on while on their cancer journey.  But with that comes walking this journey with them.  And for some their earthly journey has come to an end.  And Satan likes to use that in my life to start doubting that God has healed Jon.  He really sends lots of messages to me that make me extremely fearful, like to the point of panic attacks.  Jon goes back for his appointment December 8th.  This is the first time we have gone a 4 month stretch.  While it is great to get to that point where each scan is farther apart, it also makes me start being very fearful of the future and what the scan will show.  You can definitely be praying in the next month as we approach Jon's next scan.  I have major SCANXIETY!!!  THANKS for praying!

And the Strebe's continue to be

GODSTRONG. 

I will leave you with the verse that I sent Mark about 6 weeks ago:

Romans 15:13

May the God of HOPE fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in Him, so that you may overflow with HOPE by the power of the Holy Spirit.

The only true and lasting HOPE we can have is to put our trust in Jesus Christ.  There is nothing else on earth that can give us that eternal HOPE.  Mark's mother text me a few days ago and told me Mark had peace with his salvation.  Hallelujah!!