September 29, 2011

Last night couldn’t have been much better. After struggling so long and living through so much, we finally got to celebrate and take some time to thank everyone who had helped us along the way. It was truly a celebration.

It was the perfect mix of neighbors, family, old friends, new friends, church members, Leukemia and Lymphoma Society friends and work friends.

We skated, did the limbo, ate pizza, played video games and even had a foot race. It was a really fun night.

We can’t thank those who came enough. But, still, there are so many who couldn’t make it who have been so important in our journey. If everyone that has helped and supported us in the past two years had come, I don’t think the skating rink could have held us!

We will never be able repay the kindnesses people have shard with us, but we promise to pay it forward.

Link through to see photos of the event https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.2476309435491.239628.1485121797&l=2fe3271e3a&type=1

Love,
Beth

Don’t forget about our thank you party next week! Please come!

September 19, 2011

I’ve dragged my feet a little bit this year… I admit it. Light the Night is October 14, less than a month away and I’m just getting started on Team Tanner’s fundraising. I must confess that it has been tempting to just forget about the whole thing. Not because I don’t love this event or because I don’t fervently believe in the cause, but because I sometimes just want to close my eyes and pretend none of this ever happened.

But, it did, and it continues to happen to children and adults every day. And nothing will be solved by pretending that leukemia doesn’t exist. So, I’m putting on my big girl panties and announcing that we will host our third Leukemia and Lymphoma Society Light the Night team on October 14 at LP Field.

If you read this blog, I don’t have to tell you why this is an important cause. But, if you’ve never been to this event, I do want to try to tell you how special it is.

As you can see, Team Tanner had a nice, big team last year. And, I hope you will consider coming to walk with us this year. It is really a wonderful, celebratory event. We walk through downtown Nashville at night, across the Shelby Street bridge, down First Avenue and back across the river on the Woodland Street bridge. We carry beautiful lighted balloons — red in support of someone battling or who has survived blood cancer, white for the survivors themselves and gold in honor of someone who has lost the battle. I can’t really explain the way I feel when I look back across the bridge and see that sea of lighted balloons, except to say that it is a wonderful visual reminder that we have not been alone in this fight.

It is not a strenuous walk; just two miles of celebratory strolling. Tanner and Jake walked most of it last year and rode some in a wagon. There were even fireworks over the water. This year, the walk is on a Friday night, which makes it a lot easier for kids to attend, so I’m hoping we might get a nice group to walk!

Most importantly, this event raised more than $250,000 to fund research and support families who are affected by blood cancers — leukemia, lymphoma and myeloma.

If you feel moved to give to Team Tanner or even sign up to walk with us, you can click through to our fundraising page at http://pages.lightthenight.org/tn/MidTN11/teamtanner.

There. I’ve set the wheels in motion, so no more hiding now!

Love,
Beth

September 16, 2011

I was worried that Tanner would have a really hard time today at clinic since it was the first clinic visit since she had her port removed. That means she had to have needle stick in her arm to get blood drawn. We numbed up both inner elbows with EMLA cream before we went and they looked pretty numb by the time we got there. She panicked a little bit at the last minute, but was very brave and toughed it out. I was proud of her. I think it will go even better next time.

Now, for the exciting part… her neutraphils were at 3,300! Woot! Woot! Haven’t seen those kind of numbers in a while! When I look at her lab results online, it is so gratifying to see her red (abnormal) numbers disappearing little by little. More and more black (normal) counts show up every time.

Clinic day continues to be a difficult day for us. I wish it were different; but it’s just not. The doctor was talking about survivorship clinic and mentioned that eventually, we would stop seeing her and just go to the survivorship clinic once a year for the rest of her life. Tanner was playing with Mr. Potatohead and suddenly sat up and said, “The rest of my life?!!! Are you kidding me?”

When we told her no, she curled up in my lap and cried. She just wants so badly to walk away and never look back. I can empathize.

Love,
Beth

September 6, 2011

Tanner recovered from her port removal surgery lightning quick last week. By the end of the next day, we found ourselves telling her, “No, you cannot play football with the boys in the cul-de-sac!” She went back to school today and did just great.

Jake is loving being back at school. He’s especially proud that the class chose the name he thought of for their hamster, Zoom Zoom.

If you remember, I mentioned in previous posts that we wanted to have a big party to thank everybody for helping us get through the last two-a-half years… This is your official invite to we’re a skating party at Brentwood Skate on Wednesday, September 28th from 5-7 pm. We’ll skate (or watch people skate) and shake our groove things and eat pizza and maybe some cake! Mostly, we’ll just celebrate wonderful friendships and the end of a journey we’ve all walked together.

So, if you know us or even if you don’t know us, but have been following our story, please come! Everyone is welcome and the more, the merrier. Just do us a favor… if you are planning on coming, just drop us a comment, email or facebook reply or something to let us know you’re coming and how many, so we know how much pizza to order.

Love,
Beth

September 1, 2011

Surgery went well. She wanted to keep the port so she could take it school and gross out her friends! She’s in recovery and John and I are waiting to be called down to be there when she wakes up.

Thank you for all the prayers this morning.

Love,
Beth & John