Stem Cells for 3rd Round of Chemo

My apologies about this post. We took pictures during Devree's 3rd round of chemo and things got busy so I'm sharing them with you now.

Guess what??? That's right!!! The Jonas Brothers were the first poster up in Devree's room. lol :-)

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Mormon Ads (Clever posters about having good Christian values. Devree loves them.) There is also a message about Tinky Winky. (Some kind of secret cousin code message for Devree.)

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More Mormon Ads, and a picture of Jesus with a poem below about how he is there for all of us. Devree also liked her Twilight poster over the window of her door. It was kind of cool because the light on the other side of the door makes Edward's face glow.

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Megahn Jones sent a Dr. Seuss book complete with pictures. We taped "Fox in Socks" up for fun. Devree's nurse Nichole would come in to visit with Devree during her break time. She brought Jonas Brothers articles, and watched the New Moon movie trailer with Devree. Every morning Devree would find a colorful note from Nichole her night nurse. This note is to cheer Devree on because she is 75% of the way done.

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Aunt Celest added some "LOVE" when we first got in the hospital room.

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Cousin Tazia always thinks bright happy things for Devree.

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Aunt Celest has done amazingly fun and cheerful things to make sure that Devree has no doubts about how much she is loved. So this art work by Aunt Celest is really fitting.

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If you look in the top left corner, you will see "The End of Cancer". It is a picture of the hind end of a horse (Art work by Uncle Breck.). This horse's hiney is quite famous at the Bone Marrow Transplant clinic. All of the doctors made their way to Devree's room and mentioned that they had been told about, "The End of Cancer". Who knows, maybe St. Jude's will want to change their logo. :-)

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If you look closely, you can see the fog coming off of the container. Click the play symbol in the center of the picture to watch the movie clip.


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The huge syringe is delivering Devree's Stem Cells to give her a boost after the chemo therapy.


Well, that's it! I hope you all enjoyed these pictures from long ago.


Love,
Todd

Mackley Reunion

This last week I have been trying not to feel too homesick. Todd and the boys were at the Mackley reunion. Breck and Celest have gone to a family reunion in Utah. That is what summer means to me is to get together with your extended family. In our family, Todd's family reunion is this year and my family reunion will be next summer. We set it up to alternate summers and at least see most of our extended family every 2 years. I am a family reunion kind of gal and have planned several family reunions. I LOVE IT! Anybody want help in organizing a family reunion, just talk to me.

Todd told me how many people came to the Mackley reunion and I was so happy and sad at the same time. I would have loved to have seen all of you and talked with all of you. Some of you, I haven't seen for quite a few years! I was so glad that Todd and the boys got to go and I hope to see all of the Mackley side in 2 more years,. So you better come again! Okay?

The leg brace lady finally came at 4:30 yesterday and Devree has her new leg braces. She did quite a bit of walking in her walker yesterday. I was very proud of her hard work. Today she is feeling nauceous again. She tried to get the ativan in herself before she even thinks about moving. Sometimes it works and sometimes it just doesn't. We try to get on with life no matter if Devree vomits or not. She is getting much better about not making it a bad day, no matter how icky she feels. She did only have 1 bite of canned peaches yesterday. Everyday I wake up and hope this day will be a little better in some way and it usually is. Today we hope to be able to see a movie. Devree is able to not have to urinate for at least a couple of hours. She wants to see Harry Potter, but that might be too long. I heard that movie is 2 1/2 hours.

Have a wonderful weekend and thanks again for all of your faith and prayers.

Thursday Technical Difficulties

Here is our address for all of our sock entries. If you loose it, it is on the right side of the blog when you boot it up.
1811 Poplar Ave. #517
Memphis, TN 38104
We are SOOO excited to see all of your SOCK entries!!!!

We had a huge thunderstorm last night. It actually started at 4am and we heard LOUD thunder clear till 8am. I don't have computer access because of the storm. Devree was so exhausted last night because of her bladder problems that she was crying over every little thing. I said, I am putting you to bed because you are exhausted and at 6:30 she was already asleep. I kept checking on her and she was sleeping soundly.

At 7 am when I checked on her she hadn't urinated very much and I checked her TPN bag and it was full and saying transfusion complete! So it hadn't gone all night and so I started it up. Devree did eat some Fritos and some grape tomatoes yesterday in the medicine room. Her South American Nutritionist convinced her she needs to eat something everyday because her esophagus will atrophy. Devree understands that word now because that is what her legs have done. I was happy that she got a good nights sleep finally inspite of maybe she should have had her TPN and been urinating all night.

Today I made her walk with her walker for our morning appointments. I thought she would finally get her leg braces, but alas, the lady was not here again! She is a flaky lady I think. From telling us that we would have the braces in 3 days to over 2 weeks, this is not good. She is not from St. Judes but an outside provider. She is not going to get a good review in our book.

Goodbye for now. I don't have internet so I have had to borrow a computer from St. Jude's and my time is up.

The Game is AFOOT!

Getting her wig all fixed up and custom fit to her head.

The final touches.

This morning when I fixed it. She is looking pretty awesome in her new wig with tons of compliments. Thanks again to our special friend and stylist.

Devree says "Ahaaaaaa" to my title for today. We are excited to see that people are excited about our little knee sock competition. We are thinking up a really good prize but Devree wants to cater it to who wins. It will be special and we are having conversations about it now. Can't wait to see some of the entry's.

I think Devree is getting better with her bladder problems. She actually was able to sleep 1-2 hours and I noticed yesterday she was able to go longer in-between times. There doesn't seem to be as much blood in her urine but after labs today we will be sure. She is complaining about leg pain today at 6 out of 10 and she does get her leg braces today. We will show you pictures tomorrow.

Her counts are doing awesome so they stopped the drug to stimulate her blood cells and she hasn't had any more blood or platelets so she is doing very well.

We had an awesome evening. We actually got out of the medicine room early enough to go out to dinner with Brenda Griffin and her family. Brenda invited us to go to a BBQ place and listen to this 11 year-old girl named Brittney Russell. Brittney idolizes Hannah Montana and dressed like her and sang alot of her songs. Her dad plays lead guitar, her 16 year-old brother plays drums and her uncle plays the bass. Her aunt has even written songs for Brittney and her "Trunk Monkeys". That is the name of her band. They sang "Play that 'Monkey' (Funky) Music White Boy". Devree and I were singing along. They played alot of Hannah songs (Devree is not too fond of) and a pretty good variety of other stuff. It was great food and a wonderful evening. Thanks for inviting us Brenda.

Thanks for all of your prayers. I know our prayers have helped Devree recover quickly from this last adventure. Keep praying. We are almost through the last round. Two weeks and we should be through the last round hopefully.

Love, Shana and Devree

Sock COMPETITION!

Devree just thought this up this morning so here is how it goes. We are having a KNEE-HIGH sock competiton. She got her leg braces fitted yesterday. They have to trim them a little so they will be a perfect fit but Devree needs to wear knee-high socks so they won't rub or make her feet or legs sweat where they touch. So I asked her about maybe going knee-high sock shopping and she said "Hey let's have a competition! Whoever gives us the most outrageous knee-high socks will get a special surprise from us. So here are the rules:
1 entry per family

Competiton closes July 31, 2009. If we don't have your socks by then, we can't judge them against everyone elses'.

Todd did the leg work and got us a temporary Handicapped placard from the DMV in NV for our car. That has been an extra help because of the wheelchair and we actually get a place to park and it is more room for getting the wheelchair out and opening the passenger door as wide as it can go so Devree can get in and out. THANKS HUN BUN!

Koe you had a question about how far Little Rock was. The airport from the Target House is 130 miles. So it is a long morning drive there and back. It is worth it though because people have been extra kind and have given us vouchers on Southwest Airlines and that is the closest they fly out of.

Devree is very exhausted when she wakes up in the morning from getting up every hour or 1/2 hour to urinate. I think she is getting better because there are less blood clots but they are bigger which are concerning if they stop her from urinating. Yesterday she was taking longer times between urination. We watched "Knowing" and we can honestly say, don't waste your time watching that one. We had to fast forward alot of it because it was icky and the story was just blase.

In just a few more hours Devree will be getting fit for her wig. We are both very excited. There will be pictures tomorrow.

Not too bad of a weekend

Saturday started early to get Shay and Dane to the airport. Lindsey Gruwell and her sister were kind enough to come and stay with Devree for awhile and then Breck came and took her to her medicine room appointment at 11am. I drove to Little Rock airport because that is the closest that Southwest flies out of. After driving that 2 Saturdays in a row, I am glad that I won't be doing that again soon. Shay and Dane made it safely to Las Vegas where Uncle Cody had a hard time finding them because they were quietly sitting in an odd place playing their Nintendo DS'

We live most of our lives in the Medicine room. While we were there Devree called her good friend Leah that she has been friends with since Kindergarten. The nurse and I were overhearing her conversation and the conversation went something like this. "Well I tell my friends 'Hey they are not crying over you so why are you crying over them? Then a pause and then Devree said "Yea some of these girls aren't my friends anymore because they don't like what I say about their boyfriends." The nurse and I laughed and laughed. The nurse said "Isn't that the truth about boyfriends and girlfriends that are crying over them."

We left the medicine room and went to an ice cream social at Target house that was sponsered by a church in MS. There were several teenagers there that had a nice long conversation with them. It was good to talk to regular teenagers except one Senior girl talked about her 3 year-old daughter at home.

Devree felt good enough on Saturday to actually go shopping. She had been given a Target gift card for her birthday and saving up her money and she bought 2 movies. We went grocery shopping afterward which was kind of interesting in a wheelchair. I had to stack up things on her lap because there was none of those shopping wheelchairs. She was getting kind of cold before we were done because of what I stacked on her. I ran to get a gallong of milk at the last second because there just wasn't any more room and I didn't want her to have to hold the heavy gallon and have her get more cold. While we were waiting in line a lady came up and asked me if Devree was a St. Jude's patient. I told her yes. She "clanked" her left thigh and said "I was a St. Jude's patient in 1964 with bone cancer. I made it and she will too!" I thanked her and told her that it looked like she had a good life and thank goodness for St. Jude's. We went home and Devree watched both her movies but I could only stay awake for one.

Sunday was back in the Medicine room so we couldn't go to church. Her counts are pretty good considering she got 2 batches of platelets on Thursday. They gave her another batch just to make sure she is on the upside of this bladder problem.

She didn't have a great night and we had to be back here at 7AM and she said she was awake and urinating every 1/2 hour. Devree still has her problem but we just took a urine sample and there were no blood clots. On Friday they gave her a pain patch for her shoulder and they keep giving her morphine by IV or by pill at home so it is not as bad pain as it has been.

Hair, Birds and Bad news

We started out Thursday getting to pick out an amazing wig. This is a prothesis wig which means you can swim in it and everything. We have a very sweet new friend that wanted to do this for Devree's birthday and so she came with Clelest, Tayzia and Kallie. We met them at the place and Devree got her head measured and she got to try on different colors. We brought the picture of Alice Cullen and we told the wig lady that this hair style was what Devree had just before she lost it all.

We should have the final fitting on Tuesday afternoon and we both are very excited. This is a most wonderful surprise to get it so soon and to have it be a really personalized wig that will stay on Devree's head and let her head breathe and it feels really comfortable. She will be able to have it for ever because it is human hair.

We got back to the hospital and had an ulta sound of her bladder because of her frequent urination and burning sensation. The prognosis is a condition caused by the chemo where her bladder is enlarged. It is very painful and they haven't said how long it will last. She is passing blood clots but we have to watch for constant blood or that she can't go at all. It has been a blessing too because she is getting plenty of physical therapy by lifting her heavy fluid bags (2) and walking to the bathroom every hour. We put her bags in the wheelchair and she pushes the wheelchair into the bathroom. She walks better now and is more steady.

We were still in the Medicine room when Uncle Breck came to be with Devree while I took Talon, Shay and Dane to Huey's for dinner and then we were given Red Bird baseball tickets. I asked Talon if he would like to do that for his birthday because his birthday was Wenesday. We enjoyed the game. There were two balls hit out of the park for homeruns and several foul balls that were not close enough for us to get. It was a pretty short game lasting a little over 2 hours and the Red Birds won, 4-2. The mascot was named Rocky and he was pretty funny to watch . The camera shot us on the big screen one time.

We went to the medicine room and Celest had brought everyone including Paul and so we had a party until 11pm. I am exhausted. Devree is exhausted, but the boys sleep through anythingl.