Ooooops

I wrote a neat blog about memories of Jessica as a little girl. I spent about 30min. Then I hit add and it left and I cant find it. So I will try to find it. Anyway Jessica has been upbeat today and felt pretty darn good. She laughed some and we love that. Love you all.

Today is the moment.

Jess had a good day. She was more upbeat. We had a few good visits. You have no idea how I have learned to cherish those small moments. She was able to rest quite comfortably. She walked down the street with her physical therapist. She loves to watch So You Think You Can Dance, which she is doing right now as I type. When she was a little girl she was very gifted at dancing. She took several different dance classes. She has always had rhythm. Her grandparents, Eugene and Annie Perkins are gifted dancers. I think Jessica got her rhythm from them. She will still bust a move. In fact, sick as she has been, she has taught Charlie some dance moves. Charlie, for those of you that don't know, is Jessica's almost two year old nephew. He is Alisa and Robert's son. Well again thanks for your prayers, we can feel the comfort. We love you.

I decided to make an extra effort to update the blog for today. Jess did quite well today. A special someone left beautiful red roses on our step this morning. Robert opened the door and found them. They are the most beautiful color of red. Jess was down this morning when she woke up. She gets discouraged at the pain that will jar her awake and not cease. She was really cheered up by the roses. We don't know who left them but we sure are enjoying them. I had fun arranging them in a red vase. I broke out my special antique flower frogs that hold flowers in place in a vase. Bishop Bur thank you for the books on the temple for Jessica we appreciate that a lot. We were talking that this Wednesday would be a perfect day to go to the temple as I am off work. Mom is at the temple that morning so we could go when she is off maybe. Then I remembered that my recommend is expired. So I don't think it would work out. Mom made Sunday dinner for us and it was divine. Mom thank you so much for your hard work. We sure enjoyed it. Jessica napped after dinner and she said she enjoyed hearing the wind in the trees outside the bedroom window at Granny's. It has been a good day. After Jessica got on top of her pain she enjoyed the Sabbath day. Love you all. Thanks again for your notes. Jessica says "I appreciate everyone that cares about me and is praying for me. It makes me cry everybody who is so kind and thoughtful to me and us".

Thank you

I forgot to tell you thank you for your messages. Jessica just loves these. She is so touched by them. Please keep leaving comments. I will do better at getting the blogs in on a regular basis. You all touch our hearts and make us feel strong enough to keep on marching along in this trial. I just read all the messages to Jessica and she got a big smile and tears ran down her cheeks. She said everybody is so nice. One message said her influence was far reaching. How did you know? Jessica has asked has my life made any difference? She is so young that would be a normal question. I am an old hen and I still ask the same thing. But anybody that knows Jessica is well aware that her life has been one of example and that of being a blessing to all. Thanks everybody your love and concern means more than you will ever know. As one of Jessica's saying have always been, "Keep it coming". We love you. You know what this feels like? How it will be in the next life when we are all able to stop and be all family again.

Catch-up Blog

I am so sorry I have been so bad at getting information to all our loyal Jessica's Cancer Fight friends. I hope to do better. I will now fill you in and strive to do better. Most you you don't know as I have told only a few people but I have been dealing with a breast cancer scare. This has been going on for the last six weeks now. It has wigged me out more than anyone could know. I have felt very overwhelmed and when I feel that way I have trouble in many ways. It was as if this has been too much to handle. I worried over being sick and being unable to take care of Jessica. I worried over Alisa and her family and Steven if I to had cancer. The usual things I guess. We know in a very intimate way how having a loved one have cancer effects the entire family and all our loved ones and friends. They did more tests on me on Friday. I was given a preliminary report Friday that the lumps seem to be cysts rather than malignant. It was a change in my mammogram that stated all this. Anyway I will wait for the final report with hope. Everybody get your cancer checks. Now on to how Jessica is doing.
Last weekend Molly invited us to fly in their beautiful plane to Carlsbad California where they are building a home. She said that if Jessica felt up to it we could just take it very easy and let her rest a lot. Jessica said she thought that would be fun. Early Friday morning Molly picked us up and we went to the Spanish Fork Airport. It is a small airport with private planes. The pilot is Mike Patey. The plane is a jet turbo prop plane called an Epic. It is gorgeous. It is all leather inside and very plush. It flies at over 300 mph and climes to up in the 25,000 plus feet range. It pressurizes too. Charlie loved the experience and slept a good part of the way. Jessica did good, we put her oxygen tank in the cabin with us. We have some cute pictures we can post. We had a terrific flight. Mike is a really great pilot and we felt very confident in his flying skills. We landed in Carlsbad at a special jet airport. All these people came out to greet us. I fell out of the plane and we will always laugh at that one. All these scarred men coming to my aide with frightened looks on their faces as I came flinging at them. Darn knees. Anyway it was a real fancy place and we had a hard time leaving the airport bathroom for the lotions, hair products and mouth washes. We then went and saw Molly and Jeff's new house. It is, well......Amazing. It is on a hill and has a beautiful view and is on a really big piece of land. It has a large court yard in the center of the house that is open to air and has a fire place. Oh it is really beautiful. We had fun going for a ride down the ocean. We ate at some really good places and rested and relaxed. Jessica got tired but enjoyed the trip very much. We appreciate them inviting us as it was such a nice break from routine and all the hospital stays. We left Friday morning and got home about ten o'clock Sunday night. Molly had left her car keys in the rental car so Jeff and Mike Patey gave us rides home. Jessica and I rode home in Jeff's new BMW it it so fast. It has seats in the front that hug you when you turn corners so you don't fling. He asks Jessica what the fastest she had ever gone was and she said 90 mph. He hit the gas and in a second he said not any more and he said now you have gone 115 mph. Then he slowed down again. It was exciting and Jessica loved it she was beaming and her eyes were sparkling.

Monday she was very tired and had to rest for several days. She had intractable pain. She recovered and was able to sleep. I worked that day so Alisa took care of her.
Tuesday she rested.
Wednesday Grandma Knowles came after temple and picked her up and took her to lunch at Goodwood. She loves that place. She then took her to a book store and let her pick out several books. Jessica is such a reader. She will devour several books a week. She also took her to get a makeup make over. She got her eye shadow for her trip to Croatia. She had a blast with Granny. Mom said it felt like old times with Jessica.
Thursday was another rough day. She had a lot of pain again. She was depressed cause the day before she had felt pretty good. This has been hard for her and all of us that one day she will be ok and then next really sick. I think Jessica will get glimpses of hope that she is getting her strength back and then get her hopes bashed. She has struggled with that. Anyway on Thursday Lynn sent Zack over to pick her up. She went and sat at Lynn's all afternoon and she enjoyed that a lot. Lynn has huge chair that Jessica loves to cuddle in. Lynn fed her and just spent time talking to her and she just loves the break from her room. Jessica has always been such an active person this is hard for her. Lynn ended up feeding me too when I went to pick her up. I had just finished a rough week of ten to twelve hour days and was pooped.
Friday Jessica rested again all day. She did call on her pass port and the lady politely told her that there were three million pass post applications and her trip was three weeks away still. She told Jessica she felt confident it would arrive. We paid a lot of extra money to get it here by August 7th which did not happen. But as long as it is here before she leaves for Oregon. She flies out of Seattle. I am worried, so worried about her making the trip. I have no idea how she will do it. Alisa feels the same way. I will tell you her Dr's feel it is a terrible idea. But what do you do? Jessica has a burning desire to go. So what you do is put it in the Lords hands. Do all you can to prepare so if the Lord says yes she is ready to go and brace yourself for what to do should the Lord say no. That is how I live my life lately. I am going to do all I can do to help Jessica do what she wants to do, period. If is works out great if not we adjust. I am so limited in what I can do to help Jessica in this hard time.

This weekend we put her in a wheel chair and wheeled her to IKEA. This was a lot of fun. But she was tired. She went to Hair Spray last night treated by Meghan and Zack, Lynn and Kevin's kids. She had a blast. Said Hairspray was terrific and spent the remainder of the evening humming and singing the songs from the show. "Why have a twig when you can have the entire tree?" I guess it was really good.

Well that is it. It has been a terrific week and more. It has made up for the yucky hospital stay. Thanks to each and every one of you that has blessed out lives with your kind acts and prayers and thoughts. We love you. PS Jessica's hair is growing like crazy. She has baby eye lashes and brows, the works. You go girl!!!!!

August 1, 2007

We love the comments everyone. Thank you! Please keep em coming! Jessica, Alisa and Charlie went back to Hunstman for Jessica's 8:00 am appointment. Charlie is all better today, we are glad it was a short lived bug. When they arrived at the doctor office they told Jessica the appointment had been cancelled because she was still in the hospital. Jessica said I am not in the hospital I got out yesterday. She told them that she could not leave without her prescriptions as she was out of meds. SO they waited an hour and then the Dr. came in the waiting room and saw her and she did get her scripts. Jessica has felt quite good today. The big news is her hair is starting to come back in. She has black soft fuzz that is quite visible on her head. We call it her five o'clock shadow :)
Jess says to tell all of you she appreciates all of your warm thoughts and prayers and messages. Says she is pretty lazy and does not have any energy. But.... she is looking for a pall to got to Hair Spray with. Do I have any takers? Night Everybody! Love you!!