THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU

I have not been very good at blogging this last week but I really want to start out by saying THANK YOU SO MUCH to everyone who came out to support us at the yard sale last weekend! I could not believe how many people donated things and how many people came and bought things. The plan was to start setting things out Friday so they could be set to go on Saturday, but as soon as they started setting things out people started stopping. They ended up having pretty much a nonstop flow of people all day Friday (seriously all day, even after dark people were still stopping) and most of Saturday! We have never felt more loved and it was so amazing to know how much support we have. I also want to let Clint's family know how much we appreciate them doing this for us. You guys are amazing and we love you so dang much!!! We seriously are the luckiest people in the world!

Clint has been doing really good since we've been home. Luckily (and surprisingly) he is the only one of us not to have gotten sick in the last week. We went to our first clinic visit on Tuesday and they said so far everything is looking good. His labs are pretty much right where they'd expect them to be at this point, so that's really great news. He continues to amaze me everyday. I was telling him today that I thought it was crazy that the docs made such a big deal of telling us how he'd need a caretaker to be available for him all the time, yet since we've been home I really don't feel like I've done anything for him. I told him he'd better start letting me do things to take care of him or I was going to start feeling pretty bad about my 'caretaking' skills :)
I had to throw this picture in here. This is Ali, she was our PA the day Clint got his diagnosis. And she is definitely our favorite! We love her! She is amazing and would give Clint all the crap he needed, because all of you who know Clint well know he can be pretty sarcastic and he is a smart A most the time! But she took it well and could always put us both in a good mood! Hopefully we'll be able to see her at clinic every once in a while!
I also had to put this picture on here. This is my Grandpa Ron. He is one of the funniest people I know. He got his hair cut pretty short a couple weeks ago and didn't want any of us to tell Clint before he saw him. When he got here he told Clint that they were twins now! These definitely are two of the best looking guys around! Love you both!!!
Well I better get to bed. The boys get up a little earlier than we did at the hospital :) Again thank you for all your love and support. Please remember to keep Clint in your prayers, we still have a long road ahead of us. Love you!

...oh and just a reminder, if you want to come play golf you need to get signed up this week. You can click here for all the info. It will be a lot of fun so don't miss out! I am also working on getting a marrow drive together to have at the tournament. I will post more on this as I get more info but if you want to do some research in advance you can go to www.marrow.org. Help us save more lives!!!

home sick

we're home.
it's great.

except.....
nate is puking. and i have a headache. and i'm exhausted. and now i don't dare sleep next to clint because i'm afraid i'm covered in nate's sick germs. so it looks like i'm sleeping in the hall to listen for the next puke fest.
lovely.
welcome home.

now let's just pray that it doesn't get passed on to clint. ugh.
maybe the hospital wasn't so bad!!!

A date night before we go home

Everything went good with the doctor today. The only bad news we got was that Clint shouldn't golf while he has his central line in :( He wasn't very happy about that news, especially because that was one of the things he was looking forward to most. But oh well he'll be ready to golf when the line comes out and then the weather will hopefully be a little cooler too!
Now it sounds like we will be coming to clinic twice a week for a while and then once a week until day 100. Then we will come in for the big checkup and bone marrow biopsy. This is when we will find out for sure if Darren's cells have taken over and if the leukemia is gone. So for now we will just keep him healthy, take his meds, and wait and hope for the best possible news!

Tonight we told the nurse we were leaving for a while and we went for a drive, picked up some pizza and went over above memory grove and watched the sun go down. It was a little cold (I know weird) so we mostly sat in the car and ate, but it was really nice. Almost like an actual date! It was a really beautiful night, these pics are from my phone so they're not the best but it'll give you an idea of how beautiful it was...
I really love it up here in the avenues. There are so many trees and I love all of the old houses. It is so nice to walk around up here, I will miss that part of being here. But I am so excited to go home, a little (or a lot) nervous too, but mostly excited! We would love visitors, so just make sure you're healthy and come on over to say hi!

Thanks so much for everything everyone has done for us. We are so blessed!

We get to go home!!!

It looks like we get to go home tomorrow! We are super excited. We have been here for 5 weeks and 1 day today so we are definitely ready to get out! Clint will still have to come back pretty often to get all his counts checked, but barring any sickness or complications he won't have to stay anymore. WooHoo!!!

I'll update again later today after we talk to the doctor if they give us any new info. But we'll just keep our fingers crossed that nothing crazy happens before we can walk out the door tomorrow!

It's a good day :)

Jepperson Family Yard Sale

When: Saturday July 17th 8 am
Where: 1855 West 1100 North
Pleasant Grove, UT 84062

All proceeds will benefit the friends4clint fund.
Donations for the yard sale can still be made at the address above.

A big thank you to Clint's family for putting this together!
We Love You!!!

Day 23

Clint is doing pretty good. His colonoscopy biopsies came back but they didn't show any signs of GVHD, but the doctors said it might just be too early for GVHD to show up on a test. They ended up starting him on prednisone which is supposed to help with the diarrhea and the nausea, and fight GHVD if there is any. He just started it yesterday but already it seems to be helping, he hasn't had nearly as much diarrhea and the nausea seems a bit better too.
When Dr. Hoda came in today he told Clint that if he could start eating then hopefully we could get out of here by the end of the week. So today I've really been trying to get him to eat some stuff, so far he's had a small box of corn pops and 3/4 of a bagel w/cream cheese. That is definitely the most he's eaten for quite a while and we still have a few more hours to hopefully get something else in him :)
He still has such an amazing attitude, even though he is bored out of his mind most of the time. I just want to say a big Thank You to everyone who comes to see him. It really helps the days go by way faster.

I have a lot more to blog about (my amazing new quilt Emily made me, the carnival with the boys) but I'm too lazy to download pictures right now, so maybe tomorrow.

Day 19

Today marks 4 weeks in the hospital this round! It's kind of crazy to think that of the last 11 weeks we have spent 9 of those weeks here on East 8.
Clint had to have a colonoscopy today. He said it wasn't too bad, he doesn't remember anything so that's good. The doctor said everything looked pretty normal but they should have the results of the biopsies that they took in the next few days. Hopefully those results will give us a reason for all the diarrhea he's been having.
He did eat 2 bowls of cereal yesterday so that was exciting! That ended up being pretty much all he ate, but hey it's a start. Today he didn't eat anything, mostly because they made him fast this morning for the tests and then he didn't feel real terrific the rest of the day. But hopefully tomorrow we can start getting some more food in him!
His neutrophil count was up to 800 today, which is great news! His platelet and hematocrit counts are also holding steady. So all in all (other than this diarrhea thing and not eating) he is doing really good. We'll probably still be here for another week or so just depending on what they find out, but hopefully we'll be able to come home soon!

Yesterday we had a BBQ at Clint's parents house. The boys had a ton of fun playing with cousins and playing in the water! Thanks Dennis & Kathy for the good food and fun times!
Here is Noah & Kolby playing with the rocket launcher
Nate cooling off in the little pool
Nik & Kyler playing the golf ball game
I also just want to say thanks to Kim & Kent for being so willing to watch the boys this week. They were soooo excited to get to stay with you guys! We have the best family ever!!!

And just to top it off Clint & I got to see more fireworks last night! Yeah! We had a pretty good view of the fireworks after the Bees game from the hallway windows during our walk. Loved it!!!

Happy 4th of July!!!

I just want to start out by saying how grateful I am for all those who make such huge sacrifices so that we can live in this free country! I have such respect for all those who fight for our freedom, because freedom is not free! Thank You!!!
Last night I took the boys over to my aunt Shannon's house (thanks Shan) for a BBQ and some fireworks! The boys had such a great time. They played & played and then when it finally got a little dark they were ready for the sparklers. After that they went over to the church by Shannon's house to watch the Thanksgiving Point fireworks. They loved them and told me the end was awesome! I left before the fireworks started so I could beat all the 'after firework' traffic. But I got up here just in time to see the Sugarhouse Park fireworks, we had a pretty decent view of them right from the window in Clint's hospital room! Which was great because I love fireworks!!!

Earlier yesterday Nate & Noah came up to visit! It was a lot of fun. They love hanging out with their dad! Here they all are sitting on our little couch.
They also got to take dad on a walk. Well Clint & I walked, they got to ride :)
Clint is feeling pretty good. We are now at day 16. Today he had 300 neutraphils, yeah! He is still not eating a lot but he did eat a small bowl of rice krispies this morning, so that's something. They still don't know what the diarrhea is from. For right now they are just going to keep an eye on it and if it doesn't start clearing up or it starts to get worse they will send in a GI doctor and do a scope to get some biopsies to see what's going on. But for now we'll just try to get him eating and see what that does for him.
It does sound like we'll probably be here for a little while longer :( They just want to make sure everything is working right before we go home, which is good. But when he does hit 500 netraphils they said he could probably get a 'day pass' so we can leave the hospital for a while and maybe take the kids and do something fun (so if anyone has any ideas of fun things we can do in SLC with our kids in a non germy environment please let me know).
Thanks to all those who visited today, it definitely helps the day go by faster! Hopefully everyone is enjoying the holiday weekend. Be safe and have fun! And as always, healthy visitors and prayers always welcome! Love you all!