The Whole Fam in WA

Small miracles had been happening all around, and one of them being that Kelli’s cancer was downgraded. Her tumor was so baffling that the pathology was sent on to experts who agreed she really had Astrocytoma Grade 3. I had never been so happy to hear about a grade 3 brain cancer in all my life. This was much better than the original grade 4 diagnosis and reminded us that God is totally in control, and Kelli always knew that He was going to take good care of her… which He has time and time again. I won’t get into all that! She decided her treatment plan would be 7 weeks of radiation, a month break, and a year of chemo. The chemo is a pill form so it’s to be taken 5 nights on and 25.. or is it 28?.. days off… for one year. I always thought I wanted to be there for the worst part of treatment, which is the radiation in the case of brain cancer. I’m so glad that I was!

Clint’s job took their sweet time (at least it seemed like it..) to let us know that a permanent relocation was not going to be approved. We were so disappointed because it seemed that everything would work out so perfectly. They did give Clint a two month work from home kind of a deal, home being Washington. I was glad it was something, but still sad it was not going to be permanent. Other employees had done the same kind of moves before and not had a problem, but lucky us had to follow some new policy of them cutting down on that kind of a thing.  I told Kelli the news and she said something along the lines, “Well, maybe that means we only need you guys for two months! If that’s the case, then great!” Always seeing the silver lining, that one.

A few weeks went by and we were sorting through all of our options on where to stay etc. We looked into furnished housing, apartments, corporate housing, rentals nearby.. we even checked into an RV. The Thurgood family had visitors in their home since her surgery and I just wanted them to have their own space, but still get the help they would need. Clint and I were working out the details with dates to go and I had thrown out there that we might even be able to do one month at first, and save the second month for her chemo portion of treatment, or just whenever. It was a huge miscommunication and Clint told his boss that we would only be going for one month at first. I was pretty annoyed and still hoped the original two month offer still stood, had we needed to take it. I cancelled any and all photo shoots and didn’t book out anything for months, just in case.

About a week before we left, we talked to Aaron on the phone. He told us to stay at their house and they were sure everything would work out ok. It’s not ideal having visitors for months on end, but neither is brain cancer. I was so nervous about imposing, or overstaying, or that the boys would be loud and drive them nuts etc etc. We’ve always gotten along great and spent all our time together in the early days before any of our kids came along, but this was different.

Everything couldn’t have worked out more perfectly!! We ended up staying about 5 weeks and we were there for most of her radiation and even a bit afterwards. The kids were overjoyed and had the time of their lives. Of course they had little issues here and there, but I still can’t believe how seamless everything went. We would have not been able to help in the way that we did if we were staying anywhere but their house. We are so blessed to have been able to go, and so many things had to be just so in order for it to happen. It’s really so neat how it all worked out.. I won’t get it now.

Clint ended up working from an office in Belleview, WA where they were able to transfer over his phone number and get him situated into a temporary office. He carpooled with my brother in law, Aaron, who works at Amazon - which is a few exits off the freeway from Optum, Clint’s work. Traffic to Belleview is horrendous. Since Clint was with Aaron they got to ride in the carpool lane and saved tons of time. They came home from work laughing and joking around just about everyday and the kids would yell, “The dads are home!!” Those two are good friends and really did enjoy hanging out and doing fun things over the time we stayed.

Sweet family members would text or leave me messages that they hoped we were hanging in there, and how were things really going and other things similar to that. I can honestly say that it was AMAZING. In such a hard and trying time in our lives, we were blessed to have 5 incredible weeks together. Our kids will cherish that time we spent together forever and the memories that were made are priceless. It seems so crazy to blend two families to live together for an extended amount of time, but it worked. Kelli and I had each other, Clint and Aaron had each other, and the kids had each other. I am sitting here bawling just thinking back on it. I could never put to words how much that time meant to me, to all of us.

As you can imagine, I have a gazillion pictures from our time there. Almost 1700!! I’ve tried to do a summary of everything up to this point, just so I can start getting to the pictures… the best part! Here are some and I will continue to post a bunch more, along with more day to say stuff.