Congrats to D.J. and Rachel Schmutz

Yesterday Henry Daniel Schmutz joined D.J. and Rachel Schmutz, he weighed 7 lbs and 8 oz, both baby and mom are fine and pictures will follow.

Welcome Sammy!

Samuel "Sammy" Chandler was born at 6:33pm on 9/18, was 7lbs 9oz, and his mother is definitely happy to be through with the pregnancy. We arrived at the hospital around 5:50pm, so things were already progressing quite rapidly. Life is wonderful, and baby and mom are doing well.

Love,

Nat

Congrats to Nat and Tara

Nat and Tara are the proud parents of a new baby boy. This brings the grand total of children to three, two boys and a girl. I will post more details as I get them.

Liz on TV Tonight

I just received notice from Rich that Liz and the Aggies are taking on BYU in volleyball tonight at 7:00 MST. IT is being broadcast on BYU TV. She has been having a good year and it should be a good game to watch. The Aggies are 9-0 so there is a lot of expectations for a great game. If you get a chance check it out!

JT Update

Hey,

We just wanted to let you know we love you and are so thankful we have you as we are going through all of this with JT. When we went in to see the doctor on August 15 to see if his second surgery was successful we found out that JT’s cancer didn’t do what it was supposed to do. In general cancer in an organ, in this case Follicular cancer in the Thyroid, will infest the entire organ before finding more tissue to infect. His went about 2/3 through and decided it wanted out “escaping the thyroid capsule” and headed for his neck tissue. So in order to try and stop it from growing, we will be headed to Seattle Children’s Hospital where he will undergo radiation treatment. In order to prep for this JT has had to go on a very strict diet.

NO:

Iodized salt, sea salt. Milk or other dairy products, including ice cream, cheese, yogurt, etc. Eggs, seafood, including fish, shellfish, kelp, or seaweed. Foods that contain the additives carrageenan, agar-agar, algin, alginate, Cured and corned foods (ham,, lox, corned beef, sauerkraut) breads made with iodated dough conditioners, foods and medications containing red food dyes, Chocolate, Molasses, Soy products (soy sauce, soy milk) Do not eat at restaurants.

This was pretty hard at first but we are finding that fresh fruits and veggies and homemade breads are really quite tasty. He will have to stay on this diet until after the second dose of radiation.

We head out tomorrow (September 6). We will be there from September 6-23. He will have quite a few dr. visits. His schedule will be:

7^th- blood work then his first dose of radiation. This will only be a small dose to survey the tissue remaining where his thyroid used to be.

10^th-he will be put under the cameras in the nuclear medicine clinic and this will tell them how much of the cancer is remaining. He will have to lie on a table for approximately 1 hour.

14^th-more blood work to check for TSH and to measure tumor markers (thyroglobulin) then he will have a clinic visit with the dr to go over the results from the scan and to prep him for the next day.

15^th-he will have the therapeutic dose of radiation at this time where he will be admitted to the hospital where he will stay in a lead lined room where he will have to remain until he is no longer radioactive. They believe it could take between 2-4 days. He will be in isolation and will not be allowed visitors, not even me. I will, however, be in the next room to him where they tell me I will be able to see him and talk with him on the telephone. He will be discharged with the restriction of not being around small children, people with illnesses, or pregnant woman for another 2-4 days. So he will just hang out in the hotel room with me.

22^nd-he will have another full body scan this one will be slightly longer at 1 ½ hours. He will need more blood tests to check markers and then he will have another clinic visit.

We will be staying at the same hotel for the entire visit and I have checked with them (because many of you have asked) and they said it would be ok to send correspondence to JT at the following address:

Jimmie Rosenbruch

C/O Hotel Nexus

2140 N. Northgate Way

Seattle, Washington 98133

We love all of you and feel truly blessed to have you in our lives. Bud will be out working so my Best friend Wendy Dalton flew up here, leaving behind her own family, to take care of the three kiddos AND to work for me while we are gone. We will never be able to express our gratitude for all of you.

We love you!!

Bud, Jackie, JT, Jakob, Joshua, and Jayden

Pictures of Baby Makell

These are the photos of baby Makel, Celeste and James' new little girl. Since I received these photos she has been allowed to go home from the hospital. Congrats the new family!

Celeste and James welcome a new baby girl!

Allison Makel Neighbor was born August 29th in the morning! She is in the NICU for breathing for the next 2 days but as of right now it's nothing serious. She is four weeks early so they are just keeping an eye on her for a couple of days. I am working on getting a photo and will update the post as soon as I do.