Diagnosis

I'm sure this is a shock to most reading this, and we are honestly just as surprised as you are.  This week Josh received an initial diagnosis of leukemia after having some bloodwork done.  Specifically it is Chronic Myeloid Leukemia (CML).  We have been told that this is extremely treatable, and there are multiple treatment options that are highly effective.  We are really not certain of much, as he has yet to meet with a hemtologist due to the weekend.  We will be meeting with the doc on Monday where we should get some more answers.  We are also currently waiting on an appointment with M.D. Anderson.  Some of you who have already heard are asking how this all came about, so wanted to give a brief explanation.

Some of you might remember how Josh almost passed out shortly after Annie's birth.  Well, he woke me up earlier this week telling me that he had another episode like that on his way home.  He had to stop the car, get some food, and sit for a while before he continued on.  He also said that this has happened a couple of times since Annie's birth, but he hasn't mentioned it.  So he looked up hypoglycemia online and realized that he had nearly every single symptom listed.  So after he went to sleep I made him an appointment with the doc he saw after his car accident last year.  The man is never sick, so we don't have a regular doc.

His main concerns were the issues after prolonged not eating and fatigue.  Of course the fatigue thing is super hard to gauge with his bizarre sleeping schedule, due to the night shift.  He also discovered a strange bruise on his thigh that morning.  It was pretty bad and he couldn't remember hurting himself, so he showed that to the doc as well.  At his appointment she concluded that yes, he was probably hypoglycemic but they needed to get some blood work done to make sure.  He went in the next day to have it done and she told him she would call back in 2 weeks.  With Josh's strong family history of diabetes we thought that would be a worst case scenario.

So when she called back Friday leaving a message saying it was important, I immediately knew something was seriously wrong. Sure enough, it was worse than we could have imagined.

We have spent the last 24 hours basically in shock.  There is just a sadness permeating our household.  We are anxious for Monday so we can learn how advanced the disease is.  It turns our the 2 main symptoms of CML are fatigue and unexplained bruising.  We are so thankful for this hypoglycemia madness, or else we would have never gone to the doctor otherwise.  Poor Josh has been fatigued since he started working at UP.  Josh's job has been really great - he called in Friday night and they called us back today letting us know that he doesn't need to come in all week.  We are so grateful for that, cause it was a major concern for us.

Some of you have sent emails or called, and we really appreciate it.  We are feeling so supported right now!  I am just having a hard time talking about this.  It just seems like if I don't voice it then it can't be real.  And just about every other word I'm having to stop and pull myself together just to speak.  So please don't think I don't want to talk to you if you can't get a hold of us!  This is just so new it is overwhelming.

So we need prayers!  We are asking for some specific ways you can pray for us:

• ultimately, healing for Josh's body
• wisdom for the doctors
• guidance for us to make the right decisions
• supernatural financial provision
• protection for our kids (emotionally)

We are filling our time with prepping for the doctor - we must have at least a hundred questions.  We struggled with the decision to tell people already or if we should wait till Monday.  Ultimately we decided we wanted as many prayers as possible.  I will probably be writing most of the posts, since I find blogging therapeutic. :)  We will update Monday or Tuesday after we meet with the doctors.

Laura