Thursday  June 7, 2012

We just want to start off by saying that things have been a little bit crazy with the birth of our second child. We sincerely apologize for not updating sooner.  So, to start this post off right we want you all to know that Josh had another scan a couple of weeks ago and got another "all clear" report.  We are so happy and overjoyed! We knew it was going to be a positive outcome because he has been feeling so well.  What a relief!  The doctor gave him a six month stretch until the next scan! 

As far as everything else in our lives, we have a three and a half month old baby boy named Jack Harrison Reinke who was born on February 21, 2012.  He is such a blessing and a beautiful little boy, we have had some struggles with him though.  As with all newborns there is no sleep and a lot of crying but it seems like  with Jack we had more than usual.  He has been a very colicky and strong willed baby!  We are still struggling with sleep and getting into a routine.  What makes it all worth it though is to see his beautiful smile and to hear him start to giggle.  He is rolling over and has found his feet, which makes him much happier.  He is so stinkin' cute, even with all the colic!

And lastly, I started my own business right before Jack was born and it has had a slow start.  My sales are steadily increasing though and as the baby gets bigger I hope I can devote more time to my dream.  I started a gluten free granola business called Gluten Free Gratitude.  I make a raw, vegan, gluten free, dairy free granola.  I am so excited and can't wait to see where my new adventure takes us!

I hope to post more soon and hope that all of you are doing well, thank you so much for your continued thoughts and prayers for our little family!

Kalyn

January 26, 2012

First and foremost I want to get our wonderful exciting news out first:  Josh is still cancer free!!! He had his follow up PETscan on Monday and we found out yesterday that he is still all clear!  We are beyond overjoyed, we definitely had a good feeling going into this one because he has been feeling so good and improving everyday.  He has been discharged from physical/occupational therapy because he has gotten most of his strength back.  The main problems (although they are minor compared to what he's been through) he is experiencing are the changes in his nerves in and around the surgery sight, and his stomach muscles are still trying to come back completely.  Other than that, he has been feeling really well and has started to accept his second chance at life and pursuing his dreams.  He has started Real Estate school from home and has been going to a lot of seminars and business classes on the weekends.  He is truely a changed man and is striving for new and wonderful things not only for himself but for us as well.  As you all know our bundle of joy will be here soon and we are sooo excited to meet him.  I am due February 23rd and we have decided to call him Jack, Josh has always loved his grandfather's name and now we get to honor him in such an amazing way.  We are so blessed and so thankful for all the wonderful changes in our life, what a rollercoaster!  Thank you all again for all the prayers, support, and most of all love!  We hope you all had a wonderful end to 2011 and are having an amazing 2012 so far, we sure are!

With all our Love,
Joshua, Kalyn, and Embyr

November 30, 2011

We hope all of you had a wonderful Thanksgiving and got pleasantly plump! We certainly had a lot to be thankful for this Thanksgiving, and we had a wonderful time with our family.  Josh and I went to see the oncologist on Monday and talked about all of his options.  The doctor let us know that they wouldn't "technically" say he is in remission until he had completed the full 6 rounds of chemo.  He has had two rounds and they say that they always recommend the full course no matter if there is no sign of cancer left in the body.  He says that because their studies show that microscopically there is a chance that it is still there.  Josh and I had a hard time seeing the need to put his immune system and body through that at this moment when he is still trying to regain all his strength and health.  The doctor said that he has had patients stop treatment and see how they did.  With that being said Josh decided that he would rather have another break from treatment right now and give himself a chance to recover from everything else he has been through.  The doctor gave Josh his blessing and said he would stand by his decision to wait a little while.  He will be going in for labs and things the next couple of months but he has a break from everything until the end of January when they will perform another PETscan to see how he is doing.  He intends to focus on eating healthy, juicing, and getting stronger.  Our baby is due at the end of February and we are going to constantly keep praying that he is healthy and strong and ready to meet his first son.  We hope that all of you will pray right along with us and hope that you all have a marvelous Christmas!  We will try to post every couple of weeks just to keep you all updated on his progress.

All our Love,
Joshua, Kalyn, and Embyr

November 22, 2011

I was going to write on the blog last night and give you all our exciting news, but I just had to let it be all ours for a short little while before I started shouting it from the rooftops.  Josh went yesterday to get his latest PET scan results and we found out that he has NO LIVE ACTINE CANCER cells in his body right now.  They are not telling us that he is in remission but we do know for a fact that NOTHING showed up on his scans and we are so ecstatic!!!!  We are so thankful and so blown away that even after this long break off chemo and all the surgeries that his cancer was not growing.  We are blessed!!!  The doctors say that he still needs to have the rest of his chemo, we are hoping it won't be much.  He is due to have a round starting on Monday and then he wants to talk to his oncologist to see if it is really necessary for him to do anymore than that.  It is so hard on your body and what he really needs right now is to regain his strength and stamina...not be put back down from chemo.  I will keep you all posted as to what comes next and how he is doing.  We are so extremely grateful to have such good news after everything else we've been through.  God is AWESOME!!!!  We love you all and thank each and everyone of you who reads this from the bottom of our hearts for all the prayers and love!

Josh, Kalyn, and Embyr

November 19, 2011

Where to start?  How about...I CANNOT believe that I have not posted in almost two weeks.  I am really getting out of the habit of writting when our lives have gone back to some kind of normalcy.  Josh came home the very next day after his surgery.  It was pretty minor, they said that everything that was going on was between the skin and muscle. So, not down in his intestines and stuff.  He came home with staples and a drain, we went to the doctor last week and they removed a couple of staples and the drain.  He goes back on Monday to get the rest of his staples removed.  Last Tuesday he got his first dose of Iron through an IV and is scheduled to get them once a week because he is anemic right now.  Today I took him to the oncologists office to get a PET scan.  They needed this scan before starting his next round of chemo on the 28th of this month.  He is also doing physical and occupational therapy three times a week and is even driving himself.  He still doesn't feel back to normal yet, but he is feeling better.  We all seem to be doing ok right now and are just juggling lots of doctor visits and things.  I will try to keep you all updated as time goes by and I hope everyone has a Happy Thanksgiving!  We are going to have the best one ever...Josh is here with us and we are so very thankful!!!

Love to all,
Kalyn

Monday. Nov. 7

Just saw the surgeon and Josh got through the surgery really well. They drained the hematoma and fixed the artery. He is still in the recovery room but I was told he is doing great and should get to go home tomorrow. He has a drain in the area of the hematoma and a few staples. Thank you all so much for your prayers! We will keep everyone posted in the next few days.

Lots of love,
Kalyn

November 7, 2011

Well, we have certainly been on a roller coaster the last couple of day and I am just now having the time to fill u all in. The last week was pretty good. He got all of his stitches and drains out last Monday. Kind of a crazy experience that day. The surgeon removed one of the drains and when he did Josh started bleeding profusely. The surgeon had to stitch up a torn vein right there in the office. He felt kind of crappy after that but really who wouldn't after seeing that much blood. He did pretty good the rest of the week. He was driving himself around and was doing much better. We woke up Friday to Embyr having a fever and feeling bad. We stayed in a couple of days to take care of her, and she is much better now. Then on Saturday night I started having stomach cramps and I threw up a couple of times during the night. On Sunday I talked to my ob/gyn and she had me go to the emergency room, then admitted me to observe me for one night. I am doing much better and am just struggling with nausea now. Josh's sister came up from Temple last night to help take care of Embyr while I was in the hospital. I could tell that Josh wan't feeling well yesterday because he didn't feel like sitting with me. This morning I woke up to find out that Jenna had taken Josh to the hospital. He woke up this morning to a lot of blood oozing out of the bottom of his incision. They took a cat scan and found out that he has a big pocket of clotted, infected blood in his abdomen. On top of finding the large hematoma, they found an aneurysm in an artery under his stomach. The surgeon informed us that it should be fairly easy to fix. So, I got discharged this afternoon while Josh got admitted. They just took him back for surgery about 20 minutes ago and said it will probably take about an hour. Please, please, say some prayers...I will post again in a little bit to let everyone know how it went.