Count Your Many Blessings

Today will not be a very upbeat post, and for that i apologize in advance. i know i know, deployment is still a few weeks away so "depressing Emo Sav" should still be in hibernation... but this is a completely different blog post for me to have to do.

You know how when you see those t.v. commercials for dying children in Africa, or St. Judes hospital commercials with child cancer patients... Some of you may just kind of tune those commercials out and say "sucks for them" while depending on the time of month some of you may just start bawling while watching it and can't believe that the world is such a sad place. Most of us, no matter our reaction have the exact same thought at one point of these commercials "i'm glad it's not me/my family".. if you're a mother, you may want to wake the kids up and snuggle them to death. My point being, we have a little bit of that invincibility reaction it's a sad statistic that at least 12,400 children are diagnosed with cancer every year, but it normally doesn't affect our day to day life too much.

I am not a mother... nor are any of my sibblings parents yet. But as most of you know when me and Riley were married his parents and his sister(and her husband) lived in St George. So that's where we lived, close to his family. and shortly after we were married Michelle & Bobby (Riley's sister and her husband) announced to us that after trying for a long time, they were pregnant with their first. i was sooo happy for her. And of course, being a newly wed, i was a little jealous. In late May 2007, we were woken up bright and early around 5:30-ish saying that Michelle was about to give birth. So we got up, got dressed and hurried over to the hospital. and there i met my nephew Jaxon Loren Wynn. Now before he was born i was excited.. but kind of how a friend is excited for another friend to have a baby.. because this child would be blood related to Riley.. but in no way other than marriage would he be my relative... HOWEVER, i met this little guy, and he absolutely stole my heart. I was "Aunt Sav" from that moment on. He had jaundice so he had to be under the lights at home for a while, but he was perfect. over the next year we would go visit little "Bubba J" even though Michelle and Bobby were overprotective first time parents... we bonded with that amazing little kid. he started walking and talking and could kinda say his name by proudly yelling "AXIE" to anyone who asked his name. he would march around the livingroom and kitchen yelling like a war cry type thing for like HOURS and trace the same path every time. I can't help but laugh everytime i imagine him doing this. cause he's FRICKEN FUNNY. in late 2008 Michelle and Bobby were pregnant again, and in August 2009 Michelle gave birth to another little boy. They had kept his first name a secret through the pregnancy but asked us if we would mind if they gave him the middle name Riley in honor of his uncle. who as they put it was such a great man, and the role model they wanted for their sons. how do you say no to that one? So Boden Riley Wynn was a little more than 2 years younger than Jaxon. On December 1st 2009 Riley left for bootcamp. and i moved 4 hours away from St George for while he was gone. during that time, Jaxon was potty trained, and would constantly call me to yell "NANA! PEE IN POTTY!!!" and i was the proudest aunt in the history of the world.

So now i live ... i have no idea how many miles.. but i'm going to guess 3,000 miles away from my in-laws. Michelle and I talk at least a few times a week. she's become one of my best friends, and favorite people in the world. i look forward to talking to her, hearing about my amazing nephews and hearing about the random dramas that affect her daily life. in August of this year, Bo turned 1. And Michelle informed me that Bobby got a job offer in northern Utah, paying a good deal more. and as you all know, we as american's tend to go where the money is. Riley and I were really worried about his parents, because they were having a VERY tough time with us living soo far away. So now they were going to be losing both their children... ok not really but going from having your kids and their spouses/kids soo close to having them all live far far away is a hard thing. Michelle kept me informed on how the house hunt was going, they eventually found a place that they loved and was perfect and they moved in. Jaxon called it the "red house" cause it had one red wall inside. in September the started Jaxon in a preschool to help him with his speech development. He seemed to be doing really well, he went a few times a week for an hour or so. That's mostly what we'd talk about on the phone every week... neither of us wanted to come to terms with the fact that her brother(my husband) would soon be leaving to go fight the war in Afghanistan... i would only bring it up if i had news about dates or anything else that i felt she would want/need to hear.

As you all know, Riley's parents came to visit us about 2 weeks ago for a week long visit. Right before they came i was on the phone with Michelle and she told me that she thought Jaxon had a disease that would make him allergic to gluten. she told me how he was complaining ALL the time about his tummy hurting. he wouldn't want to go play with his cousins in the mcdonalds playplace and would just want to go home. she was glad to get the testing so if he WAS allergic to gluten she could adjust his diet so he'd feel better. she let me know that they were doing the testing the following week. the day after the testing i called to see how it went, she said that it wasn't the gluten thing they were thinking it was and they were doing more testing. we didn't really think anything of it and went on with our vacation. Friday morning we took Riley's parents to the airport and they promised to call us when they landed in Vegas to let us know they got home ok.

Later on Friday, we got a call from Riley's dad saying that they landed in Vegas, but had some bad news. The doctors had done some tests and were almost positive that Jaxon had Leukemia. I think at that point we were in shock. i called Michelle and she told me the same thing, they were doing more tests and were really hoping that it WASN'T leukemia, but if it was they were ready to fight and win against it.

Then on Saturday i talked to her and she told me that the doctors ran some more tests... and Jaxon did NOT have leukemia. he has a tumor in his stomach and stage 4 cancer that has now spread to his bones. he has what they call Neuroblastoma, and is a high risk patient. he's starting Chemo in 4 days, and from what i understand he'll basically be doing Chemo and radiation for the next year (could be wrong on that so don't quote me). he's had a few blood transfusions already and is on morphine while home to help control the pain. they are hoping they can do surgery in like 6 months after a bunch of rounds of chemo to remove the tumor, they are hoping the Chemo can shrink it so it will be easier to remove.

Basically my 3 1/2 year old nephew has Cancer, an advanced stage of cancer. the THOUGHT of him sick from chemotherapy makes me get all teary eyed. He's sick, and all i want is for him to be better. when he's home he lays on the couch and watches TV. Bo wants to play but Jaxon yells at him to "GET OUTA HERE BO" so Bo is sad that he doesn't have his big brother to play with. Shellee(my mother in law) is heading up there this weekend to stay with them and take care of Bo while Bobby is at work, and Michelle and Jaxon are at the hospital.

Riley is leaving for Afghan soon, and now on top of everything else, he's going to be having to worry about how his nephew is doing. if anything happens he WON'T be able to come home for any reason, because he is a nephew, not a sibbling. it's just not fair, ya know. i mean here is this family who goes to church, pays tithing, is nice to EVERYONE (sure they were a bit wierd when they first had Jaxon, but MOST first time parents are that way)... i know that NO child deserves to be this sick, but in this case i feel like on top of that, My sister in law has enough on her plate, and SHOULDN'T have to be in the hospital watching her son get Chemo treatments. she is keeping such a positive attitude though, as best as can be expected in such a situation. finding any funny thing that one of the boys did and laughing about that on the phone, rather than focus on the scary stuff.

So as my title says... Count your blessings. when you see those commercials, go wake the kids up just to give them ONE MORE hug good night and tell them how much you love them. and then if you would, say a little prayer for my nephew. he's honestly my favorite little guy in the whole world, he's going to beat this thing. He has so much to fight for.