Happy Leap Day!

It would take more lucky shamrocks
Than Ireland ever grew
To bring the luck and gladness
That I'm always wishing you.

Hello, friends! Happy Leap Day! Today we are thankful for an extra day for Jane to rest and heal and for God to hear the prayers we're sending. We have two important updates after our long absence from the blog. The first is a huge thank you to all of you UI employees who donated time to Jane. Last week she found out that she had received over 5 weeks of donated time!!! Amazing! She gets choked up every time she talks about it and wanted us to convey as loudly as possible how unbelievably blessed she and Randy are feeling with all of your support. They have been overwhelmed by all of the cards, prayers, food, and offers to help and then to learn of all this donated time on top of that--wow! Thank you everyone!

Our second update is about Jane's health. She's had a pretty rough week, but is slowly rebounding. Two Saturdays ago (February 18) Jane was admitted to the hospital with a bowel obstruction, which is likely the result of the chemo drugs doing their thing. After a few days of bowel rest, she started eating again last Wednesday, but it was too soon. So she started strict bowel rest again, meaning no food and no liquids. A CT scan late last week showed the bowel obstruction was still there, but that the remaining cancer nodules had shrunk! The chemo is working! Because of this, the plan was to continue with conservative treatment of the bowel obstruction for as long as possible to keep Jane on her chemo schedule. Her doctors were comfortable with being patient and hoping it resolved on its own for as long as it took, with surgery being an absolute last resort.

Over the weekend, x-rays showed a slowly resolving obstruction. By Monday, the x-ray showed no more obstruction! Today they're hoping to clamp her NG tube and maybe even let her try some clear liquids today or tomorrow. Unfortunately, as a result of nothing but IV liquids for the past 10 days, Jane's pretty weak and tired. Nutritionally, she's fine, but it will be nice to get some food on board in the next few days.

Thank you again for those of you who've donated time and for everything else you're doing. Jane (and her family!) is so grateful for it all! Thank you! We'll try to keep the blog updated in the next few days as she heals and gains her strength back.