Happy Thanksgiving

Dear Family and Friends,

This is Joni's sisters.  We are making a guest post on Joni’s blog because we want to share with you an opportunity to help this wonderful family.  As we all want to support Jaron through this difficult time, we have decided to raise funds to help him with his medical bills.  We are so very grateful for the abundance of love, concern, and prayers offered to this family.  So many people have lifted their spirits through kindness when they’ve needed it most.  Jaron has been unable to work for quite some time, and his employers have been incredibly generous in helping their family.  We are so grateful!  Extended family has also stepped up to lend crucial support and help with their day-to-day needs.  But with the mounting medical bills that will continue into the foreseeable future, we felt that now would be a good time to ask for help.  

Jaron has a large cheering section of people who love him, especially his three young children!  We all want to support him every step of the way. We would love to ease the stress on Joni and Jaron’s mind as they get the medical care Jaron needs to fight this cancer!  As we approach this holiday season, where the spirit of giving is so strong, please think of the Allred family.  They would be forever grateful for whatever you are willing to contribute.  

If you would like to make a donation to their family at this time, here are a few ideas.

We have opened an America First Credit Union Account.  You could stop by any AFCU to make a deposit.  You can give them the name of Joni and Jaron Allred.  It is the account opened in November of 2017.  If you need it, you can get the account number by messaging Joni.  Or if you prefer, we have a Venmo account, @Joni-Allred. 

Again, we are so grateful for everyone who has been so kind.  We are thankful for all of the messages and prayers and kind deeds.  In the midst of an overwhelmingly difficult trial, it is so beautiful to see the goodness of those around us.  So many people love Jaron!!  He and Joni feel that love and support.  And they are so thankful.

Keep fighting, Jaron!  We love you!  

Love, 

Joni’s Sisters 

Joni’s update:  As they say, “No news is good news.”  There hasn’t been much to report lately because Jaron has been doing really great.  The blood clots are clearing.  The pain is receding.  He is able to walk more.  This is all really good news!  He feels like he is slowly returning to himself.  He still is tired a lot, which has a lot to with the medication he is on.  He is feeling more pain in his head because he is being weened from the steroid.  He gets frustrated with his language.  He still struggles with names and sometimes says the wrong words.  Sometimes we laugh cause he pulls up some crazy words when trying to say something.  Other times he has to take a breathe and endure the frustration. But all in all, he is making great progress and healing well.  

We have had two doctor appointments lately.  Last week we went in and Jaron was fitted for the radiation mask.  They fit this mask perfectly to his face so that when he is in radiation, he will not move at all.  As we were in the waiting room, an old man came walking out.  He had dread locks down to his waist and they were green.  I leaned over to Jaron and said I hope radiation doesn't turn him green.  Jaron thought the man looked cool.

They took Jaron back for almost an hour.  As I sat in the waiting room, I wrote this post.  

“I am sitting here waiting for Jaron to get fitted for his radiation mask. In the foyer, a talented man is playing the piano. It feels like he is playing for me. 

‘Little darling, I feel that ice is slowly melting

Little darling, it seems like years since it's been clear

Here comes the sun

Here comes the sun, and I say

It's all right.'

I hope it will be alright.”  

It touched my heart so much to hear this song.  When I posted this on Instagram, my sweet cousin commented that she envisioned my angel dad whispering into the piano man’s ear, “Can you play this song for my little girl.”  I have thought of that over and over.  I hope my dad was there.  I miss him so much.  

Today Jaron had a “set-up” appointment with radiation.  We went to the brand new facility in Farmington.  It is SO nice.  Everything is brand new and shiny.  It is comforting knowing we are getting the newest machine.  I hope that helps Jaron’s treatment.  They allowed me to come back.  I watched these sweet gals lock Jaron up on the table.  Then this big machine swirled around him.  I was a little overcome.  Sometimes it is still hard to believe what is going on but things like this make it feel too real.  Jaron wasn’t to worried about anything besides not freaking out.  That must feel claustrophobic.  But his is strong and they let him listen to music, so he isn’t too worried.

Jaron’s chemotherapy is a pill he takes every night.  It came in the mail.  That was weird to open a package and to say, “Jaron, your chemo is here!”  Brain cancer is hard to treat because it is hard to get the chemo to the brain.  So chemo through an IV isn’t as effective as a pill.  Jaron starts these pills on Sunday. Then on Monday he starts his radiation.  He will do these for six weeks.  Then he will do chemo for the next 6 months.  They say Jaron will feel pretty ok for the first two weeks but then he will start feeling more tired and will lose his hair.  This is a long road but we are hopeful it will be effective.  

My aunt brought dinner last week and said, “How are the children doing?”  I realized that I share a lot of my thoughts and a lot of what Jaron is doing but I haven’t shared too much about the children.  When the news came out, the children all handled it differently.  My 12 year old held a lot of it in.  My 10 year old threw his emotions everywhere.  Most of them were angry.  It was hard to have him be so emotional all of the time.  My six year old was very social and wanted to tell everyone about it.  Luckily, the kids seem to have calmed down and returned to normal since the surgery.  I owe that a lot to my mother.  I often say she has perfected the art of mothering.  She is also very wise.  She is as good or better than counseling.  She has talked a lot to each kid and I feel like that has helped.  They have also had a lot of fun time with cousins, and I think that helps too.  So, all things considering, I think they are doing pretty good.  Kids are strong and a little naive.  They also bring a lot of strength to us.  My six year old keeps saying, “Dad, you are going to make it through.”  I am sure her innocent faith will bring down heaven’s blessings.  Jaron likes having the kids around.  They bring him a lot of comfort.    

We are excited for Thanksgiving break.  We had a pre-thanksgiving dinner with my family last week.  It was great to have them all around us.  Jaron even made the mashed potatoes.  Tomorrow we will be with Jaron’s family.  It should be a good day.  We have so much to be thankful for.  When we were at church on Sunday, I looked around at all the people there.  I felt so much love for all of them.  I know they have been praying for us and doing acts of kindness for our family.  My heart felt full of love and gratitude to them all.  And I feel so grateful for all of you.  You prayers and support are some of the greatest blessings in our lives.  Thank you for helping us during this difficult trial.  We are so grateful for family, friends, good days, and most of all, our Savior.  We are grateful for His guiding hand and loving support.  We feel very blessed.  We hope you all have a nice Thanksgiving.  We love you!

Joni     

What a Roller Coaster Ride!

What a roller coaster we are on!  And I don’t even like roller coasters.  Last week things seem to be going ok.  Jaron was recovering well and it seemed the worst was behind us.  Then Thursday night, as I was putting the kids to bed, Jaron started complaining about a headache.  He normally has had pain just where the incision was, but this pain was his whole head.  I gave him a full dose of pain meds but an hour later, it was still so bad.  So I called the on-call doctor and he said to give Jaron another dose of pain meds.  I did that and he still was in alot of pain.  We decided to go to the emergency room.  As we drove, Jaron became so nauseous and was in so much pain.  I was so worried about him.  As we pulled up, I could hear Brian Reagan’s sketch on no valet parking at the emergency room.  “You go in.  Tell them you’ve been shot!”  If you haven’t seen it, look it up on Youtube.  You will love it.  Anyways, we pull up and I go in and tell them we need a wheelchair.  They came out to get Jaron and he could barely get out of the car.  He was green and pale and clammy.  He looked terrible.  They quickly got us into a room and put Jaron on a bed made for a 5 ft woman weighing 100 lbs.  It was so uncomfortable.  During this journey I have felt bad for myself.  This has seemed like a hard trial for me.  But seeing Jaron so sick, I no longer felt sorry for myself.  I realized that what I have been asked to do is not even close to what Jaron has been asked to do.  My big, strong, healthy husband has to be sick, and weak, and in pain.  Boy, it is hard to watch him be like that.  I cried a lot because I felt so bad for him.  Well, after two doses of nausea medicine and two doses of pain medicine, the pain calmed down.  They did a CT scan and everything looked ok.  We decided that it was because Jaron went off the steroids too early and his brain was swelling.  Thankfully they sent us home.  That was the most miserable experience.  We were so happy to be home and in our own bed.  I gave Jaron some steroids and we went to bed.  After a few hours sleep, we got up with the kids and were grateful that Jaron’s headache was gone.  We sent the kids off to school and went back to bed.  

My mom, who is constantly the heroine of this story, decided to take the kids for the weekend.  She loaded them up after school and took them to her home.  She lives by my sisters so my kids got to spend the weekend playing with cousins and being loved by grandma.  It gave Jaron and me a lot of quiet rest.  It was so lovely.  We napped and watched movies.  We went on walks and worked on his speech therapy.  I was so rested by Sunday evening.  It was the greatest weekend.  

Almost from the beginning of being in the hospital, Jaron’s feet and legs hurt.  They have felt very stiff.  Walking has been painful for his feet.  We talked to the doctor last week and he explained that sometimes during surgery, blood will get in the spinal fluid and settle in the lumbar system which will then cause pain in the feet and legs.  We were told that it would go away.  Well, it seemed to get worse.  Walking was very painful for Jaron.  We applied heat, did massages, warm baths.  The pain just kept getting worse.  By Monday night Jaron was in so much pain, he couldn’t sleep.  We had doctor appointments Tuesday so I called ahead and said Jaron was in alot of pain.  They said to come in and they would check him out.  Just getting to the car that morning was excruciating for Jaron.  He said it was the most pain he has ever been in.  Well, watching him in so much pain, and preparing myself for doctors appointments to talk about CANCER, had me in a really emotional state.  I cried most of the drive down.  I missed our exit and then the next one.  I almost rear ended someone.  By the time we got there, I was already saying it was a terrible day.  Jaron tried to walk to the appointment but he couldn’t so I got him a wheelchair. (Turns out I am as good at pushing a wheelchair as I am at driving a car.  I almost dumped Jaron two times!)  We showed up to our appointment 15 minutes late.  The first thing they wanted to do was to hear about Jaron’s leg.  They feared a blood clot, so they decided after the appointments, we would get a scan of his leg.  Then we got down to business.  Jaron will start radiation in about a week and a half.  He will do radiation Monday thru Friday for six weeks.  This can cause a lot of fatigue and swelling.  The swelling can cause the communication issues to come back but should get better once radiation is done.  After meeting with the radiologists, we then met with the oncologist.  There was a lot of talk about Jaron’s tumor.  His type of tumor, anaplastic astrocytoma, has different categories.  The mutated kind is the good kind.  It responds well to treatment and can stay away for 20 years.  The first initial tests say he doesn’t have this kind.  We have the kind that comes back and when it does, it might be grade 4, the glioblastoma.  It was hard news to hear.  We will most likely beat this tumor.  It is just hard to know that we will have to keep fighting tumors to keep Jaron around.  Jaron will do chemo at the same time as radiation.  He will take a chemo pill every night along with nausea medicine.  He will do this for six weeks.  Once that is done, he will take a four week break.  Then for six months he will take the chemo pill for five days out of every 28 days.  Once he is done with that, they will do scans and see if the treatment was successful.  There are lots of bad side effects but some people do fine with it.  So we will see how Jaron does.  

After leaving those appointments we went to the University hospital and did a scan of Jaron’s leg.  They found that he has a blood clot from the top of his thigh to the bottom of his foot on his left leg.  Jaron’s leg isn’t really swollen and red so it didn’t have the normal signs of blood clots. But sure enough, it is completely filled with them.  They sent us home with shots he has to do twice a day.  The shots stop the body from making more of a blood clot.  Then, the body absorbs the clot over the next few weeks.  There is a risk that the clot will break off and go towards important places like the heart or lungs.  There is also danger of his brain bleeding where the surgery took place.  Jaron says that this pain is worse than after the surgery or when his brain was swelling.  He can’t even walk on it.  He feels relief if he has it elevated but once he tries to walk, he can barely stand it.  Poor man.  I wish there was a quick solution for this one but we just have to wait for the body to dissolve it.  

So this roller coaster has given us some really hard times but some calm days.  I am learning to live one day at a time.  I used to be such a planner.  Now it is hard for me to make plans for tomorrow.  I always loved mindfulness but struggled to apply it in my life.  Now I am getting a good education of living in the moment. I am learning to endure the hard things happening right now.  I am also learning to see the good happening right now.  And there is a lot of good.  So many of you are blessing our lives.  My heart often overflows with gratitude at all the kindness being shown us.  Thank you for blessing our life.  

I ran into a friend the other day.  She commented that when she reads this blog, she often thinks, “If I was going through this trial like Joni, I hope I would handle it like she is.”  I thought that was very kind of her to say but I assured her that she would handle it well.  I am nothing special.  I am making mistakes and having bad moments.  But I have learned through other trials that leaning on the Lord is the only way to make it through these hard times.  I used to really beat myself up when I would hear other people’s trials and they were so much bigger than mine.  I would wonder how they could handle such a big trial and I couldn’t handle something small like a grumpy toddler.  A wise counselor taught me to not compare trials.  She said comparison is the thief of joy.  She said instead of comparing, I should be inspired.  She said to look at others and see that by relying on the Lord they were getting through some really hard things.  I could then apply that to my life and learn that by relying on the Lord I could get through whatever I was asked to do.  This life is hard.  Everyone has trials.  But I truly believe that the Lord will help us through all of them.  He has helped me continue on when I want to sit down and throw my hands in the air.  He comforts me when my fears of the future seem too great.  I am so grateful that he has helped me through so many trials.  He has been there through my many miscarriages, through my struggles with anxiety, through losing my dad, and now through caring for my sweet companion.  How grateful I am to know my Savior and to have Him by my side.  Without Him, this trial would be more than I could bear.  What a blessing He is in my life.  So take heart.  What you are going through is hard, too.  But you are not alone.  And know I love you for reading about us and sending a prayer to heaven in our behalf.  Thank you.

Joni

It Was the Best of Times, It Was the Worst of Times

It has almost been a week since Jaron’s surgery and he is recovering well.  We have been home since Monday, which has been so nice.  The hospital is exhausting.  All the activity makes sleep hard to come by.  Since Jaron is so tall, his feet always hung off the end of the bed.  This made him quite uncomfortable.  So we were thrilled when they said Jaron was doing so well that he could go home.  Before leaving, we spoke with his neurosurgeon, Dr. Jensen, and he said Jaron was a week ahead of where he thought he would be.  His language was doing so well and the doctor was pleased with Jaron’s progress.  This was so encouraging.  We met with the speech therapist and they said Jaron has aphasia, which mostly deals with word finding.  Words, specifically names, are difficult to find.  But with a little bit of therapy, he should gain that all back.  The doctor also said that the optic nerve was being bothered by the swelling in Jaron’s brain, which was causing his vision to struggle. This would hopefully calm down soon and Jaron would get his vision back.  So we left the hospital encouraged that Jaron’s healing was ahead of schedule and all concerns would work themselves out.  

When we got home, Jaron walked straight upstairs, climbed into our king sized bed, and stretched fully out.  For the first time in days, he could have his whole body on a bed at the same time.  He slept for a couple hours, taking up all the space in the bed.  I wasn’t sure where I would sleep at night, but I was ok with that.  It was good to see him comfortable.  Being at home has been nice. Jaron is getting good rest.  He is eating well.  We go for walks.  He gets to see the kids more.  We are glad to be home.  It has also been so nice to have my mom here.  She works with the speed of a superhero and the endurance of a 20 year old.  My home is cleaner that it ever has been and my laundry is always caught up.  She is also an emotional strength.  What a blessing she is!  

At the hospital, the doctor had told us to expect a call with results on Wednesday, which was yesterday.  I had dreaded this phone call because I didn’t want to hear the bad news.  I was still on cloud 9 with how well Jaron was doing.  I didn’t want that to be dashed.  But the time came, the doctor did call, and it wasn’t good news.  Jaron has stage 3 Cancer.  His tumor is called Anaplastic Astrocytoma.  This tumor is a grade down from the glioblastomas his mom has and his sister had, but it is still not a good one.  He will undergo treatments like chemo and radiation.  This can be an aggressive tumor and may come back.  I am devastated.  This is not what we wanted to hear.  I keep replaying the conversation we had in the hospital right after surgery.  Through his grogginess of anesthesia, Jaron would ask about his tumor and I reassured him it didn’t seem to be a bad one and he would say,  “So I don’t need to worry?” and I would lovingly tell him, “No, you don’t need to worry.”  I am glad I calmed him down then, but we did need to worry.  We are now in the battle of our lives.  There are many hard days ahead.  And we don’t know the outcome of this.  My heart aches.  I keep quoting The Santa Clause, I want to “lash out irrationally.”  I want to scream and cry and pull the covers over my head.  But life doesn’t allow that.  Jaron needs me to take care of him.  I have 3 children to love and care for, so I put on a brave face and keep going.  Jaron is just truly being brave.  He says he doesn’t really feel any emotions right now anyways.  He doesn’t smile or laugh, so he doesn’t seem too upset.  But what he has said are all positive words.  He wants to fight and win this.  I truly hope he does.  I want him around for a long time.  I need him in my life.  My kids need him in our lives.  I hate cancer!  I never, ever thought this would be our path.  But here it is in front of us and we must take the road ahead, so forward we go.  

When we were at the hospital, awaiting Jaron’s surgery to get over, my brother JB and I got into a discussion about God.  He was preparing for a future conference presentation on the nature of God.  My brother is a religion professor.  His topic was along the lines of is God involved in our lives or does He watch from a distance, allowing bad things to happen.  We both agreed that we think God is a loving and involved God.  He wants to help us.  He wants to be there for us.  Hard things happen to help us grow and to draw us closer to Him.  He doesn’t necessarily cause bad things to happen, I think that is a part of the human experience.  I think He allows it to happen because He knows that during the hard times we can really grow and become the person He wants us to become.  I also think we agreed to these hard things before we came to Earth.  I think we were told some of the things that would happen to us in this life, and I think we enthusiastically agreed to do them.  I think we were excited to come to Earth, to endure hard things, and to show God that we would follow Him.  The best part is God didn’t just send us to Earth and leave us alone.  He gave us so much help.  So even though we are going through maybe the hardest trial of our life, He is blessing us and comforting us.  He has surrounded us with so many angels, both seen and unseen.  I don’t know how we will get through it, but I know we won’t be alone.  Thank you for being some of those angels.  Thank you for sending your prayers to heaven.  I know we are being blessed by your faith.  I love you for that.

Joni