We need your prayers!

We got some not so good news this past Friday when we were in Utah at a wedding. Daniel's levels didn't come back good again. They are still rising. They rose in 6 days what normally would rise in a month! His kidneys are shutting down quick. They have worked hard the last 2 1/2 years and they are tired! We need them to last 7 more weeks until his surgery. Wednesday we go to have another blood draw and we really need the level to stay the same or drop a little. Otherwise we will have to move the transplant up. His doctors are trying to avoid dialysis because he'd have to have surgery to do the peritoneal dialysis and that requires a catheter to be surgically placed in his abdomen. Well, according to what I've read, you can't use it for 2-3 weeks....cutting it a little close to surgery and making it a almost a waste to do. He has been activated on the deceased donor list from inactive status to active status. So, if for some reason a kidney comes available and we need one before Kelle could donate, we could. But we don't have to take if we don't want to. But anyhow, what we are asking for is just a little prayer to go up for Daniel that his level will be good on Wednesday. He got a priesthood blessing today from grandpa Lords.....so hopefully we have a enough faith and it's Heavenly Father's will!

Also, I've copied the link to the front page article the Fallon Free Star did on Daniel and Kelle last week. It's a nice article and pretty accurate!
http://news.rgj.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080725/FALLON/807250312/1029

Thanks everyone! I'll email on Wednesday when we find out his results. We need another little miracle! I hope there isn't a quota, because we are probably pretty close to filling ours! :-)

Kelle Herzog....Our Angel Donor

Below are some pictures that the freelance photographer took for an article in tomorrow's local newspaper. The couple of Daniel laying on the ground and Daniel & Sammy were inside the office. The other ones were outside with Kelle. She is our donor for Daniel. She is an amazing women who lives here in Fallon. We met for the first time and she volunteered. In fact, I don't even think Daniel was awake at the time. I think he was napping. Anyhow, she is a really neat lady that I wish you could all meet! Enjoy the pictures! And 54 days! But who is counting?!

Daniel's Update

I have had some people ask me if I could switch Daniel's updates to our family blog. I agree....it's easier to access. So we will no longer update the Caring Bridge website. It will be easier for me, too, when Daniel's surgery happens next month! THAT'S RIGHT! We just got back from Stanford and we got some great news! Our transplant coordinator, Gerri, said that she had met Kelle and she was 'adorable' and she is doing great! Kelle went over and met with her team of 'people'....her surgeon, her social worker, her pschyiatrist (sp?), etc. Anyhow, apparently Gerri had no doubt that everything would be good and we'd get the green light to go ahead. She told us that nephrology transplant has the operating room every other Monday. August is full, but she is going to put us on the waiting list (in case there is another surgery that doesn't happen for some reason) if she can get us in the #1, #2 or #3 spot. So we are excited and hope that we get a date soon!

It's a good thing, too. Daniel's creatinie level went up to 3.3 . That is the highest he's ever jumped, so Dr. Talley is happy we have a donor and we are close to transplant because he is officially Stage 5 (the worse stage) - Chronic Renal Failure. We have 14% kidney function. So in one month we went from 16.6% to 14%. Anyhow, a few changes in his meds....his hemoglobin count was low. We have to do a couple more tests before the surgery: tuberculosis (sp?) and urinalysis. We are redoing his blood work on Monday to make sure his creatinine is as high as it really is and a few other levels weren't very good.

4th of July Activities

We started out the day with our ward's traditional breakfast of pancakes, sausage, eggs, milk & juice. I think Bryce went up 3 times! He was in heaven!

























Nathan and Sammy were playing on the picnic blanket. Nathan would roll up in it and Sammy would step on him. When Nathan would act injured Sammy would laugh and laugh!















Some friend of ours, the Hubbards, have been inviting us up to their 4th of July tradition outside of Carson/Reno (right between the 2 cities)....Bower's Park. We finally took them up on it this year! We are glad we did! The weather was beautiful (cooler the higher up in the mountains we went!) and the view was amazing! The park was huge which was nice because there were easily over 1,000 people there and yet there was a lot of space for people to set up volleyball nets, play soccer or just lounge and watch the kids play....which is what we did!














We did take a walk past the pool to Bower's Mansion. It's now set up for tours, but use to be owned by a wealthy family (the Bower family.....believe it or not!) They made their money in the mines. Beautiful home with a gorgeous wrap around porch! My dream! We didn't do the tour, but promised the kids we would sometime, along with go to the pool!





The playground equipment was fun. There was a little kids (twins size) section and then the older kids had a separate area. Comptyn got blisters on his hands he did this so many times!





Bryce...striking a pose!




Daniel & Sammy! CUTE!



Ryan also developed blisters trying to get across this. He worked really hard....and he FINALLY got it!







Despite what Nathan's face looks like, he breezed across these bars EVERY time! His hardest part was trying to touch on the other side. His toes BARELY touched the platform! He was pretty proud of himself! He did it before any of his brothers !












We then drove home (it's a little over an hour away from Fallon) and repacked the car and drove to 'our' spot to watch the fireworks. We played some football and some "Snorta!" (our new favorite game to play with the kids!)


























Daniel, not even 60 seconds after we got to Numa Elementary School to watch fireworks, slipped in a BIG puddle and DRENCHED his clothes....so he was in the diaper all night. Good thing it was warm! Anyhow, him and Sammy sat on the edge of the curb of the parking lot and chattered at each other for quite a while! It was fun to watch them interact! It always is!







The next day when daddy was mowing the lawn a frog jumped out from one of my lilac bushes! So of course the kids had to catch it and play with it! Ryan loved it the most. The other kids liked the "look but don't touch" philosophy of life! Of course, his name was Kermit!

And Comptyn found a praying mantis. He'd pick that up but not the frog!

Camping at Gold Lakes, CA

We spent the week camping up in the beautiful mountains of California. Below are some pictures of our hikes, camp and creatures we saw! We had moments of wondering why we took 2 two-in-a-half year old twins camping! What were we thinking! But over all it was a blast! And we had a great time!

Nathan & Daniel having a snack after one of our MANY hikes!

Ryan, Comptyn, Bryce & Nathan loved the stepping stones over this creek near out campsite!




Ryan & Bryce kept trying to sneak out these big
pine cones that were all over the national forest we were in.


The creek on one of our hikes.


Of course the kids had to stop and throw rocks in it!


Sammy chewing someone out about something!


Comptyn in one of his many poses!












Big Bear Lake. Water was incredibly clear and beautiful! Bryce got a little nervous the closer we got. He thought we were going to see Big Bears!


Fun bridge we had to cross to get the Big Bear Lake.


Sammy fell in LOVE with all the wild flowers. Notice the dirt and 'ouchies' on his fingers!















What is camping without a squirt gun fight! Of course we only had enough guns for everyone but dad!


We saw a marmot across the way from our camp site. We also saw new birds and a bobcat ran across the road on our drive up to one of our hikes!



Lucky Daniel could just fall asleep where ever! We were exhausted every night!

We have a kidney!

In fact, we have 2! We had 5 AMAZING people who volunteered to be tested. 2 passed the initial screening. Of those 2 BOTH were matches! One scored slightly higher as a better match for Daniel, so we are starting with her. Her name is Kelle. (Jimmy is our other donor.) Anyhow, both of them are incredible in their willingness to help a complete stranger! We did not know either of them before all this started! Anyhow, Kelle has a few tests to have done on her blood and an evaluation at Stanford and hopefully things will be OK. We are blessed to have a 'back up' if something happens with Kelle's work up. Anyhow, the transplant will happen soon! When? We don't know exactly yet. We have to wait for Kelle's things and then Daniel needs to get his Echocardiogram done. Then we wait for nephrology to say....GO! Which, at our appointment last month they said they wnat to have it done by Sept 1st if we could. So I think they'll get us in there as soon as everything is ready! We are just amazed at the miracles we've seen and been able to participate in throughout this whole process. We are grateful to those of you who have prayed and fasted on Daniel's behalf. Please know that we know that they are been heard and answered! We avoided at least 3 surgeries that I can think of off the top of my head and many other 'little' witnesses along the way. Thank you!

Yet another Brycism!

Our family has been reading from the Book of Mormon. We are hoping to finish by the time the twins graduate from High School in 15 years! Anyhow, we are in 1 Nephi 12 when Nephi is being shown the vision his father, Lehi, saw. The angel showing Nephi the dream will say, "Look" and then Nephi says, "And I beheld...." and then he would tell what he saw. It is repeated over and over thru out this vision. So the other day I was telling Bryce he needed to get dressed and his clothes were on the back of the couch. I kept saying, "Bryce here are your clothes, time to get dressed." (He was watching TV.) So I finally said, "Bryce, Look!" Without even moving he said, "MOM. I beheld!"