Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas to all, its been a long year. Looking forward to 2011. I am so blessed. I have the best family and friends. I feel so blessed this year having gone through these trials. I am so grateful to family and friends and all of you. Your prayers, thoughts, kind words of encouragement, and your warm love to my family and myself. While I am looking forward to next year, looking forward to May, when I might be able to get off of chemotherapy. I also feel sad that this year is coming to a close. I have so missed the BYU 173rd ward, and BYU 6th stake. I am enjoying going to church with my family. As a family, we decided to go see the lights on temple square, so here is a little photo of our trip. It was very cold! I even had to wear my beanie cap. But it was nice to have most of us for the trip, Jocelyn and Tony were still in Virgina, but will be here for new years day. Looking forward to that. We had a wonderful Christmas together and again want to share my love and thanks to all of you. I am feeling stronger and better everyday. Bryce and I are going snowmobiling for New Years day, looking forward to that. One of my most selfish fun things to do. And Alyssa and I have already put a trip down in her busy calendar before she leaves for the mission field. Yes, she has submitted her papers to go on a mission. We are very excited for her. We have big map of the world on the wall in our family room where we have all marked where we think she might go. Should find out in a couple of weeks. Take care and God bless you all.

-Kyle

Still recovering from Gall Bladder Surgery

With everything going on, I ended up going to the emergency room on November 16th for a gall bladder attack, I did not know that was what was going on, I thought it was a side effect of the chemo, but this one did feel different, so Lynette decided for me to head to the ER. After the ultrasound it was confirmed I need to have my gall bladder removed. Great, another surgery, but after all the brain surgeries, this one seemed mild (a same day surgery). The ER let me go home that night and we started to find a surgeon that could look do the surgery ASAP. We found one that could see me 2 days later on the 18th. I went to an appointment to see the surgeon and after 5 minutes, he confirmed the thing needed to come out. So, he said, lets go over now to the hospital and do the surgery trying to get done before Thanksgiving holiday where everyone wanted to be gone, so Lynette and I said ok. 2 hours later I was prepped for surgery. Had the laparoscopic surgery and things went well, other than I am still sore somewhat. This is a picture with warm blankets all wrapped around me as I was getting cold (which is so not like me, until after this year, I find myself getting cold and even wearing long pants to work!). This last Tuesday, I was tired of not playing some basketball, so I tried, that was a mistake, I am still in pain from stretching all my insides trying to shoot and get rebounds. I will need to take another 2 weeks off of playing ball. Lynette has me walking with her now at the BYU field house to get exercise. Again I have been very blessed and this experience has again increased my patience and love of family and friends. I feel very blessed this year as we approach the celebration of Christmas. One side effect I was having from the chemo was the constant nausea, but now I and the docs think it was because of my bad gall bladder. I have started a new round of chemo and have noticed that I don't have the nausea now, so I am thinking now, that in a twisted sick way, it was good to have the gall bladder removed as now I may feel more normal. Merry Christmas to all and thank you again for all of your prayers love and support. I know I can beat this thing(cancer), and working everyday to do it.

-Kyle