::Diagnosis of Relapse::
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August 15, 2003, Friday
Kirk and I would like to thank everyone from the bottom of our hearts for your prayers for Matthew and our family this last week. We received many e-mails, phone calls, and visits from so many of you and we truly appreciate your love for us and what we are going through. We know that it is through your prayers that we are able to keep our heads up and stay strong right now. We know that Heavenly Father does not want us to wallow in our misery. He expects us to square our shoulders, roll up our sleeves, and overcome our challenges. We know that we can't do it alone though...we have to have our Father in Heaven's help through prayer and faith. It is through trials that we prove ourselves to Him...that we will still love Him and have faith that He knows what is best, even in the midst of terrible challenges. We know that He loves us very, very much and that He loves Matthew very, very much. This is the hardest thing we have ever dealt with. I think it is worse than the first diagnosis, because we know what we are in for now. We will do everything medically possible to heal Matthew completely, but we know that for this to never come back again will be up to our Father in Heaven. We will accept His plan for us although we don't know why it is happening...we may never know why; however, that is not the purpose of this trial. We won't question "why," we will only have faith that it is for our family's eternal purpose. We will try our best to have faith like Job in the Bible did throughout his trials.

Matthew's motto is our motto: "I can beat it, don't worry." That is what he said so faithfully and so happily the other night. We resolve to have the faith of this little boy in whose eyes shine a brightness of hope and faith. He is so special and understands so much for a child his age. We love him with all our hearts.

Thank you again for your prayers for him and us. We hope that if any of you are ever in need that you would call on us to pray on your behalf.

Love, Kirk & Katrina

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August 12, 2003, Tuesday
Today Dr. Barnette called and said he set the central line placement surgery up for Monday, August 18th. (That is the day the kids are supposed to register for school. *sigh*) We discussed at length over the phone the course of treatment Matthew will have to have now. He will be in treatment for another three years and he'll have to have bilateral radiation on his testicles. He said that there will be several new chemotherapeutic drugs used this time, along with the same ones he had before, and during Intensification he may have to be inpatient for the chemotherapy given at that time. He said the treatments will be about 30% harder than what he went through the first time.

We chose the Port-A-Cath central line because it will be under his skin, thus enabling him when he feels like it, to act like a kid by rough-housing with his brother & friends, and to swim if he wants to. The other one, the Broviac, hangs outside the body and although he would not have to have a needle poke to access it, he could not rough-house (it could get pulled out) and he could not get it completely submerged in water. So he's going to have the one under his skin--the Port-A-Cath (Port for short.)

My heart breaks for Matthew. For everyone that has been praying, we thank you!!! He still needs lots of prayers to get through this again and to beat this forever! I know that our continued faith and prayers will help him get through this.

Feel free to leave a message for Matthew in his guestbook if you would like to. I will read them to him daily and we will save every entry for his journal. :-)
~Katrina

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August 11, 2003, Monday
Well today was one of the saddest days of our lives! The first being December 13, 1999 when Matthew was diagnosed with Acute Lymphocytic Leukemia. Dr. Barnette called today and told me that his testicular biopsy showed leukemia cells growing…he has relapsed. Kirk and I were ready for it, but to know for sure that it wasn’t something else was hard to hear. Matthew has been through so much already!!!!! Not more!!!!! Dr. Barnette said he would call tomorrow to let us know when we need to come out for surgery. Matthew will have to have another central line placed. We aren’t sure if he’ll need a Broviac or the Port. Whichever the doctor says will be best is what we will do. Right after getting his central line, he will have to have his first dose of chemo…again.

We had a short Family Home Evening and Kirk talked about faith for a few minutes. We told the kids that faith can help us through hard times in our life and he then told Matthew and Lane that Matthew’s cancer was back and that he’d have to go through chemo again. They were both sad, but didn’t cry. They are troopers and this is just something they’ve lived with for so long, that it doesn’t really seem like that big of a deal to them. Later in the evening I saw Matthew pick up our cat and heard him say, “Harley, I got cancer again. I have to do chemo all over.” Then he gave Harley a hug.

I am sad about it for a lot of reasons. One being that I was so happy watching Matthew be a normal, jovial, happy-go-lucky kid for the last six months!! He’s been out and about riding his bike, playing with Lane and his friends. He’s just ENJOYED being a kid and I’ve loved watching him be a kid!!!! I will be sad when the chemo makes him ache and not want to do these things anymore. I’m also sad because he was going into Kindergarten this year and he absolutely loves to learn!! More than anything else he loves to write, draw, do math, and read. We are grateful that he pretty much does not need Kindergarten for teaching him things, but I know he will miss being there and being a part of the learning that goes on there. I know he’ll miss out on a lot of friend-making too. I hope he’ll be able to go at least some of the time, but if he can't go, that will be ok too.

I am sad, but at the same time I know that Heavenly Father loves us and would not allow this to happen if it were not for an eternal purpose. This fills my soul with peace and understanding. I know that trials and tests we endure on earth build faith and that we have to remain faithful for blessings to come. We may not be blessed with perfect health for our children, but having people in place in order to help us and things in place to help us are definitely blessings!! We couldn’t make it through this without those blessings. Wonderful friends and family are priceless blessings, and Kirk getting his new job can take time off with pay! He also has insurance through his job. This are all blessings!

This is sad and hard for us, but we will face whatever trials and tests our Heavenly Father gives us with faith that He will help us through them. Perhaps all the plans we had since Matthew ended chemotherapy will be on hold once again, but our love for each other, for our family and friends, for our Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ will always be there and will help sustain us through the tough times that lie ahead.

~Katrina

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Email sent to everyone on my email list on
Sunday, August 10, 2003
Hi everyone,
I would like to ask all of you to remember Matthew and our family in your prayers over the next few days. We are dealing with the worst scare that parents of cancer children can imagine. We won't know the final word until Tuesday (possibly Monday) if he has relapsed or not.

A week ago, Thursday, (July 31st) I called his local pediatrician to get him in early (he was due for a 3 month off treatment check-up on Monday Aug, 4). I was concerned about his left testicle which looked bigger than the right side. I had noticed it looking slightly bigger a week before when he was in the tub and then during that week it looked ok, but then Wednesday night (the 30th) it looked a lot bigger than the right side. I called first thing Thursday morning to get him seen.

His pediatrician (Dr. Pollary) gave us a little hope in that he said it might be a hormone problem, so along with the CBC, he had a testosterone level run. He also called Primary Children's Medical Center (PCMC) to talk with the oncologist. He talked with Dr. Barnette (one of our favorite oncologists) and he wanted Matthew to come out for an ultrasound and possible biopsy next week (the first week in Aug.) Dr. B scheduled the ultrasound for Thursday (Aug 7) and possible biopsy for Friday (Aug 8.)
(The testosterone levels came back as normal for a child his age on Monday the 6th.)

Counts Thursday, July 31st:
WBC 5.7
HCT 41
PLTS 272
These are great counts actually!

So August 7 Thursday, Kirk and I drove the long, long drive (3 hours) to PCMC with Matthew and it seemed to take forever to get there; we dropped Lane off at his grandparents house in Provo. After the ultrasound, we went to the oncology clinic and Dr. B checked Matthew over then talked with us about the ultrasound. Unfortunately, it did not show anything abnormal except size compared to the right one. It is definitely much bigger than the right one. They said they were looking for possible fluid-type things around the testicle such as a hydrocele or things like that, but they didn't see anything like that. Dr. B said that we would have to have his testicle biopsied to make sure that there are not any blast cells (abnormal white blood cells) inside it causing it to grow.

We asked him why it wouldn't show up in the blood, and he said that we've probably caught it pretty early and that is why. Dr. B was gently as he possibly could telling us that Matthew was most likely relapsing. Kirk asked him, "What else could it be?" And Dr. B didn't say anything for what seemed like forever, then he said it might be a vascularization problem. The ultrasound did show some increased blood flow on the left side.

We were so involved with talking about the biopsy, we all forgot about the CBC that he had drawn earlier in the morning. After we left clinic, we had to go upstairs to talk to the surgeon about the biopsy. I did not enjoy that conversation at all and wanted to puke when he explained how he would do the biopsy. I won't explain it to you either.

While waiting to talk with the surgeon on Thursday afternoon, Kirk and I had time to talk. We couldn't bear sitting in their waiting room, so we found a quiet spot out in the halls near the elevator. (The receptionist knew we were waiting out there.) Matthew seemed oblivious to everything and was just watching the few people that walked by. We were able to talk about this worst nightmare in ways that Matthew didn't understand and we both teared up a lot, but didn't cry. We just didn't want Matthew to know anything yet. That night in our prayers, however, we cried and cried and woke up Friday morning with puffy eyes.

The biopsy went well and Matthew recovered fine.
Before the surgery, he was examined by an LPN in Same Day Surgery. I remembered to ask about yesterday's blood counts and she got them for me. His WBC has dropped to 3.5, HCT same at 41, and PLTS dropped to 226. I don't like that the WBC has dropped and neither does Kirk....not at all. By the time we got out of recovery, it was late and Matthew was starving, so we decided to wait to talk to the doctors about the counts until Monday or not even at all. It won't make a difference anyway to discuss counts. We have to just wait for the results of the biopsy. He also had a lumbar puncture and bone marrow aspiration at the same time of the biopsy. We are praying that if it is a relapse, that it is NOT in the bone marrow yet.

The surgeon told us that we have to wait until Tuesday for results because it has to be sent as a permanent section to the pathologist for the most accurate results. He said maybe Monday, but he didn't want to give us false hope, so definitely by Tuesday we will know. Waiting, waiting...is so HARD!!!!!!!!!

Please, please keep Matthew in your prayers the next few days, as well as Kirk and I. Kirk and I have fasted for Matthew (on Friday and again today, Sunday). We will fast again for breakfast and lunch on Tuesday as well. Kirk has also given Matthew a priesthood blessing and we have put his name in the Temple. We have done everything we can to demonstrate our faith to God and we know without a doubt it is in His hands. We know without a doubt that He CAN heal Matthew and make this be something really simple like a vascularization problem. Please pray that we will accept His will if it is a relapse. Pray for the comforting spirit of the Holy Ghost to bless us with a calmness which will enable us to square up our shoulders and face this test if it must be.

On a good note---Matthew is doing really well actually. If you looked at him running around, you wouldn't think anything at all could possibly be wrong with this little boy.

Yesterday (Sat), he took us by surprise when some friends of ours were here visiting. He is showing off his bandage from the biopsy to everyone mind you. (And it is up high above his pubic bone--he doesn't show his privates.) Well he showed them his bandage and then proceeded to tell them that if it is normal then it means that he doesn't have cancer again and if it is not normal then he does have it again. We all wanted to just cry, but looking at that brave boy who just as calm as can be added, "I already went through it all and I might have to again. Oh well" then he just sighed, we all had to hold back and no one knew what to say for a minute. I just rubbed his head and said "we'll see, we'll see....."

I'll let you all know Tuesday. Thank you so much for your prayers and faith.

Love,
Katrina