15 DAYS AND COUNTING

We are in the hospital right now. We came in on Thanksgiving evening because Natalie had a fever. They have ran blood cultures everyday but so far they have all came back negative. The doctor thinks the fever is caused by the Ara-C (chemo) shots Natalie was getting. She got the last one Thanksgiving day. Her counts are very low right now from the chemo too. They expect counts to drop and they should start to come up soon. We need counts to rise and fever to drop. It has been hoovering around 99 or 100 and at one point got as high as 103.5
Nat has been having some head aches too. This round is hard on her. The saving grace is that we have 15 more days of this phase and life should get so much better. As a mother, it breaks my heart daily to not be able to fix this. All I can do is pray that God hears our plea and heals her completely. We trust that He will. We had lots of company in town for Thanksgiving and unfortunately we hardly got to see them. We knew that was a possibility but were still very disappointed that we didn't get to spend more time with them. Next year will be better!
Please continue to keep Natalie in your prayers.
Love ~ The Erwin Family

One week down, one to go!

I got chemo shots (ara-c shots) Monday through Thursday this week. Today was the last shot for this week. I am looking forward to a better weekend than this week. Next week I get the shots again Monday through Thursday. I am looking forward to getting the very last ara-c shot i will ever get on Thanksgiving day. Please pray that I feel good while my family is in town and my counts are high enough to keep me from getting any infections. Our God is an awesome God!
I thought i would post a recent picture of me. This is me and Hallie, one of my best friends, up at her cabin in Pinedale. We had a blast riding around in my Samurai.
25 days left! Whoo-hoo!!
In His hands~
Nat

Our God is an awesome God!

I thought that I would update the blog today just to change things up. Today we found out that my counts are good enough to continue this phase, which means this phase will end on December 14th! I go in for a spinal tap and some other chemo on Monday. The next couple weeks I will also be getting daily chemo shots at home. We have lots of family coming into town for Thanksgiving, so please pray that I feel good and my counts stay stable while they are here.
I am going to physical therapy three times a week, and my feet are greatly improving. My goal is to not use the wheelchair when i go back to school on January 4th. Doing my school work from home has been very nice.
In His healing hands,
Natalie

TODAY IS DAY 16

We are closing in on completing 16 days out of this 57 day phase. So far things have been going great. Natalie has had a little upset stomach the last two days and her appetite is not as good but she feels pretty good and really doesn't complain about it. She is back on steroids this week along with two other chemo's she got yesterday. She does have some hard stuff coming up later in this phase so hopefully she will just keep sailing right through. It has been so nice having her feeling pretty normal the last month or so. Her feet are continuing to improve and she is walking more and more. That in itself makes her feel better. We would love you to pray for the following:
1. continued success during this phase
2. no nausea
3. feet to keep improving
4. spirits remain high
5. 100% cure!!!!
Thank you so much for praying with us and for us. God is good and He is doing great things with Natalie.