A look back at 2009

Well it has been some year. This blog post is dedicated to a look back at the Derek, Kaela, and Camden Beach family in 2009. January-March was pretty uneventful. Derek and I were both really tired. I was growing a baby which is horribly tiring. In March we found out we were having a boy! Derek was doing chemo and was scheduled to be done in May. However he developed a cough similar to the one that took us to the doctor in the first place and more scans were done. It was found that his cancer hadn't shrunk any and in fact was growing. Derek went through 3 different types of chemo before it was decided that a bone marrow transplant was necessary if Derek wanted to be cured. In May we went and had a consultation with the transplant doctor and everything was laid out for us. His own stem cells would get extracted from his blood which looks like someone getting dialysis. He had to do this 2 days in a row to get the amount of cells he needs. They said he would have to be in the hospital for about a month. The bad news was that it sounded like he would be in the hospital when I had Camden so I was greatly worried about that. Derek then did some pretty intense chemo where he spent 8 hours a day for a week getting chemo, got 2 weeks off then had to do it all over again. Towards June I was feeling pretty crappy. I was getting huge and thought I would be giving birth to a 10 pound baby. My blood pressure started rising. At the beginning of July I stopped working.

Here's me looking HUGE!

On July 21st I went to the doctor and my blood pressure was really high so they sent me to the hospital to get a 3D ultrasound to make sure my baby was okay. I was already dilated and almost completely effaced so she said I would go into labor sometime this week but to make an appointment for next week just in case. Next week came and I still hadn't gone into labor. I went to the doctor and my blood pressure was crazy high and said that I had preeclampsia and the only cure is having the baby. So she sent me to the hospital to get induced. Everything went pretty quick after that. I got into the labor room and Derek got really sick. He had just done really intense chemo a couple days before so he kept disappearing into the bathroom. At 11am they started the pitocin. At 1pm my doctor came in and broke my water. At 145 pm I got my epidural. Pretty quickly after that I was 10 cm and started to push.

At 501 pm Camden Allen Beach was born weighing 6 pounds 5 ounces and was 18 inches long. Derek was great through the whole thing. Even being so sick he never complained and was there for me every second I needed him.

In September Derek got his first transplant. This one he did outpatient. He did one day of super intense chemo. And the next day he got his cells back. It wiped him out pretty bad. He shaved his head because his hair was falling out but it was falling out too slow for him. Since he started chemo in last November he has kept his hair and wanted for once to look like he actually had cancer.

We were living our life as a happy family. In October Derek and I celebrated our One year anniversary.

That's not a beer on the table. That's an IBC rootbeer. Derek can't have fountain sodas. Two days later he went in for his second transplant which he had to be admitted for. He did a whole week of chemo followed by a day of getting his cells back. I visited him everyday but no one under 12 can go into the transplant unit so Camden couldn't see Derek. Everyday I brought the blanket Camden slept with to Derek so that he had a little piece of his baby. It was really hard for Derek to be away from us and really hard for me to have to chose who I was going to be with Derek or Camden. But 15 days after being in the hospital Derek came home. He couldn't get out of the car fast enough to see his son! Derek got out of the hospital 2 weeks earlier than expected, and then very quickly started recovering. I took a caregiver class on how to care for Derek when he got out of the hospital and I was expecting him to be incapable of doing anything like make his own food or even take a shower but he was fine! It was great and really a testimony to me how our Heavenly Father can perform miracles to those who believe they can happen.

Here is Derek getting his cells back for the last time!

After that it was just a healing process for the both of us. Derek got called as second counselor in the Sunday school presidency. I got called as the secretary in the Primary. I went back to work right after Thanksgiving. We also had a wonderful Christmas. Even though Camden doesn't understand about Christmas yet we still had a blast buying and wrapping his presents and watching him as we opened them for him.

Our Christmas was wonderful! It was so nice to be together.

This has been a tough year but it was made sweeter by the arrival of our little boy. Heavenly Father sure has been watching over us and taken great care of us. Our family and friends have been angels to us and have really looked out for us. We couldn't be more grateful. It has also made us all the more grateful to be an eternal family.