...Annual Charity Garage Sale...

To our dearest family and friends-

We would like to thank everyone that has been praying for us, encouraging us and supporting us through this last year! We feel so blessed to have you in our life and can’t even explain how much your support has gotten us through it!

As most of you know, Kai and Dustin have worked for Controlled Rain and One Hour Heating and Air Conditioning. Kai still works for One Hour and Dustin helps out Controlled Rain when he isn’t working for the city. Last year we (Dustin, Kai and Knox) got to help with the Charity Garage Sale that was put on by One Hour, Controlled Rain, and Mister Sparky. The young man, Joseph Nunez was and still is battling Leukemia and we were able to help him with our first annual charity garage sale. We had a great turn out and raised a lot of money for Joseph and his foundation.

Naturally, when Dustin was diagnosed this last year with Cancer we were going to host the Garage Sale in Dustin’s behalf. We had decided this the moment we found out he was diagnosed with Cancer. We had all these overwhelming thoughts of financial hardships we were about to face and hosting the Garage Sale in Dustin’s behalf sounded like a no brainer.

Then… a miracle happened!

We were blessed with something called a “Spaghetti Feed”! Never in our wildest dreams could we have imagined something so extraordinary. We were so incredibly blessed by that event and couldn’t have asked for anything more.

We have worked with a wonderful lady named Melissa, and one day she came into the office talking about a little girl named Emilye that goes to her son’s daycare. She is 5 years old and has been battling Nuroblasoma for little over a year now. Emilye and her mother currently travel back and forth to New York to see a specialist that is trying to help slow down the Cancer until they can hopefully find a cure.

Once we heard about Emilye and her journey with Nuroblasoma we decided that we would host the garage sale in Honor of Dustin Doughty for Emilye Flick. All proceeds will go directly to Emilye for her on-going treatments. We feel so blessed to have the opportunity to help out another family going through something so scary.

We will be asking anyone that would like to donate anything to please drop it off at your convenience. We will be accepting donations large or small.

Drop off:

9300 Kimmie Street Olympia, WA 98512

(One Hour Heating and AC / Controlled Rain Shop)

Days: Monday-Friday, 8-5pm

Starting: 8/15/11- 8/26/11

If you need help with delivering larger items you can call 360-918-9300 to coordinate a pick up.

We wanted to let our family and friends know about this garage sale because we are so ready to bless another family. The garage sale will be on Saturday, August 27^th from 8-4pm. Please come and support Emilye on Saturday.

Thanks again and we love you all so much and appreciate all your support!

(We will be having a silent auction, raffles, book drive, and garage sale! All by donation only)

Thank you all so much!.

...The Results...

July 6^th was a great day for everyone!!! We went and met with Dr. Harris to hear the results of Dustin’s bone scan. We were all nervous and especially Dustin because we have been waiting for so long to hear any sort of news (good or bad).

Dr. Harris was able to pull up the original bone scan on the computer and pull up the newest scan so we could see the drastic changes of improvement. The original scan showed Dustin’s bone to have a big black spot on his right hip and the scan post Chemo showed the spot was now a light shade of grey. The Chemo is working!! We were all so relieved to have some GOOD news.

Dr. Harris told us that Dustin will continue his monthly blood draws and Dustin will continue to see Dr. Harris every 3 months for his check-ups.

Dr. Harris also told Dustin that in December he will do 1 more bone scan as a preventative measure to make sure the Chemo did its job. In December when the scan shows there is nothing more on the bone, Dr. Harris will call Dustin’s Cancer in remission.

Until December it will be another 4 months of waiting result but we are more than positive that no matter what God has a plan for us and he will protect us and prepare us for anything that comes our way.  

We love you all so much and thank you for all your prayers, encouragement, and support during these memorable life moments. These are stories for the grandkids…one day! =)

Thank God for Family and Friends!

... Dustin's Bone Scan Update...

The follow up Bone Scan is SCHEDULED!!!

Finally, after 3 long months we’ll be able to get some answers. Dustin will be going in for his Bone Scan on Tuesday, July 5^th .We expect to hear some GOOD news within 2-3 days after the Bone Scan.

Please pray for courage, strength, and peace of mind. We appreciate all of your love and support during this trying time in our life.

Oh the memories…

....Back in Action....

Sometimes life consumes you in the every-day that we forget the important things like our blog! Better late than Never we say!

Dustin had his follow up appointment with Dr. Harris on April 6^th and it went great. We found out that we can expect to have a follow up bone scan in June or July to see if the Chemo worked.

The plan:

1. The bone scan in June/July will come back negative for anything abnormal. (If something shows up abnormal we will let you know that plan- but it won’t happen, we’re certain!)
2. Dustin will go in for monthly blood draws. This is a preventative way to monitor Dustin and make sure nothing goes wrong. The doctors say once you have cancer it makes you more prone to getting other kinds of cancer.
3. After a year of monthly blood draws he will start going every other month for routine blood draws. He will have to do this for 4 yrs.
4. FIVE YEARS!!! That is when doctors consider you “cured” or unlikely to have any further issues with cancer.

So now in the meantime we are trying to regroup and start getting back to a “normal” life.

We just celebrated Knox’s 1^st birthday! That was such a proud day for us. We are parents to the most special boy in the whole wide world. April 8^th 2011 was such an amazing day and we were so blessed that our family and friends spent the day in honor of Knox.

We got to go to Vegas the week after Knox’s birthday. Yes we went to Vegas but it wasn’t all fun, gambling, and laying by the pool. Kai was in conferences for work from 8-5pm. Dustin got to use air miles and tag along for the ride. While Kai was in conferences Dustin was missing her while he laid by the pool and was sports betting on the Mariners, Lol. We had such a great time because on Saturday work was over and Kai’s family from Hawaii was in Vegas too. We spent all Saturday and Sunday morning with Uncle Warren, Auntie Lorraine, Grandma Soo, Aunt Lori (Grandpa Ron’s Mom, Brother, Sister in-law, and other sister) We had such a blast. Our family from Hawaii are so funny and always a good time to be around. We wish they would move to Washington but then we wouldn’t have a “homie hook-up” in Hawaii with a free place to stay on vacation =)

Life goes by so fast and it’s Easter before you know it. We had a great Easter and was able to spend it with both sides of our Families. We spent Saturday night at the Summit Lake house and Sunday morning with Kai’s family and Sunday afternoon with Dustin’s family at Grandpa Keith’s and Grandma Sheral’s. One of the biggest blessings we have in our life is our families. We are so fortunate to have love, support, and encouragement 24/7. Thank you to all our family and friends for being our rock.

the Easter Bunny brought Knox and Isabella there very FIRST fishing poles for the lake!!

Easter Morning

The Adult Egg Hunt- Epic!!

Speaking of normal, Dustin started working again! He started on April 25^th working for the City of Lacey. The City of Lacey has been nothing but amazing support for Dustin through his battle with Cancer. We were so honored to have almost all his co-workers attend the spaghetti feed. We were both so excited that he got the opportunity to go back to work for the city and especially since they are like another family to Dustin. But Dustin still loves his “daddy time” when he gets home, that’s for sure!

We also just got the honor of spending Friday, April 29^th with Josh and Krista O’Byrne. Josh and Krista purchased the “behind the scenes” PBR (Professional Bull Riders) tickets from the spaghetti feed and spent a lot of money and we got to join them as part of the deal. It was such an amazing opportunity to get the chance to hang out with such great people. Dustin’s Aunt Julie and Uncle David arranged a dinner with 2 PBR bull riders and a PBR judge at Dukes Chowder House before the show.

OMG, how much fun was that. We got to eat dinner with the people that make the PBR what it is today. It was the highlight of our night because we got to find out how the PBR really works. We had no idea that it’s based on how hard the bulls bucked and how long the riders could stay on. It made the PBR a lot more fun to watch because we knew what we were watching. One of the bull rider’s parents was at dinner with us and that was fun to hear bull riding from a mother’s perspective, lol!!!  

We want to THANK Josh and Krista for purchasing those tickets at the Spaghetti Feed and for allowing us to join you on such a fun event and THANK you to Uncle David and Aunt Julie for providing those tickets to auction off.

It was an amazing time!

So now that we have NO more daddy daycare we have put Knox in daycare. We love the place we found but were so sad the first day!!

With daycare comes his first ear infection and baby sickness =(

So now we are kind of in a waiting game. We have about another month or so till Dustin will receive a follow up bone scan and we will go from there. In the mean time it’s Mother’s day this Sunday and Kai is so very excited that she gets a day to say “I Love Being a Mom” and Dustin is excited because he gets the opportunity to buy presents for Kai and write a love note to Kai from Knox.

We love you all and please continue to pray for Dustin and our family! We appreciate you all!