BYU-vs-Virginia game

What an awesome game to have attended ending with BYU 66 - Virginia 49! Thank you BYU for helping our family have such a memorable night and helping Larry celebrate his 55th birthday (Nov. 12) and Ben & Bekah celebrate their 18th (Nov 9th)!!!

A couple of weeks after we had decided to take Larry & the twins to the game for their birthdays, I had an idea to see if any of my older kids knew anybody in broadcasting that could possibly get their birthdays announced at half-time or do something special for them as they are all HUGE BYU fans.

Spencer reached out to one of his buddies, Bryce, from BYU who works in broadcasting. He ask us if we wanted a tour of the BYU broadcasting station and he thought they could probably announce something on the air.

A couple of hours after Spencer got off the phone with Bryce I received a phone call from Jack Damuni, one of the assistants to Coach Sitake (the head coach for BYU), asking if our family could come early to participate in some of the pre-game activities, including the dinner that is sponsored by the team. They also ask for our shirt sizes. As Spencer had just gotten off the phone with Bryce a few hours earlier, I just assumed that Bryce was the trigger that got all of this arranged. I later learned that our good friends, Nate & Rachel, from that area,knew that we were coming to the game and had pulled some strings with some of their connections and had spearheaded the contact with the team. We ended up having a really fun tour of the broadcasting station followed by some really amazing activities that were connected with the team.

 At the broadcasting station we not only got to meet Spencer's very awesome friend, Bryce, but we got to see all of the cool behind the scenes stuff that goes on and see some of the sets where they broadcast the games and one of our very favorite series Studio C.

Anxiously awaiting for our tour of BYU Broadcasting

The large broadcasting room when you first walk into the building

We LOVED seeing and sitting at the set "BYU Sports Nation" where all of the broadcasting happens. The set was a lot smaller than we thought it would be.

These pictures were taken at the set where they film one of our favorite comedy series, Studio C!

Picture of Nate by the BYU broadcasting travel truck

Above are pictures from the parade. It was so cool to be a part of the marching band and the cheerleaders welcoming the players off of the bus. When Coach Sitake got off of the bus he came up to Larry and handed him a bag full of goodies and gave them all hugs. Larry was thrilled to receive an autographed BYU football and the twins were super excited to received new Nike windbreakers with the BYU logo printed on them. Nate is sporting his fancy glasses that they gave him at BYU broadcasting and posing with our friend, Sammy, who was our guide for the night. Her dad was a previous football player for BYU.

Video of Parade and of Larry receiving hug and gift from Coach Sitake

Picture of our family at the team sponsored dinner. They had a tent set up where they served dinner to special guests and recruits that they had invited. It was fun to be part of this and get a glimpse of what goes on behind the scenes before the game.

After the dinner, about an hour before the game started, we were escorted down onto the field and were able to have a bird's eye view of the team warming up and running onto the field. It was such an awesome experience to be a part of the action and to be so close to everything. The kids were also able to get some awesome pictures with Cosmo. As it was the night everyone was celebrating Halloween, it was especially fun seeing all of the creative costumes up in the stands.

When it was time to start the game we walked all the way up to our nosebleed seats to watch it. Amazingly, Larry & my A-T kids were able to make the trek (although it did take them a few days to recover). It is so cool how you are outside, but the stadium is so brightly lit up that it feels like you are inside. Being in the nosebleed sections is also not a really big deal with all of the modern technology. Thanks to the large screens the coverage is wonderful no matter where you are sitting. What an amazingly fun game it was. BYU started out very strong and then Virginia came back very strong and gave them a run for their money. It was an exciting game until the very end!

During half-time our family was invited to the special snack tent that was for special guests and recruits. We were each given two tickets to pick out food which included pizza, scrumptious BYU creamery ice cream, sandwiches, pretzels, and the famous Cougar tails (which is actually just a long doughnut with maple frosting) My kids thought they were wonderful!

Everyday Is A Gift

On July 21st we were given the very shocking and devastating news that Larry had stage IV pancreatic cancer that had metastasized to the liver and that he only had three months to live. That three month time-frame is quickly approaching as October 21st is only two days away.

Since that time we have been through a whole range of emotions and have learned about alternative cancer treatments through a firehose since we were only given a 2% chance that he would make it even a year with chemotherapy. Not only were those horrible odds, we didn't want Larry to spend his remaining days suffering from the effects of chemotherapy.

As part of our alternative cancer approach, Larry spent three weeks at Hope4Cancer in Tijuana, MX. This was the best decision that we could have made. Not only were we surrounded by professionals who understood and practiced alternative medicine, we were able to immediately be immersed into this lifestyle so that we could learn it for ourselves. We were also surrounded by other incredible people who were on a similar journey to ours.

Returning home and implementing the diet and cancer therapies has been hard! There are so many days that I just want to throw my hands up in the air and just go back to our old ways. My son, Spencer, keeps reminding me that we have not come this far to only come this far and so I keep pressing forward with learning and practicing new ways knowing that in the end these new healthier ways will be not only a blessing to Larry, but to our whole family.

Some of the therapies that we continue to practice at home are juicing, eating five small nutrient packed meals a day, enemas, ozone therapy, light therapy, sona (sound) therapy, hyperthermia, oxygen therapy, sona vera (immune boosting) shots, and mistletoe shots. He also has a gazillion pills that he is supposed to be taking at different times of the day, but due to his digestion struggles we have had to be very selective about which ones to take.

Overall Larry is still doing quite well and is able to engage in most family, church, and limited work activities. I am especially grateful that he still has his mental alertness and is able to help out with things like Bekah's government report for school or fixing things around the house that only he is capable of doing. We were even able to attend the Pocatello, ID temple open house as a family last night! The highlight of Larry's week has been watching BYU play football! Our sweet boys have arranged for our whole family to go to the game in Provo against Virginia on the 30th.

In about a year's time Larry has lost about 50 pounds, largely from his inability to eat. A few weeks ago we made the very difficult decision to have the NJ tube (feeding tube that goes through the nose) reinserted in an effort to get him some more calories throughout the day without causing more irritation to his pancreas. The plan was to start with the NJ tube and make sure that he was tolerating the foods ok and then have surgery to have a feeding tube placed in his stomach a week or so later. As part of this process, Dr. Ott ordered a CT scan just to make sure that we were not dealing with any surprises. We were devastated to learn that the tumor on his liver had grown from 3.3 x 3.1 cm to 6.3 x 5.7 cm from his last scan that was done mid July. He was also showing a small growth (1.2 x 1 cm) on his interior left lung. I am not sure why there were no updated measurements given on the pancreas tumor. 

I was especially discouraged because we had worked so hard in our fight against the cancer. My good friend reminded me that when Larry had been first diagnosed with cancer that we really only had three options--do nothing, do the almost pointless chemo, or try something like Hope4Cancer. She also reminded me that Larry has had an excellent quality of life considering his diagnosis. After speaking with the doctor from Hope4Cancer, he suggested that the increase in size could be do to the inflammation as we fight against the cancer. Despite these findings, we are going to continue to move forward with the treatments that we are doing as they are giving him a quality of life that we would not have otherwise.

Unfortunately, due to these findings, Dr. Ott thought it best not to put Larry's body through the rigors of a surgery. We were waiting to do family pictures until he had the tube removed, but we decided to go ahead and move forward with them that following Sunday (Oct. 9th) as we know the severity of Larry's situation. We were so fortunate to have a beautiful sunny day to have our pictures taken and we are anxiously waiting to get them back.

As hard as it is to have an NJ tube in place it is making a difference. Larry had gotten down to 120 pounds and he is now back up to 126! He is able to use the tube to get an extra 1,000 calories in a day in addition to what  he is able to tolerate by mouth. 

On the flip side, our finding with Dr. West in Pocatello are very encouraging. As part of his treatment protocol he shows you your magnified blood on the big screen. When Larry was first diagnosed his cells were sticky and clingy together which is indicitive of cancer. When he redid the blood cell magnification last week his cells looked round and healthy as healthy cells should.

We don't know how all of this will play out, but we do know that we have a loving Heavenly Father who loves us and has guided us through this whole process. If it is God's will we have complete faith that as we diligently do our part we will see complete healing of Larry's body, but if it is not his will for Larry to continue on this mortal journey at this time, we find great peace in knowing that we have been sealed together as a family and that He will help us cope without having Larry here with us. 

We know that we need to keep moving forward in faith and we recognize that everyday going forward is a gift.

Family Pictures 2021

We were trying to hold off on our family pictures until after Larry had his NJ tube removed. After we received news that Larry's tumors were growing and the doctor was no longer willing to perform the surgery to have a gastro tube put in, we decided to take family pictures as soon as possible. Miraculously, everyone was able to make it home the next weekend. Thanks to Lana Lindhardt we were able to capture some great memories. She has removed the tube in one of the family pictures and is working on the rest.

Larry Ward Family 2021

L-R: Dallin, Alyssa, Addie, Spencer, Bekah,

Larry, Nate, Jill, Rachel, Ben, & Enoch