4….yes it has been 4 years since God chose me and my unborn child to still be a part of this world here on earth. It is amazing how many people have touched my life since then and at the same time in hopes that my story will touch lives and comfort others knowing that miracles still exist in this difficult world.
I always try to be short and sweet but it is challenging enough just to keep it limited to a page or two. I decided to use this year mark entry as an opportunity for you to take on a challenge within the next few weeks. You see, when I faced this tumor four years ago I received cards, my family received phone calls, and they were very touching. I remember being told that countless churches put me on their prayer lists, many hugs were shared, and many prayers were prayed. They were ALL meaningful but what I remember most about everyone’s embrace were the ones from the people who did not know me, had no idea that I even existed, or even the ones who, for the life of me, I never even knew they cared.
I ran across a few cards from a lady from our old church in CS, whom to this day I have still never met, and it touched me. She told me that she was praying for me, received my information from a prayer request card through the church, and she had her entire ladies Sunday school class sign it. Another came from an older couple who wanted to share with me that I was in their prayers as well. Those were the two that I ran across and made an impact on me yet again. I thought to myself, “out of all the people at our church they chose to send a card for me and they were praying for me…a complete stranger.” Keep in mind our church was huge, thousands of people, and they picked me. It touched me and proved that God put forth angels in life form to comfort me.
After coming across these cards it occurred to me that I feel like I haven’t really returned the favor to anyone else. If someone could do that for me then why haven’t I thought about passing this down and doing it for someone else? It has potential to be as contagious as a smile! I do say prayers, when someone tells me of someone in need whether I know them or not, but I haven’t really taken the time to write an anonymous note, buy a random card, or even share a written message to someone that I barely know or do not know at all. I have sent donations to random things, participated in drives for pregnancy centers, soldiers, shoe box gifts to other countries, etc but I have not personally reached out to someone like others have done for me.
I wanted to challenge not only myself but others to pick a random person, whether they are on a prayer list, someone you heard about around town whether it is a complete stranger or someone you barely know, and personally let them know you care or you have prayed and will be praying for them. We can make the same impact on others the way they did me. We can be their angel in life form. All it takes is a pen and a piece of paper and they even have greeting cards for 50 cents if you wanted to do that. Even if you choose not to do this, or never find the time, then maybe you can at least share with a friend to let them know you care about them.
I am ending this entry brief by telling everyone thank you for being a part of our lives and we are continuously getting good reports from the doctor’s visits. 4 years is a huge accomplishment and I am confident that I will be having post like this for many years to come.
Saturday, September 18, 2010
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
3 year olds
I know this blog is based primarily on my health but I felt like I should share something that I have experienced the past several months. Our lil Miss E was only 3 years old when I was diagnosed with my tumor. Pregnancy, health complications, husbands college graduation, his job & house hunting, and making the final decision on where to relocate our new family took away many of the precious moments that I missed with E. That year was one of the most emotional draining journeys that I think I will ever experience in my life. We had some of the best moments along with what felt like the worst. I understand that there are a lot worse things that we will overcome but I guess with it hitting us all at once I have to admit it was pretty overwhelming.
Now that E is 7 & B is 3 I feel like I am able to live that year through our youngest child along with cherishing our oldest for being the big kid she has became. When I hear and see the sweet things a 3 year old does I think about the things I missed because life was too complicated. I had to share how blessed I feel knowing that I was allowed to have this experience again with my second child. It has been so rewarding and I look forwards to having many more moments with both my girls.
Now that E is 7 & B is 3 I feel like I am able to live that year through our youngest child along with cherishing our oldest for being the big kid she has became. When I hear and see the sweet things a 3 year old does I think about the things I missed because life was too complicated. I had to share how blessed I feel knowing that I was allowed to have this experience again with my second child. It has been so rewarding and I look forwards to having many more moments with both my girls.
Thursday, August 26, 2010
Fresh Princess of Bellaire....
Ok not really but I couldn't resist humming the Fresh Prince song "In West Philadelphia born and raised...." when I found out I may have the opportunity to fly to Philadelphia in November. I am considering making the trip by myself which seems a little intimidating yet exciting all at the same time. I received a letter from my organization regarding a walk/run and a brunch they are hosting to raise money for research. I am nearing four years of being cancer free and have gradually taken opportunities to be a part of various organizations. I have prayed for God to reveal to me why I experienced the things I have and allow me to use my experiences to benefit others. I still haven't felt a need or a desire to necessarily begin a new "journey" with my life struggles however I know that God is using me for something but I just don't know what yet. Regardless, I am ready and I am willing! I am still in the process of making sure it's not blizzard season...you know us southern girls can't drive in snow...we can barely drive in the rain! Also I would have to figure out how to raise money, not for my trip, but for the organization. I just wanted to share what might be in my near future. The hotel they reserved is almost booked so we will make a decision hopefully within the next few weeks.
On to my health everything is the same. I still have my lump. Some days it seems a little bigger but it's not anything to be alarmed about. I think we are gradually beginning to become more content with not having another child however I think the "want" would be there regardless of how many we do have. My husband told me "if we had 10 kids you would still want another."
Brylan has just began to show her slow progression in her learning abilities. We are not too concerned just yet because she seems like a normal child but only time will tell. We have had a few red flags but nothing too serious just yet. Either way we are blessed and know that everything is in God's hands. He just uses us as parents to guide and protect her regardless of her progression.
On to my health everything is the same. I still have my lump. Some days it seems a little bigger but it's not anything to be alarmed about. I think we are gradually beginning to become more content with not having another child however I think the "want" would be there regardless of how many we do have. My husband told me "if we had 10 kids you would still want another."
Brylan has just began to show her slow progression in her learning abilities. We are not too concerned just yet because she seems like a normal child but only time will tell. We have had a few red flags but nothing too serious just yet. Either way we are blessed and know that everything is in God's hands. He just uses us as parents to guide and protect her regardless of her progression.
Monday, May 24, 2010
My 2nd RFL
Wanted to share a few pics from this years Relay for Life. This was my second time to participate in this event. We had to move it indoors due to the weather and it was just as enjoyable. I was asked through the elementary school if I would like to donate some items from my hair bow business to participate in a raffle for a teacher that had breast cancer. The lady in the pink hat beside me is who everyone through the school worked so hard for. She is a teacher and my younger sister and her daughter were childhood friends. It was a great honor to be a part of this fundraiser for her. Emory also received a shirt for selling so many tickets.
As far as my health pretty much everything is the same.
Honoring the survivors.
Emory was so proud! She tends to tell me "Mom I am so glad you don't have your tumor ball anymore" haha! That's how we described it when she was 3 & 4 and it stuck with her.
She just had to feed me her marshmallow covered in chocolate....yum!
Emory wanted to take a pic with my Luminaria. Thanks for whoever purchased them in honor of me. I know my husband did a few!
The girls making bracelets
Luminaria ceremony
I purchased a luminaria for Ashley!
Wednesday, May 5, 2010
April 2010 Appt update
Well we had another appt at UT Md Anderson on Tuesday. We had an emotional day and I have to admit it drained me. The weekend prior we decided to tear our guest bathroom down and start from scratch. We worked ourselves really hard and replaced the shower, tiled the back splash, floor, installed a new toilet, primed the walls, and Bryan grouted & sealed the tile before we left Monday evening. All between that I packed for our garage sale which turned out to be huge this past weekend. I have to admit we were pretty tired when we left for this trip which made things a bit more emotional this time.
We started off with my prep and IV which went really well. My first appt was at 7:30 a.m. and for some reason they were already slightly behind. I have to admit I felt a little overwhelmed more then usual because they put me in the outpatient MRI so I was in a new place this time. A few of us patients were put in our little blue scrubs, had our IV's running down our arms, and waited in the prep room for our MRI's.
The MRI went better then all of the rest. As always I count to 60 over and over and over through most of the hour because the noise and the body aches of lying flat, still, with your toes pointed in the air for an hour tends to make you go nuts ha! To top it off I have the IV needle in the fold of my arm but I have to bend my arm so they can scan my pelvic region so that always makes me a bit nervous. At least this time they didn’t have me hold my breath several times. The radiologist was extremely nice and I really liked him. He opened up about himself and it’s nice to carry on a conversation with a professional and they make you feel like they care enough to talk about your family life & their own.
After that was the ultrasound. Here's where the day changed. As some of you know I posted about how I thought I tore my prosthesis a few weeks prior. Turns out they detected another spot and its sitting right above my prosthesis. I told the tech about the spot I felt and he detected a circular area that looked just like my original tumor. My heart dropped. He did measure it then sent the scans to the radiologist. I guess what scared me the most was him asking me how big was my original tumor and asking if I received radiation or chemo after my surgery to make the treatment more effective. I couldn't receive it because I was pregnant so we knew that just having surgery was a less effective way to overcome it. He left the room for about 20 min to discuss things with the radiologist. The first thing that flashed through my head other then the pain and cancer was how I was going to take care of my kids & husband. I thought about how Emory was affected through all of this and how it put a standstill in my family’s life. It just took me back to everything that I have already accomplished and I felt I was going to start all over again except this time I knew it was going to be more intense and harder to overcome.
No one is allowed to go back with you and I told myself that I was not going to say anything to anyone…not even my husband. After I walked out of that area I walked to Bryan and the look on his face for hope drew me to tears. I completely broke down. My tears were the kind where you have to put your arms over your head to just take a breath. I honestly felt lifeless and had an anxiety attack in front of everyone in the waiting area. The immediate bathroom was closed so I walked by the elevator and found a corner to cry in. For those of you that know me personally knows that I am not a crier and my husband can probably count on his hands how many times he has seen me cry over the years. A poor older lady came to me to comfort me and I think I felt worse about scaring all of the other patients. I picked myself back up, prayed to God for comfort, and off we went to the next round.
We had a few hours to spare before my oncologist could tell me anything. We went to the gift shop and Bryan bought the girls some little I love you pens and got me a licensed coozie and lunch kit = ) I guess that made things a little better right?
We finally made our way to the oncologist. After an hour in the waiting area, then an hour in the room, the results came in. My oncologist told me that she thinks the spot is a lipoma....when I say "thinks" I mean she feels pretty confident that's what it is. She said that it’s right at a cm right now and they are going to monitor the area and make sure there is no growth. Lipomas are non cancerous fatty tumors and very rarely turn into liposarcomas (cancerous tumors). We are familiar with what they are because my first tumor was misdiagnosed and they thought it was a lipoma before the biopsy since they can look similar under the skin. She could still feel all of the scar tissue and lump. Even though the lump is small I think you can feel it because the scar tissue forms a blanket over it to make it feel larger then what it actually is. The plans so far are for me to follow the same steps I did with my tumor. I will check the area and make sure I do not feel any future growth and if I speculate any changes we will go back in and get more scans. When I go back for checkups they will measure the area and make sure it has not grown dimensionally. If any changes occur then she will figure out what we need to do from there. Right now it is not necessary for another biopsy. After we left my husband got me a huge chocolate milk shake to cheer us up. Also he bought me a few things from Sam Moon but I have to wait until Mothers Day to get it.
Well, I guess that’s it for now. I was going to share this after Relay for Life and to be honest I didn’t even tell my mother or other family because I didn’t want to raise any concern. I have to admit that I am emotional most days but in all actuality this is good news…in the cancer world this is GREAT news!!!
"I thought I was living very fully before this happened.But in comparison I really wasn't. I wasn't taking the time to notice things. I didn't see things as brightly or as sharply or as memorably as I do now.I really don't let a moment slide by.I just don't. It's a big price to pay, isn't it, to have to have cancer... to learn that? But it is in the end, I have to say, a price worth paying."Lynn Redgrave 1943-2010.
We started off with my prep and IV which went really well. My first appt was at 7:30 a.m. and for some reason they were already slightly behind. I have to admit I felt a little overwhelmed more then usual because they put me in the outpatient MRI so I was in a new place this time. A few of us patients were put in our little blue scrubs, had our IV's running down our arms, and waited in the prep room for our MRI's.
The MRI went better then all of the rest. As always I count to 60 over and over and over through most of the hour because the noise and the body aches of lying flat, still, with your toes pointed in the air for an hour tends to make you go nuts ha! To top it off I have the IV needle in the fold of my arm but I have to bend my arm so they can scan my pelvic region so that always makes me a bit nervous. At least this time they didn’t have me hold my breath several times. The radiologist was extremely nice and I really liked him. He opened up about himself and it’s nice to carry on a conversation with a professional and they make you feel like they care enough to talk about your family life & their own.
After that was the ultrasound. Here's where the day changed. As some of you know I posted about how I thought I tore my prosthesis a few weeks prior. Turns out they detected another spot and its sitting right above my prosthesis. I told the tech about the spot I felt and he detected a circular area that looked just like my original tumor. My heart dropped. He did measure it then sent the scans to the radiologist. I guess what scared me the most was him asking me how big was my original tumor and asking if I received radiation or chemo after my surgery to make the treatment more effective. I couldn't receive it because I was pregnant so we knew that just having surgery was a less effective way to overcome it. He left the room for about 20 min to discuss things with the radiologist. The first thing that flashed through my head other then the pain and cancer was how I was going to take care of my kids & husband. I thought about how Emory was affected through all of this and how it put a standstill in my family’s life. It just took me back to everything that I have already accomplished and I felt I was going to start all over again except this time I knew it was going to be more intense and harder to overcome.
No one is allowed to go back with you and I told myself that I was not going to say anything to anyone…not even my husband. After I walked out of that area I walked to Bryan and the look on his face for hope drew me to tears. I completely broke down. My tears were the kind where you have to put your arms over your head to just take a breath. I honestly felt lifeless and had an anxiety attack in front of everyone in the waiting area. The immediate bathroom was closed so I walked by the elevator and found a corner to cry in. For those of you that know me personally knows that I am not a crier and my husband can probably count on his hands how many times he has seen me cry over the years. A poor older lady came to me to comfort me and I think I felt worse about scaring all of the other patients. I picked myself back up, prayed to God for comfort, and off we went to the next round.
We had a few hours to spare before my oncologist could tell me anything. We went to the gift shop and Bryan bought the girls some little I love you pens and got me a licensed coozie and lunch kit = ) I guess that made things a little better right?
We finally made our way to the oncologist. After an hour in the waiting area, then an hour in the room, the results came in. My oncologist told me that she thinks the spot is a lipoma....when I say "thinks" I mean she feels pretty confident that's what it is. She said that it’s right at a cm right now and they are going to monitor the area and make sure there is no growth. Lipomas are non cancerous fatty tumors and very rarely turn into liposarcomas (cancerous tumors). We are familiar with what they are because my first tumor was misdiagnosed and they thought it was a lipoma before the biopsy since they can look similar under the skin. She could still feel all of the scar tissue and lump. Even though the lump is small I think you can feel it because the scar tissue forms a blanket over it to make it feel larger then what it actually is. The plans so far are for me to follow the same steps I did with my tumor. I will check the area and make sure I do not feel any future growth and if I speculate any changes we will go back in and get more scans. When I go back for checkups they will measure the area and make sure it has not grown dimensionally. If any changes occur then she will figure out what we need to do from there. Right now it is not necessary for another biopsy. After we left my husband got me a huge chocolate milk shake to cheer us up. Also he bought me a few things from Sam Moon but I have to wait until Mothers Day to get it.
Well, I guess that’s it for now. I was going to share this after Relay for Life and to be honest I didn’t even tell my mother or other family because I didn’t want to raise any concern. I have to admit that I am emotional most days but in all actuality this is good news…in the cancer world this is GREAT news!!!
"I thought I was living very fully before this happened.But in comparison I really wasn't. I wasn't taking the time to notice things. I didn't see things as brightly or as sharply or as memorably as I do now.I really don't let a moment slide by.I just don't. It's a big price to pay, isn't it, to have to have cancer... to learn that? But it is in the end, I have to say, a price worth paying."Lynn Redgrave 1943-2010.
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Forever young
Just wanted to update everyone and let you guys know that my friend from College Station passed away last week. Her service was in Cleburne and it was beautiful. When she moved her twins were just babies, her middle child was a little boy, and her oldest wasn't a teen just yet! When I saw her children at the service it really made me realize just how much time has passed. One of my fondest memories was when she was pregnant with the twins and the Dr put her on bed rest (to add she actually was one of the women who convinced me to use the Dr I use now which I give credit to because he sent me to get a biopsy for my tumor). A friend (Lisa) and I went around town going to yard sales. We knew Ashley really wanted to come with us but couldn't. We found a barn wood chest and one of my friends said we have got to get that for Ashley. It was $20...now remember when you are young and a college student...$20 to an average person is like $200 to a college student. I had little to no money and we split the cost and loaded the chest up. We showed up at Ashley's house, opened the trunk, and took the chest out. Her eyes immediately filled up with tears of joy and she was so thankful. She could not believe someone would think of her and do something like that for her. How could we not do that...she was that special = )
She was blessed with such a beautiful family. Please continue to keep them in your prayers.
She was blessed with such a beautiful family. Please continue to keep them in your prayers.
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
How great is our God
I am having one of those extraordinary moments and wanted to say how great is OUR God!!!
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