Thankfulness is for everyday

Let me apologize for being absent for almost a month, as you can imagine things around here have been rather crazy. My daughter has been able to be in school much more this month and I have been busy with the family and preparing for Thanksgiving.  I'm sure by now all of you have gotten together with family to celebrate Thanksgiving and if your like our family you are still trying to get rid of all the leftovers that didn't get eating.  I get really tired of them, but then again it was very nice to not have to cook after church today. I hope that each one of you took the time on Thursday to express some of the things that you are thankful for. We started a new tradition of a thankful tree this year, but of course I forgot to take a picture of it. My daughters started their own tradition of reading The First Thanksgiving story to us. When you take a moment to stop and think about all the hardships that the Pilgrims went through it is amazing that they even chose to stay in the new world. It was not an easy start and life continued to be difficult, but they were able to stick it out and persevere.  Any way I just wanted to wish all of you a belated Happy Thanksgiving and to remind you and me that we shouldn't wait for one day to be thankful, but we should strive to  be thankful every day of the year for all the blessings in our lives.

                                           "That's my 'two-cents worth', what's yours?"

http://www.plimoth.org/learn/MRL/read/thanksgiving-history

Autumn: My favorite time of the year!

Let me start off by saying I just absolutely love the fall of the year. There are so many wonderful things about, even if my husband says he doesn't like it. My husband loves the summer time, he says, "The hotter, the better!", we totally disagree. I mean summer has it good points. I like that the days are longer, the kids are out of school and that we get to go swimming, but around these parts it is just so hot it makes you miserable.

I guess the cooler weather is one thing I love about autumn.  I just adore being able to get out my sweaters and long sleeves. I love fall festivals and sitting around the bonfire with family and friends.  What is my favorite thing about fall?  I love the colors of the leaves. I often walk out unto my back porch and just look at the beautiful colors. It is almost as if God has taken a giant paintbrush and went around and painted all the trees.  Of course I know fall can't last forever, there has to come a winter and that I am not crazy about. I mean I like to see if snow, but I also love to see it leave. I can't imagine living anywhere that the snow lays around for days, weeks or months. I would be a lot crazier than I am now if I had to live like that. At least after the winter comes the spring and life starts all over again, but I am partial to the fall, it is my favorite.

"That's my 'two-cents worth', what's yours?"

Beach Break!

Well last week our kids got the whole week off from school for fall break, so we decided to take off for a day trip to the beach.  I know it may sound crazy to some folk, but Grace desperately wanted to see the ocean, so we took her.  I am happy to report that we had a wonderful trip and really enjoyed our time together as a family.  We did not see any attractions, but spent the day walking and playing on the beach and then the rest of the evening in the heated pool .  We kept with vacation tradition this time and ordered in pizza Friday night and then we were all so tired we crashed out before 10.  I wished we could have stayed an extra day, but we had our annual church fall festival on Saturday so we had to head back home. Before we left we stopped off at Mammy's kitchen for breakfast. The food was fantastic and to make it even better someone took care of paying for our meal, what a blessing.  We stopped off at a place called the Berry Patch for ice cream and a bathroom break about half way home and then we headed straight for our church.  It was so much fun seeing our church family and the kids really enjoyed the games.  I have to admit today I am just slap give out, but the weekend was wonderful.  Tomorrow we face heading back into the hospital for our daughter's 4th chemo treatment. My emotions are always mixed about it, on one hand I dread it and on the other I know it just puts us one step closer to beating this cancer. 

"That's my 'two-cents worth', what's yours?"

A Break from our Battle: A day at the fair

First off I will give y'all just a little update: My daughter is doing very well in her battle against this cancer. She has just recently completed her third round of chemo, like the champ she is and is getting a few days off.  It seems that we have adjusted well to the new medication she is having to take and are hoping to be off of it in a few weeks.

We decided to take a break form everything and go out to our local fair today. It was so much fun spending time with the girls. We watched a magic show, a tractor pull and my favorite, the pig races.  We got to ride a few rides, but mostly we just ate. We got to eat nachos with cheese, ribbon fries, chocolate chili flavored ice cream and a Krispy Kreme burger. In case you wonder it is a cheeseburger with lettuce, tomato, and pickles with two doughnuts as the buns. It was so good!!

We really enjoyed being able to go out and spend some time together and get away from everything for a while. You don't really think about how much time you spend going and doing when you have a sick child. It is always a doctor appointment, blood work or something on your mind. We can never really plan to go anywhere because you just don't know what is going to happen. Thank God for allowing us to have some much needed family time today! Now it is time to snuggle up with my babies and watch a little Star Trek before bed.

And the battle rages on!

Man oh man what a crazy last couple of weeks it has been for us, I will try to catch y'all up as best as I can.  Last Wednesday we went to the hospital for our daughters scans to get idea of how the cancer is doing.  We hadn't been home no time at all when they called and told us to come back. They had found a blood clot in one of her main arteries and she needed to get back as soon as possible.  Let me tell you hearing the words "blood clot" is almost as scary as hearing the word cancer.  I rushed around to get everything together and took off to the hospital.  We ended up with a two day stay and having to be on blood thinner, but everything seems to be going well.  We went back in this week for our regular chemo treatment (round #3) and was told by her oncologist she will not need any radiation. Oh my word, let me tell you, I was one happy mama.  All I could do was just praise  the Lord for that good news, but God wasn't done with us yet. The dr. then told us that after consulting with some other oncologists they had come to the conclusion that she was only going to need 4 rounds of chemo in total and we had already finished two. It was so good to hear that we may be done with these chemo treatments by Thanksgiving. Let me tell you it took a couple of seconds for that to sink in!!  God just kept blessing us yesterday and sending us positive and encouraging news.  As I sat here at the hospital writing this blog I can't  help but think about how much our lives have changed over the last couple of months.  I have decided to reflect back on that in a later blog, after she has beat her cancer, and I know she is going to beat it. God has been so good to us, not only in her healing, but also in how he has used our family, friends and church family to help us out during this time. I am so glad we have had them to support us. I am going to end on that note and stop to watch The Phantom of the Opera with my daughter. 

"That's my two cents worth, what's yours?"

 

 

 



Muddy Rain Boots

The last couple of blogs have been of a very serious nature, so I thought this week I would take a break from blogging about our cancer journey and do something fun instead. I wrote this blog a couple of months ago, but had not shared it with y'all yet. Hope you enjoy! 

Looking back over my lifetime I can not ever remember us having such a cool, wet summer as we have this year.  Usually we are burning up by the end of July and all of August with no relief in sight. It is normal for our light bill to be sky high with running the air all the time, for the grass to be brown and "burnt up" and for everyone you meet to be completely miserable.  This summer has been completely different!!  Of course I'm not complaining, I mean the weather has been great and it has giving us lots of chances for playing outside.  We have enjoyed every chance we have had to get muddy!  It sure is fun to get those boots out and get them dirty.  We love to tromp through the mud and splash in the puddles. It has been so rainy here that our pond has almost overflowed.  We love to walk around the bank and hear the water squish while our dog swims and chases frogs.  I heard somewhere as long time ago that rain contains vitamin B-12.  I don't know if that is true or not, but it gives us one more good excuse to be out playing "in the rain".  

Of course when I was growing up we never wore rain boots or galoshes as some call them. We just always ran around barefoot for the entire summer and sometimes we do that too. 

So get out there and enjoy all the rain and mud. Take the time to squish, stomp, and make mud pies with your kids. They will love it and so will you. 

*(I have to remind y'all of this: If you can hear thunder you can be struck by lighting. So please don't play outside during a thunderstorm.)

"That's my "two cents worth", what's yours?"

...And The Battle Continues!

Let me apologize for being absent from blogging, but I'm sure that y'all understand the reasoning.  When I left off last time my daughter had not yet completed her first round of chemo, so let me catch y'all up. She went that Monday and finished up that round of therapy and was able to return to school for 1/2 a day on Tuesday. On Thursday she had her blood work done and her WBC  counts were almost nothing. She had to miss a day of school and was very unhappy about that. Finally on Tuesday of the following week her counts were back up and she was able to go to school for the rest of the week. It was so good to pick her up from school and see her run to meet me, what a blessing the Lord gave us. We were able to go with her Sunday School class last Saturday to a local amusement park, it was so good to get away for a few hours and not think constantly on our situation.   She had to return to the hospital this past Monday to begin round two of chemo. We spent three days there, but she did so much better this time. Her number one complaint with the chemo is that she just feels so tired all the time and that just when she feels like she is getting back to "normal" it is time to start all over again.  I have to take her again today for her injection to help build up her WBC and RBC counts and then Monday for the last treatment this round. It is a 22 day cycle that will just continue to repeat until she is cancer free and we are hoping and praying that time will come sometime soon. Through all of this I have been reminded daily of the verse,

Psalm 46:10a 

 Be still, and know that I am God:

I know that the Lord is looking after us and helping our entire family through this. He has blessed us with an amazing hospital, doctors and nurses to care for her.  He has allowed us to live close by so our family is not apart during this time. He has giving us family and friends to encourage and support us. His blessings and mercies have been too many to name and I thank him everyday for each of them.  Her battle is not over and she is fighting this cancer with all she has in her, but she knows her strength comes from the Lord and he is with her. Sometime within the next two weeks they will do more scans to see how the cancer is responding. It is very hard to wait so long, but I know that the Lord is taking care of her and  I know that he still can do miracles, which is exactly what we are looking for. Thanks to all of you for the prayers and please continue to say them for us, it means more than you will ever know.