Thunder Bay 2012

I'm only a month behind on this post. Not bad.  We had a great time!  Some of these pictures may see a little odd, but they bring back memories for me so I'm posting them anyway. :)  

The view from about 2/3rds of the way to top of "The Sliding Board".  You'll know it if you've been there.  It's great.

We spent a couple days in Nipigon.  So peaceful and quiet.  We sent the mighty men fishing while us ladies stayed home and did girly things like soak our feet and paint our nails and drink  Tim Hortons coffee and eat Tim Hortons Timbits.  Someone had to keep the bears away from the trailer.  The fishing trip was a huge success.  The boys are spoiled for life I'm afraid.   Isaiah told me when they got home that if they  had more money they could have brought home about 40 walleye.  Oh the pain of learning about your "limit".  

The might tree thrower

Nate the Great.  What's it to you? (Like the cape?  Mom made it out of a t-shirt!)

We didn't go fishing, but we did get a boat ride. 

This picture just makes me want to take a deep breath and sigh a happy sigh.  The  water, the sky the people.  

Paddle to the Sea park

We tried

Don't mess with my S'more! 

Grandma time

More from Thunder Bay next time I get around to posting...

It's a...

It feels like yesterday I was posting about Callie's ultrasound.  Wow, how times flies.  Jeremy and I always love seeing these little miracles kicking a moving around at the 20 week ultrasound.  We were hoping to find out the sex of the baby and we were not disappointed.  This little guy was not shy. :)  We are so excited about adding a 3rd boy to this family!  Callie is just thrilled at the idea of a baby.  She's be a great little mother.

Several weeks ago I asked the boys what they would do if we found out it was a girl since there were hoping for a boy.  Nathan's response, "We could give it to another family".  No plans on that happening.  I was starting to think maybe this baby was a boy because of how active he is.  I LOVE it. :)

Now to come up with a name, any suggestions?

2012 summer pictures (some of them)

Pictures are so much better than words...

Walking post surgery.  It's amazing how you can walk into a hospital perfectly "healthy" and  then come home and need to recover.   We'll take it.

8=Nate, 12=Isaiah

Uno and a hair appointment all in one.

For Nate, making ice tea is a great summer activity.

News & Alex & Boky

Finally, thanks to Jeremy and my brother-in-law (and Angela!) our main computer is back up and running.  Now I have no excuse for not blogging.  I have no idea where to start. 

The biggest news that all readers already know, but hasn't been recorded here yet is that Baby #4 is due to arrive the end of January 2013!  We are very excited.  :)

Days after finding out I was pregnant we celebrated the wedding of Jeremy's youngest  brother and his lovely wife Boky.  Here are pictures from the big day.  It was beautiful!  I was an emotion wreck for parts of the day due to pregnancy hormones, but also because of an incredibly grateful heart that our family was all together, healthy and happy. 

Nathan was ring bearer, Jeremy was a groomsmen, I was a bridesmaid and Isaiah handed out programs.  Callie was there to look beautiful. :)

Angel and Moriah (my two oldest nieces) spent the weekend with us to help with the kids. They were a huge help!  

An attempt at a family picture

Bridal Party waiting for Boky

Such a Nate picture

Isaiah is growing up so quickly.  He lost his first tooth a couple days after the wedding.  

Don't cry, don't cry. Didn't work

Sadly, I have very few pictures of the bride and groom. :(  Nate and Kassidy were a hit. :)

2012 Summer Update

Blogging without pictures is criminal.  However our main computer is on the blink and I refuse to wait longer to update this thing.  Here are a few highlights from our spring/summer so far:

-First of all, how did it get to be July 20 already?

-We finished up school the second week of May.  For the first year of homeschooling I have happy with how it went.  We're starting to gear up for year number two.

-Jeremy has been reading the Sugar Creek Gang books to our boys for awhile now.  I think they've read 10 or 11 now.  Usually I hear him reading while Nate is giggling uncontrollably.  This usually means Jeremy is holding the book with one hand and tickling Nate with the other.  Two love languages at one time -multitasking, impressive.  Isaiah loves these book and Nathan does too, but his attention span is at a different place.

-Isaiah and Nathan are signed up with our library reading program this summer.  It's motivated me to read more to them.  We've read some great books.  We still don't know what they book points will "buy" them.  Guess I should figure that out soon.

-We received vouchers for four free tickets to a Baltimore Orioles games.  I grew up being a fan, but have never made it to Camden Yards.  I think we picked the hottest day to go, but it was a 4:00 game and when you're driving 2 hours with 3 kids, time is important.  I loved being there.  Is there anything better than relaxing at ball game?  The boys enjoyed it, but were slightly confused about all that was going on.  Nate just kept wanting to see the big bird (who wasn't around much.  might have something to do with the 100 degree weather), Isaiah paid pretty close attention.  Callie did alright.  She spent about 10 minutes cleaning her seat, her shoes and her feet with wet ones.  We only lasted until the 6th inning.  Nate was starting to make funny noises, true sign of boredom and Callie was getting very bored. Oh and the O's weren't doing that great anyway.  All in all it was a fun family day.  I'd love to go back for an evening game.  Maybe with a few less children. :)

-Last night was our final night of VBS.  The kids loved it.  It's 7:57 and they are all still sleeping.  I love this part of VBS. :)

-On June 9th, Jeremy's brother Alex married Boky.  What a beautiful outdoor wedding and we are thrilled to have Boky join our family.  I'll post pictures when I can.  My nieces, Angel and Moriah spent the weekend with us to help with the kids.  Jeremy and I were both in the wedding.  What a blessing those girls were!

-We also spent two days with Jeremy's family a few weeks ago.  We spent part of a day at a friends pool.  When we asked the boys what they wanted to do this summer they said 1. Camp (still to come) and 2. Swim at "that pool" again.  They love being with family.  Alex and Boky will be moving to South Korea (where Boky is from) in a few weeks for several years.  We will miss them!

-I've been trying to find things for the kids to do to help keep them from getting to bored.  When they get bored they either turn on each other or get down right silly and crazy.  Neither are very welcomed.  I've learned that a few minutes spent doing something creative with them often helps to get their minds moving and they often move on to do other things on their own.  Thank you pinterest for ideas and a place to organize them so I don't forget them.  Here are a few things we've done.

-We've tried slim. I can't find the link to this, but it was a big hit. (Thanks Angela for the suggestion!)

-We tried step by step drawing This was less successful.  Nate is really into drawing right now, but this was a little more than he could do.  However, from this he moved onto his own creations.  The picture hanging on the fridge right now is a "naked man standing in a mud puddle".  I'm scared to ask.

-We made elephant toothpaste. This was a lot of fun. It didn't take long but they then moved outside with the soap and water and kept playing for awhile longer.

-The boys loved the outdoor scavenger hunt

-Callie has fallen in love with glue and paper.  If I take a few minutes to cut out pictures from an old magazine she will spend a long time gluing them to paper.  She went through an entire stick of glue one morning. I love back to school sales.

-We also tried playing with shaving cream the other day.  What a mess.  I should have had them do it outside.  They played about 15 minutes and were done.  

-We pulled out some old toys from the basement.  This always helps to keep them occupied for a few hours.

-As a side note, I almost hate to post these ideas because I know sometimes I read other blogs and think the women are supper moms because of all they do with their kids.  I'm no supper mom.  We've done a lot of movies and have had some very rough mommy/child relationship moments that I am not proud of.  Awhile ago I read this article on 20 ways to "restart" your day.   This wasn't a new thought to me, but such a good reminder.  I only get to do this summer one time.  Another thing that helps is that Isaiah and Nathan are at an age where they love this kind of stuff and can help and get involved and learn from them.  I remember being so frustrated a few years ago because crafty things just seemed like a waste of time. Some of that comes from having boys.  Painting beautiful pictures with a 2 year old boy doesn't always work. ;)

-I know I have missed so much from this summer, but this is a start. We have a lot of exciting things coming up including a trip to conference and Thunder Bay, several cousins birthday parties and hopefully some cooler weather. :)  We continue to give God praise for the healing he brought to Jeremy.  We received pictures of the tumor from his surgeon.  It's scary to think that the body can allow something that disgusting to live and grow.  I found the pictures very interesting and disturbing all at the same time.  So glad it's gone.  I'll always be grateful for the beautiful scare Jeremy has.

And then...what?

I left Jeremy in a hospital bed in my last post and haven't been back since. I should probably be fired from the job of writing for this blog.  Why the silence?  Probably because I'm not sure what to say.  What to think.  These last weeks have been so "normal" that I feel lost.

Backing up.  I had hoped to spend that first night with Jeremy at the hospital, but it didn't work out.  My sister-in-law and I spent the night at a hotel in Baltimore.  We arrived back at the hospital by 8:00 the next morning.  Jeremy was in a lot of pain.  Friday was a very difficult day.  They didn't seem to be able to get his pain under control.  I think they simply got behind and couldn't catch up.  We had a nurse that didn't seem to understand what was needed, or maybe Jeremy was giving too low of numbers, whatever the cause he was in a lot of pain and it was a long day.  Lori was a huge blessing.  She stayed in the waiting room most of the day, but kept checking in to see how we were doing.  I felt extremely helpless.  I couldn't even pray.  Finally, around 5:30 Friday evening a doctor came in to check on Jeremy and a change was made to his pain medication.  Within 1/2 an hour Jeremy was finally feeling some relief from the pain.  It made a world of difference.

Once again I was not able to stay with Jeremy Friday night.  Jonathan and Lori were taking me back to the hotel around 10:00 when the head nurse called my cell phone.  Yes, I had a bit of a panic moment, but she quickly assured me Jeremy was fine.  She was calling to tell me they had moved Jeremy to a private room and that I should come back and stay with him.  Honestly, at that point I was so exhausted I didn't feel like changing my plans, but I talked to Jeremy and Jonathan and Lori graciously took me back to the hotel so I could pack up my stuff and then took me back to the hospital.  We checked out of the hotel at 10:30 PM and believe it or not they did not charge for the room.  Just another blessing along the road.

When I heard "private room" I just thought they meant a room with no other patient.  When I got back to the hospital the head nurse met me and took to the end of a hall and through a heavy door and then down a short hall way.  The room had wood floors and paneling, a table and chairs several windows, a little couch that pulled out into a bed and most of all it was QUIET.  We're not sure why exactly he was moved.  Right before I left the hospital an other patient was moved into Jeremy's room.  He seemed friendly, but he was a little loud.  Jeremy said soon after we left him his nurse and the head nurse came in and started whispering and telling him they were going to get him out of that room.  They picked up all his stuff (and mine that I'd left there) and moved him.  After I arrived they gave Jeremy his medication a little early and told us they wouldn't bother us until morning.   They even told me I could crawl in bed with him.  This is no ones business, but since you're wondering, no I did not crawl in bed with him. :)  That incision was scary! It felt like we were in a hotel, well almost, except for the fact that he was in a hospital gown with a 10" incision in his stomach and I was in the a pull out couch.  But it was blissfully quiet.

Thanks to the new medication they gave Jeremy on Friday night we were able to come home Saturday evening.  Our children weren't all that excited to see us because they had such a great time with my parents.  When we left for the hospital we excepted to be away from home longer than two days. It was good to be home.

So many people have asked me since the surgery how I am doing.  The best way I can describe how I felt those first few days and weeks after surgery is "numb".  I felt like I had no feeling whatsoever.  How do you go from tumor, cancer, sarcoma, radiation, doesn't respond well to treatment, we'll get as much as we can, probably more surgeries down the road then within minutes be at benign, 100% removed, attached to no organs, everything went great, you're healing fine, sending you home, see you again in 2 weeks,  less than 5% chance of coming back.  Maybe the better question is how do you go from completely surrendering everything and knowing the peace that comes with surrender to having dreams and hopes for the future that you laid down all handed back to you.

When benign was still a hope and a prayer I would try to imagine how I would live life if we did get that report.  I dreamed of never taking my husband or children for granite, never  being upset with Jeremy again for anything because I would have been giving the gift of more time.  I wish I could say I have walked in that kind of reality since April 26.  I wish I could say that I remembered everything I learned during those dark 2 months, but I'd be lying.  How quickly, the little cares of life came in and tried to drag me down again.  How quickly I forgot to be thankful for one more day with my husband.  I've often read about the Israelite children and just been appalled at their lack of gratitude right after God would do an amazing miracle for them.  How could anyone be so blind?!  I can be so blind.

In the last few weeks I've started to feel again and process a little more.  I've had moments (like right now) where I allow myself to feel again what we went through.  Moments when out of the blue "my husband was told he hand cancer" comes to my mind and I stop and say "what was that?".  I've been frustrated with myself for not leaning into God the way I had been.  Like suddenly I didn't need him anymore because He gave me what I so desperately wanted.  We were challenged to seek the Healer, just not just the healing.  Did we do that?

I've never experienced anything like what we just walked through so I don't know if it is normal to have a "numb" feeling for a few weeks or not.  I do know that the feeling is returning. :)  I continue to pray that we will be faithful with what God taught us through this journey.  I pray that we will continue to give Him the glory, repeatedly for what He did.  Was the tumor benign from the beginning?   Did God miraculously heal Jeremy?  I don't need to know the details.  I don't need to know anything.  But God has given me the gift of knowing that the tumor is gone, Jeremy is healed.  No more tumor, no more fear (watching God heal Jeremy from years of fighting with fear and anxiety was as exciting as hearing benign).  God is faithful.

P.S. We met again with Dr. Duncan last Tuesday for Jeremy's (late) 6-week follow up.  Again, everything looks great.  They will want another CT scan in October to make sure things still look good.  I asked Dr. Duncan if they ever let patients see the tumors.  He said he has pictures of it.  He was going to email one to us, but we haven't received it yet.  Do you want to see it?  He said it was 25cm around.  Crazy, crazy, crazy.  Isaiah said all along he thought the tumor was just fat...:)

Day of Surgery

April 26, 2012, not a day we will forget any time soon.  It was exactly one month since Jeremy's first doctor's appointment.

My parents arrived at our house around 7:30.  Our kids were so excited to see Grandma and Grandpa that they didn't even care we were leaving.  Jeremy's parents drove us to Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical center.  Here's an odd fact you may not know, Jeremy was born at Johns Hopkins Hospital.  Bayview Medical center is not the same place. Jonathan and Lori (Jeremy's brother and sister-in-law) met us there as well.

Jeremy was taken to the prep area and after about 45 minutes they allowed a couple of us back to see him.  The surgery was to start at 12:45.  I waited with him for about 2 hours.  He had a lot of peace.  We talked again to Dr. Duncan.  At this point Dr. Duncan was still waiting to here the biopsy report from his pathologist so we still did not know if the tumor was cancer or benign.  I don't think either of us were dwelling much on it anyway.  We were focused on getting Jeremy through the surgery.  I think we both had peace that even if it was cancer we would walk that road when we got there.  It was another of those times when I felt I should be more of a wreck than I was.  Thank you for your prayers.

Finally at 2:30 we had to leave and Jeremy was taken to where the surgery was.  It was hard to leave him, but I was ready to see things more forward.  While Jeremy moved into what would be physically the hardest part of this journey for him the rest of us went for lunch. :(  It sounds awful, but there wasn't anything for us to do and we needed to pass the time.  Amazingly, the time went pretty quickly.  At 4:15 a lady came to where we were waiting and told us the first procedure (stints placed in the ureters to help with the surgery) was finished and they were working on the second procedure (removing the tumor).  Let me just say that it is odd to think of your husband all cut open and a team of people working on him.  Sometime later, maybe 45 minutes or so, someone from the operating room called me to say the tumor was out.  They didn't think they would need to remove anything else, but they had sent the tumor to pathology and would wait to close him up until they heard back from pathology.  More waiting.

We waited in a waiting room that was also a hall way.  The nurses call it "the airport" because one side was a huge window and the chairs were lined up like they are at an airport.  From where we were sitting I could see doctors and nurses moving back and forth from the OR and I could see people being wheeled around on beds (that was rather strange).  By this point I was so ready to hear something.  Every time a door opened I was hoping for news.

Finally I saw Dr. Duncan coming down the hall.  Wouldn't you know he got a page or a phone call before he reached us, so I had to watch him stand in the hall talking, knowing he had been interrupted from getting to us with news of Jeremy.  Waiting. When will I learn to be patient!

When Dr. Duncan reached us he showed 2 thumbs up.  He told us everything went great.  The tumor was 100% out.  He said it had veins and arteries as big around as an ink pen.  He guessed it weighed around 4 pounds.  It was attached at several different places, but they did not have to remove anything.  There had been some concern before surgery that it may be attached to the bladder so hearing that it wasn't was great news.  And the best news of all -the tumor was BENIGN.  I almost broke down right then, but somehow managed to hold it together.  My curiosity was taking over.  It was a myxoid solitary fibrous tumor.  These tumors are very rare with only 7-10 cases a year in the nation  and only a few of those in the abdominal area.  Dr. Duncan said he sees about 2 every 10 years.  This kind of tumor is a cousin to a sarcoma and can be hard to diagnose.  They don't know what caused it or how long it had been there, but the chances of it coming back are pretty slim.

Dr. Duncan left and then the news hit.  I felt like I took a deep breath for the first time in a month.  It was like a door opened up and our future was on the other side and suddenly I could hope and dream past tomorrow or a few years.  Then I cried.  It was such a blessing to have Jeremy's parents and Jonathan and Lori with me.  We stopped right then and thanked God for what He had done.  I'm said to say I don't know how the rest received the news, however I don't think there were many dry eyes.

Ps. 118: 17 says "I will not die, but live, and will proclaim what the Lord has done."  This was one of the verses that has meant so much to us.  God has been so amazing to us and to so many others through this journey.  The farther we walked through this the more we realized how this wasn't about us anymore, but about God being glorified.  It was time to proclaim what the Lord had done.  I wish so badly that Jeremy could have been the one telling everyone the good news, but we knew that wasn't going to happen so we started making phone calls.  Benign!!  It was so much fun to spread the good news.  Then we started posted on facebook.  Wow.  Facebook has it's issues for sure, but in a time like this it was absolutely amazing.  Within seconds comment and "likes" were coming in.  God was getting so much glory.

Finally about 7:00 I went looking for away to see Jeremy.  I found a nurse who pointed me to a phone and told me to call a certain number.  I finally got through to his nurse and she came out and got us.  While we all had been rejoicing Jeremy was coming out of surgery in a lot of pain.  It was not fun to see my 6ft tall, 210 lb husband flat on his back all hooked up to things with a mask on his face.  I didn't know if anyone had told him the news.  I leaned over him and said "Babe, it's benign, it's not cancer!"  I didn't know how much he would understand, but he understood it all.  "There's no cancer?"  "Did they have to take anything?"  I cannot tell you how good it felt to tell him "No!".  However, I also quickly realized that while so many were rejoicing Jeremy was in so much pain that while he was excited about the news the rejoicing would have to wait until he felt a little better.

The story continues and I'll try to finish it soon...