Four weeks since surgery and all I can say is that life has been busy!! Surviving lately entails so much. I am trying to survive being a homemaker even though I can not do everything yet like before. I started cooking again since my husband was so good to attempt working full-time, dealing with a wife on "bed rest" and put those in quotations because I hated staying still and dealing with three kids, and three dogs. I am sure half the time he felt more like everyone was telling him this:
LOL poor guy but he was a trooper and he did the job even if it was doing it in his own method instead of the way mom usually does. I had to learn that even though things were not done the way I wanted them to be done, when I wanted them to be done and how I wanted them done they were getting done and that is all that matters. Who would have thought that having surgery, removing cancer, could teach you a lesson like this? Oh readers but it sure did.
Another lesson I learned during my supposed "bed rest" time was that unfortunately my children needed to be reminded constantly of their responsibilities. Readers I did not realize that my children seem to need me to remind them of the smallest, most trivial things in life. They can remember all the characters in Batman Comics Series, they can remember every lyric to their favorite song, and they can remember the names to every Skylander ever made but they do not remember to go eat a sandwich for lunch! How is that possible?!?! I am now going to take this time this summer and work on getting my children to learn responsibility without mom telling them what to do and when to do it. Readers before this surgery a part of me was scared. Something I never fully admitted to. I was scared that things would not go ok. I was scared that I left that morning to have the surgery and did not get to talk to my children before hand and tell them I love them or anything like that. I have learned that life is not guaranteed and that every single second counts so I want to take this time and teach my children how to survive in this world because mom won't always be there. But thinking about all this makes me remember a funny video. Let me share it with you right now.
Lord I am here worried that I have to remind my kids to eat!! I guess that is just a normal mom emotion. There is also homeschooling. Oh readers homeschooling has always been a joy for me. Really readers it has! I'm really not making that up. Stop laughing!! OK it may not have always been a joy but it always has been rewarding. I love teaching. I love learning about what I am going to teach them and I love absolutely love seeing that look in their eyes when they finally figured something out. Something that was puzzling them or something that they have a passion for but something happened this year for us. Well a lot of somethings happened this year for us and we have fallen behind. This school year has met us with trials, with issues that we have never faced and therefore we struggled through. The beginning of our school year we were dealing with not only being in a new place where we barely knew anyone and had no roots here to also dealing with daddy being deployed.
Saying goodbye was hard! My daughter had to celebrate her 12th birthday away from daddy, I had to celebrate my birthday for a second year in a row without my husband because the previous year was when he enlisted, my son celebrated his 9th birthday without daddy just like his 8th birthday as well. We also had issues with car problems, we had issues with neighbors, we had our very first company and holidays completely living the Army life, daddy came home early but issues with redeployment were still rough, after the holidays I decided to get myself checked out and discovered the tumor and had to be put on medication before the surgery, then we had the surgery and now we are where we are. Through it all we attempted homeschooling but somewhere in the mix the routine and the structure went out the window so I have decided that for next school year the kids will be more regimented and will be doing online Public School in hopes of getting them completely back on track. Lessons, lessons, lessons!
One would think that having cancer and surgery was enough but I guess not! LOL its ok because I know that my God would not be giving me these lessons to learn if I were not 1. meant to learn them and 2. capable of learning them. A good friend of mine the other day was talking about a book that read called Sun Stand Still.
This book talks about having audacious faith to ask God for what you believe to be impossible. You see for us there is so many things that seem to be impossible because we are mere humans without the ability to make our dreams, our hopes come into reality but we need to see that God can do all things. Doesn't the word tell us in Phillipians: "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me". 4:13. See here how the passage says that I can do all things but it does not state that we can do all things on our own. It does not state that we can do it through our own strength or through our own ability but we can do ALL things through Christ. When we took that step towards God and took that leap of faith saying: "I believe that Jesus was is the one and only son of God, that He came to earth to be born of a virgin, that He and He alone lived a sinless, pure life, and He died on the cross taking on the sins of the world so that we could be saved. He rose from the dead of His own power and ascended to the throne" than you have been given a power. You have been given the ability to call on His power to strengthen you. I have decided to begin something. I have decided to have the audacious faith like Joshua who asked God to allow the sun to stand still and not set for a full day so Israel can defeat its enemies. The purpose of this book is to ask what would you ask for if you truly believed that God will grant you your impossible. Well I do not want to post right now what I am asking God for. I want to pray on it, I want to spend time in the Word and with Him and I will be asking for my impossible right now. I do have a prayer request but do not feel called at the moment to fully share it but I promise you readers that when my request is answered because I am claiming it, I am having the audacious faith to believe that I will be given what I am asking for I will post praising God about getting my request fulfilled.
Readers I hope you have a blessed and glorious day and that you realize that you too can have the faith that Joshua had, that you can have the faith that will make your impossible a reality. And as always
Hello Readers! I am coming to you writing from my now daughter's laptop, while lying in bed, and for the best part of all I am feeling like my old self again. I want to say I am completely cancer free and while I am claiming that in the name of Jesus I am still awaiting for my post op appointment that will take a good amount of time to arrive to fully find out. Oh readers I can not begin to express the happiness I feel. Yes I am on bed rest for the next 3 weeks and yes I am still feeling pain from the surgery but thankfully it is not as bad as it was when I first came home but I am happy because for the first time in about 2 months or so I feel like my old self is coming back. I am not on hormones anymore, I am not on a cocktail of meds which makes me either loopy or sick to my stomach, I am no longer feeling like I am on slow motion in a world that is at full speed and most importantly I found my smile again. I missed my smile. The worst part is that even though my laugh wants to come back full force for those who know me personally know that having my laugh back is right now painful. I laugh and my whole body shakes, I laugh from deep down inside and with a stomach with four holes in it and stitches still that is not a good combo.
So let me tell you all my latest adventure with the doctors and I hope to get a smile or giggle or even a laugh out of you guys. OK so I was told to be at the hospital to check in at Anesthesia at 0530 (like my use of military time? LOL) but I also had to before that go to administration to check in for my surgery. So the night before I did not sleep due to not only my nerves but the medications before surgery and so I arrive at the hospital at 0500 to give us enough time to find parking, to get checked in, and be at Anesthesia (which last time I went there for the pre-op appointment I was there for 5 1/2 hours) and set up in time for surgery. Needless to say with my luck my husband right away finds parking right next to the third floor entrance that we had to go into for administration. We go and check in and it took us not even 5 minutes so now I arrive at Anesthesia at 0510 which is 20 minutes earlier than what I was supposed to be there and let me tell you something, the military does not like you showing up late to an appointment and they do not like you showing up early either! We get to the sixth floor too early for the surgery and they were not even open! My hubby and I sat there in the waiting room for about 20 minutes until they opened. Now we have the nurse call us back and we check in with them and they put us in this room with two recliners and ask me to change into my hospital attire and give me the bad news! They need to draw more blood, I say more blood because the pre-op appointment I was at that lasted 5 1/2 hours they had to draw blood and they did not draw all that they needed to, I also say bad news because I have tiny, hidden deep veins and drawing blood is ALWAYS hard to do on me. Now I have this Leuitenant trying to find non-existentant veins on me for pre-surgery blood work. It took two sticks and about 15 minutes to get two lousy tubes of blood. Then I wait and I wait and I wait. Around 0800 is when they come to get me saying they are ready for me. I walk down the hall to the elevator and go down from the 6th floor to the 4th floor. I did not think I would be walking once I was there and walking while in my hospital attire. Not very pleasant. I get to the 4th floor and get put in a make-shift room (the size of a gurney and a small computer) where I am asked to now to lie down and get fully prepped for surgery by Anesthesia. I am extremely claustrophobic and in this makeshift room is my husband, my two surgeons, the two anesthisiologist, and myself. Not a pleasant feeling until they placed the IV in and told me they were giving me something in the IV to calm me down. Something to make it feel like I have had a couple of cocktails, mind you I don't drink so I know I am an underweight when it comes to having any cocktails/meds in me. I wonder why they thought they needed to calm me down. Maybe it was the fact that I was anxious about having major surgery and that I knew I was having this surgery because of cancer, maybe it was the fact that I was anxious being in such an enclosed space due to being claustrophobic, or maybe, just maybe it was the fact that the anesthiesiologist that was administering the meds looked like Doogie Howser and looked like he was not old enough to drive let alone be old enough to administer meds that would knock me out so two other people can cut into me! Who knows but after they administered the Happy Hour meds I was happy go lucky! Woo-hoo!! I could care less that I was in a matchbox size room, I could care less that I had cancer or needed surgery, I could care less that Doogie Howser was in there asking me questions and talking about knocking me out! I was happy! Apparently I was so giggly that my own doctor, my surgeon, wanted to make sure I knew what was happening. She asked me now tell me what it is that you are having done. Readers a part of me felt like messing with her at that point but I do not know why I did not. In my head I was saying I am having a tummy tuck, lipo and a breast augmentation just to see what she would say when I said that but for some reason I said apparently with a huge smile on my face, I am having a hysterectomy. She said good and asked and what are we taking out? Again I wanted to tease her but who knows maybe the happy meds have like a truth serum in them because as much as I wanted to joke around all I could say again with my big smile and giggling I told her you are removing my uterus and my cervix. Man I would have loved to mess with her though! I wanted to really have a funny story for you readers about telling my doctor that I was having some absurd surgery and seeing her jaw drop but I couldn't. I feel like I have failed you all my readers.... LOL
Now its time for the surgery. I have no idea what time I went in to surgery. All I remember is them telling me they are rolling me into surgery and Doogie Howser taking out several syringes and calling them his bag of tricks when I get to the hall I see one doctor who says wow someone looks happy and all I can gather is that I had a smile as big as the Cheshire Cat and I looked to the side to see a see of doctor scrubs when all of a sudden I remember nothing else. I do not remember being rolled into the OR I do not remember anything else. THEY PUT ME TO SLEEP IN A HALLWAY! What is that?!?!
Next thing I do remember is waking up to my husband smiling at me. Oh I love his smile and I remember thinking when am I having the surgery. Then the pain kicked in. The sweet male nurse in recovery gave me a magic little machine with a button to push everytime I felt I need a magical substance called MORPHINE! Oh it was wonderful. My husband stayed with me for God only knows how long before leaving to pick my mother up at the airport. All I remember is him and the male nurse who honestly I could not pick out of a line up if my life depended on it telling me if I felt pain (apparently I kept moaning in pain) to press the button because I was the only one allowed to press it. Oh the power!! LOL. Then they moved me from the 4th floor up to the 7th floor to my room. At first they told my husband that I was going to have my own room which would have been nice. But apparently I am guessing there were no single rooms available and I was put in a room with 4 other women. That's right readers 4 OTHER WOMEN! Oh my lanta! I learned that in a show I was watching recently and found it to be so funny! I did not rest at all. I had asked everyone to allow me to rest that first day of my surgery and asked that visitors did not come to the hospital but I should have allowed it because these other women did not let me rest! But that is a totally different story. I spent that day in pain because about 2-3 hours after the surgery they removed the magic machine with the magic button and then I spent the day trying to sleep. I slept but kept getting woken up by my roomates.
The next day as I waited for my husband and mother to come I was scolded by my nurse for not getting up and walking. So I was there walking the 7th floor with my Lueitenant nurse for two rounds. Not fun! I was asked if I wanted to try and stay a second night in the hospital and after much, much consideration I declined and decided to go home thinking I would be more comfortable and more relaxed at home. I think that was the best choice I made.
Now I have been home on bed rest for a little over a week. Still have three more to go and can not wait to get off the bed rest. I am so thankful and grateful that God pulled me through this time and I am now feeling his healing. "For with God nothing will be impossible" Luke 1:37.God brought me through. He healed me, He blessed me, He did it all! Thanks for many prayers readers. I know the prayers of all is what brought me through this time of my need.
