Christmas in June?

I have officially caught up on my daily Bible reading! Woohoo! I stopped doing the devotional (that my sister got for me) along side with it. They asked the same four questions each time. My prayer journal was found while I was still at home. I try to write one page each evening but I’ve been writing all the way to the bottom of the page and even around the edges and the top. The pages aren’t that large so the next journal is going to be bigger.

I have decided to go on an unpaid leave of absence from work. It was a tough decision but I feel it was the right one. I feel that in order to do certain kinds of research you need to be able to be there consistently and sometimes for long hours. I am not to that point yet but I am slowly getting there.

People keep telling me not to push myself but I do know that for myself and for me to gain the ability to work again, I do need to push myself a little each day. Last night I walked for at least 25 minutes last night along with doing exercises earlier in the day. I do sit down a lot in between my daily activities.

Because I am taking this absence I am able to help out more with various activities that I would have felt guilty for if I was working. I am excited to finally be able to help out with VBS at church!!! I am hoping that a couple of my friends are going to be able to come out and visit and I won’t have to worry about the experiments that needed to be done.

I am also super excited that I am going to the Hamm Bash!!! It is going to be crazy! I am 100% sure that there are going to be lots of people I don’t recognize! But I am so excited to go. Mom and I have been working on our homemade crafts. I hope people like them!!!

Saturday mom and I decided to get out of the house and go to Glen Haven and Estes. We were gone a lot longer than we had expected to be. I got to feeling kind of bad while we were in Glen Haven. While we were in Estes we were walking around and we found a free trade store. I loved it!!! I want to find more of them. I’ve heard of them and I am so jealous of my sister who went to one down in the Colorado Springs area and got a purse made out of the inside of a tire. I want one too!

I also have a good portion of my Christmas shopping done. I’m going to be wrapping presents this week or next week to ship home to Missouri. I almost want to keep what I got for most people. But I know that they will all like what I got them. I even got things for my cousins. Every year I say I am going to get them something and then I end up not finding anything that I feel like they would like.  I am finally learning!

For those of you that live in the area, every Friday in June and July at the Centerra shops at Loveland (between The Bent Fork and Build-a-Build) they have a free kids movie starting at 9. Some of my friends and I have gone to a couple of them, Karate Kid and Mega Mind! I really liked Megan Mind, it had lots of scientific comments and of course I was with my roommate Cherelle another chemistry graduate student and our friend Kate who is the teacher I worked with in chemistry and freshman science classes. Needless to say we were laughing when others weren’t.

If you all could, please pray for my friend Lindsey and her family, her mother passed away on Sunday morning.

June Dr's Appointment

My platelet counts have increased to 71 (which when I say this number and the ones before it really means 71,000). However the doctor decided not to do the infusion or the chemotherapy. Didn't want to do the infusion because of the nose hole, she wants to make sure my nose is healed before she gives me another treatment. She didn't give me the chemotherapy because my white blood cells are too low. And thats about it.

I have a hole in my nose from beginning of June

I immediately woke up the other day with a nose bleed. NOT COOL! I called the health center and got an appointment for later that afternoon. Saw the doctor and he referred me to an ear nose and throat doctor. Just happened that the two doctors had the same name. I really confused the receptionist at the doctors office when she asked me who referred me to their office. My ER doctor along with my oncologist had told me they hadn't seen anything during my previous appointments when I told them I had a hole in my nose. Well the ENT doctor stuck cotton pieces up my nose, not comfortable, to clean it out. When he took them out he found that I had a hole in my nose that was 1.5 cm in diameter! That is huge! At least I think it is. The reason the nose clip wasn't working was because the hole was closer to the front of the nose instead of the back of it.

The doctor cauterized it using silver nitrate. Turned the inside of my nose a purple/brownish color which was visible because of my high nostrils. I was miserable! My nose burns my throat burns. I don't like this.  :(

I went to my first cancer support group on Thursday evening. Everyone was so friendly! Most of them were older but my cancer twin was there.

Also did my first relay for life on Saturday. I was very disappointed that they didn't let us go the complete 1/4 mile! I really wanted to do more but knew I shouldn't. I also just wanted to start running I really really miss running. Just being on the track was so invigorating! I felt powerful remembering all the times I would push myself to go further and to never give up. It was a wonderful time to spend with God. I will run again!

Platelets

I left for Missouri with a platelet count of 51 (I believe they are suppose to be at least 150). Mom, Stephanie and I left from Colorado around 8 on Thursday and drove straight through to Missouri. It wasn't too bad because we had 3 drivers. The weather was off and on with raining and strong winds :( But we made it!!!  As we turned onto our road I saw fireflies!!! I was so excited!!! Then as we were coming in we were attacked by June bugs, not fun :(

Friday mom and I spent most of the day cleaning. I mostly worked on laundry and dishes.

Saturday I spent the day with my grandma playing dominoes and going through pictures. That night my family went to the benefit dance. I felt so blessed that my moms friends set this up for me. They had a dance, a silent auction, a raffle and of course food! I'm not much of a dancer, but I think I finally got the electric slide down and the charlie brown! I had to be careful though and take breaks frequently. On my way home I stopped by wal-mart and my nose started bleeding I just sat down holding my nose until it stopped, it took about 20 minutes :(

Sunday I went to church at Strafford with my dad and two of my nephews. Since my nephews were so good we let them play at the playground and we took them to McDonalds. I spent half of the day with my grandma. I brought my daily bible and did some reading. I was however slightly distracted by how quiet and calm it was. I could hear the gentle breeze and the birds chirping outside the window. It was beautiful! Thank you Lord. When I got home I learned that my mom was going to be spending time with her friend Barb. So I decided I would take up the responsibility of getting the house in order.

Monday I spent most of the day doing laundry and cleaning the house and taking care of my 3 nephews. I had insisted that Rachel and Michael go into town to run their last minute errands since Rachel was going to be induced on Tuesday. Around dinner time my nose started bleeding and wouldn't stop. Mind you I didn't stop doing everything because I was preparing dinner for the boys. Eventually I got to sit down to stop it but I'd get up and start working again and my nose would start bleeding. Eventually I called my mom and told her I was scared because it had been about an 1.5 hours and hadn't fully started bleeding. I did call the on call neuro-oncologist and told me if it wouldn't stop bleeding to go get it cauderized. Mom called Rachel and Michael and everyone was on their way back. By the time they got home my nose bleed stopped. The bleeding stopped long enough for my family to resolve some issues. I was getting up to go to bed and my nose started to bleed again and I decided to go to the ER around 10:30. Since I was going to be at the hospital I decided to have my labs done since my oncologist wanted me to get them done on Tuesday, I figured it was close enough to Tuesday. We got to the ER and immediately got since to the back, it was because my immune system is compromised. The doctor didn't give me too much advice that I didn't already know about. He did give me a nose clip that should help stop the bleeding. After that every new person that came in the room I joyfully asked are you going to take my blood?

I found out on Tuesday that my counts had dropped to 31. My sister had an appointment to be induced but when she called in they said that they didn't have any availabilities for her. They told her to call later and when she did they said that they had just admitted 3 new patients. She was very upset. Eventually around 1:00 she was told to come in. She had Megan Sophia (she is going to go by Sophia) at 7:57 pm weighing in at 6 pounds 10.5 ounces. She has bright blue eyes and long blonde hair. She is so incredibly cute.

I got the chance to have lunch with Brenda, I used to babysit her two girls who have grown up so much! I'm so thankful for her. She is an optomatrists and I went to her office to see if I could find some new glasses since I've been wearing them a lot more because of my extremely dry eyes. I was so excited to find them but ended up feeling even more blessed to have her say that she was going to buy them. For those of you who wear glasses you understand how expensive they can get especially if you have bad eyesight like me. I also had my labs done and they had dropped to 27.

While I was home I got to see my friend Amanda and her family came over. She has a 10 week old, Kaden. He seems so big, but that is most likely because sophia seems so very little.

I went to church in Fair Grove with my Grandma. Sunday night my sisters and I went through the shelves that contain some of our childhood memories. Finally got to bed around midnight but  my nose started bleeding.  I tried several different methods and combinations of methods but couldn't get it stopped. Finally around 3:30 in the morning I walked upstairs to my moms room and told her I think I might need to go back to the ER. She was able to calm me down and to get the bleeding to stop.

Monday was my last full day at home, I had been in town to get my labs done again along with visiting with my friend Laura and her daughter my labs drawn which tuned out to be at 24 now even with the resting I had been doing. When I got home two of my cousins were there with their kids. My aunt Charlotte also came over. It was so great seeing them. I'm very glad they came out to visit I had wanted us all (whole family) to get together for a game night which we typically do but I was in no condition to plan it or really have the energy to do much with them.

Mom and I flew back to Colorado incredibly early Tuesday morning. We almost didn't make it to our second flight. We got to the airport a little later than we had planned but still with plenty of time. However we had to stand in the line for an unusually long time, they were having issues with printing boarding passes and luckily the flight was delayed. We got to Memphis and just barely made it to our next flight, they had been trying to find us, we were the last two people to board. My friend Carlos picked us up and drove us back to fort collins. Home sweet home.

Don't get me wrong, I LOVE being home, but it is very nice to be back in CO. There has been so much going on in Missouri it has been hard to really relax. So I'm hoping that I'll get some better resting accomplished while at home.