Broken Finger, Tattoos and Good News

Broken Finger:

I failed to mention in previous posts our adventures the night before Thanksgiving. The older 4 kids were out in the living room - unattended for a few minutes - and decided that it would be fun to turn all the lights off and run around the room, weird I know, but they did it. Faith was sitting on the floor messing with something and one of her siblings jumped onto the couch using her hand as a springboard. The finger started swelling and was causing so much pain that we headed over to the ER.

You know that you go the ER too often when the receptionist recognizes you! We walk in and she said, "You're back! But this is not the kid you had with you last time, is it?" She remembered me from Vilate's tooth incident. Crazy!!

Turns out Faith has a broken finger - on the growth plate! Now the fingers are taped together and we are awaiting meeting with orthopedics just to make sure the finger will grow normally.

Tattoos:

Today I went and met with the radiologist and they have decided to do radiation on my right upper femur. I have been having pain there a lot lately and they know that I have a pretty big mass there. So, I have 10 days of radiation to look forward to over the next 2 weeks.

When they do radiation on my femur/hip area they have to line me up exactly so that that they get it in the right spot so today I got my first 3 tattoos! They tattooed my hip on both side - twice on the right. It didn't even really hurt - I was surprised! They are really small.

Good News:

The results of the radiation on my brain are so great! We saw the pictures and most of the cancer is gone!!!!!! YAY!!!!! I still have little "lesions" in my brain, but they might continue to shrink. They will do another MRI in few months to see where we are at. It is so nice to get some good news!!

I am feeling good and seem to have a fair amount of energy. I wish it was more, but for now I am okay. Thanks to all of you who have brought and are planning to bring us dinners. They are a great blessing and help to our lives. We love you all!!

Health update

As for my health...here is the latest:

Yesterday I had to go to the ER for vomiting blood and feeling crummy. It turned out to be that I was severely low on platelets and magnesium. The low platelets were the cause of the bleeding and the low magnesium was the cause of the crummy feeling. They loaded me with both and I felt much better.

The latest test show that my cancer is shrinking - albeit very slowly. My radiation follow-up appointment is tomorrow - but we already have been told that there is "marked improvement." I will let you all know what we find out after the appointment.

Some days are better than others. I have seemed to have a lot of not so great days lately. Lucky for me the people at church and the kids' school have been so helpful with food and gift cards that things have been a lot better than they could have been.

Over the past few days I have thought a lot about what I am learning here. The Lord has promised not to give us more than we can handle. I know that to be true. He must know something about me that I don't because this is sure feeling like a really, really heavy burden. I must be stronger than I know. The Lord has also said that our trials here will seem but a moment - he didn't mean while in them, but once they were over. I totally know this to be true. This might go on for years or it might only go on for a few more months. This might end in my passing on, or I might beat this thing. Whatever happens, when I look back whether here or in the Spirit World, it will seem that this trial passed very quickly. I need to focus on what I can learn from it. I want to learn all that I can from this experience so that I can become a better person - the daughter that MY Heavenly Father wants me to become. So, here I go, off to learn some more.

I am in my 8th round of chemo and have round 9 starting the week before Christmas. I am trying really hard to spend more time with the kids - even when I am not feeling good. I spend a lot of time on the couch, but my kids regularly come over and give me hugs and kisses. I love it! I really love this time of year. The cold air is hard - I don't do cold so well these days, but I do love it. I love the music and the family activities. I am so grateful for the family that I have been blessed with, my kids, hubby, brothers and sisters, in-laws and all those that surround me. I have never felt more loved in my life. Thanks for making me feel so special and important! I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving and are looking forward to a wonderful Christmas or whatever you choose to celebrate. Thanks for checking in! My most sincere thanks and love to you all this Christmas season!

Christmas Kick-off

We have a tradition in our house where the day after Thanksgiving is the Christmas Kick-off Party. We get up in the morning and have homemade cinnamon rolls and then we set out candy on the table - tons of candy - and we decorate for Christmas.

This year I started on Thursday night and made the cinnamon rolls. Then Faith and David and I put up our Christmas tree. It was an adventure - a new tree and all the branches had to be put on one at a time. But we did and it is a gorgeous tree!

The next morning we got up and cooked the cinnamon rolls and Faith made the frosting. The kids loved them! After that the lights went on the tree and then the decorating began. We put up all the decorations and had a great time listening to Christmas music and snacking on candy. Gloria insisted that all of her ornaments be kept on the same branch. It was pretty cute, but she was so mad when we told her that we wanted to spread her ornaments out. She just didn't get it.

After all the decorating was done we took the kids to my sister Jenny and her husband Marchane's house to hang for the night. The older 4 spent the night and had a great time playing Rock Band on the Wii and roasting marshmallows in the fire place. Good times were had by all, although I still think Jenn and Marchane are pretty crazy and hope that they enjoy the peace and quiet that comes from going from 13 kids back down to 5. Thanks guys!!

Thanksgiving

Once again, Thanksgiving was a hit! We all congregated over to the church Institute Building at ARC and had a feast. There was so much food it was great! We ended up with around 40 people I think and over half were under 12. The kids love going there because there is so much to do. The kids played pool, ping pong and air hockey. They loved it! Then they would go outside and they could ride bikes, skateboards, motorscooters and roller blades. They also were out there playing street hockey and lovin it. Visiting with people was wonderful and the food delicious. Thanks to everyone that contributed so that my family could have such a wonderful day!!

Girl Scouts and a Birthday Party

This year Faith's Girl Scout troop made a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner for us. The way the calendar worked out we had to wait a day to enjoy it. It was wonderful! Thanks girls for thinking of us and for all of your hard work! Everything was YUMMY!!!

We got to go and have a lot of fun with my family at Mac, Mariah and Madelyn's birthday party. It was at Jarrod and Jennifer's church building and the kids loved to play with their cousins. Nephi had a great time eating multiple cupcakes - or at least claiming all the rings that were on top. I think he ended the night with 2 Elmo rings, 1 Cookie Monster Ring and 1 Curious George Ring. He was constantly messy, but had a great time!!