Breast Cancer Walk

We were all decked out in our pink...ready to walk!

This weekend we participated in a 5K walk to raise money for a local Breast Cancer organization that has been very helpful to me in my recovery. It sponsors the support group that I'm in, and gives back to survivors in so many wonderful ways.

Our group (well, most of us) were able to come out and bring our families to share in a wonderful day together. We didn't seem to all be in the same area to get a picture together the entire time, but you get the idea.

After the walk there was a pink rose ceremony for survivors.

It was a great day for all of us! Little One made herself a friend, too :) one of my friends from the support group has a 5 year old that came & they walked and played through the entire walk. Before they knew it, they had gone 3.6 miles with the rest of us! We were pretty proud of them!

I Love Mom Tea

A few weeks ago Little One's school invited all the Mom's to come have tea with our sweet babies at school for an "I Love Mom Tea". It was decorated so cute & they had adorable finger foods and girly decorations all over. The kids had worked hard on our place settings and everything was adorable!

My sweet girl kept telling me "No, I didn't make anything for you" so she could surprise me with the precious card with her cut out handprint inside and travel coffee mug. The mug was decorated with her artwork and read "I like it when my Mommy takes me to Noah's Ark & Loves Me!" Her favorite thing for us to do is go to a local animal sanctuary with lots of animals called Noah's Ark & I guess she meant that shows her I love her...I hope she doesn't think I only love her sometimes! :) We talked about it & she promises she knows her Mommy loves her all the time!

Me and my precious little one!

I'm so glad Pre-Schools have sweet times like this, I know they'll be gone before I turn around!

What I'm focused on

I tried to do a "Word for 2011" post back in January, and just couldn't figure out what my word should be. I thought about it for a long time and tried to think of the things I struggle with most and which word best fits those daily worries and fears. Last year my word was "HOPE". I'll tell you, it got me through many tearful days just meditating on that one word. I also have it all around me, literally. I have 2 framed hope pictures in my house, and one of my Mom's sweet friends made me a pair of earrings with the word hope on them. I loved them & when I accidentally broke one I made the other into a necklace that I still wear almost every day. It means so much to me to wear hope on a daily basis and be able to physically see it each time I look in the mirror or when I'm "having a moment" as I often do, be able to feel it. It has helped me more than she would've ever known & I greatly appreciate the thoughtful gift (Thank you a million times, Brenda!). I have also had numerous cards and gifts proclaiming "Hope" and it means so much to me! It may sound crazy but having a word to focus on helped me tremendously!
So, I finally come up with my word for 2011 back in February & thought it was too late to share but I just decided I would since part of the reason for this blog is so I will have a record of my life & I want to remember this! My word for the year is BELIEVE. I tend to struggle with believing that the Lord who healed me & has brought me through so many fires still remembers me and keeps me in the palm of His hand. I know in my head this is true, but putting the nagging fear out of my head on a daily basis is easier said than done.

And that He did!!! I just have to believe that the God who "restored me to health" cares enough about me to keep me that way!

This shirt says it all. I found the picture online but I'm searching for the website it came from. It pretty much says it all. Fight first, then believe you're healed and that you can stay that way, then hope for a cure and for the wonderful, fulfilled life you can have if you let yourself...it's a choice we have to make every day!


Mark 9:23 And Jesus said to him, "All things are possible to him who believes."

Luke 1:45 "Blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what had been spoken to her by the Lord."

This is something else I have to choose to believe every day & keep going back to in my head. The Lord has shown us, and put on our hearts that there are more children in our future. We don't know how He will make that come to pass yet, but we have to Believe & put our trust in Him that there will be "a fulfillment of what has been spoken to us by the Lord".

One of the cutest quotes I found relating to this is from Christopher Robin in the book Winnie the Pooh believe it or not..."Promise me you'll always remember: You're braver than you believe, and stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think."

Calling all prayer warriors...

The purpose of this post is, like all the others, to give you a glimpse into a piece of our lives. It's deeply personal & something that we have told very few family members and a couple friends, but I think it's time we told more people because we're looking for God's direction. I feel like the more people who love us (or just know us...or don't know us but stumbled across this blog, I'll take whatever!) that are willing to mention us in prayer the better, ya know?!
So, the Hubby and I decided in the last few months that we were not going to have any more children. It was one of our hardest decisions in a long time, but I firmly believe it's the best one for my health.
Here's the reason...skip all this paragraph if you really don't care about the scientific/cancer/health stuff. It won't hurt my feelings, ha! When I was diagnosed with Breast Cancer, I was informed the tumor was ER/PR positive. What that means is that the tumor itself was an Estrogen/Progesterone receptor & was literally being fed by the hormones my body naturally produces. Because it was "grade 3" which means the fastest growing kind & had already spread into my lymph nodes, I have to believe it was feasting on my hormones & that I shouldn't "feed" that ever again! Since I finished chemo, I am now taking an estrogen blocking pill that's an oral form of chemo called Tamoxifen. It is supposed to reduce the chance of cancer returning, but it has it's own downfalls (like all medications do) and I can only take it for 5 years. Every time I saw a doctor and mentioned that I may try to have another child when the nightmare ended they got very concerned & said they didn't know if I should do that. I finally woke up one day & realized they were right. When you're pregnant you have to #1 be off Tamoxifen for a good while first & #2 just know that there is a crazy amount of estrogen in your system and be willing to take that risk with your life. I'm just not willing to do either. The bottom line is there's enough of a chance that this stupid disease will take my life at some point & I'm not willing to make the risk go up drastically and possibly leave my husband with a newborn and a young child.
So, we both decided recently the best decision for our family would be for me to have a hysterectomy and be thankful each and every day that God blessed us with one wonderful child. I literally cried all day, and felt like I was mourning the loss of the child I would never have. That was a Saturday, and on Sunday we visited a new church in the area. They were having a special service about children (we didn't know this before), and showed videos of children in other countries who need sponsorship and also discussed adoption. The pastor and his wife adopted a beautiful little girl from China a few years back & they showed the video of their journey to China and when they met their baby girl for the first time. I was a hot crying mess! We so felt like the Lord sent us there on that day because He had a message for us. Adoption is something we had discussed a little, but after that day we really said "OK God, we're listening!" They had an informational meeting about adoption the next week at the church & we decided to go. It was 4 couples discussing their different adoption experiences and giving a "what you should expect" kind of talk. It definitely made us excited about the process, and gave us a starting point on agencies in the area. We also went to a meeting recently given by the biggest agency in the area and got a little more info from them. As of now, we believe that we will stay in the U.S. to adopt, and we would love the opportunity to have a newborn. Again, unless God leads us in another direction this is what we are hoping for. I believe my Hubby is just worried that if we adopt a child that's not an infant and I don't get the "baby stage" again that I'll want more!
Anyway, I tell you all this to ask for your prayers. We are very excited about where this will lead us, and are praying for God's will, whatever that may be. From what we've been told, it's a pretty lengthy, expensive process for most couples, and some days the paperwork and hoop jumping gets a little much, but we're gearing up to do what we need to.
No matter what, it has just made us that much MORE thankful for our Little One! I honestly don't know what I would do if I didn't have a child when I got a cancer diagnosis. I try to tell myself that every day when I'm mad at cancer for taking yet another thing away from me. Sometimes it works ;) I know life's not always fair, but I also know that the Lord has something big for us in this whole mess. I've just got to believe He will reveal it in HIS time!
Thanks for reading & most importantly thanks for praying for us through this!!

"Fancy Nancy"

Today is Dr. Seuss' birthday and in honor of that, Little One's school had Storybook Character day. All the kids and teachers dressed up as a character from a book and they had a blast with it.

Little One went as Fancy Nancy (who else?) and she looked the part if you ask me!

Her whole class dressed up, and so did the Preschool Director (Thing 1)

They had a parade through the school as their characters!

They also tried Green Eggs and Ham, and Little One says she liked them...Ewww!

Happy Birthday to Dr. Seuss!

Making Memories

Last week was winter break at Little One's school. I was all stressed about how it would go with me trying to work and still have fun times with Little One, but it all worked out (like it always does!).

On Tuesday we went to "The Jumpy Place" so she could burn off some energy before heading off to run work errands. The public schools in the area were in session, so we were the only people at the jumpy place. Well, when you're 5 it's no fun at all to be the only kid there! So, I decided to be her entertainment, and we had so much fun! We did all the slides, obstacle courses & jumping we could stand & then we played hide and seek and dodge ball. Yes, we had to get creative, but it was a lot of fun! This out of shape Mommy nearly gave herself a heart attack though and had to take Little One to "Chicken fil-a" to eat and play off some more energy with actual children to catch my breath and be able to function...yes, it was THAT bad!

We had a great day!

On Wednesday I woke up with a horrible stomach virus and laid on the couch all day (except for my frequent trips to the bathroom to be sick). What a fabulous day and night that was to say the least! Little One nearly lost her mind trying to find things to do on her own. I just could not function. She used it to her advantage though and ate all the snacks she could reach in the fridge and pantry...that part she liked! I would bet she ate 10 popsicles that day. It's ok to eat popsicles and pretzels for lunch just one day I guess! (I hope :) The Hubby had the virus first on Saturday, then I got it and bless his heart he got it again on Friday. It was not fun! Thankfully Little One stayed well this time!

I had already told her earlier in the week we would go to the Zoo on Thursday if she would let me get lots of work done on Wednesday. Well, when she realized I really was sick she felt bad but was mostly concerned for our zoo trip. She was telling The Hubby "But, Mommy PROMISED we could go to the zoo. We have to Daddy!" Ok, thanks for the guilt trip kid! Luckily Thursday morning I woke up feeling better and she let me get some things done in the morning so we could go to the zoo that afternoon.

We took a picnic & ate it on the lawn before going in and enjoyed the absolutely gorgeous day!

This girl loved seeing the animals and we had a wonderful time together reading about them & enjoying the sights. It was the perfect day to go, not too busy and not too hot. I was so glad we had such a wonderful time together! She was most looking forward to seeing the Pandas and the new baby panda they have. Well, the baby was sleeping and we could only see it on the tv monitor, but we saw another one & she adopted her new favorite friend, "Mei Lin" from the panda shop there.

I'm so thankful for memories made while she's little. She is growing up way too fast!

Mixed Emotions...

I don't think I've done a "crazy emotionally unstable Stacie" post in a while, so here's one for ya. ;)
I had my routine 6 month check-up with my Oncologist yesterday and my Breast Specialist today. These are always a little nerve wracking because even though I feel healthy, I always worry they may find something in blood work or during an exam that will hit me like a mack truck again. Well, thankfully all tests except for one have come back and all is well (the other test, tumor markers, should be in tomorrow) Praise God!
This fear isn't the worst part of these appointments for me, believe it or not. Going into those two offices bring back so many emotions I get teary eyed every time I walk into either one. Especially the Breast Doctor, Dr. T's office. That's where all the tests were run that diagnosed my cancer, where I went the day after my diagnosis and got more information, and where I have spent countless hours being treated by Dr. T & the Reconstructive Surgeon (who I affectionately call Dr. Hurt). Usually when I'm there I get lots of stares and strange looks from people because I'm the youngest person in the room and they probably think I'm lost. For a while I went much more frequently & I had wigs on during chemo so it was obvious what I was going through and I guess people were surprised, who knows. Anyway, this time I was not the youngest patient in the room. A girl and her Dad came in with a package labeled "Ultrasound Images" and signed in. I knew she looked young, but I heard her tell the Receptionist she was 18. I felt so heartsick for that poor girl & how scared she must be. She wouldn't have been there unless there was some kind of concern for breast cancer & I was so sad for her immediately.
There was another lady there who had just received a mammogram and was waiting to see the Dr. again for a needle biopsy. Bless her heart. I so remember that long appointment a year and a half ago when I was scared of what in the world might be going on with me too.
Next, in comes a young lady and her boyfriend/husband. She was very attractive and looked to be in her mid twenties. She was very short tempered with the Receptionist and it was obvious she would've rather been getting a root canal than be in that office. When she was asked to fill out a new patient packet she took it and grudgingly started filling it out beside me. Her boyfriend was trying to calm her but she was very angry. Just as I wanted to tell her "Um sweetie, get used to paperwork if you're about to go through a medical nightmare like breast cancer" it hit me (and I think it was the Lord's prompting) that she's not angry, she's scared. Out-of-her-mind-afraid of what might be growing in her breast that she has absolutely no control over. Fear of the unknown & how it will change the rest of her life if what the doctors suspect is true.
I began to pray for these women and seriously shed tears in the waiting room of Dr. T's office. People may have thought I was psycho, but I just remember so well what being in their shoes felt like and I am so thankful I have on different shoes today. Shoes that have walked that road, looked that extreme fear in the face & are now living on the other side.
After Dr. T examined me & gave me the all clear (yay!) I went to visit with his sweet wife for a few minutes in her office.
After I left I had a wierd teary-eyed feeling for the rest of the afternoon and a few hours later I realized it was just the emotions from going to that office, seeing those scared women and sitting in the same chair that I sat in 1 1/2 years ago hearing about the journey I was about to begin & not thinking I could ever be equipped to walk that road.
Praise God, that leg of my cancer journey did finally end & I'm living a normal, happy, blessed life now! It's just times like the past couple of days that remind me how absolutely mind blowing everything we went through really was & how thankful I am that God carried us when we couldn't walk anymore & held us when we didn't think we could go on.
Thank you Father for being so faithful!