A New Fear...

The end of Nathan's treatments is finally in sight. In January 2011 he should be done with treatment and I'm praying hard for remission! Actually my prayer is more than that.

Nathan's tumor is inoperable so I was told some of it will always be there but I'm praying that when they look at the last set of scans they don't see anything. I pray they have to wonder, "Where is it?"

I've mentioned this prayer to a few people and their response has been to tell me that would be nice but you know it's highly unlikely that will happen. I want God to prove them wrong so bad. I've even asked Him too. I've begged him to let those people know who He is and that nothing is impossible with Him.

I expected to feel total joy at seeing the end just around the corner. What I didn't expect is this new fear to creep into the picture. As much as I'm looking forward to Nathan being done with chemo another part of me is terrified to see it end.

To many of you this is a ludicrous fear. Totally crazy. But honestly I haven't talked to one parent of a child with cancer who hasn't shared the same fear in one way or another.

As much as I want Nathan to be done with chemo and not have to deal with it's side affects, I have a false sense of comfort while he's getting the medicine. After the medicine stops than the waiting game begins...and that concept is extremely nerve wracking to me.

The doctor has informed me of several things. Believe it or not it's about 5 years after treatment before a person's chances improve of the cancer not coming back. If they make it to 10 years without the cancer coming back then thats even better. If the cancer were to come back shortly after he's taken off the medicine then the doctors will determine that the treatment didn't work and will try something else.

What if he gets a headache? What if another lump appears? You see for Nathan a headache will never be just a headache anymore. A lump will always have to be looked at. Since he's had cancer once, he's at a higher risk than the rest of us to get cancer again. Whenever something comes up with him we'll always go to the doctor hoping/praying that it's not cancer.

Some of the side effects from the radiation and chemo could take awhile to manifest. Because of the location of the tumor, radiation was done very close to his brain. We still don't know what effects that will have on his future.

Chemo has been brutal to Nathan these last two treatments. His immune system is taking longer to recover so he's not bouncing back as quickly as he used to. Right now I have plastic bags strategically placed all around the house in every room that we're normally in. It may look messy if you were to visit but if Nathan says "bag" then there's always one really close to hold up in front of him.

I truly miss our lives before this. Peyton and I were just looking at pictures of our last Christmas...we had no idea what was going to happen less than a month after those pictures were taken. Life seemed so simple then. Cancer wasn't even a thought.

Now I'm truly trying to figure out how we're going to start over. We can't go back to the way things were. I so wish we could but a certain 'innocence' is gone and our perspectives on life have changed.

My dependence and awareness of God has increased and for that I'm grateful. All of these things I'm writing I've taken to him and will continue to take to him. I don't want cancer or the fear of cancer to control our future. I really want to move on.

Some things have gotten better. I've learned what's important and truthfully I think I can let things go easier than a lot of my peers. Outside of this cancer nothing else really rattles me. LOL I'll admit I'm not the person to call if your issue isn't life threatening, I may not be able to offer much assistance. As long as your family is healthy and you have a roof over your heard, well I can't see much past that right now.

I've made life long friends. I'm so grateful for the hospital staff and people who've enriched our lives. I love the families I've met both here and out of state who've also been affected by childhood cancer. I met children with cancer who've changed my life.

I just came across a 13 year old named Jake who was diagnosed with Leukemia in July. He'll be doing treatment for 3 years. He asked Nathan to come sing while he played the guitar on the Wii. He was so kind and encouraging, complimenting Nathan's "singing". I took a ton of pictures. One nurse stopped to watch them as tears fell down her cheeks at the sight of the two of them together. I still say my life is better after meeting all of these people.

Dear Father,

I just want peace about the future. You told me not to worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself.

So I'm seeking you. I've learned that I am nothing apart from you. I've learned that you're in control and not me.

I want to depend on you and not worry about this. No matter what happens I want joy to return to this house.

Please forgive me for the doubt and worry that still find its way in.

Lord you know my prayer. You know my every desire concerning Nathan's cancer.

I pray that your will be done no matter what. And I pray for the strength to be able to accept whatever that will is...but Lord I do ask that those scans come back showing nothing...I still want your will but if it's ok I just wanted to throw in my own personal request.

Thank you so much for hearing me. Thank you so much for loving Nathan and my family. Thank you so much for the people you've placed in our lives.

I pray that I always remain close to you even after this treatment has ended. I pray that I remember to pray in the good times as I have been during the bad.

In Jesus Name

Amen

Quick Updates....

Nathan stayed in the hospital for chemo this past Monday. This is the roughest time I remember him having. He threw up a ton in the middle of the night, into Tuesday afternoon.

He's home now. He didn't throw up any on Wed. but just got really sick again today and has been throwing up and just begging to be cuddled.

He did get to make a wish through the "Make a Wish Foundation" and will be going to Disney World next spring if all is well. It was so cute, as soon as the volunteer arrived he announced "Mickey Mouse" to her before she could even sit down lol so Mickey Mouse it is.

He got his cast off his feet and no longer walks on his tip toes. We'd gotten so used to him walking on his toes that it still seems weird watching him walk flat. All the while he never once complained about the cast. Nothing really seems to phase him and I'm so thankful for that.

I'll continue to update as things come together. If all still goes according to schedule he'll be wrapping up his treatment the first week of January 2011...

About 5 of ya'll have called me and believe me I got the messages, I'm going to call back soon, these last few weeks have been pretty busy but as soon as I get a break I'll be calling!

God Bless

Confession time

The Bible says: "Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective" James 5:16

Please be patient with me because being a 31 year old mother of 2, this is very hard for me to admit.

Here it goes...

I LOVE that new Willow Smith song, Whip My Hair!!!!! Seriously I was reading the news the other day and saw Willow Smith the daughter of Will and Jada has a new song out. So I breezed over it. I mean she's a kid and I didn't really care figuring it'd be kind of cute but you know for kids, so I didn't pay attention.

I'll admit I was a huge fan of Will Smith back in the day (anyone remember "Parents Just Don't Understand"?), but again just figured aww that's cute she has a song. So anyhow I clicked on the link to watch the video and felt my head nodding a little bit and by the second listen I was whipping my hair like crazy...

So there you have it. I like it. To make matters worse if someone doesn't intervene on my behalf with prayer I just may download it from ITunes next week when it comes out...I'm just sayin. (LOL and I know it's sad, I even know the day it'll be available...)

Needing Prayer!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I'm really requesting prayer for my neighbor and really good friend. She just found out that her father has stage 4 lung cancer.

She lives across the street from me and her parents are in Louisiana where she's originally from. Right now she's making arrangements to fly down to see her father. She's also pregnant (due around Thanksgiving) so this time is extremely stressful for her, finding out about her father and traveling alone so late in her pregnancy.

I've talked to her and she knows I'll be praying and I'm going to be recruiting others to pray for her.

Dear Lord,

I want to pause right now and pray for Stefanie. Lord I'm asking for you to grant her peace during this time. Lord I know the fear that grips you when you find out someone you love dearly has cancer.

Lord right now she's in that stage where there's a diagnosis, but not many answers around that diagnosis. They're still waiting to find out the next steps and at times that can be the most stressful part.

Lord I thank you for Stefanie. You truly couldn't have given me a better neighbor or friend. Lord her and her family have been by our side.

Lord please, I pray that her father gets through this. Lord I pray for the right words to say to be able to comfort her during this difficult time. Please protect her and her child as she travels.

Lord please be with this family. She needs your comfort.

In Jesus Name

Amen

Happy Halloween

Ok I'm switching gears just for a second.

For some reason this year I'm getting asked quite a bit on my stance on Halloween. How much do we avoid and what do we allow our children to do. Can they go to Halloween parties? Can they look at decorations? Will I buy them costumes? Will they watch any Halloween cartoons? Will they be going trick or treating this year?

Here's my take on Halloween. I don't cover my children's eyes when walking past decorations. I do try to avoid the really dark scary ones...though thanks to some of my neighbors decorations that's somewhat impossible. But no one has had any nightmares so that's good.

Nathan can only participate in select activities because of his cancer, so no we won't be going to any parties etc.

But do I celebrate Halloween? Seriously I've been asked this question quite a bit for some reason over the last two weeks. It seems to be a topic that divides Christians. We all know, or hopefully we know what the holiday really means. So no I do not celebrate it. But I do stand in my door and hand out candy.

Truthfully you'll never hear me getting into huge debates with people if they decided to let their children go trick or treating or not. I think there are bigger things out there to debate then whether I should let my child watch "The Great Pumpkin"

I feel as Christians that's the main day we should have our doors open. What other day do you have dozens of strangers knocking on your door? What a wonderful oppurtunity to witness!!! And the best part is they're coming willingly to you. I believe in giving out bags of candy with tracts in them. I highly recommend the children's tract "Best Friend". Last year Sam and I ordered 100 tracts and prepared 100 bags of candy and gave out ALL of them within the FIRST HOUR. And we only gave out 1 bag per person. That's how many people were coming to our home. I hated we hadn't ordered more.

Matthew 28:19 commands us saying "¹⁹Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit."

We don't know who's coming to our homes. I just went to get glasses from JcPenny's yesterday and as I'm sitting in front of this sales lady it dawned on me, She has no idea I'm the mother of a child with cancer and I have no idea what she can be facing in her life right now. We don't know but God knows.

In this day and age we're hearing of children being bullied, committing suicide, cutting themselves, cursing, dressing seductively...sadly I could go on and on. They need to know about Christ.

I'm telling you the only reason I'm still standing in my situation is because I have hope and my hope rests not in my situation but in Christ alone. Everything about Nathan's situation is uncertain, it looks really good right now but it's still uncertain. But Christ is certain. Please let them know that God told us "that in this world there will be trouble, but that He has overcome this world." They need to know this and we have to tell them.

So open your doors! Give out candy with tracts! Set up a table and hand out Bibles! Be there in case a child needs to pray! Show them how they too can be saved! Pray for God to send someone to you! Pray for Him to give you the right words to say! Because really what good do you do anyone by closing your doors under the guise "we don't celebrate it"?

A quick post

As you already know things change quickly around here.

Nathan has been pretty cranky all day today and really achy. I gave him pain meds this morning and that seemed to help a little.

About an hour ago I put him down for a nap. I then heard him explode with tears about 10 minutes later out of the blue. (that's really out of character for him) I raced back uptairs to see he'd thrown up a TON.

He's not running a fever and after I got him cleaned up and gave him some medicine to calm his stomach, he really just wanted to lay back down. He's asleep now.

I already put in a call to his nurse who's going to talk to the doctor and call me back soon.

He gets chemo tomorrow so he'll see the docs then. Unless he gets worse or spikes a fever I doubt he'll have to go to the ER. I'm just praying he wakes up feeling a little better.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Praise Him

No seriously I have been thanking God out loud all morning. My daughter is getting a kick out of hearing me and seeing me raising my hands and praising our wonderful Saviour!

We got a call this morning that Nathan's tumor has again shrunk significantly since the test last month and that the intensity is measuring low. I won't have the exact numbers until we actually go in and sit and talk with the Oncologist this Thursday and I'm so excited to hear them and look at the comparisons on paper.

But for right now we praise Him! God has been so good and gracious and I'm so thankful to Him for this wonderful report!

Update

Nathan's scans were cancelled today because one of the machines were down. It would've took too long to get it back up and running so his tests have been rescheduled for this coming Friday instead.

Remember to Pray tomorrow

Nathan didn't get the best results back on his last scans, they ended up being considered inconclusive. I didn't share them on the blog because they were pretty confusing.

Anyway they're redoing them tomorrow (well today, it's after midnight here). I'm just asking for prayer for Nathan.

Sam and I have put the entire situation in God's hands once again and for now we're at peace. I've been praying for a total healing for Nathan and I know a lot of you have been too. It's in God's hands.

Dear Lord,

I'm trusting you with Nathan. I know the scans are tomorrow and I'm placing him in your hands once again. I pray over the doctors and nurses involved. I pray that everyone has gotten the proper sleep and have a clear head so they can do their jobs properly.

I pray over Nathan who has to be sedated. I pray that you be with him as he goes to sleep and wake him up gently as you've done every time before. I pray for him when he's alone with the doctors and technicians. He'll be out of my sight but always in yours. Please protect him Father.

Lord I know what you're capable of and you know what I've been praying for all along.

If Sam and I get anxious again over the next week or worried I pray that you remind us again who you are, what you've already done and that you're in control. Lord every time my mind wanders I want to be reminded about who I serve.

Thank you for your word Lord.

Bring comfort to Nathan. I'm still not sure how much he understands or what he thinks about but you know his every thought. Fill him with peace. Guard his thoughts and heal his precious body.

In Jesus Name

Amen

Changing gears a little bit

So I get asked a lot what Sam and I have been up to outside of cancer our hobbies etc. You want to know things we find time to do that are interesting to us. We cry at times but not all the time :-) We still have our interest and I'll share one of mine.

Sam and I both decided on homeschooling for our children so I've been taking time to learn as much as I can about it. When I used to work at the YWCA years ago, we used to get a lot of homeschoolers enrolled in our classes. Truthfully I knew these kids pretty well through coaching but never really paid attention to what homeschooling was about. Also when I was working I had a manager who homeschooled all 5 of his children, again at the time I didn't pay too much attention.

Since Nathan was born it has been something we'd been interested in off and on and I'm no longer in touch with the families from my YWCA days or my old manager but I really wanted more information on it. I found out one of my cousins pulled her 3 girls from school and had been homeschooling for a year and I contacted her and she couldn't say enough good things about it.

So I went to a homeschool conference not too long ago. I'd venture to say there were over 5000 people at the conference. It was a two day conference and had tons of workshops. The nice part about it was most of the parents came with their children and I got really bold and would just walk up to people and introduce myself and tell them my how young my children were and how I was planning on homeschooling and I'd conduct a mini interview with them on the spot.

Everyone I stopped was more than willing to talk to me and I got so many people's contact information. I talked to people who were just starting out along with people who had graduated some children etc. I was delighted to talk to quite a few teenagers and get their perspectives. It was a wonderful experience. There's so many myths about homeschooling that just aren't true at all and it's amazing when you start to research something how much you can learn about it and how so many things you thought can end up being wrong.

It was interesting to learn the pros and cons of homeschooling, what are the success rates of homeschoolers and what makes them successful, also another interesting thing to me was how many former teachers were there who are now homeschooling their children. I'd venture to say over half of the people there used to be school teachers (I'm saying this because during one of the keynote speeches they asked the former school teachers to stand and over half the crowd stood.) Another thing that intrigued me was that the speaker noted that statistically it's usually harder for someone who is an ex school teacher to homeschool than it is for a parent who hasn't taught.

It was interesting because a huge myth is if you haven't been a teacher than how can you homeschool. So during my networking I asked some of my new found friends who were ex teachers why this was and if they agreed with the speaker and I didn't run into one who didn't agree (I didn't ask a TON but I asked a few). The reason is they're used to teaching a certain way to a big group of students. Home classes are smaller and at home you can tailor your lessons to the individual when at school what you teach is general to a whole class and not the individual. And homeschooling is different than schooling which is something most people who don't know anything about homeschooling don't realize (I didn't realize that either). And for those who were teachers they have to do away with most of the methods they used in the school classroom in order to teach at home.

I continue to read as many books as I can get my hands on and I continue to network with people. I've come in contact with a few more people since leaving the conference who are homeschooling (it's actually a lot more common now than people may think). Also Nathan's speech therapist is a huge homeschooling advocate, so she provides us with a ton of information that is so helpful.

Anyway I could write a week long series on what I learned about homeschooling over the last year, I'm in contact with so many people, I have links to so many blogs and a pile of books etc. it's become one of my favorite topics but I won't lol. When our children are older maybe I'll start a homeschooling blog about my experiences who knows.

Also prayer and bible reading has become a way of life for me. I said at times that some positive things do come out of a bad situation and my life has been filled with prayer lately. There's a really good sermon I'm going to post below by Pastor Cymbala of the Brooklyn Tabernacle in New York on prayer.

So many Christians don't pray enough and don't know how to pray and I learned from this experience with Nathan that sometimes God will put you in a position where you're FORCED to learn. I liken it to a sink or swim situation and this has been that for me.

It's taken me awhile to get to this point even in the midst of the journey it's taken me awhile and I'm still growing but I've grown to love talking to God all the time. Taking all of my fears to Him.

No offense to anyone who've tried but the greatest comfort from a dark situation can come only from our Savior. If you're in a dark situation there's nothing wrong with calling people but I promise you, no one will be able to comfort you like Christ. Read his word and call out to him.

A good book I recommend is Traveling Light. I read it years ago but pulled it off my bookshelf recently to read again and it's just a wonderful book.

God Bless