Praising God!

What a weekend...so full of highs and lows. I promised myself this week that I would never again ask you to pray for an upcoming MRI and then be so rude to not post results, so let me give you a quick update from our last few days.

I'll start from the beginning of the weekend...

Most of you know, but my dad is the men's basketball coach for Grace College and the team made it to the NCCAA tourney this year, and with it being in Princeton, IN (about a 5 hr. trip) there's no way we could not go! Long story short, we won Thurs and Fri. to advance to Sat.'s championship game (HOW EXCITING) to have to play Bethel College (of all schools...our conference rival). The weekend was absolutely nerve-wracking. My dad has THREE NCCAA runner-up titles and we were all so sure that this was our year to win it...but, it didn't work out that way and he now has four runner-up titles. Honestly, I don't even want to go back and re-live the events of that night to fill you in...it was just so heart-crushing...but we lost in overtime. We had several chances to win, but we just couldn't quite pull through. Oh well...we still love and are very proud of our Lancers!

So after a very disappointing weekend, we were off to Indy for the MRI. We were already so far south (in Indiana, that is), we just drove to Indy Sun. and stayed the night. We tried our best to try and relax and just have a fun night Sun., but I'm not going to lie...it was difficult. We were our usual nervous selves and those hotel-night-before-MRI's are horrible. And somehow, Claudia always seems to pull an up-all-night before these big days. She went to bed at 1am, woke up at 3am and was up until we left at 8am. CRAZY! And if we hadn't been so stressed and exhausted, we probably would have enjoyed our selves watching Claudia play. She was pretending she was in a jungle or something and we had lions, giraffes, ladybugs and all kinds of animals in our room. Did I mention she has developed quite the imagination lately? She really cracks me up! Anyway, the day of the MRI went pretty smoothly. I think this was the absolute first time ever that they "put her to sleep" without any tears! PTL! And once again, they came and got us before she really woke up so there were almost no tears waking up either! Again, PTL! We sat in the cancer clinic for over 2 hrs. waiting on results, and finally...THE TUMOR IS NOT GROWING!!!! So for the first time that day, we all had the tears flowing!!! With this good news, our dr. wants to go ahead and take her port out. This involves a surgery but the ongoing risk of having it in seems to be taking its toll...and we were quickly reminded of this. Claudia has had a fever since Tues. As I write, its 101.2 degrees. Once again, dr.'s can't figure it out. They thoroughly examined her...nothing. Blood tests...nothing. I've explained it so many times, I'll spare you all from explaining again why this is so scary (because of her port), but we're definitely concerned. So, we'll continue giving her Tylenol, trying to keep her temp down enough to ward off all seizures. Please pray this temp would disappear and life would just be "normal" for a few days!!! (Wait, what does "normal" even mean?!?!)

Also, I do promise to update with more of our latest events like our trip to Missouri for my Grandma's 90th birthday, and so much more...

Until then, we'll just keep rejoicing and praising our God for more good results! Thank you all so much for your continued, faithful prayer...words cannot express our deep gratitude to our many prayer warriors. We love you!

(Some pic.'s from this weekend...)

Waiting for the championship game to begin...

...still waiting (with my sister Jenny)...
...warming up...my dad, chatting with one of the Moore twins...

...and although so disappointed, sooooo proud of our Lancers!

Hanging out the night before the MRI in Indy at Dan Pablo's...I think Claudia ate an entire basket of chips herself, salsa and all!

(We then walked across the street to Barnes and Nobles...what were we thinking taking a 3 yr. old in there?! We took turns following her around, putting the hundreds of books back that she would take off...telling her, "no, we're not buying that book" every other one she touched! Sorry to all those in there trying to get away and read a good book. Nope...definitely not a stress reliever like we thought it may be!)

I couldn't possibly describe our weekend without a picture of Claudia and Christian at the pool...it was definitely the highlight for her. We had a pool at both hotels, and if I had a penny for everytime she asked to "go to the poow", I'd be richer than Trump!!!

She would start out in the pool, then get in the hot tub, then back to the pool, then back to the hot tub...you get the picture. I had the lame excuse of the "ouchy on my tummy" so I just had fun watching Christian follow her back and forth!!!

After the good news at the cancer clinic!! YEAH!!!! Holding her is Nurse Cindy...and believe me, she is the BEST nurse, Claudia is in LOVE with her. To the right is our Dr. Smith...she too, is WONDERFUL!

(BTW...I had an ultrasound yesterday (Wednesday) and everything looks great! Another Praise! However, the little stinker was face down and breech so no luck finding out the sex...maybe next time! But, it was so cute, he/she was sucking his/her thumb and fingers. I've always heard they sometimes do this in utero but have never seen it...sooooo cute! And to think you can still legally abort at this age (or at ANY age for that matter)...oh my, don't get me started! And yes, for all of you asking, I will TRY :) and post a pic. of my ever growing belly!)

Thank you, Lord for all your goodness to us...we know ALL good things come from you! May our attitudes and lives continue to glorify you through it all!

Wow…its been awhile…where do I even begin?!

To keep this from becoming a 50 page book, I’ll fill you in with just mainly details this time. (At least, I’ll try not to get too windy!)

As I’m reviewing our last update, I realized I never even posted the results from Claudia's last MRI. I’m so sorry. The procedure itself went pretty smoothly. Normally, by the time they let us come back and see her after each MRI, she’s half-way awake (form the anesthesia) and screaming and crying…this time they let us see her before she began waking up, which means she got to wake up my arms and I can’t believe the amazing difference it made. She barely even cried! Now, if we can just get them to do the same thing again…I’m not holding my breath. Anyway, her tumor is not growing! (Back in Dec., that is.) We could tell the dr. was a little bit concerned last MRI. (Like she would never say it wasn’t growing, she just said “everything looks stable.”) So we were obviously EXTRA concerned. Well, according to the dr., they got really good pictures this time and it is definitely NOT growing! PTL! I get tears even thinking about it and I can still give you every tiny detail about that moment…and every moment we’ve received good news! Her next MRI is this Monday, March, 19th. My heart skips a beat thinking about it. Will I ever get used to these things? I’ll give you more details a little later…

Up to this point, we had been holding our breath regarding our Christmas plans, but getting a “clear” MRI meant we were off to Missouri for Christmas (we rotate Thanksgiving and Christmas every year with Christian’s parents in Florida and mine in Missouri). Christmas is always so special in Missouri…it’s the one time of year that everyone makes their best effort to get together…and with both of my grandparents being over 90, I can’t help but think these special Christmas' are numbered. Anyway, a week and a half before Christmas, Claudia came down with a very high fever. We ended up at Lutheran Hospital in Ft. Wayne. They ran the usual 20 tests (because she still has her port in) and they declared it a bladder infection. We were sent home with a prescription and thought it was all taken care of. It definitely wasn’t. Her temp. seemed to come down for a couple of days, but then it spiked back up real high. Our local pediatrician wanted to run more tests. A very long story short, another blood test and 2 more urine tests later, they determined it never was a bladder infection…but nobody could figure out what she did have. She had absolutely no other symptoms, just this very high temp (for over a week now) that we couldn’t get down. It was the day before Christmas, and we were definitely not going to Missouri. I think I cried the entire Christmas Eve…mainly because I was sooooo scared. We were on the phone with 2 of our dr.s almost every hour trying to figure out if we needed to spend Christmas eve and day in the hospital. We decided against it but kept her medicated and took turns staying up to keep an eye on her. Christmas day, we got the best gift ever given (besides the gift of Christ’s son!), Claudia’s temp was completely gone and she was perfectly normal! Go figure…BUT PTL!!!! It was weird being home, just the three of us, for Christmas. Yet, I felt so blessed. We ended up having my other set of grandparents and brother-in-law over for a last minute dinner. It was nice.

This is where I guess I decided Claudia was always the one having all the “fun” and that I (Sarah) needed to join in! (Is the sarcasm thick enough you can actually see it?!?) I’m pretty sure most of you already know but in Nov. we found out we were having child #2 (due in July)! Well, I had been having a lot of intense, unusual pain, so at 6 weeks, I went in to see the dr. An ultrasound showed a large mass behind one of my ovaries. The next day I was sent to our local hospital for a further, more extensive ultrasound. They determined it was just bowel. But the pain continued and my “gut” knew there was something wrong (and the fact that I could feel it and move it from one side of my abdomen to the other and it was big enough you could see it when I laid down…hmmm…). So around 12 weeks, they did another ultrasound. Every dr. that was in the office that day was in my room discussing how this “wasn’t right.” An MRI two days later confirmed it was a tumor on my left ovary. Four days later I was down in Indy at a woman’s cancer specialist and very skilled surgeon’s office…Dr. Kelly Manahan (for the many of you who know her!). She was an absolute God-send, but I’ll have to go into those details in another update…this one is already getting a bit long. Anyway, after her recommendation, two weeks later (Feb. 7th), and 16 weeks pregnant, I was in surgery. Could this really be happening? Dr.s weren’t sure if it was cancerous, so they would perform a biopsy while I was still “open”…if it was, a more extensive procedure would need to be done (like the removal of some lymph nodes, etc.). Again, long story short, the surgery went very well and the tumor (teratoma/dermoid) was NOT cancerous! I’m so thankful! I still begin every day thanking God He spared us this “trial.” The day after my surgery, Christian got very…very sick. So, he locked himself in our bedroom upstairs, my mom kept/watched Claudia downstairs (all without Claudia even knowing he was there…if she had known, there would be NO way to keep her away!) And my gracious sister, Jenny, took off work and stayed with me in the hospital down in Indy for the next two days. Did I mention how much I love and appreciate my family?!?! And nobody other than Christian got sick…ANOTHER miracle!

And then…a week and a half after my surgery, Claudia got a very high fever again. It started out Sat. afternoon and by the time we went to bed that night she really wasn’t acting right. We debated for several hours, along with our dr., whether or not to take her in to the hospital, but decided to just keep Tylenol in her and go in the morning if it wasn’t better. She was acting so lethargic that I stayed up all night watching her. By 6am the next morning, her fever was worse and she wasn’t responding right. And then the “distant” stares began…and we knew what was next…she started to seize. I called 911…and went into a full panic. She appeared to have several seizures because she would become a bit responsive and then the twitching and drueling would pick up and she would become unresponsive again. I have no clue how long the whole ordeal lasted. I’m sure it was minutes even though it felt like hours. I called 911 twice because I thought it was taking so long for the EMS to get to our house. By the time they got here, she was finished. We refused service because the absolute LAST thing we wanted was for her to be taken to our local hospital (I’ll save that for another post), we needed to get her to Lutheran. So we jumped in the truck and flew, literally, there. Once there, they determined her seizures were probably feberial (when a child spikes a high fever) and she tested positive for influenza. Dr.’s wanted her in the hospital for a few days of observation and discussed possible seizure tests and med’s. We decided we would discuss further testing if and when she had another one. We were home by Mon. Whew...When is this going to end, Lord?! As Christian always reminds me, "Relax, Sarah, God isn't going to give us more than we can handle."

So…life continues to be, um, exciting? No, just interesting, I suppose! It seems as though often, I only share all the negative/crisis events of our life and not enough of the many, many blessings and daily joys the Lord showers upon us. Yeah, it often seems like God is constantly pushing us to the limit of what we can handle, but He always gives us the strength we need and as I reflect, realize how much He has drawn us all so much closer to Him through it all. And in the end, I wouldn’t trade these trials for the relationship that I am gaining with my Savior. God is good…ALL THE TIME!

I have so much more to share, but this update is becoming a bit lengthy and truthfully, Claudia is crying in the background, needing my attention, so I will have to close with a favor, once again, to ask of you all…

Monday, March 19th is Claudia’s next MRI. Dr.’s are reminding us that if the chemo was keeping her tumor from growing, it may be beginning to grow again and will be apparent by this MRI. Please pray for good results. My deepest prayer is always that the dr.’s will come back with puzzled looks, wandering how the tumor has disappeared…in fact, I dream about what I’m going to say someday when they try to explain it away with some medical explanation…I think I will just politely interrupt and explain away God’s power and His ability to perform MIRACLES! Oh…I get carried away and excited just thinking about it! I pray this will be part of my next post after her MRI!!!

I’ll leave you with some recent photos…and next post, I promise to share much more of the positives that are happening in our lives. Until then…God bless each of you.

Opening Christmas gifts (and getting some help!)

Enjoying the snow with daddy! (Somebody tell that Florida boy we make snowmen on the ground...and a lot bigger than that!!!!)This next series of pictures were taken the day we took all the Christmas decor down. In the process of getting the boxes from the basement, Claudia found the Halloween stuff and decided she wanted to wear her ladybug costume. She put it on all by herself and surprised us...even the antennas! I still can't stop laughing when I look at these pictures. It made the project so much more fun...I think I laughed the entire time!

And FYI...she only broke 6 ornaments that day (said with sarcasm)!

There...those antennas were cutting into her face a bit...
...but, oh no, they must be the other way, mommy. And here, let me take down the stocking (or boot, as she called it) along with the entire string of decorated garland
She loved playing with the manger scene so much, we actually left it out for another week or so...the truth is, it would keep her occupied for LONG periods of time...like long enough to get dinner made!!!

The other day we were watching a movie with a nun and she says to me, "Mommy, look, its Mary!" At first I had no clue why she was saying that, eventually I got it and laughed so hard!

The other day she found my make-up...just so happened it was my bronzing powder. So much for discipling her...I couldn't stop laughing...and taking pictures... Talking to daddy. I didn't even mention it, but since Dec., or so, we've been seeing Christian only on the weekends (his sales season was especially busy this year...but ends March 15...YEAH!!!), so talking to daddy is very special. This day she figured out she could use both phones and it would sound so neat!
What can I say...the girl LOVES her boots. She wears them all day, every day. The first thing we do each morning is find the boots. Needless to say, I have some pretty funny pictures of her in her boots to remind us how "treasured" they were! (Hopefully this obsession will end before summer?!)
Look! My hair is growing...I can even wear a barette now!