Time can slip right threw your fingers!

Wow, I knew I hadn't blogged in awhile, but I didn't realize THIS long! Where do I even begin to start?

 Our holidays were amazing! We made it back to our beautiful, warm, cozy cabin for Christmas! It was just our family (My parents, my family, my sister and her family and my brother and his kids) there for 5 days and then my cousin Jason and his girlfriend, came up there to spend Christmas day with us! We had another treat when our AWESOME, neighbors Ana and Todd, came up to play the day after Christmas! It was a great time of games, arts and crafts, baking and cooking, fires roaring in the fireplace, a visit from Good St Nick and us all sleeping under one roof again! It was a great holiday season just being in the midst of God's glory! Nature has a way of just proving there is a God! Its such a beautiful place!

Our New Year was pretty low key! We stayed home and the neighbors came over and we played games all night, laughed and had a great time! At the strike of midnight, I got a hurried kiss from the hubby and out everyone flew for fireworks we saved from the 4th of July (shhhh!) and sparklers! It was actually one of my favorite New Years Eve. 

The battle with cancer is blazing on! I have been on chemo without missing a day since June of 2014! It is so such a part of our daily lives, that we plan things saying, "That date won't work, Christi will still be feeling the effects of chemo!" Or "We need to plan the party on this date because that is 3 days before I have to do chemo, so I will be feeling my best" Take "my best" lightly! A lot goes along with that, fatigue, sleeplessness, pains and so on! But, we got the birthdays and holidays all fit into my schedule, with very few changes! I did not miss any chemo, but I did move it around a bit to make that week work for me! So everything was going well, but I started feeling a little more, sluggish, rundown, down right tired to the point I would be in conversation with someone and I would fall asleep! I apologize to all of you who was rudely fallen asleep on! I PROMISE IT WAS ME, NOT YOU! I just chalked it up to being so busy during the holidays! All moms get this way!
 When I first got diagnosed, in June of 2011, I had a 9 year old, a 7 year old and a 18 month old.  I prayed and prayed, crying out to Jesus to give me more time! I just wanted to make it to see Joey hit the double digits, for Jon and I to be able to celebrate our 20 year anniversary, to see my boy Jonny start to turn into a young man of 13 years and lastly to see my sweet Caylee turn 5.  The reason behind this was because one of my first memories was my 5th, Strawberry Shortcake birthday! Which would hopefully mean that Caylee would retain some kind of memory of me!  We had the birthday party and it was a blow out! I saved every penny I earned from selling Posh to give her the party of her dreams! It was, of course, the Disney movie Frozen theme! It was beyond amazing! Time was ticking away and the days turned to months and by the time I turned around, Dr P was scheduling me for my next CT Scan! As soon as I set the appointment, I just got this knot in my stomach that this would be the CT that was going to change things in my normally rigid schedule.
Even the day of the scan, I was unusually nervous.  I couldn't shake it! As Jon and I walked down the hall to get to the CT room, I turned to him and said, "I have a feeling this scan is going to change and disturb our very abnormal, normal life we had become accustomed to! We had our routine down! I had been ok with this whole cancer thing for quite some time! But I had a feeling that this very short test was going to change all that! Sure enough, it happened... We went in on Monday, January the 26th, for our normal dr appt that we have every time I have chemo! So we go in, my nurse Christie, takes all the vitals, I mention to her about feeling fatigued and rundown.  I was also running a  slight fever of 99.3,  For me, this is high, I usually run around 97,  She also marks this on my chart.  She leaves and tells us the dr will be in a minute.  I take this time to express to Jon that I really think this scan is going to be the life changer! Before we even had a chance to pray, in walks Dr P.  He shakes Jon's hand, then mine.  He sits down and says, "We have spoke before about you stopping chemo and going to clinical trials when the cancer shows it is resisting the chemo cocktail you are on.  I am sorry to say, it is.  We knew this day was coming and I have talked to you about this for a while. I also told you that you had to be in a healthy state in order to qualify for clinical trials" All I could do is shake my head.  Then he says, "Your scan showed a tiny bit of growth" at that time I exhaled, I had no idea I was even holding my breath! Then he went on, "The problem is, even though you don't have any new cancer, you have the slightest bit of growth, EVERY SINGLE TUMOR GREW!" That was the first time that ever happened! Yes, it had grown and shrank before, but only a few tumors did.  This was every single one! At that the room start closing in on me, I think I was on the verge of passing out! So, I said, "what exactly are you trying to say?"  He looked at me and said, "When you have growth in all your tumors, that is the sign that your body is rejecting chemo and its just not working! So we are canceling your chemo now and sending you off for clinical trials.  USC, UCLA and UCI all have colon cancer research going on there, all you need to do is to choose one." I was in total shock! Even tho I feel God was trying to prepare me for this news, it didn't soften the blow as much as I wish it would have! He then says, "You can not go to a trial where they are first testing out drug, where half of the patients get placebos and the other get the actual drug.  You need to go to one that has been going on for years and is almost ready for the FDA to approve it!"  I said, "Ok, so which one has the best option for me and we will go with that one!" He says, "Well I normally just send you to USC out of habit because I know the people there, but its really your choice," I asked, "You didn't give them a call to see which one would be the best fit for me?"  He just kind of ignored that question and said, "Its really a matter of convenience, go where it would be easiest for you to get there!" I threw up my hands, I could not believe he couldn't just take a few mins out of his day to call around to see which trial would be the best fit for me, and said (in a snarky way), "So pretty much this is a crap shoot! So in that case Jon, just pick on that will be easiest for you to get me there and back!" So he said, sheepishly, "I don't know?? UCI?"  With that, he wrote in my chart UCI and he said "they will be calling you soon to make the appointment, so why don't you guys come back here in 3 weeks and we will meet up here and go over everything.  They will send me your reports and things like that!" With that we left! So now here I am waiting for a phone call I do not want to answer because I never wanted to do clinical trials, but I will because that is what everyone wants for me... KEEP FIGHTING!! I am, I am also a lot more scared to die than I was when I first got diagnosed.   We have made chemo such a  part of our lives, that now I think, "HEY! I can do this for the rest of my life! Yes, it does suck, but for the most part we are leading very active, normal as can be, life!" Now its like ripping the bandaid off and exposing the wound all over again!
So we go home and we are down in the dumps.  Shed a few tears and together, we felt this was the first day to the end of our lives together.  We are pretty shaken, but know we have to tell the boys somehow, we would hate for them to overhear something that they didn't know about and feel like we have betrayed them on top of all this mess. 
I call the boys to come and talk to me. I start praying for God to give me the strength, wisdom and words of what to say to them! I don't want to make it a big deal because I don't want them thinking I am dying like tomorrow or something.  So they come into the kitchen with us and I say, "I am not going to be on chemo for a while! My dr wants me to try another hospital to see if they have anything that could help with my cancer, the chemo I am on here isn't working anymore."  All of the sudden, there is a light in both of their eyes and they are jumping up and down screaming, "Yay!" "GREAT NEWS MOM!" "I just KNOW there is something out there for you!"  I just hugged them and allowed them to have their celebratory moment! When they left, I felt HORRIBLE!!! Did I say the wrong thing? Did I make matters worse? Oh LORD WHERE ARE YOU THESE DAYS?!!
So today I wake up and try to get out of my funk! What's done is done and hopefully the boys can bounce back.  I decide to take a long bubble bath to think and pray.  I will tell you, I have never heard so clear a message from God.  All of the sudden, the verse Philippians 4:4 pops right into my head, "Rejoice in the Lord ALWAYS; again I say REJOICE"  Also the verse Jame 1:2 "Consider it great JOY, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of any kind"  So there I was in the bath thinking of what a horrible mom I was to give my children false hope (in my human eyes) and that if I do pass, they will take the blow even harder! But then God slapped me in the face with these verses and I realize, I AM THE WRONG ONE! So the whole day today, I have been singing the little song we learned at church when I was very small, "Rejoice in the Lord always and again I say rejoice!" Here my sons did what I was supposed to do and I learned an amazing lesson from them! Even tho to my human eyes a situation looks bleak, PRAISE HIM, REJOICE IN HIM!!  It automatically felt like a huge weight was off my shoulders! I just kept that song tucked in my heart all day and when I would start to panic, I would sing it out loud!!
The Lord has done so many miracles in my life, too many to list! I need to remember HE wants the best for me and my family! He knows a heck of  a lot more that I know and he will continue to preform miracles even with todays little revelation! So with that... REJOICE WITH ME!! As always, KEEP PRAYING, HE IS LISTENING!!