A weekend of hoops

I have been a wee bit of a blog delinqent the last few days. Sometimes life is full and busy and you can barely keep your head above water. This past weekend our AAU team hosted a tournament to raise money for our team. We love the players and the families on our team and despite the HOURS and HOURS of work it takes to pull of a big tourney, we had a blast doing it.

This weekend we hosted over thirty teams to our neck of the woods for two full days of basketball, basketball, and more basketball. Even though today I am weary and bone-tired, I so appreciate the memories we are making as a family with our sports friends. We worked very hard this weekend but I laughed more than I have in along while!

I love sports. I love the lessons that can come from sports. You cannot win them all, and it is such a valuable lesson to win and lose with grace and class. Mike and our other coach, demand that the boys have class and are good sports. I love seeing Kyle with his teammates encouraging each other. I love the leadership that I see in Kyle while he is on the court. Kyle is not going to be the next Lebron James, but I am so thankful for the life lessons, fun, and memories that he will take away from these precious years of playing hoops with our Hornet families.

After an entire weekend of basketball, my house is a wreck, my laundry is piled up, and I have a ballerina who needs to get her tutu on for class. I am so thankful that God blessed us with these three kids who keep us hopping. I know these days are fleeting and will be gone before we know it, so I will thank God for the friends and memories that he continues to bless us with even when we are delirious after so many hours in a basketball gym!

This is Cancer

Today is World Cancer Day. Cancer is very personal to us now after David battled the Beast called Stage Four Wilm's Tumor.

We were blessed with amazing care from awesome and compassionate people. I remember asking the oncologist "Are you trying to tell me that my baby has cancer" and she sweetly nodded her head yes. Cancer plays dirty and sneaks up on our sweet and innocent children.

Cancer causes physical pain and suffering to the victims and emotional pain to the family and caregivers. I am a different person now than I was before David was diagnosed. I have been diagnosed with PTSD as a result of David's diagnosis due to the high anxiety and intense nightmares I suffered during and after his treatment. Cancer tries so hard to steal your peace. No longer is David allowed to be sleepy, tired, or even have a headache without me as the Mommy thinking he has relapsed. Cancer tries to steal our peace, thankfully for us we have Jesus who is the Prince of Peace!

Cancer treatment scarred our sweet baby's body. He has a scar across his abdomen and a scar on is chest from his port. David endured painful port accesses, lab draws, GCFS shots, all on top of his chemo and radiation regimen.

Sadly to stop the Beast called childhood cancer we had to pump him full of poisons (like this "red devil" drug) that is KNOWN to cause heart problems and even death for children. We held our baby while he threw up after chemo, lost his hair, wiped his bottom from the most painful diarehha caused by abdominal radiation. It was the most miserable eight months of our lives.

God bless David and all the childhood cancer warriors who fight the good fight. I LOVE this picture of David because as you can see he is bald, skinny, pale, and he was showing us some spunk and fight. I remember taking this picture because he insisted on another movie during the eight hour marathon of lab draw, checkup, and finally chemo, and he unplugged his own IV pole and took off down the hall! It was very sassy of him but as his Mom I could not have been prouder! That same spunk (and Jesus) was what got him through the HELL called cancer treatment!

I am sorry if these pictures are graphic and hard to look at. Believe me when I say that I have bawled over these pictures many times. Often childhood cancer pictures are beautiful children smiling with gorgeous bald heads. When David was bald, I too took a million pictures because he was goegeous, but there is this graphic and painful side to childhood cancer when NO ONE is smiling. Happy World Cancer Day! Spread the love for our childhood cancer warriors! Check out this link to learn more and get involved in the fight for David and all the other children that have had to battle this mean Goliath.
http://www.thetruth365.org/

Basketball, Church, and Memaw

This weekend was a wee bit of a whirlwind. We headed out early Saturday morning to head to Pulaski for Kyle to play with our 7th grade Hornets team. The first two games were rough with some stiff competition, but later Saturday night they played their hearts out and rocked the house. Sports teaches that valuable life lesson of never giving up.

David also had an Upward hoops game this weekend. He LOVES playing and being on a team. He once again made another basket which thrilled him. 

He is super competitive and loves to run his mouth to Daddy the referee!  It is terrible sportsmanship and once again he did not get the Christ-like star for being a good sport, but it is hilarious!!!

 

The excitement at this game was that Kyle helped out Mike refereeing the game!  Kyle knows basketball and was a natural to jump in and help.  Here are my two referee guys praying with the teams before the game. Upward refereeing is VERY different and involves more herding cattle and teaching versus calling fouls:) 

 

This weekend in between games we were able to visit with my Memaw who is still in the nursing home under hospice care.  She is SO ready to go home to Jesus and has lamented many times that she does not know why she is having to suffer so.  It is heart breaking to think that she is so miserable but she really is.  I had a few moments alone with her the other day and it was precious to me. 

 

My Memaw is not a "huggy kissy" kind of gal.  She is practical and very smart.  She was leaning over her food tray sitting up to try to breathe better and I held her hand for a few minutes.  She then shared with me that she is proud of me and that I am a good Momma.  She knows her days here are limited and she said that even though she is ready to go she is sad she will not see David grow up.  She said that she was proud of me that we are raising our children in church and I told her that she is one of the reasons that my children know and love Jesus.

 

My grandma raised my Dad and his two siblings in church.  For at least ten years (maybe even longer) my Dad did not miss ONE Sunday morning Sunday School.  For ten straight years my Dad and his family went to Sunday school and church-often catching the city bus to get there!  That is kind of mind boggling to think that my Dad never missed church!  He and my Mom both have a strong faith and raised me and my brother Chad in church, and now I am just doing what is natural in my family.  Mike and I both take church attendance seriously and we take the biblical message of training up our children seriously. 

 

Selfishly I want her to get better and stay here longer to tell us more about the "peach man" and her days as a mother and wife.  I want her to feel better and be able to go home to her house again.  Considering her age and her heart function at this time, that is not likely to happen.  Just like I told her the other day, because we both know and love Jesus we WILL see each other again soon.  She will have a perfect heart, David will not have the scars from his battle with cancer, and hopefully my belly will not hurt in Heaven.  We will be reunited on the streets of gold.  My heart hurts because she is suffering so and because her days here are so limited, but the sting that is now, is nothing compared to the eternity that we will be together again with Jesus.  Because of Him hard and sad times such as this, and death truly lose their sting!!