Sweet Relief

After a long, long day at the hospital we received a phone call on the way home that David's scan was CLEAN!!!  No evidence of disease or abnormality was how the oncologist clarified it to Mike.  Praise the Lord we are so incredibly blessed with this wonderful news.  We were also so thankful that his blood pressure was perfect, labs were perfect, urine was squeaky clean, and that his creatinine has gone from .9 in September (not good), to .8 in October to .7 today!!!!  The kidney doctors goal for his Creatinine is to be under .7 so we are so thankful.

There is so much to share about the last 24 hours of our lives, but I must share that God's peace was completely enveloping us.  If you are friends with me on facebook you will know that I shared that last night on the trip down to Cville Mike brought his "cd collection" and that he choice of Cds to keep us calm and not stressed out was John Schneider.  Seriously, from 1987 I can't make this stuff up!

We got so tickled about his refusal to leave the 80's and his choice of music that we laughed and carried on.  If you were a fly on the wall you would have thought we were two crazy teenagers on a road trip instead of two scared to death parents taking their baby to face the dreaded CT scan.  That was Gods peace that allowed us to laugh and joke and breathe.  We actually had fun!

David LOVES having our undivided attention and he too was silly!  This morning when we arrived at the hospital before dawn he was given some Versed to make him loopy and it is a great amnesia medicine.  The staff was wonderful and not only allowed us to give him a quick haircut once he was sedated but got all the bad stuff over with while he was under so he did not feel any ouchies today.  Anyway, David refers to the CT machine as "riding the donut" so while he was loopy he made up a song about riding the donut and we were belly laughing at him!!  So instead of being stressed our pre-op room was rocking with laughter over our boy. 

So tonight we are home ready to enjoy three more months of semi-normalcy until we face the dreaded CT machine again in February.  Someone said to me tonight that they are so glad that cancer will soon be a distant memory.  I pray that happens but I also know we look at our lives in three month increments.   Sadly our lives will never be the same, but we are so thankful for days that we leave that hospital with good news.

Tomorrow we are so excited to attend the Thomas Musser Mr. STrong walk to raise money for St. Jude. I am very emotional tonight thinking that this time last year David was not able to be there and tomorrow he is going to be my date and help start the race!!!  Praise the Lord! 

Tomorrow night David is getting to sing in a children's choir with James Rodgers here locally at the Lincoln Theatre.  I cannot wait for a special night with some amazing people!!!! 

I am exhausted, overwhelmed, and oh so thankful tonight.  I told God last night that I would praise Him tonight no matter what the scan today said because He has been so faithful to our family and that I trust in His plan for our family.  So tonight I am thankful for a God that gives the peace that passes understanding, who carries us through the hard times and allows us to experience moments like today of total joy.  Good night from a happy Momma:)

Thirteen Years

Today is our thirteen year anniversary.  I cannot believe we have been together this long and tonight we have had fun listening to some of the music that my brother sang at our wedding.  Listen to the above song (ignore the odd video) but this is the song that we danced to for our first dance.  My brother sang and his friend Brett played the guitar. I still tear up thinking about that sweet moment when we were dancing and my knee was swollen and throbbing.

If you do not know the reception knee incident that resulted in our wedding night being spent in the ER, stay tuned and I will chronicle that funny story another day. Our wedding was wonderful and truly the happiest day of my life except for being in so much pain that I could not eat or drink any of the wonderful food that we had planned for months.  Seriously I felt like a beautiful princess meeting her prince charming that night:)

Moving along.... tonight we celebrated our anniversary by going out to eat with our three kiddos in tow.  That is how we roll in this house and we would not want it any other way.  Mike is not perfect, I am not perfect, nor is our marriage, but we do love each other and we have our Jesus.

I could choke up thinking how naiive we were when we said those vows.  The last thirteen years have been wonderful but certainly not smooth sailing.  Our first born had/has severe allergies and now asthma that has been a whirlwind of nebulizers, inhalers, and prednisone.  We had a child with a disability that we were not expecting and then eight years later he was diagnosed with stage four cancer.  Our sweet little unexpected princess scared us to death on the day of her delivery by turning blue several times. 

Tonight; however, I am thankful that God blessed me with a man who is loyal and true to his word.  He carries this family in so many ways and tonight I am thankful that despite the unexpected detours of our marriage, we have held  onto each other and clung to our Jesus. 

When the doctor shared with us the news that David had Down Syndrome Mike was not at the hospital with me.  I had to call him on his cell phone between Orange county and Charlottesville.  Anyone familiar with that area knows that eight years ago cell coverage was spotty in that area.  I called him and I said "honey they think the baby has Down Syndrome" and the line cut out. 

Twenty minutes later he walked into the hospital room and he grabbed my face covered with tears and he said "God blessed us with this baby because you are such a wonderful mother and He knew that you would do a great job with him."  I am a blessed woman to have Mike  Robinson in my life. 

Just a year ago I once again had to make a hard call to my man about that same little boy.  Mike met the ambulance at UVA because he was in Williamsburg.  He was there way before we were and he paced the ER waiting on that ambulance with his wife and boy in it.  I remember they were moving us through the ER so fast and I stopped the wonderful people and opened the door to the lobby of the waiting room and yelled for him out of desperation.  I just needed to see him.  Our marriage is not perfect but he is my strength.

I pray for many more years together in marriage.  I feel that God has done amazing work in our marriage and I praise Him for bringing us closer together and towards Him.  Thank you Mike for thirteen years.  I am proud of the Godly man you are, for the examples you set for our children, and it melts my heart to see you play babies with our girl.  God has big plans for you Mike Robinson and I am thankful I am along for the ride.  Forever and always. 

Carrying On

We have been busy, busy bees around our household this Thanksgiving break. It is partly out of necessity to get our house organized and ready for christmas.  Last year my Mom and Grandmother decorated our house while we were in the hospital to have it festive for our return home.  This year we have gone all out because....

these two are soooo excited for this christmas season.  They were excited about everything that came out of the attic. 

They were my busy bee helpers helping me decorate the trees and we had such fun. 

Christmas decorating wore this little angel out and Friday night she fell asleep watching her christmas lights. 

I bought this ribbon two years ago and I am just now getting around to using it to decorate one of the kids trees.  I am a sucker for cute ribbon and this train/ABC ribbon melted my heart. I was able to make it into a nice bow topper for the tree. 

Despite the fact that Mike and I are extremely anxious about David's scan this Friday, we had lots of laughs around our house.  Mike and I enjoyed a night at a local restaurant for a leisurely meal with another couple and it was nice to have an adult meal at a nice restaurant we would never take our kids to.  The upside to having cancer is that David and the kids got some cool hats last year that they are enjoying pulling out.  It has been so cold this weekend that they got to enjoy them.

My decorating style is to just "throw it together" and I literally threw some garland, lights, and stuff around my bakers rack.  Martha Stewart may not come calling, but my sweet girl loved it!  We have read Christmas books, colored christmas pages, and decorated our entire house.  I love every minute of it.  I just pray the scan is clean this week and we can come home and enjoy it. 

Mike has organized closets, random drawers, our movies, etc.... I think we are both just trying to stay busy to keep calm about he scan Friday.  We are both nervous and scared but we trust in God's plan for our family. It is gut-wrenching to think that the beast called cancer could have crept back into our boys' sweet body and it rearing its ugly head again.  We are also always nervous about his kidney function.   We covet your prayers for David on Friday. 

I was doing okay staying busy and enjoying the kids until church this morning.  Our worship minister led us in some amazing worship and I was just overcome.  Jonathan gave the congregation a chance to pray at the altar and I found myself sobbing at the altar.  We are so thankful how far God has brought us and we trust Him with our family, but it is hard to not be scared.  Cancer is such an ugly beast.  

One of the songs that I have played over and over and over again this holiday weekend is Chris Tomlin's O Come All Ye Faithful.  The last lines of the song "we will praise your name forever" give me cold chills everytime.  No matter what the CT scan says this Friday we will continue to praise Jesus' name forever.