Total Amazing Whirlwind!

We are finally home after a wonderful, crazy, stressful, two days. These pictures are totally out of order, but our whirlwind started yesterday morning when we headed to the Barter Theatre in Abingdon to see Twas the Night Before Christmas with our preschool friends. It was amazing! I choked down my lunch to head to David's school to pick him up to head out of town.

We left Marion at 2:00 and made it to Orange County (with one pit stop) by 6:15. We lived there and both worked in the school system there from 2000-2005. We made some amazing friends there that we still remain in touch with. They were so kind and sweet to us during David's diagnosis and treatment. Last night, we were invited to the high school for a reception....little did we know that the high school SCA had been selling paper stars for their tree with all donations going to Give Kids the World!!!!!!! Can you believe that? Then after they presented David with a check for Give Kids the World ($300) they had a table for him to sell our salt dough stars! Here is Mr. Business Man selling his wares decked out in his Lebron getup:)

Our dear friend Susie Swope's son, Zachary is very involved in SCA and here he is presenting David with the check!!!!!! WOW!! We were blown away. We knew they wanted to purchase stars from us, but then to realize that the school had done this with their paper stars floored us. Wow! We felt so loved and humbled.

Here are Hope and Sydney waiting for the Barter play to begin. This was one of the BEST shows I have ever seen there. It was funny, entertaining, with a wonderful message in it.

Hope waved to St. Nicholas but did not care to have her picture with him, of course:)

After the show, all the preschoolers and parents headed to a local restaurant for lunch. Here is Hope with two of her sweet preschool friends. I cannot even think about preschool graduation because I love all of my kiddos!!

Here are David and Zachary posing in front of all the stars on their tree! Can you believe it? Their generous donation put us over the $2,000 mark last night!!!!!!! Praise the Lord!

Here is the display bulletin board they did in the main hall at the high school to make others aware of David's story and Give Kids the World. If you ever ever hear of people talking about "kids today" in a negative light, please share this blog with them. I am amazed and humbled that these awesome teenagers did all of this for David and Give Kids the World which is so special to us. WOW-we were truly speechless!

Of course I made Mike drive us by our old house in Orange and I am so thrilled to see that it is still being loved on by some great family! It looks so good and I would have LOVED to have knocked on the door. We also stopped by the Timmons' house to see them for a few minutes. You know they are good people and friends when they welcome out clan into their house for a "surprise" visit on a school night! Ha!

We made it back to the hotel late last night and we crashed. Scan mornings are early mornings so we had to be at UVA by 8. Sadly a baby who needed a head CT was before David so we had to wait for over two hours before we made it back into the scan room. DAvid was a trooper and handled it better than I did. We were also sad that his tube could not be placed while we were there. We had a rough start to our morning, but it all worked out. David was sleepier than usual after sedation and here are Mike and Hope trying so hard to wake him up:)

We can laugh about it now, but it was really the LONGEST day ever at UVA hospital! After we finally got David into the scan room, had his scan, woke up from the sedation we still had to head to clinic for a visit with the sweet Dr. Druzgal. We had finally gotten him into clinic and Mike laid him down in the bed to sleep off his sedation when the fire drill went off. Seriously. Mike had to carry him quickly down three flights of stairs to get out of the hospital. It took a while to get the all clear to go back in. It was unbelievable!

Then we met with Dr. Druzgal and she thougth he looked awesome!!! His labs were steady and finally on the way home we got the magic call to say the scan was all clear!!!! Praise the Lord! We are so thankful!

The last two days have been a total whirlwind, but we are so humbled by the love shown to our boy. Thank you Orange County for welcoming us back with open arms, thank you for giving to a cause that is so important to us, thank you UVA for once again taking great care of us all, and thank you to God for getting us through a long and hard day. We are so tired tonight but so thankful and blessed.

Cancer Sucks

Sorry for the language but that is how I feel tonight.  I just got a text from my friend, Lisa, who lost her sweet Thomas to childhood cancer several years ago.   The Thomas Musser 5K in his honor, is this Saturday in Rural Retreat to raise money for St. Jude.  Even though David did not receive treatment at St. Jude, we still whole-heartedly support this wonderful cause because St. Jude not only took such wonderful care of the Musser family, but they do very important research that they freely share with hospitals such as UVA. 

Cancer sadly took sweet Thomas and left a hole in their family forever.   Childhood cancer fights dirty and mean and preys on our sweet kids.  Please join us this Saturday in Rural Retreat at the fire hall to walk or run to fight back against this Goliath!  Registration starts at 9 a.m. and the race starts at 10:00.  It is a very family-friendly event.  You can competitively run the race, walk leisurely with the family, or do like I typically do and walk the block! 

Sadly we are pulling out our suitcase to head to UVA tomorrow for David's scan.  Cancer sucks and it makes me mad that it tries to steal our peace when we face that dreaded CT machine.  We know that our God goes before us, and that we are being covered in prayer by so many sweet friends and family. 

Over the last two months David has been battling a nasty ear infection.  We have tried multiple oral antibiotics but as of last week it was not any better.  So his sweet  pediatrician decided to do three days of an injectible antibiotic to knock it out.  Three straight days last week David went to the doctor and had a shot in each thigh for a total of six shots.  It was brutal but we felt like it was necessary to finally knock the infection out.  Today he went for a follow-up and sure enough the darn infection is still there!!!!  Mike and I are really sad that he went through that for nothing and it looks like tubes (again) are the next step.  His pediatician is trying to work it out with an ENT at UVA to get his tube put in the nasty ear while he is sedated Thursday for the scan-wouldn't that be awesome!

So tonight my heart is sad that David endured painful shots for nothing, that cancer strikes amazing children like Thomas and David and so many others each year and that the funding for childhood cancer is a joke.  David received treatments that were approved over forty years ago and are known to cause heart problems!!  Come out Saturday to fight back against childhood cancer and to support the wonderful Musser family.  David and I will be there with bells on! 

We will update after the scan and thank you in advance for all the prayers:)

Thanksgiving Break

Thanksgiving break has been wonderful!  We have had a perfect balance of fun and rest at home.  Thursday we spent the day in Radford eating turkey and catching up with my grandmothers, Chad and his family, and GG and Pops.  The food was great and it was nice to rest and catch up. 

Friday we went to see the new Disney movie Frozen.  We all five enjoyed it so much and Hope has memorized all the songs on youtube!  It was really a cute movie.  We have also spent a great deal of time cranking out salt dough stars for Give Kids the World-this has been such a fun family project.  Kyle is the salt dough king!

Saturday was an awesome day.  Over this break Mike and I have celebrated fourteen years of marriage!  Yay!  We celebrated with a whole day out together without kids.  We Christmas shopped, had a leisurely meal together, and then attended a fun gathering with some great people.  We really enjoyed the time out together.  We are not always great about carving out couple time for ourselves but we really had fun together.  We have been through a lot in fourteen years together, and though our marriage is far from perfect we are perfect for each other. 

The last day of our break today was spent at church.  We are starting a new series at church entitled Socks and Underwear-the gift you need but do not always want.  The first sermon in this series was great so I am excited to hear the rest in the series. 

 

This afternoon I had the pleasure of chaperoning four youth kids from Kyle's youth group to shop for two families from Santa's Elves.  What a treat to go into Walmart and listen to four teens plan, shop, and budget their money wisely for the three little girls we were honored to buy for.  The boys embraced their inner sparkle and did well (under the girls' guidance) of buying for three little girls!! I tried to step back and let them pick it all out.  I was blown away how thoughtful and wise this group was.  I know I was suppose to be guiding them, but I was in awe of listening to their teamwork, thoughtfulness, and budget savy ways.  Well done guys! 

 

We have 13 days of school left before Christmas break!  After the fun and relaxation we have had over this break I am ready for Christmas!!  Of course David's upcoming scan is never far from our minds, but we will continue in faith to believe that whatever the CT machine shows, our God will be with us.  He is our peace and comfort on these tough scan weeks.