Too Old for This

Warning: this is an awfully whiny post.

So how many times have you heard people say "I'm too old for this?"  It usually applies to raising children, dealing with grandchildren, exercising...you get the drift.  For me, today, it's hospitals and sickness.  Erik and I say all the time that Lucy's cancer took at least 10 years off our lives.  I am really feeling it these days.  Since before Christmas Lucy has been battling this eye infection.  We spent another day at St. Jude today meeting with doctors and reviewing treatment options.  They are saying that it is probably staph so we are having to treat it aggressively. Thankfully we squeaked by again today with no hospital stay.

My best friend Amanda went with Lucy and me today and we stayed in a doctors office for 6 hours today.  I appreciated so much that the doctors understood my concern.  We met with oncology, infectious disease and opthamology.  Everyone that entered our room took the time to listen to this stressed out, worried and anxious momma.  They all understood the past history and were all working together to come up with the perfect plan for our sweet girl.

We will be going back to St. Jude at least 2 more days this week. What a way to spend our last week of Christmas break.  I know it could be a lot worse.  We've lived a lot worse and today I was reminded that too many children are living the worse right now.  I have so much to be thankful for but sometimes its easy to get bogged down in the moment.

Two days after Christmas another little girl from our town named Lillie got diagnosed with bladder cancer.  She has a good prognosis but a long road ahead of her.  Please pray for her and her family.  As you can imagine they are very scared right now and are just trying to comprehend what is going on.  There are still decisions to make concerning her treatment but they know they are in the best hands at St. Jude and in the only hands that matter--God's.

Merry Merry

It's been a whirlwind of a holiday, but we are finally relaxing tonight.  Well, sort of.  As an added bonus of holiday anxiety, Lucy has contracted an eye infection.  If you all remember back to June of 2012, an eye infection almost killed her.  We are on guard and will go see the doctor tomorrow morning.  Tomorrow is also a very special day because Lucy and our family has been invited to eat dinner with the Zac Brown Band.  I know, right?!?!  We are so excited but we need her to be well first.  Please say a little prayer that her eye will heal and further infection does not spread.

We did manage to have a great Christmas, despite the anxiety of the infection.  I have tons of pictures to post but will leave you with a small glimpse of today.  I hope you all had the merriest Christmas ever.

Merry Christmas

Merry, Merry Christmas to you all. May the joy of the Lord be yours tonight, tomorrow and all year long!

Pie in the Face

Running Pony, a local production company, has filmed a great holiday promotion.  The employees got a pie in the face and whoever gets the most votes will be able to make a donation to the charity of his/her choice.  Brandon Roten, a dad extraordinaire of a cancer child, has chosen the Go Lucy Go Foundation as the benefactor if he wins.  Please click the link below and vote for Brandon Roten.  A vote for Brandon is a vote for Lucy!

http://www.runningpony.com/deck-ponies-give-to-charity/


Merry Christmas everyone!  I'll be checking in tomorrow.   Don't forget, its not too late to donate a toy to our Christmas dinner for LeBonheur.

Call to Action

We are collecting toys for the children of Lebonheur to be delivered with our Christmas dinner. I'd love To have your help. If you are local, you can drop your toys off at the following locations :

The Freckled Frog

117 Court Square

Alex Garrett, DDS

2026 Exeter Road

Suite 2

Germantown

I know it's late notice and I apologize for that. However, sometimes life throws you curve balls and you just have to play the hand you are dealt. I KNOW that we can pull this together!  

If you can't donate a toy you can send a donation through PAYPAL to golucygofoundation.com. 

Thank you, as always, for your support 

Father Christmas

This weekend we took advantage of the festivities around our town square and had the kiddos' picture made with Father Christmas.  Each year our town transforms the shops and courthouse into a Dickens period town (19th century Victorian England.)  It is such a very unique idea and its worth a trip just to see the amazing costumes everyone wears.  It is truly a wonderful event.  

Since Saturday was actually the only day all month that we didn't have 560 things to do, we spent some time walking around town, doing a little shopping and drinking hot cocoa.  The best part was the visit with Father Christmas.  Later that night Erik and I attended our Sunday School Christmas party and had a nice time visiting with lots of our friends.  

Tonight we checked off a huge item from our Christmas "to-do" list.  Erik, Ella and I were the only characters in our church's Christmas program.  We were honored to be a part of such a moving evening.  Our choir sang amazingly and we had a packed house.  I'm quite sure acting isn't my thing, but I guess we did OK.  Erik was compared to Tom Hanks (ha) and Ella, of course, was a natural on the stage.  We have been working on our lines and practiing for several weeks.  I'd be lying if I said I wasn't glad it is behind us.

This week is going to be nuts.  I sat down today and make a to-do list and a timeline for every single day this week.  Jack has his school Christmas program Tuesday and the girls' is Thursday.  Monday night is our city Christmas parade and both girls are riding on a float.  That leaves Wednesday--which is also already accounted for with church and Christmas City (an awesome light display in town.)  Sometime in there I have to get the set design finished for our school's drama club which performs 4 short skits on Wednesday.  Whew.  I'm tired just thinking about it.

Merry Christmas everyone!

Gratuitous Post

I apologize for the gratuitous nature of this post.  I am very proud of my girls and I just had to share both of these commercials.  Lucy and I had the opportunity to film a commercial with the head coach of the University of Memphis basketball team's head coach.  It was a commercial to promote the work of LeBonheur Children's Hospital.  We were very honored to be a part of it. 

The girls were asked to be in the promotional commercial for the YMCA of Memphis and the Mid South.  Oh my gosh!  How fun was this?!?  The cool thing is that many of you will have a chance to see this.  It is going to be shown on ESPN, ESPN 2, CBS, AMC, ABC Family and Lifetime.  You will have to let me know if you see the girls in your neck of the woods!

The NON List

From the time I can remember, every Christmas season was accompanied by a list (or seventeen.)  Things to make, things to see, food to serve, etc.  You know the drill.  Well, the past 2 Christmases were just about surviving.  The only list I had was to just make sure presents got under the tree on Christmas morning.  I promised myself that this Christmas, if we made it, was going to be different.  I'm happy to admit that so far it has been.

Now, don't get me wrong, we have lost of places to be and tons of things that have to be done but the lists are much, much shorter.  This Christmas season is all about enjoying the moments we have been given.  And this weekend was full of moments!

Beware...photo overload.  I apologize in advance to those who follow my on IG.

This weekend it was forecasted that our part of the country was going to be hit horribly by the ice storm of 2013.  The kids didn't have school Friday so we spent the day playing inside and braving the weather for a few minutes at a time.  Thankfully the weathermen majorly missed this one and we survived the icy rain unscathed.   We even roasted marshmallows in our fireplace!

I spent a lot of time in the kitchen--which was a perfect day for me.  No lists, just making whatever I could with the ingredients I had in the pantry.  I had been wanting to make these butter mints for a very long time.  They are really too sweet for me, but they will make nice little gifts for Christmas.

Saturday night we celebrated one of our best friend's 40th birthdays with a surprise party at the world famous Gus's Fried Chicken. In 2001, GQ Magazine cited Gus's as one of the top 5 restaurants in the country worth hopping on a plane for a meal.  Us locals take it for granted I guess; this fried chicken dive in the middle of one of the country's smallest towns!

 
Today after church the kids and I spent more time in the kitchen.  I had so many things that needed to be done around the house, but salt dough seemed to be calling my name.  I kneaded and rolled until my hands cramped today.  3 batches of dough later we have enough ornaments for each of the girls' classes and all 6, yes 6, Christmas trees in my house.

My favorite thing we did was this new project I found on (where else?) Pinterest.  I want to do another batch and make them all Christmas colors.  I think they would look wonderful strung across my kitchen window.  Helpful hint: make sure that you cover the tray with aluminum foil from the beginning.  Mine got a little brown.  I'll have to paint the edges of these but they will still look adorable on my tree.

The most magical part of this day was the delivery of our very own Magic Light Wand by our elf, Harley.  Jack was by far the most excited, but only because he thought it was a sword.  The girls loved it and Lucy pretended to be a magical fairy.  The light comes with a receiver that you attach to your Christmas tree and when you push the "on" button, your Christmas tree magically comes on.  It even plays this charming little "magical" tune while the lights come on the tree.  It is a local company but they are making a national name for themselves.  They also donate $1.00 for every wand sold to Make a Wish, an organization near and dear to our hearts.  

Let me know if you buy one!  I'd love to hear what you think about it.

(I receive no commission from the sale of this item.  I'm just sharing a product that I think you will like.)

Answered Prayers

Who am I, O Sovereign Lord, and what is my family, that you have brought me this far? 
2 Samuel 7:18

This verse was recently introduced to me by a very dear friend.  I admire this lady so much and respect her willingness to listen and obey God's Word.  After our day at St. Jude yesterday I can't help but to say this verse over and over and over in my mind and heart.  I don't know if there has ever rung more true and appropriate verse that this.  King David goes on to praise God, admitting "you know God what I am really like."  

Does this verse speak to you the way it speaks to me?  There is nothing that I can do, will do or could do that would deserve God's favor.  Nothing.  Do you hear me?  NOTHING.  Yet..yet.  His mercies are new everyday.  Lucy's clean scans yesterday were a blessing that none of us deserved, yet He granted us his favor one more day.  

As Dr. W called us back to the room to discuss the results of the scans she told me that her nurse said we were sitting in the waiting room with looks of terror on our face.  I told her that might be the biggest understatement of the year.  Terror might have been on our faces but we could hardly breathe as we sat there.  Lucy was asleep, still out from sedation.  Erik and I couldn't talk to each other, we couldn't even swallow.  I felt as if my heart was in my throat and it took everything I had not to throw up what little lunch I had been able to swallow.

And the crazy thing is is that we didn't even expect bad news.  We had no reason to believe that anything but good news would come from the scans.  There is just so very much at stake.  Lucy has fought so hard to regain her life and she now actually has a good life worth fighting for.  Not that before she didn't, it's just now the stakes are so high.  She has come so far.

I relate it to the man who leaves every morning to go to work.  He walks out of the house anticipating nothing.  Go to work and come home.  That's all.  Now, he may be involved in an accident or suffer a major heart attack that could change his life forever, but he wasn't anticipating it.  We, on the other hand, leave our house on the morning of scans and have reason to wonder if we will return.  Everything we know, live and pray for can change in one second.  In the 5 syllables that it would take to say "cancer has returned" our lives would go back into the downward spiral that consumed our family for 2 years.  That place would be hard to return.  I never, ever want to go back there again.

So, yes, we walk in faith.  We trust God to continue looking upon Lucy and our family with favor but we can never forget.  Those were long, hard days filled with despair.  Unfortunately they aren't far enough away from our memories.  Everything is still too fresh; too raw.  So for a while each scan will be loaded with anxiety and worry while being bathed in unending prayer.