The Safest Place to Be...

After a week of traveling all over the country I came home and was blessed two spend two of the best days with my little men!! I had surprises planned for each day...and we had a wonderful time uncovering each of them as the day went.  Watching life through the eyes of my boys can often be the most relaxing enjoyable part of my day. And last Mon and Tuesday were no exception. We laughed a lot, talked alot and loved alot! It was wonderful. I relished in the memories being made and the conversations we had. It was a special time just the three of us.  Chad had too work and was bummed he couldn't be with us but he was taking off last Thursday to go out of town and had to tie up lose ends at work. Wed I worked from home and Thursday ended up back in the ER....an hour from home.   Never a dull moment...I was driving to my office in city and breathing became hard quickly..I had been having shortness of breath since Monday but I chalked it up to traveling across the country and my body readjusting to the weather..no biggie right? Wrong...luckily there was a fantastic hospital 7 miles from where I pulled over and Chad stayed on the phone with me until I got to the ER. The doctors were amazing and after doing a chest ct they said I had the start of pneumonia...yikes! I had pneumonia 8 years ago and never thought for a minute I would get it again...especially so quick. So after staying in the hospital all day I left for home that evening...only to talk to my Dr. the next day who said after reviewing my test she thought my lungs showed emphysema changes...yikes again.. I know nothing about emphysema other than people who smoke often get it... (i don't)... The latter part of last week consisted of breathing treatments, meds, and steroids to help remove the inflammation from my lungs... This weekend was rough and i'm just worn down..but praise the Lord I saw my dr again today and she did more x-rays and confirmed I have plearacy and no emphysema...so I am so glad...tired..exhausted...but thankful. 

Chad was gone during all of this...he was actually heading to the airport while I was at the ER but I told him to go...I knew that I would be ok and I was...but exhaustion over took me this weekend. Nen(my sister who lives with us) was a blessing and helped out so much... I was sad because one of our sweet friends had a bridal shower this weekend and her batchlorette party but we couldn't go...BUT the bride to be ( a dear friend of my sisters) and two of the other girls came by to say hi yesterday. And while I frankly wasn't up for company and just wanted to sleep Beth said something to me that brought a huge wave of peace. She was talking about moving to Haiti in May... Her fiance is Haitian and they met when she went there with our church to work with the orphanages we support... Anyhow my sister was asking her if she felt safe living by herself until she got married and her response " The safest place I can be is in His Will and as long as I'm there I'm ok".... Words of wisdom my friends..humbling words...God knew I needed to hear them and boy did they bless me to the core.  So I have been relishing in those words since yesterday and praying fervently....praying for peace and understanding that only He can bring.. If you read my blog often I'm sure you've noticed a trend over the past six months...Health issues galore...one thing after the other and during my prayer time this weekend I specifically asked Him are you telling me to move elsewhere?  I don't know the answers but I do know this...I am thankful for Beth and for the Lord's words that covered my heart.. I'm thankful that I am "In His will".....and am praying for guidance....which I know He will provide as He always has. Now I must open my ears, BE STILL and Listen.... Blessings

From Seattle to South Carolina

This week has been crazy but amazing in the same breath. Last Friday my little man's fever spiked to 104.3 and I was a wreck! I was supposed to leave the next morning at 8am to fly to Seattle for business and I was a mess... on one line I had the nurse on call and the other was my travel agent trying to see if I could move my flight to Sunday. Did I mention is was 12am? I was in bed surround by tissues because I couldn't stop crying..I felt like a horrible mom..Noah's temp had returned to normal the day before and he seemed to be on the upswing so leaving seemed ok.  Don't get me wrong me being worried about leaving had nothing to do with the fact that Chad would be home with the boys and Nen (my sister who lives with us)... He's amazing! He knows their schedules better than I do at times and we are truly partners in parenting and everything else. I have no concerns that He can't handle being the boys on his own...it's more of me as a working mom struggling to balance work and not being there for my boys when they need.  I want to be the one to cuddle with my sick son...I want to make sure he is ok and lay on the couch all day and watch episodes of dinosour train..so when his fever spiked and he was in a ball on a sheet in his room...the thought of leaving him tore me apart. Bless Chad's heart he kept assuring me everything would be ok...and long story short it was.  We stayed up all night giving Noah tsp of water at a time and sponging him down to help the fever lower..and it did.  So within the next three hours I shoved clothes in my suitcase and went to the airport...puffy eyes and all. I'm sure I was a sight:) That morning Chad took both boys to see our pediatrician...as I had been in constant conversation with him daily about Noah and Ky's croup..and come to find out poor Ky had a double ear infection and they confirmed Noah did not have anything worse than a very bad case of the flu. Within a couple of hours his temp was back to normal and he was able to keep liquids and solids down.

     And off to Seattle I went.  And God is Good!!! It was a four hour flight and I slept for the first hour and a half and ENJOYED the rest of it... Yes, you are hearing me right..i enjoyed it and praised Him the whole way. This was the first time since I can remember that I enjoyed a flight and had no fear/anxiety. I landed grabbed my car found a starbucks worked a bit and then went to see my dear friend, Dee and her husband Sobes.  Dee was one of my best friends in highschool and we went to college together in Seattle.  It has been nine years since I've seen here and and to we had grown apart over the years.  I was a little nervous about how it would be connecting after all of that time.  And then I met her husband and saw her and we picked right back up where we left off.  It was the best weekend! She is expecting her first baby on July 4th and we talked about babies and my favorite baby things all weekend long. We caught up on life and truly enjoyed just hanging out. Monday I started with my business meetings right away and it was a packed but great day. Tuesday I went to a conference at the EMP and it was awesome! Very informative and I even got to test drive some EV cars....Wednesday am I headed back to the airport for a 6am flight home and landed in Chicago around one..made it home by 4 picked up the boys for 5:00 haircuts..loved on them and read them one of their books I brought back for them....tucked them in..did some laundry and repacked my luggage.  And the next morning woke up at 4am and headed back to the airport for another 8:00 flight. This time to South Carolina.

     I landed in SC around 11:00 headed to another Starbucks to get some work done (see a trend:)..) and then headed to our SC office for an afternoon of meetings.  I always stay at the same hotel and have my favorite resteraunts that I frequent and even request the same waiter every time. It was a great evening...I returned to my hotel early and cranked out work until the wee hours and started all over again yesterday. My day ended around 5:30 and then the real fun began... I have family that lives about an hour from our SC office and I try to see them every time I'm in town..this time being no exception... I arrived at my aunt and uncles surrounded by my cousin, her husband, and amazing kids, and my Grams. Their hospitality is always amazing and they had platters of appetizes and wine...followed by an amazing meal...and we Laughed so hard all night!!! I'm staying at my cousins and we are just hanging out today and having family dinner tonight. Tomorrow am I head back home and CAN'T wait...The boys are on spring break this week and I'm off on Monday and Tuesday to spend some amazing time with the boys and do something fun and exciting...although i haven't quite figured out just what special things we are going to do...but I am throwing a couple of ideas around. :) And I forget to mention the other great part...so normally I fly into Charlottle when I come to SC because of my "fear" of flying...flying into GSP entails of flying on a jet and based on my horrible experience last summer I have avoided flying into that airport like the plague.  Well this time I took a leap of faith and flew into GSP and it was hilarious because the jet I flew on had one seat on the left and two on the right and maybe 15 rows back...yep the smallest of the small...and again I enjoyed my flight. God is good. I kept reporting the verse over and over... I will not let harm come to your life ...and every day is a blessing. :) It helped.  So now I'm going to enjoy the warm weather..i'm in capris and sandles ( and realized this morning just how desperately I need a pedi) My feet are a sight haha... Oh well. Have a wonderful Sat!

Prayful Wednesday

I'm exhausted...i'm not even going to lie or try and add fluff to how I feel today. This week has been "interesting"... Good news I graduated from my boot yesterday and am not in a brace for the next three weeks...and I can drive!! PTL...because me and my independent self was having major patience issues waiting for that thing to get off..  But to add to the stress Ky has croup yet again and Noah came down with a fever at school yesterday and it spiked to 104.5 this morning at 1am. I'm beat..work is nuts and i'm leaving on Sat for a week, minus my 12 hour layover back at home on Wednesday with enough time to drop in from the airport repack my luggage, get haircuts for all of us and take of Thursday am at 6am.  Did I mention I hate to fly and have already been in prayer rebuking the devil? I have to fly out to Seattle which is a four hour flight and I usually top out at 1.5 hours on my "normal" flights..

So today i'm working from home, trying to get laundry down ( it never is:)..) attend to my sick boys, come up with my bi monthly grocery list, keeping in mind that Chad will be cooking meals all next week, and go through my to do list before Friday. Yikes! Did I mention I'm exhausted? Oh and to add to the list of health issues (which seems to be never ending) I had a CT done yesterday due to my constant ringing in my left ear and that came back ok..so now I have to wait for two weeks and will see an ENT and have audiology testing done.  My prayer for April is that I am healthy and don't have to visit the hospital once...We'll see how that goes:)

For all of your prayer warriors out there please in be prayer that God will put his healing hand on our family from all of this sickness/health issues, give me peace about flying, and calm my spirit as I finish out the rest of the week.  I would greatly appreciate it!Blessings!

And then there was ice... :)

So much for my signs of spring blog! Last week ice came pouring down literally...so on Monday instead of making it to the city I turned around and drove home...well to my mom's house actually. I decided to work at her house until lunch and then I was going to head home...It all happened so fast. My mom said "oh no there goes my garbage can in the street" my little sis and I picked straws and I won (we didn't really pick straws :)..) and I headed out the front door to go get the can and fell down the steps covered with ice and when I fell my right leg landed funny on the concrete with a snap I knew something was wrong.... My ears started to ring and I ended up rolling around in the ice in pain screaming..yep that's how it started. I wasn't even sure how I was going to make it to the car but somehow I did and once at the hospital found out I tore a tendon in my foot and sprained my ankle..the swelling was bad so they put it in a wrap and said to use the boot once the swelling went down and sent me on my way with crutches. Here's where it gets even better. The next morning at 4 am I get up with my crutches to go to the bathroom and my crutches went one way and I fell again on the same leg just the other side and screamed out in pain again. It woke my little men up who came piling in the bathroom to go to the bathroom and head back to bad while i'm laying there on the floor..lol I can laugh about it now but it must have been a sight. So back to the hospital we go and more x-rays later I now damaged soft tissue and damaged nerves on the right side of the same foot. So now i'm in a boot for at least three weeks and did I mention it's on my driving foot? Yeah so i'm not happy..I was just back into my workout regiment and getting two great workouts in everyday and now ugh. My favorite phrase from Chad last week was ..." I take you for worse and worse"... I know he was joking but that's how it feels at the moment.

Besides that things are going relatively well. The boys are loving their swimming lessons and I'm having a blast watching them. They had a wonderful few days at home with Chad while I went on a business trip to MN..boot at all.  My good friend ended up driving me and enjoying the time away and I had a packed schedule of meetings but it was a success. We found this awesome winery on the way back and I brought home eight bottles of wine to share... And here it is Tuesday and i'm already looking forward to the weekend. I'm hoping it comes fast! I'll have to post pics soon...I did find some awesome Lego headlamps for the boys at MOA and they are a hit..so much so that they came in our room with them on at 5:45 Sun morning. It made my day! Sorry for all of the rambling but I guess that's life at the moment.

Signs of Spring!

This week has been a good one! It started off with Valentines day and my hubby remembered one of my favorite red wines and bought a bottle and some chocolates (some of my fav) and wrote a beautiful card to go with it. The down side...I'm on my sixth week of Weight Watchers and tracking really hard and even though I still have my WW chocolate items I'm trying not to have to much reg choc. It's like a drug to me..I can't stop at just one piece. But I adore him and am so blessed to have a husband who is so thoughtful...because really I also think of valentine's as a hallmark holiday and don't put a whole lot of stock into it..  Anyhow that was Monday...and then Noah got sick with a 101 temp for four days! We took him to our pediatrician and his fever broke today but this mama was starting to get very concerned.  Ive been blessed to be able to WFH (work from home) yesterday and today so it's been nice to get caught up on dishes and some laundry at a decent time.  I even made dinner at 7am this morning and through it in the crock pot....chicken tortilla soup..YUM! Can't wait to have some. I got a great workout in on my lunch and am planning on going on a long walk after Chad gets home from work. The temps have warmed up and the snow is melting slowly...but we are starting to see grass and I am beyond thrilled!

     This weekend is full but filled with many fun things. The boys have swimming lessons tomorrow, my hubby is helping move some furniture from my sisters to my moms, and I have a bridal shower to go to in the afternoon.  Sunday I am going to see my friend from AK who I haven't seen in months! I can't wait....we are getting together at the crack of dawn for coffee so that I can be home early enough to spend the rest of the day with the boys. I'm traveling three days next week and want to soak up as much time with them as possible.

     Not too much else to share right now....and to be honest I think I might attempt at a nap while the boys are sleeping. :) Blessings to everyone!

Trust

I listen to K-Love all day long in my car during my commute to the City...this year they have been talking about coming up with one word that describes how you want to live your year or describe you.  I spent a few weeks really thinking about and it as of last week the word came tumbling out..TRUST. Yep that's my word...and Im on my knees laying it before God.  You see that word represents everything that I struggle with and often coincides with my control issues...or false sense of control if you will.  After losing Mason...I trusted HIM......He was there and picked me up and held my hand, and listened to me scream, he sat beside me as I laid in bed for days at a time....I trusted Him to get me to the other side of the horror I was living in.  And He did....Trust..When I was in a car accident in July and my explorer was totalled I trusted Him to provide...to heal me and blessed that my babies were not hurt.  Trust... Two months later when I was diagnosed with pulmonary embolism....I was shaken to my core and I'm going to be honest with you.I didn't trust... I remembering praying in the radiologist's office and tears pouring down my face..but I wasn't Trusting Him to take care of me...I was desperately trying to control the situation at hand...and do what needed to be done to fix things. If you've read my blog the past few months you will know that has been easier said then done.. An ugly thing called anxiety has reared it's ugly head and now is part of my almost every day...and I don't like it one it.   My weekly sessions with Wendy are helping and i'm back on track with WW and working out every day which seems to wear me out so that I am not so anxious going to bed....but this weekend I had a huge AH HA moment...I haven't completely Trusted Him with EVERYTHING.  There have been moments, and days, and even weeks that I've trusted him and praised Him for getting me through this...but there have been just as many days where I have doubted and not trusted.  I have doubted for fear that things will turn out that way I don't want them to....and that scares me....it has scared me to my core.  But then I read a book this weekend..."The boy who came back from heaven" by Kevin and Alex Malarkey...and He showed up and spoke to me ever so gently about Trusting Him...and the tears have continued to flow... Because my disbelief has been consumed by not just my PE, but by my fear of flying, and this week....This week marks the 2nd anniversary of losing Mason.  And right now my friends...i'm a mess.. I went over to my girlfriend Mich's house on Friday night to enjoy some red wine as we normally do after our kids go to bed. We usually talk for hours and I stay in the suite downstairs.  This Friday....was like others but somehow our conversation came to Mason and I lost it.....and I mean lost it...sobs erupted from my core and I could barely catch my breath but Mich was there and just held me and we cried together. As His anniversary approaches I found myself thinking of so many things this weekend...waves of memories rushing back...finding out we were pregnant...my precious friend J being there as she was the only one as work I had told... I remember continuously bugging her about my clothes and is anyone could tell and i'm pretty sure I had something to say about a craving or anything baby related for the first few months...and it brought us close. I trusted her and was blessed.  I go back to the Sunday it all started going downhill....sitting on my couch feeling pressure while studying...and going to bed only to wake up house later wet....knowing right away my water had broke... its a bit of a blur as far as who came to be with the boys and Chad taking me to the hospital...but It's like a movie replaying in my head as they rolled me into labor and delivery and confirmed my worst fears..I would be delivering our son that night and he would not make it. They warned me that he might be born trying to breathe on his own but he was two young for them to be able to save him... Trust...it was there that I cried/screamed out to God to meet me there and in a strong way. My husband...I remember him kissing my forehead and rubbing my hand....and crying with me after Mason was born and we held him.  Trust... I was not able to articulate much and it would be days before the numbness wore out but I trusted God to get me through those moments because if I didn't I wouldn't have made it. Period. So tonight it's been rough....my heart is aching for that little baby I held two years ago and said good bye to this side of eternity. I have heard several songs on the radio this week that were on his CD we played at his funeral and they suck the air out of me....I want to go see him even though I know he is not "at" the graveside...but its the closest I can get and I just want to hug him...however with all of the snow i'm afraid I won't be able to find him.  Trust....I leave for Minn on the 10th..one day after his anniversay and fly coming home the 11th...quick trip in and out...but there's that word Trust...God give me trust to take this leap of faith and LET go of my fears and truly be at peace...that is so desperately what I want. So I don't know that what I'm rambled on about tonight makes a whole lot of sense but I will ask this....I will ask if you could pray for me this week specifically on Wednesday(Mason's day) and Thursday and Friday I will be flying. Please pray for peace.....for strength....and the ability to be used For his Glory. Pray that as I work more on Trusting that I will continue to be molded and let go of some of the layer's I've been clinging to.

A case of the Mondays...with the flu:(

I was so looking forward to this weekend...it was supposed to be one where I accomplished alot of items on my to do list....many of those items doing fun things with the little men in my life. We did make it to the library on Saturday as a family and had a great time! We have an awesome children's library and the boys love picking out new books and movies.... Chad and I take turns and pick out a few books for ourselves. After listen to an interview I picked up some of Karen Kingsbury's book and have to say I haven't been able to put them down. My productivity came to a halt Saturday after the library...I just felt weak and yuck...great adjective I know... :) Sunday i spent most of the day in bed and spiked a fever Sunday night...woke up this morning freezing but warm to the touch...yep pretty sure i have the flu... but am thankful for my wonderful hubby who went and bought me Gatorade and chicken noodle o's... how i love him.

Quick update as I feel like I've left you guys hanging unintentionally about my PE (pulmonary embolisms) and health problems...God is so good and after switching over to two new drs at a different hospital I feel so much better about the care and treatment plan i'm on. I had a vascular ultrasound done three weeks ago and my large clot in my leg is gone!!! Praise the Lord...I can't tell you the peace that news brought. I felt like such a huge weight has been lifted off of my shoulders. They also did some tests on my liver and an ultrasound and the spot that was found in NC is gone...another praise! My meds have all been adjusted and i'm still going in weekly for blood work but the next step is a dr appt in March. I'm still working through the anxiety that became part of my daily life as a result of everything that took place back in Sept but I've made a lot of progress there thanks to "our Wendy"... an amazing counselor who has been there for me and my extended family for the past 8 years since we moved to the Midwest...she knows our family...my mom, sisters, and brother so well...our story and has become by extension part of our family... Her wisdom and insight is a blessing and has helped me tremendously face my fears..simple things that have become difficult over the months..