I have to start off by saying that I love serving a God who IS into details.  I know I say that all the time, but it is so comforting and sometimes hilarious to look back in hindsight and see God’s hand in every detail of certain situations.  That said, God knew that I needed my little boys with me today.  I arrived at the hospital and checked in at 9:40.  I was told that my appointment was actually at 11am and the hospital reminder service had messed up and told me 9:40 so I’d probably have to wait a while.  I was armed with snacks, drinks, school work, and books.  The boys were unbelievable.  Even Owen sat down in his own chair in the waiting room and looked out the window at all the passing cars and an occasional ambulance.  Much to my surprise, we were called  back within ten minutes.  The boys sat on the floor (GROSS, I know!) next to the stroller as the nurse took my vitals and then put us in a room.  The doctor came in within five minutes…so much for a long wait! :)  As the doctor opened the door, he looked around at all three of my children and said, “Um, do you want me to discuss this in front of the children?”  WHAT?!  First of all, what in the world am I supposed to do with them?  Make them wait in the hall??  Or maybe the waiting room??  All I could get out was, “Yes, it’s fine.”  Already, my mind was racing.  Why would he ask such a question?  Obviously the results were not inconclusive or normal.  Joshua was sitting in a chair drawing a picture of the American Flag.  Owen was in another chair with his blanket and a bag of goldfish.  Jesse was sitting on my lap, and at that point, I couldn’t have let go of him if I wanted to.  He was anchoring me to my chair; to all the things that were normal in my life for that instant. 

The doctor looked at the little paper in his hand and simply said, “The results were highly atypical.  I don’t know yet whether it is cancer, but we suggest you not take a chance.  I’d like to schedule a consult for you with the surgeon on Friday.  He will take out half of your thyroid; the half that has the large nodule on it.  Then they will be able to tell whether or not the cells are malignant.”

 

Wow.

 

That’s it.  I think I smiled and said, “Ok.  Thank you.  Can we go?”  Within five minutes, we were on our way back to the parking deck.  I called Josh and told him the news.  Of course, he had lots of questions, none of which did I have any answers to.  I will know more after I meet with the surgeon on Friday.  To be perfectly honest, my biggest concern at this point is whether or not I have to stay in the hospital after surgery.  Part of what makes me ME and allows me to function for everyone in my life, is my schedule.  I stay busy and my days are planned down to the minute…ok, not really down to the minute, but you know what I mean.  I need to keep my normalcy in order to keep my peace.  Having my boys with me today allowed me to stay focused on ‘other things’.  I didn’t have a chance to sit in the exam room by myself and ponder the “what ifs”.  I didn’t have time to get scared or shed a tear.  I was holding a sweet little four year old who depends on me for every meal, every hug, every question, and I chose to focus on those things.

Whatever the results, we can handle it.  I have peace in the waiting and peace in the unknown.  God has always given me peace.  When my mother found a mass in her stomache, God gave me peace.  When my grandfather had a stroke two weeks before my wedding, God gave me peace.  When my dermatologist found the beginning stages of skin cancer on my TWENTY-FIVE year old arm last summer, God gave me peace.  When Jesse (my four year old) went through a year and a half of surgeries, procedures, and testing for his immune deficiencies, God gave me peace.  I have no fear and I will choose to rest in His peace.  Your prayers are greatly appreciated and I’ll post more on Friday after my consult with the surgeon.

~audrey

It’s Tuesday morning.  I’ve been up since 6:00, it is now 8:20am and I haven’t even begun to get ready for my appointment at the hospital.  I am getting the results of my thyroid biopsy this morning.  To be completely honest, the thing I fear the most is an inconclusive result.  I hate the thought of going through all of that pain for absolutely nothing.  I haven’t cried that hard and that long in…I don’t know when!   They had to go in with the needle SIX times with no anesthesia.  My neck is STILL sore…six days later.  It hurts when I yawn, sneeze, sing, or anything else that makes those muscles tighten.  My appointment is at 9:40 and I have to bring all three kids with me because I didn’t think to get a babysitter.  On top of all that, we FINALLY have our home study tonight with the foster agency.  As a result, I want to be home as little as possible today so I can keep my house clean and just do a little touching up while Owen takes a nap this afternoon.  I guess I need to get ready…or at least put some clean clothes on.  Please pray for good conclusive results.  I’ll post again later.

 

~audrey

Let me start by saying, I have never had such an eventful 24 hours in my life.  It all centers around my mischievous little 20 month old.  I’ve never had to baby-proof before.  My kids just seemed to know better than to touch something like a glass vase or stick something in an open electrical socket.  I guess I had more time to show them right from wrong back when I only had two kids. 

Anyways, I had to stay home from church yesterday because Jesse was running a fever.  I really needed to spend some time on the house because we had a home-study scheduled with our foster agency at 3pm, so it worked out well for me to stay home.  Josh was getting Joshua ready to go to church with him when I realized that I hadn’t seen or heard Owen in a while.  You see, Owen has unfortunately mastered the art of opening doors, so no room is off limits anymore and we have to watch him like a hawk.  I ran to the hall bathroom expecting to find him swirling a toothbrush in the toilet or maybe playing with the water under the faucet.  What I found was infinitely worse!!!  Owen had some how gotten into my cosmetic wax.  You know, the kind that your hair stylist uses to wax your eyebrows??  It was stored (at room temperature) with the top on, but even when cool, it is sticky and soft.  It was all over him, from head to toe.  Not only that, it was all over the boys’ training potty, my tile floor, my beautiful black rug, and a brand new pair of jean that Jesse had left on the bathroom floor.  I was dumb-founded.  I hadn’t the first idea how in the HECK I was going to remove all of this wax, which has the consistency of rubber cement…but thicker.  Owen was literally stuck to the floor.  One of his hands was stuck in his hair and when I was finally able to pull his shirt off, I think I got a clump of his hair with it.  This stuff was such a sticky mess, even the bottom of my feet were now sticking to everything that I stepped on, so I could not leave the bathroom until I had cleaned my feet off too!  I immediately called one of my best friends, who also happens to be my hair stylist.  She said to use OIL!! Oil would break up the wax and allow me to clean up the disaster area.  The only oil I could think of was my cooking oil.  Josh brought me the large bottle of canola oil from the kitchen.  By this time I had placed Owen in the tub…and now he was stuck there.  I started with his hair and slowly worked my way down his body all the way to his sweet itty bitty toes.  Luckily he had a diaper on or we may have ended up in the ER! YIKES!    Owen was all greased up, and at this point, I was tempted to throw him in the frying pan!! LOL! It took quite a bit of Dawn dish soap to get all of that oil out of his hair.  I think my cuticles will be soft for the next six months!  Two and a half hours later, I had thrown several of our belongings in the trash and finally cleaned up the last of the wax.

Then I had to move on to the rest of the house before 3pm.  Three o’clock came and went and the lady never showed up for the home study…VERY FRUSTRATING!!  The rest of my Sunday was uneventful.

As many of you know, Mondays are one of my favorite days of the week.  Today I started my morning off with some coffee and packed the kids up so we could take my brother-in-law to school.  Right before I walked out the door, I started a load of laundry.  When I pulled back into my driveway about 30 minutes later, I knew something was terribly wrong.  My driveway has a dip in it before you pull up to the garage.  The dip was flooded and the water had SUDS!!!!!   Oh my Lord, the washer overflowed!!!  I don’t even remember getting any of the kids out of the car, yet somehow they all made it in safely…YES, I spent the next two hours emptying the garage and using a carpet cleaner to suck all the water off the floor. The washer and dryer are in the garage, in case you didn’t figure that out, and the garage floor has berber carpeting..we don’t actually park the car in it.  What a mess!  Luckily, only a small amount of water got into my kitchen; and luckily, it is sunny out and a little breezy today, so with the garage door and the back door both open, the cross draft should air the place out by the end of the day.  Seriously, what else could go wrong??  After emptying the water bin in the carpet cleaner for the hundreth time, Joshua poked his head into the garage and said, “OWEN DUMPED POWDER EVERYWHERE!”  What am I going to do with that kid???  I ran into the house thinking Owen had gotten the baby powder and dumped some on the carpet in the living room, which is where I keep the powder, wipes, and diapers.  Once again, I was wrong!  He had gotten into the pantry and vivaciously emptied an entire new box of corn starch and a bag of flour.  My kitchen looked like a winter wonderland.  At this point, I was laughing because I thought, “Seriously Lord??  What next??  Is this some kind of test or a sick joke??”  I was laughing because there were little footprints in the powder leading all over the house.  Then there were white handprints on the couch, carpet, and pillows.  And on the couch was my sweet, “innocent” toddler holding his tigger and his blanket, probably hoping that I would spare his life for the second time in 24 hours.  I picked him up and put him in his room, shutting the door behind me, I told him to STAY!  I cleaned up that mess too and now, every time I throw something in the trash, it is followed by a cloud of white dust as it hits the bottom of the can.  Some how after all of these misadventures, we’ve had a great Monday.  I’ve learned to take these events with a grain of salt (and preferrably a margarita!).  I certainly could have had a fit, yelled at Owen, and sat down in my floury mess and cried, but instead, I kept on truckin.  I fed the kids lunch, put Owen in bed for a nap, made a grocery list and menu for this week, and sat down to do school with the boys.  Now here I am, in desperate need of a shower, but I survived the first half of my day and now I’m taking the time to tell you about it with the hope that the next time you have “one of those days”, you’ll choose to laugh and let it roll off your back.  It could be a lot worse!    :)

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~audrey