Catching up

We have been home for 3 weeks. Sadly, we have to pack up and head back tomorrow. I know we will be fine once we are there, but it's always sad to have to leave. The next two weeks will be be busy with appointments. We hope to have a plan after all the appointments.

Easter 2011

We have had a very full few weeks at home. We were able to be home for Easter, Relay for Life, and Mother's Day. I had a very nice and relaxing mother's day with my mama and my sisters...and the rest of the family too :) We sat outside all afternoon, talked, and watched the kids play. They played basketball, rode the dirt bike, and played on the dirt mound in mama and daddys back yard. (the one that my daddy swears he's gonna get rid of). They just added a carport and had to do some digging.  He kept having to tell the kids to get off the dirt mound.  How can you have a great dirt mound and expect kids not to play on it? Red dirt and kids go together like peanut butter and jelly...right? oh well.  The kids made me some great cards and Dave gave me a beautiful bracelet. We also got to worship at Grace Fellowship. Oh how we miss them when we're gone.  Dave even led worship this morning.  That was good for all of us.

Relay for life was a special event for us. Dave is still in the fight, but he is a survivor!!He survived chemotherapy!! I was amazed that he was able to walk the lap.....but I was so excited that he did. He got to walk with our friend Aaron who is also a cancer survivor and has been such an encouragement to Dave through the past few months. Our church had a team this year for the first time and raised over $6300. WOW!! What an awesome group of people!!! It was a good night for us and a great encouragement to see so many people from the community who have been praying for us. I'll update as we hear from the different doctors we will see this week.  Here are some pictures from Relay.

This was in memory of my grandmother who died from pancreatic cancer the year I was born.

I love this!!!



Dad's BBQ....thank you for donating your yummy bbq and time and  raising over $1000 to fight cancer!!



some of my favorite people

Relay for Life

I am very sleepy tonight but I had to post a few pictures from tonight.  Relay was great.  Dave walked almost the whole 2 laps!! I'll post more about it later.  Our super team raised around $6300.  Praise the Lord!!

Philippians 3:12-14
12 Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. 13 Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, 14 I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.

Time is rolling along.  I can hardly believe it is May 5th.  We are getting close to being finished with school for the semester.  We are planning to head back to Houston early next week.  Dave has appointments scheduled with his surgeon, urologist, and the radiation therapist.  He is also scheduled for a MRI next week.  Other than the fluid retention, he is doing really well.  Oh and he has this really nasty cough...maybe it's just allergies.  He went to work yesterday and today.  I was very surprised when I woke up this morning to find he was already gone.  It has been weeks since he has driven the car so I am glad he is slowly getting back to life.  I have to admit, I did call him several times during the day.  We have been together 24/7 for so many months....I could just look at him and ask him a thousand times a day how he was feeling...which he is probably very glad to get away from.  So I will have to get use to him being away... : (    But I am really glad he is feeling better.  We have had a good few weeks at home.  We are looking forward to being a part of Relay for Life tomorrow night.  Our team, Team Grace, has raised over $5000 dollars.  Go Team Grace!!!   Big news for Abby....she got braces today.(I'll post some pictures later)  Boy was she excited.   She could hardly sleep last night for all the excitement.  Her cousins Chloe and Emma just got braces, so she couldn't wait to get hers and be a part of the brace face club :).  Tonight she is not quite as excited.  Her mouth is hurting a little bit, so we put a little wax on them, gave her some tylenol and now she is in the bed. Well that about catches us up for now.  If you are in our area, come on out and support Relay for Life Friday and Saturday.  Maybe we'll see you there.

First let me ask you to make your way over to the right side of the page and vote on Dave's hair color.  I will leave this poll open until the 10th.  Just a fun little way to pass the time while we wait on it to grow back :)

After church this morning, I told our pastor Carlton, he didn't have to call me out in his sermon.  When I tell you about the sermon you will know why I would think he was talking to me.

 His text was Matthew 6:19-34.

Lay Up Treasures in Heaven

19 “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust [5] destroy and where thieves break in and steal, 20 but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. 21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

22 “The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light, 23 but if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!

24 “No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money. [6]

Do Not Be Anxious

25 “Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? 26 Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? 27 And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? [7] 28 And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, 29 yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. 30 But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? 31 Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32 For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. 33 But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.

34 “Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.

I realized today that my anxiousness(anxiety, stress, worry), especially since Dave was diagnosed with cancer, comes from my need to be in control.  I guess I have always felt the need to control things, but at this time in my life I have felt even more of a need to be in control, especially as chemo made Dave sick, we found ourselves having to live away from home...... and there really was nothing I could do about it.  I was reminded today that worry is sin.....but it is a respectable sin. It's a sin we will talk about...sometimes even as if it is not sin.   So how do we stop this sin?  Verses 22 and 23 tell us....keep our eyes on Jesus.  Don't take our eyes off of him and look at the cancer or whatever it is that is causing anxiety.  If we will trust Him for our eternal security, how much more should we trust him with our daily issues....what we will eat, what we will wear, our fiances, even Dave's cancer.  How many days has worrying added to my life...none. 

Hebrews 12:1-2
12:1 Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, 2 looking to Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.

Amen.

If you would like to listen to the entire sermon you can go to our church website....the link is on the right side of the blog.

Update from the doctor visit

We flew back to Houston yesterday and met with Dr. Ravi today.  He said NO MORE CHEMO !!!!   The next step is meeting with the urologist and surgeon and then the radiation therapist.  So overall this has been a good day.  We are flying back home tonight and will return to Houston around May 10th for all those appointments.  Dave is looking forward to his hair growing back, the swelling  going away, and the pain and fatigue in his legs going away.  I told him i was going to put a survey box on the blog to see what people thought his hair would come back like......curly, grey :).........we'll see.

I also wanted to say how sad we have been about the tornado damage in Alabama. It has been unbelievable seeing the pictures from all over the state.  We continue to pray for the people who lost everything. 

All tests done at UAB looked good.  No blood clots.  Still having swelling.  Next update will be after scan results Friday.  Thanks for continuing to pray.       Exhausted.      Bed.     Good night.

cancer stinks...really it does

This post could be a mile long if I wanted it to......but I don't want it to be that long.  We brought Dave to UAB on Monday because the swelling has gotten really bad and after emailing with Dr. Ravi we knew he needed to be checked out.  So we got here around 3 yesterday and they admitted Dave last night.  They are checking him to make sure there are no blockages in his abdomen.  Then hopefully they will up his dose of lasix and get this fluid off!! He actually feels good other than not really being mobile.  We are still scheduled to fly to Houston on Thursday morning.  I am overwhelmed and just want to scream......but I'm in the hospital room and that might alarm the nurses. I wonder....do doctors really want you to ask questions about your treatment...or is it just politically correct for them to say they do.   So that is what  I am thinking about today and what we are doing today.  I was so looking forward to being home for some bad weather...guess I'll just have to enjoy the storms from Birmingham.