An Answered Prayer...

I haven't posted an update on mom for awhile.  I've kept a lot of what's been going on to myself, but to make a long story short, my mother has had a setback with her cancer.  Right after Thanksgiving we found out that the cancer had returned and had moved to her spinal and cerebral fluids.  This isn't great news.  She's been in and out of the hospital since December.  When she's not at the hospital, she's been spending time at a great rehab nursing home facility here in Northern Kentucky.

About 4 weeks ago, we had to move her back to the hospital and it turned out that she had a staph meningitis infection from the chemo port in her head.  Wow!  They treated her for 3 weeks in the hospital and last Thursday moved her back to her rehab home.  She seems to really like it there and actually makes great progress when she's there.

I need to backtrack a little bit and first of all remind you that I should be welcoming my little girl within the next 2 - 3 weeks. Yay me! 

Doing this without my mom right by my side has been really hard.  One of the things that's made it a lot easier is my mom's (and my) friend, Anna.  Anna and mom have known each other since high school and I feel like I've known Anna for as long as I've been alive.  She saw me graduate from high school, made my wedding dress, threw me a wedding shower, and all kinds of other great things that really cool people do in your life! 

Anna was a nurse and a mom, and has really helped me through a lot this pregnancy (after all, I'm 10 years older than last time I did this)!  She sends me really long incoherent text messages almost every day checking on the baby and me.  Sits hours upon hours with mom, just so me and dad don't feel like we always need to be there.  And within 24 hours of my shower a few weeks ago, was making plans to come over and help me wash everything for the baby.  She was also going to come to the hospital with me when the baby was born since my mom couldn't come with me.

We didn't get around to fixing the nursery up together.  She called me and told me that she was at the hospital and that I wasn't supposed to worry about her.  But she had had a stress test and it came back showing some blockage.  Within a day, they had her bypass surgery scheduled. 

I was a wreck.  And i've been a wreck ever since.

About 2 hours ago, I got a call saying she was being released from the hospital.  Praise God!  But that she wasn't going to go home.  Ugh!  She was going to have to be in a rehab.  Ugh!!  For 20 days.  Ugh!!!  So, she's going to miss the birth of my baby.  UGH!!!!

But you know what?

It turns out that she's moving to the same rehab facility as my mother.

On the same floor.

Their rooms are right across the hall from each other!!!

Not only is it now so much easier for me to see mom AND Anna, but they get to see each other on a daily basis.  Anna just does so much for so many people.  You should see mom light up when she comes to see her.  I think their recovery is going to go so much easier now that they will be able to do it together.

They are already making plans on what they are going to have for dinner tonight!  LOL!  Although the facility is great, the food leaves a little to be desired :).

I didn't mean to ramble, but I'm just constantly amazed at how the Lord answers prayers!  It boggles my mind to even think about how long He's been working on this one!

Love and Blessings, my friends!

Kelli

I Identify with Dilbert :(

I see myself in this Dilbert strip!  And although it's not exactly positive, it's Dilbert that I identify with. 

What do you do when you know you're right, but people just don't understand?  Maybe in my case, my vision just doesn't fit with others.  I seriously need to polish up my influencing skills.  Although, I'm not even sure that would make much of a difference.

All I know, is that I have 22 days left until maternity leave.  I can make it!

Sorry to be a Debbie Downer.  But it's just how I feel these days!

Talk to y'all soon!

Love, Kelli

Merry Christmas!

I probably won't get a chance to post again before Christmas.  So I thought I'd leave you with some of my favorite Christmas pics :)!

Enjoy!

The entire family singing Christmas carols on Christmas Eve.  Every year!  That may or may not be me playing the piano.  That is my handsome nephew turning the pages for me the pianist.

My son showing my niece how to operate Grandpa's train station.  I have no idea why he's sitting like that!

My sweet niece heading up the stairs to go to bed before Santa gets there. How stinking cute is she?!?!?!?!

What do you know?  Santa left the fireplace open!  I wish you could see the dumb-founded look on his face when he turned around!  My camera shot was 2 seconds to quick!



One of my best wrapping jobs!  Do you think he knows he's getting boots for Christmas?

One of my niece's best wrapping jobs.  She did manage to use a little bit of wrapping paper with her tape!

This was one of my favorite gifts last year.  Only because I love monkeys.  not because of anything else!



You know you live in Kentucky, when....

Yes.  I did indeed take that picture.  While driving.  Do you need a closer look?

Merry Christmas from my family to yours!

Love, Kelli

Miss You

Grandma,

I can't even begin to describe how much I will miss you.  You taught me to always speak my mind.  You taught me to never to depend on a man to do something for me.  You taught me that a woman with an 8th grade education, with 5 young kids and a deceased husband, who didn't own a car or drivers license, could be an incredibly successful and happy woman.  Thank you for being such a positive role model for me. 

Now that you are walking with Jesus, I hope Heaven is just the way you were dreaming!



Marie Louise Shields

January 23, 1924 - November 15, 2010

Love,

Kelli

Girls Rock!!

I can't even begin to say how much I LOVE giving this kid of news!  I've had a rough year as you've seen from the updates about my mom.  If you are just joining, here's the background.

Here
Here
and Here!

Well, we just got some really awesome news!  My mom had her last round of PET scans last week and they came back clean!  Praise God!!

What does this mean?

Basically, she had Stage IV Breast Cancer.  This is the third time she's had this awful disease, dating way back to when I was in high school (in the rockin' 80's).  She also had another round about 6 years ago where she finally decided to have a double radical mastectomy. She had both breasts, the surrounding tissue, and all of her local lymph nodes removed as well.  This was to make sure nothing came back.

Well, it did.  The dr's must have missed something as small as a cell.  And since she didn't have any chemo with her surgery, the tiny cell multiplied and multiplied for 6 long years. 

She was diagnosed last October with Stage IV Breast Cancer.  It was Stage IV because it had metastasized from the original location (obviously given she had surgery to remove her breasts) and the tumor was quite large.  In early 2010, she had a set back.  The cancer had spread to her bones.  There were also spots in her liver and her lungs (that may or may not have been cancer). 

The prognosis wasn't great.  We even had some hard conversations about her last wishes.  That sucked.

Well, she switched doctors and treatments.  The combination really kicked cancer-butt!

It's taken exactly 1 year, 1 week, a beautiful head of dark brown hair, 2 eyebrows, and a very much missed set of eye lashes, but the cancer is gone!!!

You go, mom!

Also, it turns out that mom's new grandbaby that we are expecting in February is going to be a girl!  I hope that she has even a fraction of the fortitutude, patience, and faith that her grandma has!



Love you all!

Kelli

PS - Please pick one day a month to do your monthly check!  My birthday is on the 27th of December, so I will do my check every 27th (it's just an easy date for me to remember).  Trust me, it's in my calendar!  Promise me that you will do your personal check every  month.  It doesn't matter how old you are!  Start now.  It could save your life!

A bit like Darth Vader...

First off, I want to thank my son and hubs for making this post possible.  If it were not for them, I'd have nothing for this week's Life is Funny carnival over at Wendy's place.  And to think they had this little conversation on a Monday evening.  Thanks guys!

So, this story started back this weekend.  My husband and I were cleaning out the spare bedroom that will eventually become the new baby's nursery.  We had TONS of crap in there and needed to go through it, organize it, and hopefully get rid of most of it.  We also ended up deciding to give it a fresh coat of paint and to pull the carpet out.

While we were prepping for the painting part of it, my hubs rigged up a lamp on an overturned dresser drawer to give us a bit of light. 

This may not sound all that dangerous just yet, but apparently it is.

He went to move the light contraption so I could vaccuum underneath, and managed to burn the underside of his chin with the top of the light bulb. 

It hurt.

He cursed.

He held a cold compress on his chin for the next 2 hours.

He survived.

He now has a burn the size of a golf ball under his chin.  It's not awful looking, although it's bright red and beginning to scab over a bit.

Flash forward to this evening when he got home from work. 

I told him that I thought it was cute and asked him if anyone wanted to know what it was.  Hubs said that he got tired of telling people it was a burn from a lightbulb (since noone knows lightbulbs are that hot) and decided to tell people I gave him a hickey.  (I'm thinking he's just kidding, but I don't like the sound of it anyway).

I gave him my evil stink eye and then we both looked over and realized that our 9 year old was standing in the room.  I gave hubs the second stink eye of the last minute which meant "how are you going to explain this to him?".

He looked at our son and said "It looks like a Mickey.  Yeah that's what I said."

Our son looks at him and says.  "You know, it doesn't look like Mickey.  I think it kind of looks like Darth Vader."

You know?

If you tilt your head to the right, and pretend your looking at someone's chin, I think he might be right.

Love,
K

Mom, when you were little....?

I haven't participated in Wendy's Life is Funny carnival lately.  Come to think of it, I guess I haven't blogged much lately either.  Oh well.  This may date me, but it's still kind of funny.

My son simply LOVES to listen to stories about when I was a little girl.  Come to think of it, I really loved listen to my mom and dad's stories as well.

He also LOVES watching cartoons from my generation....Flintstones, Jetsons, Popeye, etc.  His favorite happens to be the Smurfs (which also happened to be one of mine as well).  So, I've let him tape a few episodes on our DVR so we can watch them together.

Oh, aren't they just adorable?  I remember wanting my own real life Smurfs.  I would keep them under my bed.

I'm not sure if my son thinks I'm older than dirt, or just born in the stone age.

After I all, I guess cartoons look much different today than they did back then.

So yesterday morning, we were driving to school.  He had his thoughtful look on his face.  I asked him what he was thinking about.  That was a mistake.

"Mom?  Were the Smurfs in color when you were a little girl?"

"Uh, Yeah, buddy.  They were still blue way back then."

"Definitely blue."

Worst part?  He was totally serious.

I'm not about to show him the Brady Bunch.

Love,
Kelli