It’s been a bittersweet few days.  If you read my previous post, you know that life as my family knows it has changed, quite dramatically.  My sister is facing a battle with cancer, and we are all in “gear-up” mode right now.  Allan and I are heading to CA tomorrow to be with the rest of the family, so we can all gear up together.

I spoke to my sister on Monday morning.  She was getting ready to head out the door with her bestest friend from childhood.  They were heading to Trader Joes to do some “healthy, nutritional, tofu” kind of grocery shopping, since the doctors have recommended she make some changes to her diet.  We laughed as we talked about how she was being thrust a little unwillingly back into a diet like that of our childhood, because everything she eats from now on is going to be HEALTHY.  (Our mom was a health-food nut back before it was COOL to be a health-food nut).  No more sugar.  No fatty foods.  Lots of fruits and veggies.  Yeah, she’s in for a bit of a change, and that’s putting it mildly.  (If you don’t know my sister, you wouldn’t know that she is the QUEEN of chocolate covered strawberries, yummy deserts, and delish casseroles… and she loves her candy!)  But thanks to friends like Stacie, she is facing the new dietary changes with strength, a little laughter, and lots of support.

Sarah and I talked for a minute about the new hairstyles we’ll be getting on Friday.  It was recommended that she get her hair cut so it’s less traumatic later if and when chemo starts to take effect.  Just as she had someone to go shopping with, she won’t be going alone to that hair appointment either.  Other friends have offered to go along, and get their hair trimmed too, and I jumped at the chance to go along.  More support.  Sarah signed up for a website where you can upload your picture and see your face with hundreds of hairstyles.  She asked me to upload my picture too, so we could decide on my new hairstyle.  More laughter.

I’ve been getting email from the most unexpected places.  Phone calls from friends who have heard and wanted me to let Sarah know they are praying.  More support.  More encouragement.  More love.

It’s hard NOT to be thankful today.  God is GOOD, and by his grace, Sarah will be victorious.

May God Bless You And Yours…

And if you have something you are thankful for today, please think about leaving a comment here or at Laura’s blog… or write a blog post and link up so we can read and comment right back.

There are moments in life when everything comes to a stop in a second, and from that second on, nothing is ever the same.  On Wednesday, our family had one of those moments.  All day long I spent frantically running around getting ready to leave for my trip to Nebraska.  Our last stop of the day was Bible Class, and my plan was to come home, put the kids to bed and go straight to bed myself, since our 4 a.m. wake-up time to leave for the airport was going to come too quickly.

But, as we walked in the door from Bible Class, the phone was ringing.  My mother-in-law, who had stayed home to watch Martha, said, “Your brother has been trying to call you”.  It was late enough in Nebraska that I paused for a second, wondering what THAT was about.  Something told me it wasn’t good.  And then I answered the phone.

I was right.  On the other end of the line, my brother handed the phone to my dad, who proceeded to tell me that my sister was in the hopsital and that I needed to call her because she wanted to talk to me.  What?  Huh?  That moment - it was THE moment for our family, where life stopped for a second and began with a new reality.

The reality we are now living with?  My sister Sarah, at age 34, has stage 4 breast cancer, with spots on her lungs, liver, and lymph nodes.  We are still waiting on official diagnoses, and results from bone scans, and prognoses and all kinds of not so fun things.  The tenative plan (she will see an oncologist next week for the confirmed plan) is to move forward with aggressive chemo as soon as possible.

I didn’t get to bed on Wednesday night as early as I expected, and my trip to Nebraska has gone quite differently than I expected.  We’ve had fun yes, and it’s been WONDERFUL to visit with my brother and his wife and to hold my nieces and my new nephew.  I’ve been SO blessed to be staying with Laura and her family and to watch Samuel’s pure joy while he plays with Elias and the other boys.  But mixed in with all the good has been absolute devastation and fear as we learned just a little more with each phone call to and from my sister.

My parents, who were here visiting too, have cut their trip short and are heading home to CA.  My brother and his wife are taking the baby and flying to CA tomorrow.  Samuel and I will fly home to Vegas tomorrow, and then Allan and I will figure out how and when to get to CA ourselves.  Our family needs to be together.  We need to gather our strength together and give as much of it to Sarah as we can.  We need to hug each other, be teary-eyed together, and laugh together.  (Because, yes, there has been laughter amidst the fear and pain of this news).

So, if you are reading this, if you know me or don’t know me, can you please say a prayer (or a thousand?) for my sister Sarah, for her husband Ron, for her two children Austin age 8 and Hailey age 7.  Can you say another one (or two) for my parents who are traveling today (saturday), and my brother and sister in law who will be traveling tomorrow (sunday).  And just another one or two for all of us as we find our new way with this new reality into which we’ve been thrust so quickly.

May God Bless You and Yours…

Yesterday, my son called after school (he was with my ex-husband), and was telling me about his day.  He had a “purple day” with no warnings (which is a good thing), and his special was blah, blah, blah, and on and on he went.  Oh, and Dale had just taken him for a haircut, so he had to tell me about that too.  And tell me that he would need a bath, because they put goop in his hair.

Anyway, because it was a Monday and he had hot lunch, I asked, as I usually do, “What’d you have for lunch today?”

Him: “Scorpion tails!”

Me: “Whaaaat?”

Him: “Scorpion tales.  They chopped off the scorpion part and gave us the tails for lunch, mom.”

(He is telling me this with complete serious-ness, btw)

Me: “Whaaat?”

Silence…. a couple of beats go by…. I sit wondering what in the world…shaking my head a little.

Him: “No, mom… I’m just kidding… I had chicken….  bahahahahahahaha”

Me: Spontaneous Laugh Out Loud Laughter

He got me.  Flat out got me.  It’s not nearly as funny in type as it was in person, but my son?  He is growing up.  And this was so much better than his knock knock jokes and silly crazy statements that are for some reason supposed to be funny.  This… this was a real, tease my mom and make her laugh because I’m actually saying something funny, funny.

I guess this is what 10-days-away-from-being-in-1st-grade looks like?

that I’d be leaving my children home the next time I went to Walmart?  Yeah, well, that didn’t happen!  Turns out the photo I had printed was TOO BIG for the frame. 

Sigh!

So, I had to eat my words AND take an extra kiddo along, because of course I didn’t discover the problem until after Samuel was home from school.  I almost cried when I realized that I’d have to load and unload everyone to take them to Walmart, come home, fix dinner, and THEN load them all up again to go get Daddy for Bible Class. 

Thankfully I still have half a brain, so I decided to upload the image to Walmart.com (praying I had re-sized it correctly!), and we waited until it was almost time to go get Daddy before we left to go pick it up -  so only ONE load and unload and reload!

The picture was ready when the website said it would be.  It fit exactly as it should have in the frame.  Crisis diverted!

And my kids?  They did awesome!  I only had to give one warning to “STAY WITH MOMMY, PLEASE!” It ALMOST made me think I could do that again sometime soon.

Almost. 

The first post of the new year, in a new blog. More to come…