Review on the night before!

Last night I did not get sick and throw up!!!  Yay!!  I only got a small stomach ache and a head ache.  I didn't sleep much, but I am so happy that I did not get sick!  Praise Jesus!  Today was the best I have felt in a long time!  I am so glad!  I got to play with Gavin today and I did not feel bad until more into this evening!!  Let's pray that it stays like this!!  Love you all!!  Have a great night and really really thanks for the prayers!!! :) 

Tonight is the night!!!

So, I have still been in bad pain from my headaches, but tonight I start the Cabergoline right before I go to bed... Am I nervous...  Yes...  Is it going to be ok?  Yes, I mean come on I have my mom sleeping with me tonight!  You people thought I was big enough to do it on my own... get real! :)  I will be eating something small taking my pill brushing my teeth, putting my hair in a braid with a head band around my head (just to be prepared), putting a garbage can next to my bed (one that I hope to never use), and go to bed hoping to fall asleep in less than 10 minutes!!  That is the plan... tomorrow or maybe the day after, depending on how the meds work with me... I will be letting you all know if it was a successful night or if I played the song that goes "What goes up must come down" backwards!  Thanks again for all of your prayers and I love you all!!  Have a great night!! 

My life as of now!! Updates folks...

There is a small to large possibility that this is all over the place.  I am going to try and make as much sense as possible... but again... when my head hurts I do have a hard time making all of my words coincide and jive, if you will... So, first I want to tell you two stories that have happened recently one funny and one tender!!

First, my mom was talking with someone we know and they said, "Kim, have you ever considered the reason Amy's head hurts is because of the elevation here at home?" (The elevation at my house is about 497 feet above sea level)  My mom looked right back and with a dead face said, "She has a tumor"... It was so funny to see the interaction that happened there... I don't know if you didn't think it was funny... I sure did!! :) 

Secondly, my uncle was talking to my mom asking how she has been and she was telling him that she has been dealing with a lot and sometimes it just gets hard.  She was explaining that I had to go to the doctor to find out if I needed brain surgery or just had to take medication... and my uncle, who is usually Mr. Tough Guy said well, if it gets hard on Amy then I will come over and just hold her if she needs me...  That is the single cutest thing ever!  It doesn't get much more tender than that.

So, I went to the doctor today and they said that at this point I do not need to have surgery.  I just have to take a form of chemotherapy through a medication called cabergoline.  I will be taking this bi-weekly and going to the doctor every 6 weeks to check to make sure it is doing well and then in a year (if everything is going according to plan) I will have another echocardiogram to make sure my heart is doing well with the medication.  There is an 80% chance that I will just get morning sickness on this medication, but there is also a 20% chance that it will make me very ill.  I may be sick a couple times and then get better with time or I will be intolerant and have to stop the medication and go back into the doctor and speak with a neurosurgeon.  At this point I am claiming that it will work well and quickly, the doctor said it may take 6 weeks to start working, and it will clear it all up and fix it and then we can move on with life being normal again.

So, now you get story time with Amy... I know you are all jumping for joy inside!!  I have been feeling a lot of emotions over this last bit of time and I am just coming to a sense of peace about it all.  I never was scared I was going to die or anything, but I was scared about always being sick or the medication making me throw up (as you all know is one of my worst fears in life).  I was thinking especially tonight that I am so stinking blessed.  I have people literally all over the world praying for me daily, I have the most supportive family (including extended), a grip of amazing friends, and some of the most experienced doctors in the area working with me.  My aunt Janice was over here tonight and she was giving me a head massage and speaking words of life over my head and praying for me while she was doing this...  I said something negative and she got right on me and said, promise me that you will never say that ever again (I would tell you what it was, but I promised) and she said you can live and die by your words.  That is so true... Sometimes it is so hard to stay positive because at a point you feel like this is never going to pass, but I am not helping myself one bit... if anything I am keeping myself hindered and in pain.  Then my aunt Krissie was praying for me and my aunts and uncle and sister and mom were all laying hands on me and I just realized how loved I truly am.  What do I have to fear when I have this many people praying over me and this is about the 5th or 6th times I have had others pray over me while laying hands on me.  How amazing is the body of Christ that we can come together and God will meet us in our time of need, when we feel inadequate and that we have nothing more to offer, but he comes and he listens and He heals.  I finally get it, (for now, I am sure I will forget and remember again, but hey I am in a process folks) I have nothing to fear because God is in control, He knows what is going on, He is involved in every detail!  I am not scared of even getting sick from the medication, if it happens it is alright, I will get through it, if it gets even more hard, it is alright because God will carry me through.  He won't fail me and He won't leave me.  Also, I am so stinking loved from family, friends, and people who I have never met, but have been told that they are praying for me!  Yes, I have a tumor, but who am I to get such a blessing by all of this love and acceptance and I know that it is okay to feel the emotion of it, but it is just as important to come to the other side and see God's work through all of it!  

Now that I have rambled on, I want to thank each and every one of you because you may not know it, but you each are making such a difference in my life by your prayers or your little messages of encouragement or your texts just letting me know you are there and care and are praying.  Thank you, thank you, thank you.  May God bless you and keep you, may His face shine upon you and give you peace.  I love you all dearly!!  Until we "speak" again... Good night!

To go along with my last post...

Sitting after my IV was placed... Yay!!

Seeing this tray rolled into the room 

was mildly to greatly horrifying!!

The Group at Lunch!!  So fun!! 

After a cool lunch at "Bonefish Grill"

An in depth report...

For those of you who would like the facts and the concise version of catching everyone up on my life go ahead and scroll down to the last paragraph.  For the rest of you go ahead and enjoy my life for the last couple of weeks.

So, we arrived in Nashville, Tennessee after the second flight... Luckily, the second flight was nothing like the first!!  Praise Jesus and then some!! :)  By the time we got to baggage claim we only had a couple minutes until our bags were rolling out and coming our way.  We quickly grabbed out bags off of the thing that goes around and around... Very descriptive I know.  We ran to the curb called Kathy and were quickly whisked off in her little convertible, yes, I was in the back with the bags!! :) Haha!! 

While we were there we met Tyler's friends and our new friends and that was great!!  They were all so much fun and you really see people come to life when you play "Mafia".  My mom turns out to be an amazing mafia member and will kill of the last human before they figure out it is the sweet innocent lady in the corner... But, when it came to me, I was always wishing that I was a towns' person because I can neither lie or keep a straight face... One time I looked up my mom looked at me and said you are mafia... I didn't even have to open my mouth or anything like that... just look up!!  Then every time I was Mafia, Mark would be able to tell if I was lying in two seconds... Kathy and Tyler were at each other's throats and Vang and Joel were constantly suspicious!!  It was so much fun!!!  Everyone else played their own roles, but I will not bore you with any more details!!  

We got to hang out with Abi and Justin as well as Kathy (of course) and Tyler for the whole time.  It was great to get away from the house and the area and the doctors.  Now Kathy is going to come and visit!!!   It is going to be so much fun!!  

I went to the doctor yesterday and they warmed my arms with heating pads and the IV nurse got my IV in on her first try... and get this little little pain!!  It was the most amazing thing I have experienced in a long time!!  I had to fast for 12 hours before hand and when they started it was about 13ish hours and when they finished it was about 15ish hours!!  I was hungry!!  So they took 2 vials of blood at first and then had me drink something that tasted like orange triaminic (the good stuff, from when I was a kid and I would get a "cough" or something equally as obvious and false just to get a little bit of the stuff)  and then they took 2 vials of blood at a time for the next 2 hours... all together they took 10 vials of blood.  It went well and my mom was so kind as to stop at a place called "A Piece of Cake" and she got me two gluten free/dairy free mini loafs, one carrot cake and one marrionberry.  They were delicious!!  

Today, I have just been hanging out around the house... head still hurting... I have been more lightheaded than I have in a while, but it is all good... I am hoping we get the results to my test before the 25th, but as of now that is the date we have... I will let you all know if anything changes!!  I adore you all and thank you so much for your prayers!!  Talk to you soon!! Muahh!! 

Today...

Tomorrow I go and see Zeleinski... So nothing too exciting because he will just adjust me and send me home... but on Tuesday I go to OHSU to get tested to see if my tumor is secreting growth hormone... So I will have more details then!!

I had a great weekend with my cousins Katie and Kayli!!  We watched old movies and just hung out... had treats and dessert wine!! Oh, and I am obsessed with making applesauce!! :) I love you all... my head is killing me so I have to get going!! :) Love you all!! Muahhh!!! Thanks for the prayers!! 

Today... haha... I lost count...

Today we went to church with Tyler and it was pretty good... very long!! :) The pastor had a few good things to say about the impact of words and what a difference they make and that part was great.  After church I was kidnapped and taken to lunch at Bonefish Grill...  When we got there we met my mom, Kathy, Duane, and two brothers, Josh and Joel.  It was a great lunch and afterward we decided to have a game night.  We went to Verizon and Costco and came home and then a whole group of people came over to play mafia.  It was so much fun... I was a mafia member once and made it all the way to the end, but Tyler asked me straight up if I were the mafia and I could not lie... I said no but made an obvious face, yes.  :)  We all enjoyed playing and when we were done everyone went their separate ways... We made some new friends today and it was so much fun!!

My head hurt the worst at church and a bit tonight, but besides that it was not terrible!!  Praise the Lord... Let's have an even better day tomorrow!!  I love you all and thanks for everything!!! 

Day after Halloween...

First off, I think everyone should see our beautiful lady friends we acquired Halloween night.  Tyler and Justin surprised us at the restaurant in these beautiful (cough cough) outfits... I don't think any of us will truly be the same after this.  

Today mom and I met up with Matt at his house.  It was so nice seeing him.  We caught up on life and the ins and outs of his world and him with us.  It is always great when we can get together again!! :)  Oh, but the funniest part of the story is when mom and I were on our way to meet him.  We drove Kathy's car with her GPS and we thought we were on the right track until we took our last right turn and it said we were at our destination....  We looked around and drove down a few blocks as we went we got into the ghetto  little bit more... we turned around and pulled into a parking lot to ask this older man where the "Frothy Monkey" was (it is a coffee shop) and my mom said excuse me, excuse me, and waited all the while Mr. was putting something deep into a secret compartment in his car and would not turn around until whatever it was, was deep and hidden... when he finally turned around he would not make eye contact with us while he answered our question... it was odd!!!  So, we started that direction and just as we were going there we passed a truck with three guys in the back with huge speakers playing "Jesus music" and had signs all over their car saying coming to their church...  It was a total honk if you love Jesus thing!!  haha... 

Tonight Mom and I went out with Linda Yoder and we went to a place her son works and we had a great time!!  The place was great and the food was amazing!!!  Mom was trying to show me a picture of Lexi and she dropped her phone in my drink and it got all over my foot and leg and jacket... needless to say she will not be making phone calls any time soon!! :) :(  We drove through down town Nashville and had some interesting sights... some girls who forgot the rest of their outfits and a group of Mennonites singing hymns in the middle of everything... It was great!!!  Today was a fun day... minimal headaches!! Yay!!  I love you all tons!!! Muahhh!!!