Gosh, it's been a long time since I last posted. Where have my days gone so quickly?

Well to start with, after 4-5 weeks I FINALLY got my biopsy results back. (They somehow got lost.) The mass was determined to be a thyroid benign cyst. So it's totally fine right now. Since it isn't interfering with breathing or swallowing or my thyroid function they'll just keep leaving it alone. I'm supossed to follow up on my thyroid numbers in a few months though and keep an eye on any symptoms in the meantime. So good news! Still taking the Prozac for now to help with the fatigue, which by the way that stuff makes you hot and sweaty, but it has helped so I'll keep taking it for now. Guess I'll stay warm this winter. Haha!

In May I celebrated my 29th birthday, which means only 1 more year of being officially "young". Although I don't think being in your 30's is "old" but being in your "20's" is just different. It feels younger. I plan to accomplish a whole lot this next year.

Josh and I celebrate our 9 year anniversary June 7th. It's hard to believe that next year will be 10 years. For the past 9 years we have jokingly talked about what we would do for our 10 year anniversary and now that it's only a year away I guess we should start saving for that cruise we wanted to take. Not to mention childcare for while we are gone. Haha! We had a wonderful time celebrating our anniversary though without any kids, thanks to the in-laws. :) We went to OKC and went to the Bombing Memorial. Wow...such a heavy place, but so amazing to stand there. We went through the museum which made everything even more meaningful. If you ever get the chance, go to the memorial and museum. Do the museum though before going outside on the grounds. It makes it a much more profound experience.

One year ago this past Thursday Pax had his heart cath and we got horrible news that he would need another open heart surgery. This past Thursday he went for his cardiology check up and we weren't given horrible news, but not great news either. Basically his pressures have still been increasing. Enough so that his doctor is concerned now. Next Friday all the doctors and surgeons will meet to talk about cases and they'll discuss Pax then too. His cardiologist wants him to have another heart cath to determine exactly where the narrowing is located and get a better idea of how bad it is. The general area is the same place he had repaired last August, but they can't tell the exact location. If the narrowing is located far enough above the aortic valve then they might be able to balloon it during the heart cath, otherwise he would need another open heart surgery. So please be believing with us that they will be able to just balloon it open. His cardiologist is supposed to call me next Friday afternoon after the meeting to let me know how the meeting went and how soon they decided to do a cath. I know that no matter what God has been with us throughout everything so far and we've already seen Him do miracles in Pax so I only expect the same.

I'll leave you with a few recent pictures.

I'm so excited about my life I could burst! My hormones must be flying extra high today allowing for this, but I'll take it! haha! I'm always excited and hopeful about life and what the future holds, but lately I'm extra excited. Here's the thing...I've been stuck at the same weight for about a year now. I have exercised on and off during that time and even started using "myfitnesspal" to track all my calories and exercise. For a few months I have been consistently exercising and eating around 1200-1300 calories a day and I wasn't losing anything! I was even getting headaches and have been extra tired. Thank the Lord for the internet! Last week I finally got frustrated and got online and did a little research and found that I was probably not eating enough calories and that my body was thinking it was starving. So I updated my fitness pal information and it upped my calories to 1530 a day!! All I had to do was update my information...duh! I wish I had done that sooner. So for the last week or so I've been eating those 1530 calories and occasionally I eat back a little of the burned calories and I have lost 3 pounds! In just a week! I am flabbergasted! Who would have thought I just needed to eat MORE?? I haven't lost that many pounds in a week since I gave birth to Pax! :) Finally I feel like I'm making progress and that I actually have hope of reaching my goal of being a size 6. It's a lofty goal and I haven't been in a size 6 since I got married almost 9 years ago, but I'm choosing to reach high this time. I believe I can do it and I'm going to do what I can to reach that goal. 

In other news, I had my biopsy last Wednesday and it went about a million times better than the biopsy I had 8 years ago. 8 years ago I just laid on a table while the doctor jabbed my neck with a needle over and over and over and over until finally I asked him to stop because I couldn't take it anymore. Beforehand I remember him going into this big explanation about how he couldn't numb me and why and he tried to prepare me for the pain I was about to endure. That experience was pretty traumatizing to both Josh and I. So I was pretty nervous going into this biopsy, but it was a complete 180 from last time. The doctor did it with the aid of an ultrasound so he could see exactly where he was poking and he numbed me. It still hurt, but instead of a screaming pain it was a dull pain and he only jabbed me 3 times and it was over. Have I made you cringe yet? haha Sorry, I tend to go into more detail than I probably should, but it's fun sometimes. :) I am still waiting on the results from the biopsy, but I have an appointment in 2 weeks to get them. I'm hoping they come back before then though. I hate waiting.

Thank you for praying for me! I very much appreciate it! :) Have a great Hump Day!

I was going to wait to post an update about my doctor's appointments until I was all finished with them, but it might be awhile. So in my previous post about it all I was going to be getting the results of my latest bloodwork. I got those results back and everything was completely normal. I'm not even the slightest bit anemic, which surprised me because I have always been anemic and especially since we rarely eat red meat anymore. I guess I get plenty of nutrients from everything else I eat. So basically they are stumped as to what has been causing my major fatigue along with other symptoms. The doctor told me that it's possible that I just have chronic fatigue and that they don't know anything about it really, but found that when those patients were put on Prozac they got better. So for now, that's the plan...take Prozac and vitamins. By the way, in case you have never taken Prozac, one of the major side effects is drowsiness. Hmmm...I'm supposed to be getting help for fatigue so they give me drugs to knock me out. Supposedly the side effects get better over time...we'll see. I will say that I don't get stressed out with the kids as quickly as I used to. So that's nice, but it's probably because I'm so drowsy I simply can't respond. Haha! Oh well.

As for the growth in my neck, I had an ultrasound done and now I'm being scheduled for a biopsy hopefully in the near future. If I haven't heard from them this week I'm supposed to call them. Hopefully I hear something Monday or Tuesday though.

I'm not too worried about all this though. I had it biopsied 8 years ago and it was fine so I don't expect this time to come back any different. Besides that, I serve a big God who's got my back. :)

Sent from my iPhone

Easter Pictures

Easter weekend came and went fast! Josh's show went very well although I didn't make it. I wanted to be there so bad, but I just wasn't feeling up to going. I'm feeling a little better today thankfully. I might even exercise...for...10 minutes...that's my goal! haha! We are going to Branson this weekend for a ministry trip/family trip/Dakotah & Kaiden's bdays. Tim is an avid bike rider and he's been promising to take me next time we went down. So it looks like I'm going to be putting my body through a crazy bike ride this weekend, so I better do some exercising this week to prepare for it.

Okay back to Easter weekend. I didn't get to take a whole lot of pictures, but I did manage to get some of the kids doing to annual Easter Egg Hunt after church Sunday.

And here are a couple pictures of Kaiden after thoroughly enjoying a chocolate bunny. Unfortunately the pictures just don't fully capture the mess. 

Prayers Appreciated :)

I'd appreciate some prayers for myself if you could spare a few moments. Over the last few months I've been having various symptoms that led me to think that maybe I was having thyroid issues. Mom had major thyroid problems and so I figured I did too. A couple weeks ago I went to a free clinic to get checked out. They did some blood work and I went back this past Tuesday to get the results. My thyroid levels were excellent. The normal range is .40 to 4.50 and mine was 1.07...so perfect! They ordered more bloodwork as they think that maybe I'm anemic and have other deficiencies as well. (I go back to get the results from this blood work later today.) I also have had a growth in my neck...I think it's considered on my thyroid, but not sure. It first was found in 2003 and in 2004 it was biopsied and came back fine, but in the last 8 years it has grown tremendously. I also had this checked out at that first appointment a couple weeks ago. They ordered an ultrasound for it to start out with, which should have taken many weeks to get scheduled, since it's a free clinic, but thankfully it got scheduled for tomorrow. So if you could spare a few minutes to keep me in your prayers that through all this everything comes back fine and that whatever is going on with me will be easily corrected.

I'll keep you all posted. Thanks so much!! :)

Love

I thought I would share with you all what I've been meditating on in the Bible lately. I don't know if anyone else has noticed this, but the body of Christ can be so judgmental sometimes....okay a lot of times. Christians are supposed to be the love of God on the earth. The Bible says that we are born of God and that God is love so aren't we supposed to be love too? Recently I have felt judged by others,whom I love dearly, about many different things. It has made me take a hard look at myself and whether I'm the same way. Do I judge others unfairly? Am I casting the first stone? Well a few weeks ago Pat Harrison taught about love and it changed my life. 1 Corinthians 13 is known as the "love chapter" and most of us could probably recite some or all of it, but have we really taken the time to meditate on it and realize what it really means? Probably not. I could go into all the things that Mrs. Harrison taught about it, but I just wanted to share the one thing that hit me the most. If  you take verses 4-11 and replace the word "love" with the word "Jesus" and then replace it with your name I guarantee you that it will hit you differently. I love to confess these scriptures and believe them about myself. It can make such a different in how you view yourself and your life.

Here's the NKJV version:

"Cari" suffers long and is king; "Cari" does not envy; "Cari" does not parade herself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek her own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. "Cari" never fails."

Here's the Message version (I love this one.):

"Cari" never gives up. "Cari" cares more for others than for self. "Cari" doesn't want what she doesn't have. "Cari" doesn't strut, doesn't have a swelled head, doesn't force herself on others, isn't always "me first", doesn't fly off the handle, doesn't keep score of the sins of others, doesn't revel when others grovel, takes pleasure in the flowering of truth, puts up with anything, trust God always, always looks for the best, never looks back, but keeps going to the end. "Cari" never dies."

This has been such an encouragement to me as I hope it will be to you too! :)

Cardiology Visit And Easter Weekend!

I have great news! This past Thursday I took Pax for his 3 month cardiology visit and it went so well! The pressures that his doctor has been watching so closely hasn't changed, which is great! Everything looks about the same so no intervention is needed like she thought. He also FINALLY gained some weight too. He had been holding steady at 20 pounds since the end of last year. He kept getting sick and then we've been having trouble getting him to eat, but he gained 3 pounds since February! I was ecstatically happy about this! He doesn't go back until the end of June for another check up. 

I was going through pictures on my phone and there are a bunch on there from his first few months and it's just so crazy to look back and see how far he's come. I was watching him eat the other day and he was making googly eyes at me and I just had a "moment" where it hit me how amazing he is and how amazing God is. Pax is such a gift from God to me. (Of course all my children are.) Whew! I better change the subject before I get too mushy and gooey. ha! 

I'm excited about this weekend even though it's going to be busy. I love having things to do though. Tonight we are attending a surprise birthday party for my sister-in-law, who has been such a gift from God to me in the last few months. Tomorrow I get to take Dakotah to his last "run" for the year. He's part of the running club at his school and they take part in different "run's" that happen in the city. Unfortunately I'm not looking forward to the very very early hour that I have to get up to take him. I'm thinking coffee is going to be a MUST in the morning! Then tomorrow night Josh's band, Manifest Destiny, is having their EP release party. I'm so so so proud of him and all that he has accomplished. For sooo many years I've heard him tell me over and over about his dream to minister through his music and he's finally been able to do it this last year. His band recorded their first EP a few months ago and after a LOT of work they are finally releasing it. One of their singles might even be played on radio stations soon! (Still working out the details on this.) And then, of course, Sunday is Easter, which will be a super fun day for the kids. Lots eggs filled with sugary, fattening candy that I will secretly be throwing away, but don't tell them that. ha!

Here are a few pictures we took of the kids recently. Enjoy! And Happy Easter! :)