Ahh updates!

So I thought I would start this off on a depressing note 

{I'm that fun of a person!}

I have ovarian cancer, its super-rare and my doctors are unsure how to treat me.

The good news now!!

I am only at stage 1! My surgery was a success. The Dr removed my right ovary/tumor which was the size of a football. I have a nice 12" incision down my belly and has given me nothing but issues, but I am glad that is my only issue after surgery. My 3 day stay in the hospital turned into a 7 day stay because I kept getting infections any place they tried to put an IV in me {and they tried lots of places}. 

My pathology stuff came back too, my lymph nodes, odentum (?), and some other stuff came back negative for cancer. 

So all were waiting on now is to talk to the chemo therapy Dr. and then she and my oncologist will discuss if I need chemo or not. It sounds like they are leaning towards yes, as a precaution. I don't want to have it but if it keeps me with my family longer then, why not? 

It has been a hard few months, and I am anxious to get this over with. The waiting is the hardest right now, I don't sleep anymore and Gary has found me zoning out a lot. I want to call it day-dreaming, but its not its more like day-nightmares, cause I can just imagine the worst (I think I get that from my Nana). 

Thanks to my mom, Garbear, and my good friend Zennetta for being awesome and helping me with everything!! I love you all and couldn't have made it through the last few months without you and your generous help. 

Moms Day!

Happy Mothers Day!

Mom, Nana, & Me

Mom & Me at Temple Square

My mom and my Nana are two of the most important people in my life. They have taught me so much, and have always shown me so much love. I wouldn't be "me" without them. I only hope I can become so much more like them as I learn more from them. 

Las quiero mucho! 

Whats been going on here...

After posting last night I realized I haven't posted since January! It's not that there hasn't been anything to say, but time and energy run low most days for me.

In January I had that awesome stomach flu...that was fun.

In February I had an ear infection, Sinus infection, Strep throat, Bronchitis, and I got diagnosed with Asthma...still kinda fun.

In March I went to my gyn for my annual and a 13cm cyst was found on my right ovary, they gave me birth control to see if the hormones would shrink it. After over a month and three other appointments it only got larger and more solid. I saw a different doctor who wanted to operate as soon as he got my blood work back and MRI back. Well, he did get all the stuff back, but now the "mass" is mostly solid and no longer a cyst. It has its own blood supply. It is 15 cm X 13 cm X 11.2 cm....not so much fun.

On Monday I have an appointment with an gynecological oncologist, my blood tests came back negative for cancer, but they say there is always a chance because it is changing so rapidly....this really sucks.

Soooo, this is where I'm at. 

My sweet Garbear has been doing what he can to make me feel better, but he is worried and it's taking his toll. He looks very stressed, so me sick + work stress isn't a good combination for him, but Im so thankful for him. 

Coupons!

Gary and I have decided to start incorporating coupons when we shop, its a little time consuming but we have already seen some awesome savings.  Nothing that's worthy of a coupon TV show, but good for us. Last weekend we went to Smiths, with my list and coupons in hand we shopped (three separate transactions!!). My total bill was $106 and we ended up paying $32.

Then today I went to walgreens and got two bottles of Purex Crystals fabric Softener (reg $5.99 each) and eight bags of Butterfinger Snackers (reg $0.89 each). My total savings was over $16. I paid $6.04!!!

Happy 2011!



We hope that it is the best year that you ever have!

And that the next one is even better!!

Were looking forward to a lot this year and pray it will all work out.

A few things to celebrate in 2011:

We'll be married half a decade in August! 

I am finally going to decorate the house...I will!

I am going to graduate...it's 'bout time!

Gary is already doing great things with his woodworking and he has lots of projects planned!

And hopefully we'll get to go to Florida this summer!

and Im sure there will be many more things to come!!

Happy 2011!

Christmas time was here.....

Let me start by explaining why I was dreading Christmas so much:

My family in New Mexico always has a big dinner/get-together on Christmas Eve at my grandparents house.

Gary's family doesn't.

Christmas day everyone goes to my grandparents again to finish off the left overs and just hang out for a while.

Gary's family doesn't.

I always go day-after-Christmas shopping with my mom.

She was in New Mexico.

To top it all off, I kept imagining how different my house would be if we had two little feet running around trying to take ornaments off the tree and making general toddler trouble.

But he is with his family now.

OK, so now the good part!

I was determined to make Christmas Eve a little like Grandmas, so I put Tamales on the stove to cook. We also had cookies and sparkling grape juice!

My mom, knowing how upset I was, called to assure me that I wasn't missing much, and that most of the family had gone down to Grandmas for Thanksgiving (which I got to see!) so they were spending Christmas Eve with their other families.

Instead of seeing everyone in one house, Gary and I traveled to his families houses and visited a while with everybody.

1st we went to his sisters house. We visited with her and the kids, we also dropped off their gifts (I heard they were a hit on Christmas morning! (Yay Aunt Sam!!))

We went and visited Grandpa & Uncle Lee. Gary's cousins Ashlee (and Chase) & AJ were there, as well as his Aunt & Uncle. It was really nice seeing people we don't see very often.

Then we visited his mom & dad, who we see all the time, but it was still nice.

We came home and enjoyed our quasi-New Mexico Christmas Eve!

On Christmas Morning we exchanged gifts (Santa was good to us this year!!), got ready and went to Gary's dads house.

There was yummy food (and a delicious punch I need the recipe for), Gary's Sisters & Brother and all their kiddos. While we ate everyone laughed and had fun, then came the presents! Gary and I got some cool stuff along with stockings for the dogs (they are so spoiled by their Grandpa Grant).

While everyone was opening presents I got a little sad and teared up a bit at the fact that we were a family of two sitting in our little area, while every other little family there had at least four. Seeing all the kids unwrap their presents and show their parents, I kept wondering "what if?".

But I also realized that I am very blessed in my own right, I have a wonderful husband who sat with me through those tears and tried to cheer me up, he also made sure I was busy the rest of the day to keep my mind off stuff. My niece Abbi made my day when she only wanted Aunt Sam to fix her hair and shared her Dolly with me. Later in the day at Grandpas house, Gary's Aunt Gail made me laugh, I met his cousins Cody's wife, Janelle, and she is so nice! We had a great time visiting with them.

That night we came home to our cute little house, even though it was quiet, I did have two 4 legged kiddos waiting to give us lots of love.

So this has been a really long post about Christmas and how much I was dreading it, and how great it turned out to be...sorry so long! But it just goes to show you that sometimes you just have to give things/people/days a chance and you might be surprised!

Merry Christmas everyone! I hope it was fantastic!!

P.s. My birthday was great too!!

Thankful

  I'm about a month behind on posting about what I am thankful for. This has been a very trying time for our little family. I didn't tell many people about this; but we decided to try out the foster-to-adopt program, thinking that since we can't have children that we would try and add to our family this way, at least until we make some big decisions about infertility treatments and adoption.
  We got a little boy the end of October, and we absolutely fell in love with him. My wonderful husband jumped right in and was the best dad I have ever seen. He fell in love instantly. The baby was 18 months and such a joy.
  A week after he came into our home we found out that he was going to be taken back to him family (because of privacy stuff, I cant say anything about the family, but lets just say it was a really bad situation). This broke our hearts. I have never felt a pain like this, my arms felt empty, my house was too quiet, the dining room floor was too clean, and I didn't think I would miss hearing "the princess and the frog" in the background...all day long.
  A month later DCFS called again, the baby was back in foster care, of course we said we would take him. It was a repeat of the same situation as before. Again, we had our barely mending hearts broken. So were done with foster care. I feel awful saying that, but there is no way we can do it. We want children so badly, that to have one come in and then get taken back, going through that over and over again...there is no way we could survive.

  The Christmas season has been especially hard because I just keep thinking of what could have been. But there is a light at the end of the tunnel...I hope.

  Even though this has all been very, very hard I do have a lot to be thankful for:

• My hubby. Even though, he was hurting as much or more than I was; he was my rock. He was strong when I couldn't be and made sure I was ok.
• My mom-in-law Wanda. She came over and despite her severe dog allergies, was here when they took him away.
• My Mom, Nana, and Aunt Mirola; their kind, loving words and prayers made everything seem a little bit better every time I talked to them.
• The little kiddo, in his short time with us he taught us so much. We never knew we could love that much and fall in love so fast. He taught us how to be a family and to lean on each other for support.
• The priesthood. Words cannot describe how thankful I am that we have the priesthood in our home and in our life. The countless blessing of comfort and peace we received made it so much easier to deal with this. My dad in law and his co-workers, who valiantly gave up their time, gave us beautiful, thoughtful, and powerful blessings that got us through the next 12 hours until we reached New Mexico.
• My wonderful & beautiful family in New Mexico, they surrounded us with so much love and support the second we got there.
• My cousins Roberta and Criste are such sweet women, I am so blessed to have them in my life. They surrounded me with so much love, I don't how they knew I needed them to stay by my side the whole time, but they did. I can't express how much their kindness and love means to me

  I keep using the word love over and over, but I don't have another word for what I felt that all these amazing people were doing for me, they were loving me, and even though that's all they could have done. It was more than enough.  I have so much more to be thankful for, but this experience has taught me that I really need to value the people in my life so much more. Even though I feel alone a lot, I know that if I just reach for them, they will be there to help me through anything.

Roberta, Criste, & me.