A day in the life... - Homeschool Blogger

Can't believe it's been so long

Wed, 18 Apr 2007 17:37:00 -0500

Well, a lot has gone on since Oct.

I went in for reconstructive surgery at Ben Taub in Dec. The surgery lasted 15 hours. My mom was here to help while I recovered. But soon after she left, I went into a severe depression. I guess I was holding it all together and then my body just said "enough". Because we had no insurance to pay for the surgeries and chemo treatment, we are in a major bind financially. Not only because of that, but my husband was laid off in 2003 and worked at 75% less than what he was making before for about 1 1/2 years. Then I went to work for 7 months while he stayed home and collected unemployment. All this time, we didn't humble ourselves and go to the church for help. We just kept using credit cards thinking that something would come along soon. God is doing a work here! Last year I went to Dave Ramsey's money makeover conference and then promptly came home and cut up all my credit cards. "The borrower is slave to the lender". Boy, I never took that verse to heart until now. Duh!

The first thing I'm doing is going through all my books and such to sell off everything I don't need. I have accumulated too many books.

Our church homeschool is coming together this weekend to help us clean out our garage and to see what we can get rid of and see what we can sell. I'm selling a few things on eBay (look for me MEL4JC if you need anything) and through some of the yahoo groups (BobJonesCurriculum, Bookroom-FS, ChristianCurriculum, RecycleSonlight - my ID is Melani4jc). Please take a look!

Another church member is buying me new bedding to perk up my bedroom and then I guess they're going to paint. Our kitchen has been falling apart and I heard they may have some new appliances, but they are not telling me much.

A homeschool dad came by today to take a look at our roof and a wall that is leaking water to see if they can do anything in that area.

God is working in us and is blessing us through so many others as well. Please pray!

Thank you!

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Thu, 12 Oct 2006 08:26:00 -0500

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Here I am!

Fri, 6 Oct 2006 09:08:00 -0500

I can't believe I have not posted for so long.

Yesterday I finished my 8th and final chemo treatment! Praise God!

I will now be down for about 5-6 days due to the pain. No nausea though!

Thanks for all your prayers!

On the homeschool front; I chose to go with Sonlight again. There's more work for me but the kids seem to be faring well with it. Once I'm up and about and have more energy, I will be more involved.

Sometime in December, though I will be having another surgery, but we usually take off the entire month of December anyway.

I wish that I could take the time to visit some of y'alls blogger pages. In the near future I will.

Hope you all have a blessed day!

This week!

Thu, 20 Jul 2006 07:42:00 -0500

Since my oldest is away for 2 weeks, this week I sent my other three off to a music camp. This is the first time since I started having children that I have none in the house. It is definitely different and I had major plans for figuring out what we're going to do for homeschool this year and when we're going to start.

I've done a little planning, but I have been praying and waiting on the Lord to give me a clear word about what we need to do.

Because of having to pay for my surgery and cancer treatments, we don't have a lot of money to spend (and with gas prices and electricity charges the way they are right now, there's even less money). However, I know that God provides and when he lets me know what we're doing, he'll provide the means to get the items I need.

We have been using Robinson curriculum this last year and a half and I still want to have them read most of the books, but I feel like I need to add something more, especially for my 11th grader. I have been looking at Sonlight (again!). I absolutely LOVE Sonlight but I also love the books that are in the Robinson curriculum. I guess you just can't read TOO much! I only have ONE child who really does not like to read, but he willingly reads the Robinson books, and I want to get back to reading aloud to the kids because I know that this is an important thing. So.....

That's what's going on in our homeschool journey at the moment.

Great opportunity!

Thu, 20 Jul 2006 07:33:00 -0500

My oldest son (16) is on a trip right now that, I think is a great opportunity for his future. He is on a student leadership / mission trip. He left a week and a half ago for Orlando, FL on a bus with a group of other teens from our church. They attended classes on leadership and having a Christian worldview, got a behind the scenes tour of Sea World, and spent some free time at Universal Studios and a waterpark there.

Then after four days of that, they left for Pass Christian, MS and worked for 5 days in that area devastated by hurricane Katrina.

He is now in Washington, DC (the furthest and longest he's ever been away from home). There, his group will be in more classes about leadership, civics, government, Christian worldview, etc. They will attend a private wreath-laying ceremony at Arlington, they will get to see the monuents at twilight, attend a Congressional hearing, have dinner at the ESPN press club (or something like that).

I think this is just such a great opportunity for teens in this day and age.

Long overdue update

Thu, 20 Jul 2006 07:23:00 -0500

Hey all.

I just haven't got the hang of getting on this blogger thing every day or even every other day. Too many other things that take up my time I guess. But, I will try to write a little something. Not only about my cancer journey, but our homeschool journey as well.

This blog will be about my cancer journey though.

I have recovered from my mastectomy and have now gone through two rounds of chemo. At 14 days after the first chemo, my hair started coming out. So on day 16, I had my husband shave my head. 24 hours after each chemo treatment, I have to give myself a shot of Neulasta (a drug that helps build white blood cells). This shot has worse side effects then the chemo. Between 6 and 8 hours after giving myself the shot, the side effects start kicking in. These are joint, muscle, and bone pain. It's like having the worse case of the flu you've ever had. It hurts everywhere! I just tell all my family members that they can't even breath on me it hurts so bad. :-) The good news is that the effects only last about 48 hours. So the 3rd and 4th day are the worst. Haven't really dealt with a lot of nausea, but from the 3rd to the 6th day, whatever I eat gives me indigestion so I take Tums often.

One of the side effects of the chemo is that it could damage your ovaries, liver, kidney, heart, etc. Pain in my ovary areas is one of the side effects I'm having. I need to talk to my oncology nurse about this.

Anyway, that's the latest. I have chemo every 2 weeks. 2 down, 6 to go! I have met several other women in my church who are having surgery / chemo at the same time I am. It's great to be able to bounce things off each other and pray for others going through the same thing.

One other thing, a woman in my church was going through her stuff and found a bunch of her mother's chemo hats and scarves. I was given these along with 2 free wigs. God is good in providing for our needs.

Thanks for listening!

Cancer update

Mon, 29 May 2006 06:36:00 -0500

Thanks to all for your support and prayers.

I've finally had surgery. I had a mastectomy on May 23 and was sent home the afternoon of the 24th. This is the first surgery I've ever had and from all the doctors said, I did very well. Thank the Lord my mom is here to help plus I have many friends that will drive me to appts. and are providing meals.

It is now roughly 5 1/2 days since surgery and everyone around me feels that I am doing well and am in good spirits. I couldn't imagine going through this without Jesus and the love of friends and family.

I was late getting into surgery, was scheduled for somewhere around 10 but the case before me went long. I finally got in at a little after 1pm and was out after about 4 hours. Being a county hospital, I never met the residents who were doing the surgery BEFORE the surgery but I knew that I was in God's hands. Many were praying for THE BEST. It seemed that I had a great team. It took a while for us to get in touch with the doctor that did the surgery and when she finally called and talked to dh, dh said she sounded exhausted. Anyway, long story short. They found cancer in the sentinal lymph node during surgery and had to go in and get more. They took the level 1 and level 2 nodes but left the deepest ones. They said they took somewhere around 10 nodes but never know for sure how many they got. This means some sort of chemo for sure and another surgery down the line to reconstruct.

Again! Thanks for all your prayers and comments. Even though I don't get here to update as often, I get to read the comments and feel very encouraged.

Zoo Crew

Mon, 22 May 2006 08:07:00 -0500

Now about my 16 yods. Saturday, before he got sick, we attended an orientation at the Houston Zoo. He will be volunteering about 144 hours this summer working with the birds. Even though this is his first year being accepted as a volunteer, they gave him second year privileges. I don't know why they did that. I'm hoping it was because of his application, interview, and reference letter but at the same time, I think they needed someone to work in the bird area.

I am so proud of him and I pray that he will be able to use this experience to get a scholarship to a university where he can get a degree in an animal field.

I'm planning on putting him in dual credit for his 11th grade year but am struggling about putting together a transcript. I just started teaching him how to drive and I think that's going to have to be put on hold for a few days while I recover from surgery. Either that or dad is going to take over that task.

If anyone has suggestions or comments on what they've done with dual credit or work experience/transcripts, please let me know.

Okay! Now for a more lengthy update

Mon, 22 May 2006 07:55:00 -0500

I appreciate all who have signed on and watch to see how things are going. Sometimes a person just needs to write things out. I mean, I see friends face to face and they ask how are things going but these days there is little time to just sit and just chit-chat.

I'm not one to go up to a friend and just start talking about what's going on at the moment, so it's nice to be able and just come and sit and type out my thoughts (and hope I don't put anyone off, if you know what I mean).

So, tomorrow is surgery. I have to be at the hospital at 6am. My dear husband is coming with me and taking off the next day as well so he can drive me home.

My mother came in last night and I'm sure she'll be a big help with the house. Many friends have asked that should I need anything to please call. My problem, I don't know what I'll need until the time comes. I am VERY greatful for all the offers and definitely the prayers. I know people are praying because I have such a peace about this. Even if things were "worst-case", I still believe that God will work things together for his good.

Well, as I wrote before, my 16 year old boy got the flu on Saturday. Now the 13 year old boy got sick last night too. His system is a bit stronger than the 16 year olds so he only got sick one good time and then was okay the rest of the night. I believe God is sparing my husband and I from getting this sickness so that it doesn't delay surgery. I just pray now that my mother doesn't get it. She's 71, but she's pretty healthy.

About the dog with heartworm. The vet treated him with the shots they get and he's actually doing fine. He's got another week of having to stay calm and not going on walks or running after squirrels, etc. Everything is really working out fine, it's just some days it all comes pouring down on you and you feel like you're being crushed under the weight of it all.

Thanks for listening!

Update

Sat, 20 May 2006 21:45:00 -0500

I feel like this is all I can talk about but I know there's more to life than a little setback like cancer.

Yes, I've been busy. Seems like when it rains it pours.

I took the dogs in to get them their rabies shots so I could take them to the groomers before flea season hit. One of them has heartworm. I know, I know. Some of you would say, it's just a dog.

Then, I was so looking forward to being able to swim in our pool (once I was able after surgery), but a part on our pump broke and the pool is (still) green.

Now I've got a teen with the flu and my mastectomy is scheduled for Tuesday, the 23rd of this month. If I get sick, they postpone surgery.

You know, it's the little things that seem to discourage me the most. I'm not really complaing (I don't think).

Oops! Must go! A sick 16 year old is calling again!

Thanks for your prayers!