First Haircut!

So I finally broke down after 3.5 years and trimmed Emilys hair. Well honestly I have wanted to do it for awhile, but her daddy said no.. She has such fine hair that the long ends had broke and were getting into tangles. So tonight we took about two inches off! And yes mommy played hairdresser! :)

Before the cut...



All Done... So pretty!



Everything Went Good...

So I had my INFeD infusion today and I would say it went good. We got there around 9am and got checked in. They placed my line in and started giving me IV Benadryl & Dex. I also got some nausea meds too by mouth.After the Benadryl was in I felt crazy, like Suzie had one to many beers crazy. I guess I'm not like others because I HATE that "drunken" feeling. After we got all the meds in they brought a syringe of test iron. She slowly injected the iron over about 5 minutes. I swear it was like 1cc of test iron. Then I sat there and felt like a zoo animal with everyone watching me. After about 30 minutes with no major reactions they started the full infusion. The nurse came over to turn the pump on for the full shebang and Joe sweetly looks over and smiles and states "your doing good, no throwing up or headache". I laugh and said yea "also no cardiac arrest or death". The nurse just chuckled. Hey I look for the BIG positives!!!

Iron is going in...

So I snuggled in my comfy reclining chair and started my crossword puzzle. Do you know how frickin hard it is to complete a puzzle when your drunk on Benadryl. Well lets just say, it hard! Poor Joe didn't leave me for the next 3.5 hours. I tried to get him to go walk around the hospital, as he was stuck in a little old hard chair playing on the Kindle. But he never moved, except to get me a blanket, GOSH don't you just LOVE heated hospital blankets!!

Playing Drunken Word Cross.. :}

(I look like I have 2 black eyes...eeee)

So we are home now. I'm feeling super weak and came home and slept for about 3 hours. Now I just feel tired and my arms and legs feel heavy. Not sore or hurting, but like I have 5lb weights attached to all my limbs.. We go back in 6 weeks and that's when we find out if my body is doing what its suppose to and absorbing the iron and turning it into red blood cells. If not I'm not 100% sure what test will come next. As of now I'm going to snuggle on the couch and watch a movie with the guys. Night all!~

PS - I wanted to add I feel so incredibly blessed. Im so lucky that my situation is manageable. That I should recover from this and its not going to take my life. As we sat in the treatment room today I met 4 incredible people. They were in the chairs around me receiving their chemo treatments. All were so smiley, except one. A lady and her sweet husband whom sat directly in the chair beside me.They came in about an hour into my infusion. She had just received her breast  cancer diagnosis and was there for her first chemo treatment. The nurses were telling what she was getting and what to expect. She looked so scared and her husband never let go of her hand. Life is short and hard, but you gotta fight. I thank god every second of every day for my amazing family and friends. You don't know how much you mean to me. Family and friends is what gets your through hard times like these. Blessed doesn't even begin to descirbe my life!

Getting ready for school!

This week has been, well, a lazy one. After several months of no rain, it decided to rain every day this week! I am not complaining, my garden looks like it has life again and it sure was nice snuggling up with the kids and watching movies this week! It stinks though that the grass also began to grow again. Joe is out back finishing mowing as we speak! I bet when hes done he will do some more hitting with his make shift batting net stopper. I guess I need to break down and buy a batting cage net thing. Both him and Justin tend to share our baseballs with the neighbors!

This weekend we really don't have big plans. I plan to hit up a few more stores to grab some school supplies. Im trying to only hit the sales and save on the loot since we have 3 going this year. Yes Emily will only be in preschool, but she is still going to "school". Here she is trying on backpacks at Kohls...

And I found some cute preschool games for my kindle. So everyday we have alittle math and abc practice!

Well thats about it. I will post again Monday evening if I am feeling up to it about the infusion. I will leave you with Nicks face. Photographer Justin took it in the backseat. Guess thats what I get for leaving my camera back there.. Love their candid pics!

INFeD

So I wanted to give a quick update on me. I went to meet my Hematologist at the Oncology center today (loved him)!! I had bloodwork before my appointment so he could take the previous 3 bloodworks from March & June to compare to today. Well today my levels had dropped more. Basically long story short he is going to try IV Iron Infusions asap. Some have asked some good questions so I thought I would write a few down to help explain.

Type of Iron Infusions I will be getting?
 - INFeD (Iron Dextran) is he kind I will get (hints the title :) )

How many will you get
 - Right now we are playing by ear. I will have my first on Monday and then bloodwork in 6 weeks. If my levels drop again he said we would do more.

What is the process?
 - Joe and I will go to the hospital in the morning, I will get hooked up with an IV catheter and receive IV benadryl & a steroid. I will then be given a test dose of Iron. If I do not have any allergic reactions they will start the full infusion 30 minutes after the test dose. I will receive the infusion over a roughly 3 hour period. After that home we go to rest!

What are the side effects?
 - There is a possibility of a severe reaction, but its rare. Thats why they give the test dose. Afterwards for 24-48 hours I should expect flu like symptoms. After that I'm fingers crossed I start to feel better. (more energy, not short of breath or dizzy, etc)..

Are you scared?
 - Yes and No.. I'm sooo ready to feel better and like myself again at this point I will do pretty much anything to feel better. With that said I am scared of the prospect of the whole process itself and how my body is going react..

So there you have it. I will post after Monday on how it goes! Thank you again for all the prayers, text, and calls. You will never know how much it means!!

America gets another year older...

Happy 236 Birthday America!!!

Around here we celebrated the 4th just alittle different this year. You see we have had temperatures in the 102 to 106 range everyday for about 2 weeks! Along with very little rain in over a month we are very dry around these parts. That caused all local cities to enforce a no fireworks ban. While the boys were sad they didn't get to shoot off any fireworks they still had a good fourth! We went to moms and had a cookout with her and some good friends of ours. We also spent the day in the pool swimming and during the hottest part of the day they all rocked out to the Wii and rock band games!!

They even hit the pool up for a late night swim and got to watch a few fireworks. Apparently some of moms neighbors are not afraid of a little ol $2500 fine or 11/29 in jail... :/

Good news came though just the very next day in the form of a good soaking summer shower! But it wasn't a simple shower. Our neighborhood got pelted for over 20 minutes by the craziest hail storm I have personally ever seen. It started off as simple pea size but soon grew to thuds of quarter and nickle size hail.. It destroyed our canopy tent in the back and also dinged up our camper and Joes car!! But the garden and yard was sure thankful for a good drink of water!!!

Corn Shucking

So how much corn...

Can a cute 3 year old shuck... (with mommies help)

If a 3 year old could shuck corn...

Yep about this much!!!!

What a Week!!!

Well this was one, ummm, interesting week. I guess that is how I could put it.. All seemed calm the first part of the week! We spent Monday cleaning and washing clothes from our camping trip. Then Tuesday I wasn't feeling very well so we spent the day being lazy and relaxing around the house. Tuesday was the first "OH MY GOODNESS its hotter than a firecracker day" of the week.. Temps after Monday stayed in the 100+ range!!! Even the pool was just too hot to play in during the day!!

Then we got to Wednesday, you know when things got "interesting".. We were scheduled to go sign on our home refinance (btw if you need a totally AWESOME loan guy I know one so hit me up, he ROCKS). So we were to meet up in Franklin to sign at 4pm. The kids and I were eating lunch about noon and I get a call.. It was Joe and when I answered he sounded like he always does, until he says "Hey Babe what are you doing? Thats good, hey don't panic, but".. Yea the "but" like just because you warned me not to panic, that I instantly dont go to the "Oh no what" place.. He informs me he was doing some repairs around the shop at work and sliced his finger pretty bad so he was on his way to the ER for stitches!! AWESOME, not! Now I will let you know, and this is horrible of me, but after 10 years of marriage and 13 years together when he tells me what he did 10 years ago I would have been "OMGosh baby are you ok", but yea this time I just laugh and went "oh lordy".. And he did too.. :D So the kids and I finished lunch and got ready early and headed to the hospital to watch daddy get stitched up! (WARNING some of these pics will make a weak stomach turn)..

So after Daddy got stitched up he still didn't get out of going to the refinance signing and writing his siggy about 40 times.. Such a trooper with his big white fluffed wrapped pinky with matching hospital bracelets....

So Thursday the temps again were in the 105+ range. Too hot to play outside so the kids and I decided to hit up the movies to watch Madagascar 3 (Afro, Circus, Afro, Circus, Polka Dot, Polka Dot, Polka Dot, Afro).. This was Emilys first movie theater experience ever and she loved it, expecially the tub of popcorn!

CHEESE

Thursday night was Justins last baseball game of the season. Well litterally 5 minutes into the game Emily gets stung on the face/lip by a yellow jacket.. Poor baby, her face swelled upso fast, but she was such a brave girl. The sweet ladies in the concession stand gave her a free popcylce with her ice pack for the swelling! Thank goodness she is apparently not allergic to bees. Everytime the kids get their first stings it makes me so scared they just might take after my dad in the "I need an epi shot for this sting" department...

Her lip was so puffy & inside lip so swollen

So then we get to Friday. Im not sure if I over did it Thursday or what, but I woke up feeling pretty crappy Friday. I spent most of the day in bed watching movies with Emily or laying in her floor as she played. After lunch I noticed it was just getting way to hott in the house. My dad came over at 1:30 to get the kids to go swimming, at this point the thermostat in the house was reading 87 degrees. So I called Joe and he left work and came home.. After some inpection he determined the compasitor was blown on the outside unit. After calling 4 stores around here he finally was able to find one in Nashville, but they closed at 5pm and it was now 4:15pm. So we fly to Nashville and get the part. By the time we get home the temp in the house is 97 degrees. Thank gosh my husband is the best handyman around b/c he fixed the problem with a part that cost under $20. It was going to cost us $70 to just have a HVAC guy come out and tell us what was wrong, plus around $200 for THEM to replace that same part. So we turned the AC down to 70, left to go grab dinner, and thankfully returned 3 hours later to a much cooler house!

This little part caused all the fuss..

I know it could have been worst, and we could be forking over several thousand dollars for a new unit, but this was the icing on the cake and when I called Joe to come home I was in tears. It just seemed like this week it was one thing after another!! But today is July first. We now start the second half on 2012 and I have high hopes it will be alot easier than the first half and I PRAY its not filled with so much sickness and issues as the first half has been. So thats how last week went. Today is the start of a new week, fingers and toes crossed its alot less "interesting"... ;)