Birthday Girl

My beautiful Mads is 3

Happy Birthday, sweet girl!

Graduation Day

Today was a bittersweet day...

Luke had his preschool graduation today. Look at that cap and gown. Too cute, right!?!


Yes, his cap was covering his eyes for most of the ceremony. Crazy kid!

The ceremony was so good. Miss Handley read a letter to each student and then had three words to describe them. The three words for Luke were:

Cleaver, Imaginative, and Charming

Luke's graduating class

I'm so grateful for all of the Buckhead Church Weekday teachers who have walked with Luke over the last six years. Starting with Miss Kristin and Miss Katie who loved on him when he was a baby and helped me get him on a sleep schedule. Miss Ashley who was so patient when he was potty training and taught him all about colors, shapes, counting and the alphabet. Thank you Miss Tatum, Miss Handley, and Miss Leah for teaching him important things like reading and math concepts but more importantly about Jesus and how to be a good friend and leader.

Thank you for investing in my son and for loving our family. You have been a tremendous blessing to us and we are so extremely thankful for you!

Thank you!

I wanted to say thank you. Thank you for your words of encouragement, prayers, meals, fun care packages, flowers, and cards. I felt so loved on and I'm very grateful for all of you. I wouldn't want to do this thyroid journey again but it has once again shown me how ridiculously blessed I am. I have an awesome community of peeps around me and I love you guys.

Thank you, thank you, thank you for caring for me and the fam! Thank you for being a bright spot. You're the best!

Help on the Journey

In the book "Boundaries: When to Say Yes, When to Say No-To Take Control of Your Life" the authors talk about this idea of carrying your own backpack versus carrying boulders. Here is my paraphrase... Everyday life is filled with ups and downs. We all have annoyances and bumps in the road that we are to deal with - this is our own backpack to carry.

Then there are times in life when you have to deal something major. Something you can't deal with on your own and you need the help of others - those events are the boulders of life.

My issue is I like to stuff the boulders of life in my backpack and try to walk on my own. I look at those around me and say, "I got it!! I don't need any help. I'm doing alright." Then as I try to step forward the weight of the boulder starts to crush me.

Oh, I'm pretty good at keeping up the facade that things are going well. I will work hard on that image. However, those closest to me (like Dan, Luke, and Maddie) feel the effects of my crushing. They are on the receiving end of my lack of patience, the curtness, tiredness, and the anger. Those I love and care for the most get the worst. This is so unfair to my family and my behavior makes me so sad.

At the beginning of this thyroid journey, my wonderful friend and co-worker, Jill, encouraged me to let others help. Let people pray for me and let them help me carry this burden to lighten my load. Life has handed Jill some huge boulders in her young life and I've had the privilege to watch her deal with those in an amazing way. So, I pretty much view her as an expert and decide to take her advise. If not for my own sake, for my family's.

It hasn't been easy for me to let people help. Sometimes I've felt like Maddie (who is two), "I'll do it myself!" Sometimes I thought allowing myself the margin to hurt and heal was too extravagant...too much of a luxury. Like I'm buying myself a mansion or something. Oh, to live in my head...

I'm so thankful God let me see how unhealthy my coping skills can be. I'm so grateful for Jill's advise, encouragement, and example. I have learned so much through this process. I'm so thankful for the amazing help that I've had on this journey. This boulder did not crush me because many hands made light work!

So extremely grateful!
Misti

Surgery Update

Well, I'm on the backside of surgery and recovering nicely. The surgery on Friday was--well--surgery. What can I say? It's never pleasant having an organ removed from your body. However, I found the experience much more doable once we had the pain under control. Phew!

On Tuesday, I got the pathology report and the thyroid did have a cancerous tumor. So, the good news was we didn't remove a healthy organ for not. The bad news was we were now dealing with the "C" word. Ugh!

I meet with my endocrinologist this morning and she informed me that she didn't see a need for the standard treatment which is radioactive iodine. Since she caught the tumor when it was so small, and considering my age, my health, and family history the risks of radioactive iodine outweighed the benefits. Yahoo!! To say I'm excited would be a slight understatement!

The taming of the medication beast begins tomorrow. It turns out the functions your thyroid performs for you are kind of important. Bet you never even thought to say thanks, have you? :) With that said, modern medicine is pretty fabulous and they have some pretty good meds to pick up the slack of the missing thyroid. Of course being the results orientated gal that I am, I'm glad to have the surgery phase behind me and looking forward to tackling the medication phase. Booyah!

Hope for the Journey

As I was reading "Mere Churchianity" by Michael Spencer (The Internet Monk) this evening, I read a paragraph that nicely described my hope. Here is the paragraph on page 147:

In every moment when I am winning, Jesus is with me. And in every moment when I am losing, Jesus is with me. At any moment when I am confused, wounded, and despairing, Jesus is with me. . . . Because I belong to One whose resurrection guarantees that I will arrive safely home in a new body and be part of a new creation, I miraculously, amazingly, find myself continuing to believe, continuing to move forward, until Jesus picks me up and takes me home.

Friends - this life/world is crazy. There are joys and there are heartaches. There are successes and failures. There are times when life is comfortable and times when it's horribly uncomfortable. There are times when nature is simply breathtaking and times when it's destructive.

My hope is not in my circumstances. My hope is in Christ and eternity spent with God. The God who loved me and rescued me. That's it.

And what a wonderful hope it is!
Misti

Upside Down

Just in case my last post made you wonder if I've lost my sense of humor:

Mads likes to put her sunglasses on upside down. She's a crazy girl!!