Oh how I want a burger!!

So this is day 9 on my fast. I am not allowed meat, caffeine, or cokes. I am a stress eater, and when I think something is seriously getting to me I have a Diet Dr. pepper and a slim Jim. Oh, this week has been complete torture. Being that it is the most stressful week to date, it wasn't the best time to do this fast. I have held fast though, and I am almost to my 10 days marker.

I began this fast with many prayers that I wanted answered. I must tell you that three of them have been answered PRAISE THE LORD!!

1st. I wanted my granny to come home. I wanted her here in Mena so that I could call her, so that I could go by there and see her. Just to know she was here gave me comfort.

2nd. I wanted (as materialistic as it may seem), a camper. I was stressed about trying to find one, and was in constant irritation when I couldn't get Sam to look at any. Nothing was in our price range, so I prayed that the Lord would send one in our price range and he did.

3rd. I prayed that my grandfather would let us see my granny. He told us that we couldn't see her, and that we couldn't call her. I knew that she needed family at this time and he was keeping her from that. Thankfully, my grandfather changed his mind and allowed us to see her Sunday afternoon.

Three prayers answered and I feel wonderful about this!!

One, two, three strikes your out…..

Sometimes life throws you curve balls! Most of the time when I get thrown a curve ball, I pick up my bat and hit it out of the park. A home run that is over the fence and long gone!! Here lately though I have been striking out badly. First, we bought a new camper. Now that would usually be a great thing, but during this time is was the most stressful time in my life (well, there are some that top that). We had to get it licensed and pay the sales tax on it. Boy that ball hit the parked car three miles from the field on that one.

Then to top things off, my grandfather called. My granny was able to come home Wednesday. I was so excited, and told the girls that we would be seeing granny this weekend! They were so excited and were wanting to pick her some flowers. Then my grandfather called and said “No kids, No visitors, No phone calls.” WHAT?! I can’t call my granny, I can’t take the girls to see granny, I can’t come and see granny.

He said that the doctor told him that granny’s immune system was very frail, and that children were walking germs. I don’t disagree that children can pop a fever faster than anything, but I would never bring the girls around if I thought that they were sick. I was like that before she had cancer, and I would do the same now! He is not even allowing her to take phone calls. There are so many things that I could say to this, so many things that I could scream at the top of my lungs. What am I to do? Nothing!! There is nothing I can do, but wish that things were different. So yet another ball that I struck at and missed horribly!!

So tonight, on a night that I feel like I have just failed with all that i have tried to do today, I am finishing the day off watching Julia & Julie, and listening to Aleeyah chat about anything she finds amusing. I realize that it doesn’t really matter if I hit all the balls, just if I am a good sport about the ones that I don’t hit!!!

I told a white lie!!!

I told some time ago that I was going to lay down my camera and not pick it up again. Things were getting crazy and life was to hectic to be out doing pictures. Until....a girl that I had taken some pictures for earlier in the year called me. She said she had a friend who had been done a litttle wrong on some pictures and wanted to know if I could help her out. I won't say that I didn't hesitate, cause I did. This girl needed help though and I wanted to help her. So I set up a time with her.

Now I remembr why I love taking pictures. When people oooo and awww at my shots, I feel alive. Like I have finally did something right with my camera!! I hope you guys enjoy them!!
Carrie Jo graduates this year. Hard to believe that her favorite color is black and that is all she wears. She is such a pretty girl. I have never taken pictures that looked like this in the house. I hate inside shots, you cannot control the light inside as well as you can outside. Outside, I have God's beauty to work with. Inside I have what I can locate for a prop.
I am glad that Carrie Jo is happy with her pictures and felt like she got her money's worth!!

Very Interesting

I recently received a magazine in the mail called The Whistleblower. This magazine was quite interesting and caused me to pose some serious questions. I am going to share some bits and pieces of the article that I found in this magazine.

  Whistleblower Magazine, article by Jane M. Orient, M.D.

               “Doctor’s group opposed all vaccine mandates. Out children face the possibility of death or serious long-term adverse effects” Dr. Orient states at the first of the article. So Drs have came out against vaccines? Is that what this is saying?

Let’s read more about this.

               “While health professionals, politicians and the public debate the wisdom of mandating that little girls be vaccinated with unproven inoculations to prevent sexually  transmitted diseases, at least one major physicians organization has come out in opposition to all government-mandated vaccinations- even for the traditional childhood vaccines.  The Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, a 4,000-member professional association established in 1943, has called for a moratorium on the government forcing vaccines on the American people. the resolution, passed back in 2000 at the annual meeting in St. Louise, was approved without a single “no” vote. “Our children face the possibility of death or serious long-term adverse effects from the mandated vaccines that are not necessary or that have very limited benefits,” said Jane M. Orient, M.D. the group’s executive director.”

WOW!! So there are thousands of Drs in the United States that oppose vaccinations! This is amazing, yet scary. If doctors are standing out against the vaccines, should we not be listening. Shouldn’t we reconsider taking our children to the DR, and allowing them to “vaccinate” our children?  Let’s go back to the article.

              “Most states have mandatory vaccine policies, and many children are required to have 22 shots before first grade. On top of that, as a condition for school attendance, many school districts require vaccination for diseases such as hepatitis B-primarily an adult disease, usually spread by multiple sex partners, drug abuse or an occupation with exposure to blood. And yet, children under the age of 14 are three times more likely to suffer adverse effects- including death- following the hep B vaccine than to catch the disease itself. The doctors’ association cited that case of students in Utica, NY, who were sent home from school and told they could not return until they had been forced to receive Hep B. Their parents were threatened by CPS (child protective services) with possible seizure of their children based on  “education neglect.”

Okay, let me get this straight. The Hep B is forced on children and it is NOT even something that children can get? I don’t see newborns having sex anytime soon. I don’t see one year olds drawing blood for a living, and I don’t see my young child using any type of drug in the future.  Yet, to go to school, my child has to have this vaccine. I see an agenda here!! What ever happen to the freedom of choice? Are we robots? Would you consider yourself to be a free-thinker? Well, your not a free-thinker if the CDC (Centers for Disease Control), FDA, CPS (Child Protective services), or the WHO (World Health Organization), tell you that your child “IS REQUIRED” to take certain vaccinations that you don’t agree to. We are a free country, and should not be punished for our own decisions in health. This is not the case though. Children are taken because of the parents decision to “not-vaccinate”. They can’t attend school, college, and your doctor won’t “agree” with your decision. I would love to share more out of this amazing magazine.

                   “Vaccinations and the right to refuse:Dr. Sherry Tenpenny, D.O.”

             “The risk of vaccination must be considered as important –and potentially more serious-than the risk of a childhood disease. Years of experience and thousands of hours of research have led to conclusions that are not uniformly accepted” the importance of legally ensuring vaccine exemptions in each state and the right to refuse nationally mandated vaccinations. Humans are intrinsically healthy and tend to remain so if they are given nutritious, non –GMO foods, fresh air, and clean water. We have been blessed with God-given protective barriers against infectious disease, including our skin and immune system. Knowing that these facts are true for all members of the human species, how did we come to embrace the idea that injecting solutions of chemically treated, inactivated viruses, parts of bacteria, traces of animal tissue and heave metals, such as mercury and aluminum, was a reasonable strategy for keeping human beings-babies, children and adults-healthy? If a “dirty bomb” exposed a large segment of U.S. Citizens simultaneously to Hepatitis B, Hepatitis A, tetanus, pertusisis, diphtheria, Flu, three strains of Polio virus, 3 strains of influenza virus, measles, mumps, rubella, the chicken pox, and 7 strains of Streptococcus, we would declare a state of emergency. We would call it an “extreme act of BIOTERRISM.” The public outcry would be immense and our government would act accordingly. Yet, those are the very organisms that we inject through vaccines into our babies and small children, with immature, underdeveloped immune systems. Many are given all at the same time. But instead of bioterrism, we call it “PROTECTION”. Reflect a minute on that please!!!

Vaccine injuries are reported to be “rare”, but only because very few reactions are “accepted” by the CDC, The Institutes of medicine and the FDA as being caused by vaccinations. If a vaccine is given, and  a bad reaction occurs, “ANYTHING BUT’ the vaccine is “blamed” for the reaction.

If you give your child a chicken pox vaccine and then they get the chicken pox, they will tell you that they needed a booster, or that they have a “light” case of the chicken pox. If that vaccine would have worked, they would not have ANY case!! RIGHT??

I just thought that this magazine was really really good. Although most on here won’t agree with what it says, at least think about it next time you take the kids to “vaccinate” them!!!

Rainy days and Mondays

Always get me down. That is so true for the way that I feel today.

It is snowing, raining, sleeting, nasty nasty day. There are wrecks everywhere, and the roads are just plain slick. I had a play date set for today with two of my best friends. I had to cancel this morning and I was so looking forward to seeing them. We have the best time and we enjoy each others company so much. Another good thing is that Aleeyah and Averrie play so well with their girls EA and JW.

This has been a horrible wk for me and it is only Monday!! We built our house ourselves. After Bethanie passed away we did not want to move back to our trailer, so we decided to build a home. I finished the blue prints and Sam started working on it. When we decided to build the home, we had checked around and see what the cost would be. It was OUT of our price range, and I am allergic to payments. Seriously, I cry and can’t sleep if I have any payments that are not paid for.

So during the build, we laid our own rocks for our woodstove/chimney. The outside we were finishing slowly, since ladders couldn’t reach the 14-16 ft up that we needed. We recently noticed that the fireplace chimney on the outside had a crack. Well that crack turned MUCH worse last night.

This is only adding to the stress that I have with granny, Aleeyah’s grades due in less than a wk, and now this. Just what I didn’t need. So I have spent the morning calling masonry men, and asking for prices. Oh, prices are not good!!!

I hope that this gets done soon, and that this wk gets better. I can’t take much more.

So we found out the results..

We went to see granny’s oncologist today in Fort Smith. We were going to find out the results on the PET-1 scan. This scan was going to let us know if the cancer had spread to any other part of the body. As you know I was nervous about going today, and I know that granny was to. She said that she was unable to sleep all night and she was tired today and wanted to sleep all the way up there. We were right on time, and the doctors office was NOT on time. My goodness it was an hour before they called us back. When we got back there Dr. Amhanzaden told us the results of the Pet-1 scan. I could see the apprehension in his eyes and you could hear it in his voice. The cancer has not spread to her entire body, but it has spread to the lymph glands around the lung, and some in her esophagus.

He then explained that the “spot” radiation would not work. The tumor was TO BIG to use that treatment. So she will have to have the old type of procedure. We will take her every day for the next 2 months to Fort Smith for radiation. Then on the third or fourth day of the radiation she will have a 3 hour dose of chemotherapy.

He said that if she reacts to the Chemo in a good way that there was an 85%-95% chance that they can shrink the tumor. He wanted to make sure that we understand that he does not think that he can shrink all of the tumor. He said that the tumor is just way to big. She also has the cancer that is caused by smoking. She has smoked for 54 years and I wish she would have stopped years ago. My am praying that all my friends and family will stop smoking and soon.

The next couple of months could be hard on the whole family. My uncle will be taking my granny for her first treatment. Then between my parents, my aunt and myself will break the trips up. This two trips this week has killed me. I am behind on the house, I am behind on the schooling, and I am behind on sleep!!

Hopefully things will get better, but everyone keeps us in your prayers. We are going to be on the road alot the next couple of months.

She took care of me….

Now I will return the gesture.

The family knew that when Granny got her lung cancer diagnosis, that we were going to have to step up and help. Someone was going to have to help her make it to her appointments. That started this wk. Monday night mom calls me to let me know that she is taking granny and pa to FS to see the doc. Then calls me back about an hour later and tells me that something has come up with Telissa and she can’t make it. I totally understand that, so I offer to take them to FS.

I tell Sam when he gets up that I will be heading to FS Tuesday morning, and that he will have to take care of the girls. That was fine with him and I got things ready to go.
We left at 9:00am, and I was nervous. I was afraid that granny was going to hurt, that granny was going to get car sick and that my driving would scare her. I took my time and we made it to FS at around 10:00 am, just in time for her appointment.

My grandfather and I thought that this PET-1 scan would take around 15-20 mins to complete and then we would eat lunch and be back on the road home.
We register and the nurse tells us that this scan would take up to 2 hours. This PET-1 scan is the scan that will determine if the cancer has spread anywhere else in the body. If the cancer has spread to any part of the body there will be no treatment. If it is located in just the lung, we will be able to have chemo/radiation therapy.

They then let us know that we will need to come back to FS on Thursday for the reading of the PET-1 scan. No one else could take them, so once again I will be going to FS. Tomorrow morning at 6:30 am I will be taking them to the doctors office to find out what the scan says.

This is a little emotional for me. First, I am having to take off home school again to go out of town, and second it is suppose to rain. Then to top all things off, I will be there when they tell my granny whether she has it all over her body or not. I have so many mixed emotions right now. Scared about driving in the rain, scared about the verdict on the cancer. I am scared that I will have to restrain myself all the way home, and that my grandpa will break down. What do I say, what do I do, how do I respond?

To think that if they do tell my granny that there is nothing that they can do and that she is going to have to just go home with Hospice care, that I will be driving her home to die. I will be taking her back to her house, dropping her off to die!! That is a horrible thing to think about. I know that God has a plan, that it is his will, not mine. It is just that the human part of me, thinks about things like that.

I am just so emotional and scared of the unknown. What will be, what has to be, what must be. All the what if’s that will be on my mind. What if…she had quit smoking? What if….she was in better health? What if…she had decided to use chemo/radiation?

I guess in the end, the truth is that we are all on God’s timing. He tells us that our lives are like vapors, here today and gone tomorrow.