This touched my heart-- trisomy 13 video

I saw this video today when I was on another site http://idscforlife.wordpress.com/. I'll be really honest, I only made it about 5 seconds with dry eyes.

You see, for me it was very personal--- we also lost a son to Trisomy 13. I've mentioned him before. He is David, my oldest son's twin brother. He only lived about 40 minutes the night they were born.

This video was like "deja-vu". It was almost like watching my own story in some ways. I remember how bittersweet it was to anticipate their birth, yet also dread it because I knew David would die. Honestly, we didn't know if Isaac would even make it (me neither a few times, but that's another story). As I sat there and watched this video, I could completely relate to so many things they said and did. We watched David take big gasps of air in our arms as he was dying, we bathed and dressed him afterwards, and we listened to them sing Jesus Loves Me at the funeral.

The part with the casket really hit home-- we've experienced that too. Hannah died 2 days before she was born. We spent those days making funeral arrangements. I vividly remember going to the store to buy a doll with a cute dress that would fit her as well as picking out an arrangement for her casket. That was rather awkward for the poor lady who had to take our order.

I really thought this video was well done.

The births and deaths of my children were some of the most difficult things we've ever faced, yet some of our biggest blessings, too. I wouldn't change it for anything. God has given us so many opportunities to minister through our experiences.

I will forever be an advocate for pro-life--- no matter what. It makes me so sad to know that so many children are unwanted and aborted just because of birth defects.

We are praying about our adoption process right now. We will probably have to change from our original plan, but we are still trying to get another child with special needs. We have a little girl we're praying about right now. (There's a younger girl in her country I'd love to bring home also. Maybe God will provide the way for us to go get one of them.)

John is doing VERY WELL after his 2nd surgery!!!!!!!!!!!

John had his 2nd surgery last week. I am so far behind on blogging. It’s just been a little crazy here. I hope to back up soon and write a little about all of the things we did over the past month. It should be pretty easy--- they mainly dealt with doctor’s offices. lol (swine flu, enlarged lymph nodes, surgery, mom’s cancer, immunizations…….it seemed like almost every day!)

So, back to my story. ha!

John had his “takedown” surgery last Tuesday. That’s where they went in to the stoma site and reconnected the small intestine and took away his illeostomy forever. woohoo! His digestive system is routing through his small intestine again and working well. So far, so good!

I can not believe how well he is doing! My man is a trooper! : ) He had VERY LITTLE pain afterwards and barely took any pain meds. The only day he had much pain was the day he came home and that was because of walking, dressing, riding in a car, etc. Once he got settled, he was fine.

He’s also crazy (ha)--- he went to church Saturday night to do the paint talk presentation at the Fall Festival / Trunk or Treat. Yes, he really did. Did I mention that he was hard headed???? He really did feel fine though. (and he went to church on Sunday morning and to the office a few hours on Monday)

He’s on strict orders by me to stay in bed or the recliner resting today. I told him that if he didn’t, I would lock him in the dog’s kennel. lol

He looks so good and it’s great to see “my husband coming back”. I missed him! He’s feeling better and acting like himself more and more each day. I can’t wait until he’s 100% again.

It will still take a few months to have everything really good and completely normal inside again, but we are finally seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. Hmmmmmmm………maybe we don’t want to “see the light”. Ok, so we’re seeing the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Does that sound better???

I love you, John! I’m so glad God has healed you! Woohoo!!!

Update on Mom’s cancer diagnosis

Well, we thought Mom would finally get to start chemo today, but it turns out that they have found some more concerns and need to run more exams. 

Yesterday, I went with her to her appointment to get the results from her lung biopsy, MRI, bone scan, kidney ultrasound and everything else they did last week.  It wasn’t good.

She now has cancer in her breast, lymph nodes under her left arm and in her chest, lungs, liver, colon, right hip bone and L5 vertebra.

The crazy thing is that the lung biopsy is showing that the cancer in her lung is actually LUNG cancer and not the inflammatory breast cancer that she has also been confirmed to have!  So, the doctor sent it in for a few more opinions to make sure.  It can happen, but it’s pretty rare to have 2 types of cancer at the same time.  That will change treatment, of course, so we need to know for sure what we’re dealing with.

So, she may have the inflammatory breast cancer AND lung cancer.  Wow!!!  And just think…….in August we never dreamed cancer was in her future! 

I am soooooooooo glad that God brought us back to the States to be here for her and my family during this time.  What a blessing that has been to us.  It amazes me that He orchestrated all of this.  We felt that John’s illness wasn’t about us, but that it was something so much bigger.  Now we have another piece of the puzzle and see a little more clearly how God is orchestrating our lives. 

You  know, even in the most difficult circumstances, He is still a Holy God and we can put all of our faith in Him.  He can use these circumstances to do amazing things in our life and in the lives of those around us.  Trust me on that one.  We know from firsthand experience over and over how God uses the most difficult circumstances and makes something so beautiful from them and brings Glory to Himself.  Sometimes you may look at your situation and think, “what???  that isn’t the ending I want”….or you think you can’t make it through something.  But you just never know how He is using that.

It really is all about faith and obedience.  I have learned over and over that I don’t have to understand (or sometimes even like) a difficult situation I may go through, but God can use that for His glory and it is such a blessing when I completely trust Him and allow Him to use me.  It still may be hard to go through it (even incredibly difficult!!) but in the end, I always have such peace knowing that I’m not going through it alone and that God will never leave me. 

We’ll just leave it in God’s hands and continue to pray for Mom.

*****UPDATE***** 12/16/09
Mom does NOT have cancer in her colon!!! It was a really bad shadow. The GI doctor said that happens all the time on these exams. So, her joke is that her feet and colon are fine but everything else basically has cancer. lol (you gotta have a sense of humor, right???)