First comes love, then comes marriage...then comes baby :)

It's hard to say, but I think I was more emotional when I heard the news 'you can have a baby' than when I heard remission :)

When the nurse did the ultrasound, it showed that I have all the parts needed to carry a baby! The only downfall was that I have a very thin uterus wall, which may lead to bed rest early, and I have PCOS. I knew that I had this 3 years ago, but I was kinda hoping the chemo might have wiped those cysts out too. Oh well, I have cysts in my spinal cord and breast, so why not have them on the ovary's too?? :)
We aren't sure what has been the culprit of all my recent symptoms, maybe stress of starting school or the changes I made when I was running everyday. My blood test testing my insulin, thyroid, hormones and all that showed that everything is stable. So she said that we can start trying once it's been a year since my last treatment, and to just keep watch of my cycles. PCOS can make it hard to conceive, but not impossible. And we aren't sure yet if the ABVD drugs affected my fertility. Therefore, if it takes a long time to get pregnant, we might have to look into some form of help. But I'm not worried yet...I still have some things on my bucket list to do :)
So when I went to bed that night, I remembered a verse that I used to love. To hear that my body can carry a baby was the best news I have ever received. I was meant to be a mother, I know it. And although getting pregnant may or may not come easy, I will still praise God because I am fearfully and wonderfully made. No matter how messed up we think we are :)
Psalms 139
1 You have searched me, LORD,
and you know me.
2 You know when I sit and when I rise;
you perceive my thoughts from afar.
3 You discern my going out and my lying down;
you are familiar with all my ways.
4 Before a word is on my tongue
you, LORD, know it completely.
5 You hem me in behind and before,
and you lay your hand upon me.
6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,
too lofty for me to attain.
13 For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.

A health update!

Here is the update with ALL of my health....

Cancer- I have a CT scan scheduled for October 5 and meet with my oncologist the week after to go over the results. Please pray for clean results! I feel great in THAT regard, so I don't think anything will go wrong, however I just read a stat that 1 out of 6 people get a secondary cancer after Hodgkin's Lymphoma. YIKES! I'm always curious to see what comes up on the CT scans. Will it show anymore scar tissue on my chest? What about on my lungs? I certainly feel like I have chemo induced asthma after I hear myself wheeze after running and I have never wheezed before. And what about my fertility from the chemo drugs????

My neck and back- I finally got in touch with my neurologist and we are setting me up with an at home TENS UNIT! This means that I will get to have my electrotherapy at home to help ease my muscle pain due to the muscles and syringomyelia. This is so great, it will help stabilize my back pain until the day they say 'Time to fix you again.' :) My neurologist doesn't want to release me yet because of my 'unique case', so I still meet with her a couple times a year.

My 'baby maker'- I've been having some crazy things happening lately, so my OB/GYN ordered a blood draw last Friday and I'm getting an ultra sound tomorrow to investigate and see how my baby maker is doing :) So we are looking into it all and making sure everything is A-OK to start expanding our family in the future. Please pray also that my insides are working right and look right, nothing extra growing on them if you catch my drift....like I said, the day the doc tells me I'm broken and can't have my own kids, is the day you will have to drag me out of bed!

Otherwise, I feel great! It's a crazy life I lead over here, but I try to look on the bright side of things and not let it get me down. And on those days when I do just need to cry or get mad, usually a hot bath, a glass of wine, or a good talk with my fam helps when I start to feel overwhelmed with Life. And also remembering that through my trials is when I seem to cling closer to God, and for some reason can hear Him more clearly. Maybe it's because God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble (Psalm 46:1) . So I try not to stress, because it is the LAST thing I need in all of my health situations right now...but how do you live a life without stress, right?? Anyone know a good yoga dvd I can borrow?? :)
I'll let you know how everything turns out with my test tomorrow!

5K Run to Remember...and to celebrate!

AJ and I after RUNNING the 5k!I just participated in something that I believe was the best way to both remember and celebrate Life on the tenth anniversary of 9/11. The Lima Fire Department set up a 5K Run to Remember today where people could run, the firefighters could run with their gear on, and then had a Memorial Ceremony where the mayor, the fire chief, a pastor, and the union president spoke. So when I heard about this a month ago, I knew it was something I wanted to do in honor of the firefighters AND because a 5K was on my bucket list! I started running on August 21 (after I got back from my trip) and for me, this was more of a mental battle than a physical battle. So I knew I would need Andrew to run with me to keep me going the whole way because my goal was to RUN this whole thing...and he did his job. I RAN THE WHOLE 5K!

I am so proud of myself, the others who were at the 5K, my firefighter husband, his brothers at the Lima Fire Department, and all the firefighters in America. I am so proud that THIS was the 5K I can mark off my bucket list because this was an event that was close to my heart. I ran this 5K not only because of my personal goal in celebrating my life after cancer, but also to honor all the firefighters that I admire so much and to remember the ones we lost on 9/11 . It was a sight I will never forget to see the firefighters running with their full gear on, feeling what it was like on that day back on 9/11. I am so grateful for the firefighters who have the courage to go into the places that I would so easily run away from. So thank you AJ and all the firefighters in America and may God bless and protect each and everyone of you!

As I was watching one of the 9/11 documentaries, one firefighter said 'Its not the severity of the event that changes you, it's how you interpret it that does.' and I agree. Cancer didn't change me, but how I interpreted the whole thing did. After beating cancer, I didn't want to keep 'saying' I'll do things...I wanted to actually DO them. So putting a 5K on my bucket list and then having the opportunity to do it for this cause was absolutely perfect. I am unbelievably proud of my husband for his commitment to save lives and unbelievably proud of myself for fulfilling this goal of mine.

Cheering on the firefighters as they run!

The start of the Memorial Ceremony

Grad School...here I come!

Hi friends and family!

Can you believe this hair?! It is growing like a weed! I am so close to having some little pig tails in the back :) But I also remember when I thought my hair was long enough to have headbands in it, so I may be jumping the gun just a little:)

I have been so busy, not just with teaching, but fulfilling another dream I have and crossing off another item on my (ever growing) bucket list...I started Graduate school last week! I am taking all my classes for Educational Leadership through the University of Dayton and getting used to this online program. My hope is to be done by the end of spring 2013...it will be hard, but getting it done in two years is my goal, as well as keep working full time. So I feel pretty busy these days. I usually don't get home from work until 4:30 - 5:00, and at that point I try to put some sort of healthy supper on the table. I try to do some reading/writing for a paper for my class, and then I lace up my tennies around 8:30 and start my run BECAUSE....I'm running a 5K next week!

I can't tell you how excited I am to run this and cross off ONE MORE thing from my bucket list. I have really pushed myself, and I swear running is so much mind over matter. The one thing that really bothers me is my breathing (I thought it would be my foot after having it break this past summer). I think it has to do with the crazy bleomycin chemo medicine that they gave me last year that just ate my lungs! I wheeze a lot, but I pace myself. I really want to do this so bad to prove that you can do ANYTHING you set your mind to! And with my neck and back, well, I had an appointment with my neurologist in August, but I cancelled it so I could go on my road trip. She has tried calling me twice, but I have missed her phone calls and we keep playing phone tag. I'm curious to see what the next step is, because I don't have the nerve pain I had back in March that started this whole process (it was nerve pain from the port being removed, but when they did an MRI, they found a lot going on in my neck and back and referred me to a neurologist). I still get pain in my back (not nerve pain like before, its the pain i have had for years), but the electrotherapy and my exercising to strengthen my back muscles are helping ease the pain. I know the doctors are concerned with the issues, but until I start having some neurological symptoms, like I did when I had Chiari, I really don't want to worry about it and just keep checking things off my bucket list :)

So once again, thank you so much for all your support throughout the past year. I have looked back on some blogs and realized how much my life has changed even in such a short time of my hopefully LONG life. Which just proves that we keep evolving while we live here on earth. And if you are not learning and changing, get busy! Take the chance and dream! My sister is proof...she got her dream job by taking a chance, you have no idea how that has inspired me to keep dreaming sis!