A Post Without Pictures

Parker is wearing his spider man pajamas. He just noticed that there are flaps of material under the arm of his shirt. It makes it look like he has wings. So while I was sitting here deciding what I should write or if I even wanted to write, he climbed up on our tall kitchen stools and decided to fly. We have tile floor in the kitchen and his landing did not go well. I hurried and picked him up off of the floor and asked him if he fell. He said "No. I have wings! I wanted to fly!" Anyways, it was very funny and cute. Probably a lot funnier if you were here to experience it.

I don't blog very often and when I do I don't write very much. It's more about the pictures. I'm not a great writer so I post pictures. I decided that I will try writing more. I don't know if I'll really stick with it. I'm very indecisive. But right now, the plan is to write more.

Life has been crazy since I wrote last. You just never know what is going to happen. I've kept to myself a lot lately. When life gets tough, that is when I want and need friends the most, but for some reason, that is when I keep to myself the most. Life has been tough lately. In August, my cousin lost his oldest son (age 8) in a car accident. I rarely see my cousin and I've only seen his little boy a few times, but hearing that really broke my heart. I just feel so bad that my cousin and his family have to go through the pain of losing a child. It just upset me so bad. His children are about the same age as mine and I just don't know that I could handle a trial like that. So I cried for like a week when I heard about that. I couldn't talk to anybody about it without bursting in to tears. I'm just too sensitive and I can't stand to know other people are suffering. It hurts my heart so bad. I'm so glad that they have the gospel in their lives. I don't know how people get through something like that with out the knowledge of a loving Heavenly Father and with out the knowledge that they will see each other again.

It wasn't long after all of that that I found out my sister-in-law has ovarian cancer. I don't know much about it though. I keep asking Roger to call and find out more, but he hasn't yet. I know I could call, but I have a really hard time getting myself to call my in-laws. I guess I just think because they are Roger's family, he should be the one to call them. He's more comfortable with all of them and the conversation flows much smoother when he is talking to them rather than me talking to them.

After finding out about my sister-in-law, I start to feel a little worried. So I schedule an appointment with a gynecologist. At the appointment, she just tells me that I'm fine. Everything I'm experiencing is normal and it comes with age. But then she added that my weight may be contributing to some of the crazy things my body does. So then I am really determined that I am going to lose weight. I decided to try the HCG diet. When I first heard of it I thought it was crazy. When I learned more about it, I thought it sounded like a good idea. So I did the HCG diet. It was really hard to stick with, but I did it and I lost 30lbs. When you finish the really strict part of the diet, you are supposed to eat no sugar or carbs for 3 weeks. You can add everything back into your diet after that. Everyday you step on the scale. Your goal is to maintain your ending weight for 6 weeks. After that you can do the diet again if you need. They claim that after the six weeks, you won't have to think as much about your weight. You body should know by then that that is your new weight and so maintaining becomes much easier.

So the first day of my six week maintenance (Saturday, October 3rd), I get a call from my sister letting me know that my mom is in the hospital. I was so worried about my mom. As soon as I got off of the phone with my sister, I just started crying. Alissa, Parker and Brinley were pretty uncomfortable about my crying. They came in the kitchen and stared at me. Alissa asked why I was crying. I told her that Grandma Bone was sick and I was just really worried about her. I just really wanted her to be OK. I couldn't get my emotions under control. I just sat in the kitchen crying for a while. The kids stood there for a little bit, unsure what to do, then one of them suggested that I should go wake up their daddy. He works the graveyard shift so he had just gone to sleep recently. I just thought it was funny that my crying made them so uncomfortable.

So here's what happened. On Friday my mom was really sick and throwing up. I guess ton Saturday morning she was still really sick and weak from throwing up. Then she started having a hard time breathing. Dad rushed her to the emergency room. I'm not sure of all the details, I'm just telling you what I understood of what was happening. There was some kind of a blockage, I don't know what the doctors had realized before they decided to operate, but I was told that it was an exploratory surgery to find what the problem was and fix it. She was in surgery for about 3 hours I think. They found a tumor (I'm not sure if it was in her stomach or by her stomach). They removed the tumor and extra areas around it just in case it was cancerous, but they didn't think it was. My mom had had her stomach stapled like 26 years ago. So part of her stomach was not being used. I think that is where the tumor was. So they removed that part of her stomach. I'm not sure if they did anything else. A few days later they came back with the result that the tumor they removed was cancerous. They said it was a rare and very aggressive form of stomach cancer. That was the most devastating news ever! I don't think I have ever cried so hard as I did after hearing that. For 2 hours after hearing that news, my hands were numb and my arms tingled. It was really weird, but I was too upset to care. We haven't been able to learn anything else about the cancer. They can't see how far the cancer has spread, until she recovers from her surgery. She was in the hospital for 2 weeks after the surgery. The day she got out of the hospital, we went to St. George. Roger stayed for the weekend then came home, because he had to go to work and school. Me and the kids stayed for the week. Mom got out of the hospital on Friday the 16th. They weren't going to let her leave the hospital because her white blood cell count was still up, but she just wanted to go home so bad, that the doctor gave in and let her leave. She had to go back and see the doctor on Monday so he could make sure she was doing OK. On Monday, her white blood cell count had gone up. So they did a scan and decided that they needed to operate again. I don't understand it all, but there was a lot of fluid in areas that there shouldn't be fluid. They decided to the operation the next day. Mom couldn't eat after midnight and we were supposed to be at the hospital at 1:30pm on Tuesday, October the 20th. I really like being in st. George for that week, because I didn't feel as helpless as I had at home. But it was hard being there and seeing my mom looking so scared. I had a hard time, not bursting into tears. I'm proud of myself for keeping it together. We were at the hospital at 1:30pm and they didn't end up taking her in to surgery until 6:30pm. So she had 5 hours to sit and worry and feel scared and hungry. I felt so bad for her. Before she went in to surgery, I pointed out that 31 years ago on that same day, she had also been in the hospital. It was for something much happier though. It was too have a baby (Me). I was born on October 21st at 1:12am. The surgery lasted for 4 hours. As they were sewing her up, they noticed something leaking from her stomach. There was a hole that they had not noticed before, so they had to fix that before they could stitch her back up. We think that the hole in her stomach was what was causing her all the trouble after the last surgery. That is why she wasn't recovering very well from the last surgery. I'm glad they caught that. She was in the ICU for 2 after the surgery. I feel so bad for her, because she had such a hard time breathing after the first surgery and that was a problem again after this surgery. It is so scary and so hard to see her so sick. I left St. George on Saturday. She was doing a lot better. She was breathing easier. Her body is so weak. I don't know how long she will be in the hospital, but I think it will be a while. Will still don't know anything about the cancer, which is just killing me. My mom is very positive about the cancer though. She is very determined to fight it. She has already started using some essential oils that are supposed to help get rid of cancer. She said she is very open minded about trying any method to get rid of it. She is going to do whatever it takes.

Oh yeah.... so about my diet. After all this stuff with my mom, I have gained 10lbs back. I just had bigger things rather than my weight to worry about. Plus I was feeling bitter because it was the stomach stapling that caused my mom all this trouble and I realized that these crazy get skinny quick diets are ridiculous and dangerous and definitely not worth it! I would rather be fat and alive than skinny and dead. I want to be healthy, so I am still going to work at the weight loss, but I'm going to do it the hard way. The way that takes time and won't kill you! I'm going to eat healthy and exercise. I feel really good about my decision. I'm so sad that it took something like this to help me to come to this realization. I just know that I love all the people around me and I don't care what size they are, so why do I worry so much that other people care what size I am.

Yesterday we went to the Fall Carnival at Alissa and Parker's school. It was horrible. They decided to do it inside and block off half of the school. It was so crowded you could hardly walk. They usually have it outside with bounce houses and fun stuff that you buy tickets to play on so the kids were excited about going. We spent most of the time waiting in line. A lot of the time we weren't sure what we were in line for (I'm short and can't see over people very well). The kids spent one ticket to get their faces painted, then two tickets to eat a donut off of a string. I couldn't stand to be in the school any longer, plus I couldn't see anything else that might be fun for the kids. So I threw the rest of the tickets away and we went home. It was the worst fall carnival I have ever been to. I hope that they realized what a bad idea that was, so they won't try and do something like that again next year.