Uncle Nick's Wedding

Back at the end of September my brother got married! We all had such a wonderful time. It was a lot of driving- here to PA, PA to MA, MA to PA, and PA to NE- but it was worth it. Oh and the photos are all out of order and I do not have the patience to fix it right now, but I'll caption them so they make more sense. Ruby woke up at 3am this morning and was downstairs crying- very weird, she's never done that before. Needless to say, I've been up since 3 and there is only so much caffeine a pregnant lady can have, so there is  very little patience in my forecast today-ha!

The bride and groom at the rehearsal.

Instead of the whole story, I'll let the photos do the talking.

My mom and dad :)

Here comes the bride!

Saying their vows.

It was a beautiful wedding and Kerry looked beautiful. Our family is very lucky to have Kerry in our family officially now! We love her and we just had a wonderful weekend.

Married at last!

Not to mention that the girls definitely love New England as much as I do! Sadie just kept saying how beautiful everything was.

Ruby collected all of the flower girls' flowers and then cut the entire receiving line. She had to get to Uncle Nicky!

Here come Lilly and Phia!

Waiting for everyone to walk down the aisle.

My sissy Gabbie and her fiance Chris.

Me and my handsome Airman!

Ruby fell in love with Kerry's brother Jack and dragged him onto the dance floor with her.

Mother/Son Dance

The girls were on the dance floor the entire night!

My mom and dad.

Nick and Kerry dancing with the girls!

Papou and granddaughter dance :)

We did have a couple of interesting moments. Before we left PA to go to MA, Sadie kissed a lit light bulb. She burned her lips and her chin pretty badly, not bad enough to go to the ER but bad in itself. It looked so painful and I know it hurt tremendously. Steven held her until she fell asleep. She wimpered the whole time and Steven held something cold to it on and off to keep her comfortable. The next day she was totally fine except for the evidence on her face.
At the rehearsal dinner I had a bad case of the shakes. I'm pretty sure it was a combination of things, but the big thing was my hormones being completely all over the place. After a few glasses of water and some food I was definitely feeling better.
All 4 of the girls went nuts at the reception. The second they were allowed on the dance floor and the music started, they were there. They never left the dance floor for more than a minute or two. They had a blast!

As we were literally leaving Massachusetts there was the biggest, brightest, most vivid double rainbow I have ever seen!

We were definitely all sad to head home, but Steven had work and Lilly had school so we had to leave. We all had so much fun and can't wait to head back out to PA again and see everyone!

You should always go to your followup appointments!

After we had Ruby we decided we were done having kids. There were some complications that just plain scared Steven and he didn't want to risk me or the baby being sick or worse. He had a vasectomy while we were in Turkey and we thought, okay that's that. But he never went back in for the followup. Well folks, that followup should have been made because we're now expecting our fourth baby! After the first couple of weeks, in which we walked around completely shocked, we are getting excited to welcome this little surprise  in July! Shocked is a complete understatement, but we are happy. Now we pray for a boy- ha! Steven is pretty concerned about having 4 daughters so we are hoping for a boy but praying for a safe, healthy pregnancy/birth/baby! So folks, the moral of this story is always go for your followup appointments lol!
This pregnancy will be tough. With messed up thyroid hormones and regular pregnancy hormones, I'm pretty much screwed. But I'll do what I always do, push threw and look and hope for the best. Prayers are surely welcomed :)
We are due on July 23, 2013 but with my past pregnancies I know baby will be here about July 2nd! We are so excited to find out what you are and to meet you! Summer can't come fast enough!

Happy Birthday Sadie-Mae!

Sadie-Mae, you are 5 years old now and boy did those years fly by. You are smart and stubborn and you have the cutest quirks. You have a set way of doing things and that is the way it has to be done. You know that you have to be 5 years old to start kindergarten so when Daddy told you "Happy Birthday" you asked, 'Now can we go sign me up for kindergarten?' I truly cannot believe that you will be starting school next year, but you are so ready.

December 10, 2007


December 10, 2012


We love you so much! You are a beautiful little girl and are so special to us! Happy Birthday sweet girl!

Happy Birthday Sweet Ruby Doo!

Today our sweet and sassy little Ruby is 3 years old and I'm left wondering how so much time could have passed. She is 3 year old full of life, love, and imagination. We are so blessed and lucky that she's ours. She may be quite a handful but she really is just plain awesome. We love you crazy girl!

December 9, 2009


December 9, 2012


My how you've grown! Please slow down, pretty please!

Happy Birthday Sweet Ruby!

The Lake

I've been trying to keep the girls busy lately. I try to give the things to do during the day and the occasional movie or two. But when Steven is home we definitely try to get out of the house to let them 'run out their crazies' before bedtime. It helps bedtime go a little more smoothly, especially Lilly who will try to keep herself awake until she can't keep her eyes open any longer. We've been going to the playground behind our house, but we decided to try and find the lake that the base owns here. We've tried to find it before but always ended up in the wrong place, but it wasn't a 'need' to find place, we were always just exploring.

Last weekend we finally found it! Since we don't really fish, yet, or go boating, Steven took the opportunity to try and teach the girls to skip rocks. It didn't go so well, but they had fun anyways and I got to take lots of photos of them. I edited some of them and the rest I'm going to save for my treatment days. 

Lilly got a little frustrated because she couldn't skip the rocks, but she kept trying. 

Sadie figured out an alternative way to skip rocks. She would throw handfuls of small rocks and since they hit the water in different places she said they 'looked' like skipping rocks.

Ruby? She collected sticks and rocks. And tried to bring them home. We had fun and the girls seemed very interested in learning how to fish.

 Hopefully sometime soon we'll be able to take them out there to fish with Daddy. I'll go and take photos, ha! For now they are just happy to go and throw rocks and play at the playground there.  I think we'll try to spend as much time there as we can this summer. 

Oh, and when we left to go home, we got stopped by a freight train. I thought it'd be fun to count the cars. We started counting and I thought it'd be a small train, but it had 120 cars! Crazy long, but they had fun. And they slept pretty well!

-K

What's Next

So typically when you have thyroid cancer you have your thyroid removed and then have radioactive iodine treatment. A few weeks after surgery, you have a thyroid scan which shows you if the cancer has spread to any other part of your body, which then dictates how much radioactive iodine you need to take. Usually you start taking a thyroid hormone pill, since your body cannot produce it anymore, but a few days before the thyroid scan you are given a shot of thyrogen that will get rid of all the hormone in your body. They do this to 'starve' your body of it so that when you take the RAI- radioactive iodine- your body absorbs it quickly. The RAI then kills all leftover thyroid cells and consequently the cancer.
Unfortunately the thyrogen is no where to be found in Omaha right now. Which means I cannot take the thyroid hormone at all. Before thyrogen, patients would have to suffer through extreme hypothyroidism in order to starve the body for RAI. I get to do this the old fashioned way. Lucky. Me.
When the doctor called and informed me of this, you better believe I was scared. No one wants to hear that you have cancer, that you have to do this the 'old fashioned way', and that as a result of this you'll be so tired you won't be able to get out of bed. After being reassured that I'd be okay by the doctor and my mom and hubby telling me not to worry because I'm pretty darn stubborn when it comes to be sick or in the hospital. For goodness sake I was able to get doctors to discharge me in less than 24 hours after a c-section and
pre-ecclampsia, not once but for both Sadie and Ruby's births. I hate being sick and I hate whining about something I can't control even more. So here I am almost 4 weeks without thyroid hormone.

On the Mayo Clinic's website, it states:
At first, you may barely notice the symptoms of hypothyroidism, such as fatigue and sluggishness, or you may simply attribute them to getting older. But as your metabolism continues to slow, you may develop more obvious signs and symptoms. Hypothyroidism signs and symptoms may include:

• Fatigue
• Sluggishness
• Increased sensitivity to cold
• Constipation
• Pale, dry skin
• A puffy face
• Hoarse voice
• An elevated blood cholesterol level
• Unexplained weight gain
• Muscle aches, tenderness and stiffness
• Pain, stiffness or swelling in your joints
• Muscle weakness
• Heavier than normal menstrual periods
• Brittle fingernails and hair
• Depression

You don't realize how much your tiny thyroid controls until you don't have it anymore and and you don't have   any thyroid hormone at all. I knew that everyday I would just feel worse and worse. It's a rather ominous feeling, like watching a storm rolling in. You know it'll storm, but you don't know how bad it will be until it's right on top of you. I know the storm will pass, I just don't know when it'll be over or if there'll be any damage left from it.
I had my first blood test- to check my thyroid hormone levels- last week and they came back still in a normal range. This week my numbers changed slightly but not even close to the number we're looking for. This past Wednesday makes 4 weeks without any thyroid hormone and since my levels are where they need to be I have at least another 2 weeks until the next blood test.
Life right now is pretty tough. I'm not gonna lie or sugarcoat it. My body hurts, mood swings come out of no where, and I just want to sleep all day. I am just grateful for Steven and the girls. They have been so great and patient with me- more so Steven than the girls, ha! If the girls start acting up, I usually just have to remind them that I'm sick and need their help. I'm just hoping to make it until bedtime. I take things minute by minute and prioritize. I clean when I feel up to it and rest when I need to. I've been trying to fun things with Steven and the girls when he's home from work. I've also been stockpiling things to do, pictures to edit, and books to read for the RAI treatment. During the RAI treatment I need to be secluded for 3 days so that I don't expose anyone else to the radiation. If you know me, you know that I'd rather not be alone. When Steven takes the kiddos out so I can relax, I end up cleaning or twiddling me thumbs because I'm so used to the nonstop life of a mom. I'm not sure how I'll stay couped up by myself for 3 whole days, it may just end up being torture for me. So any ideas would be great, ha! Until then, I just wait.

I know it's been what, 2 months? Well what's been going on. We got all of our household goods on April 10 and it was A-mazing to sleep in our own beds. Surgery was supposed to be at the end of April, but a more serious case presented itself and caused my surgery to be postponed. I ended up having surgery on May 9th and the doctors removed my entire thyroid and several lymph nodes. They had a pathologist in the operating room who confirmed that it was indeed cancer. The cancer had spread to my lymph nodes but the don't think it got into my blood or vascular system. But because it had spread to the lymph nodes, the surgery took longer than expected. When I woke up in the recovery I was completely out of it. All I really remember is that I woke up with a migraine, which they gave me medicine for. And I was really loopy. I remember they put my overnight bag on the end of my bed before they took me to my actual room for the night. As soon as the nurse put it on my bed and walked away, I sat up and took out my tablet and hugged it. Weird, right? I just hugged the darn thing and continued to drift in and out of sleep.

Once in my room I was reunited with Steven and he had brought my mom to the hospital. It was so nice to see familiar faces. Since I was in and out of sleep still, he took my mom back to the house so she could get some sleep. And what is it about hospitals and not being able to sleep through the night? It was a long night of random cat naps. Needless to say I was anxious to go home the next morning.

We were able to get the approval that we could leave that morning, but due to a snafu with a missed blood test we had to wait for a blood sample to be taken and get the results. Once they came back, we were free to leave. But that wasn't the end of it. I had 6 new prescriptions to fill so we headed to the base to fill them. They were able to fill them all except the pain meds. Not good. While the hospital stay was brief, I was still in a lot of pain. So while the other medicines were filled we headed to Target to fill the last. But, no go again. Target has been under renovations to make it a Super Target and the pharmacy was closed that day. Luckily the grocery store next door had a pharmacy, they had the medicine, and they could fill it quick. Once that was done we headed back to the base pharmacy and got the rest of the medicines. Thank the good Lord we were finally on our way home.

I had such a great surprise when I got home! Not only was my mom there, but Steven's mom too! She really is like my own mom and I absolutely love having her around. They also took the girls and got me some 'get well soon' goodies. It was great to sit in my own bed and rest while the girls, who are completely enamored but their grandparents, played downstairs with Yiayia and Memaw!

When this whole journey began way back in December in Turkey, I thought the worst part of it all would be the surgery and recovery from it was going to be the worst part. Boy was I wrong! More on that later.

-K