Update...

Okay, honestly I feel like my head is going to explode.  I have so many things going the next few weeks...but I know they will all get done.  Just hoping I enjoy them along the way:)

This weekend we began moving our things to storage...that we are shipping to Belize.  It is heavy, but nice to do slowly.  I need to pack today...but am going to lunch so have not done much.  Just little things that won't make me sweat...because I sweat all the time thanks to my crazy fast heart.

Yesterday, we went to the endicrinologist.  Can I tell you how much I loved her?  Seriously.  From the moment she walked in.  She explained so much.  Why it kills me to walk up stairs because my legs are sooo weak and shaky.  How important the thyroid is to so many functions of our body.   I did not know anything about a thyroid a month ago.  Now I know so much.

So next week on Tori's bday:(, I will be doing a day long test where I swallow a radioactive pill and it will determine one of two things that is wrong.  Then if it is Graves disease, I will begin treatment the next day hopefully. 

Honestly, I just want to feel normal again.  I feel like noone understands how I feel except my mom because it happened to her too...except the lump. I have so much to do, but am so unmotivated.  So tired.  I just want to lay down.  Really, can I take a quick nap?

But I am encouraged and thankful for doctors and medicine to help.  I still want and believe for a healing.  My mom got one.  But until then, I feel I need to use wisdom and get help.  So I can be strong in Belize.

I know the Lord is teaching me and using this.  I don't think He did this to me.  I feel I have just a glimpse how a mother with cancer or MS might feel.  You want everything to be normal.  But it just isn't.  I have not thoroughly cleaned in weeks, because I just don't have the energy.  Lee will have to help me when we move out.  I am thankful that we are in the apartment though.  It is very hard for me to go up stairs and to live in our house would have been so hard.  And to only need to clean 1000 instead of 2000 feet of apartment is much better.

Well, I need to get some things done.  But wanted my two faithful blog readers to know my life:)

What I'm Thankful For...

Its almost Thanksgiving.  I think that is my favorite holiday.  I remember when I was a freshman in college, Lee and I had just gotten engaged and he brought me down to meet his family.  I had gotten the flu the day before we were supposed to leave, but still we went.  I look back and think ...how crazy.  I should have stayed home and recooperated...and not exposed the entire Brockinton family to whatever I had.  But I was young and ...um, not as smart as I am now.  But I did get better by Thanksgiving and  had a blast enjoying this HUGE family.  Since we moved away from all my extended family when I was 11, I had not had a Thanksgiving like that in years. 

It was on that trip that these beautiful pictures were taken by Lee's grandad.  Wow, feeling really old now:)

So as we enter this once again NEW season of our lives, I want to express the things I am grateful for:

1. I am so thankful to be home full-time with my children and not be torn between work and home.  To be fully engaged in this...

2. I am so thankful for the husband that God has given me.  Yeah, he drives me crazy at times, we don't see eye to eye at times, but he loves me and I love him.  He is an amazing father and my best friend.

3.  I am so thankful that God has fulfilled one of my biggest dreams of adopting a child.  He picked out the perfect little girl for this family.  She makes me laugh every single day.

4.  I am so thankful for my amazing birth children.  It seems that they grew up way too fast, but that is just part of it, I guess. 

5.  I am so thankful for the experience of pastoring Life Church.  I will miss them so much in Belize, but feel that I made life-long friends here:)

6.  I am so thankful that I met the Lord at a young age.  He saved me from so much pain.  I am thankful that my children are walking with Him as well.  They will be so thankful some day.

7.  Even though I am not a dog person, I am thankful for my children, that we have the worlds best dog, a Boston Terrier.  He loves his family and brings his own little personality into our home.  I am thankful that he is tolerant of our children, while his real love is for Lee:)  He is a comfort for my children during this time of transition.   Isn't it neat how dogs are our friends????

8.  I am thankful for friends and family who open their homes to us during this transition time.  So much better than staying in a hotel, that we really can't afford.  And so nice to get to spend extra time with those we love before we go.

9.  I am thankful that Erika takes a nap every day.  I need it more than she does:)

10.  I am thankful that we have had this time in this apartment that is too small, but has brought my little family so close.  That is the biggest thing I can say.... we are together all the time again, like before they went to school.  Erika and I love having them home.  I remember she used to cry when we would drop the kids off to school, and I would think, no more soon.  It was an adjustment, but so thankful to have them homeschooled.

Looking forward to our holidays, the last in America for awhile.

I Love doing Laundry

I'm taking it easy at home today.  Well, vacuuming and doing laundry, and mopping kind of easy.

But you see, of all the chores I do as a mom, I LOVE doing Laundry.  I know its weird.  I love folding the warm, great smelling clothes.  Don't really like putting them away.  But love taking a huge dirty pile of clothes and making them clean.   When we went to Belize this last time, our clothes were so nasty and stinky and almost hard from being so dirty.  And there were a lot because we went through more than one outfit a day times 4 people.  But then I washed them all and it was great...we smell so good when we first get dressed.

 I also love clean sheets.  I just washed mine and I promise I will sleep twice as good because of it.  And I love my kids having clean sheets.  It seems to be the only time their bed actually looks nice:)

We are taking our washer and dryer with us to Belize.  It is worth it even paying the duty.  But I am not quite sure what we will do while we are waiting for our shipment to arrive.  I do laundry every other day and when we go on a long trip, it is a stretch to make our clothes last.  Thankfully when we went to New York and Georgia this summer, our halfway point was my aunt's house.  It was such a blessing to get all our clothes clean.  And I didn't mind doing it....

Seize the Day

The Blessings of Friends

 Now for a cheerier subject.  This is my friend, Mandy, and her baby, Martin.  We have known Mandy since she was about 12 years old.  Her family attended our first church in Ohio.  When Mandy grew up and finished college, she moved to Katy to help us with this church.  She has been a blessing in my life.  Our daughter was her flower girl and my husband married her and her husband.  The day of her first baby's shower, was the morning we met Erika for the first time.

Well, this past Saturday, she threw us a party...a lunch to help fundraise our mission to Belize.  She made it so beautiful and FALLish.

 The food was all so yummy.  We stayed all day long.  It felt like Thanksgiving as we sat around and visited with old friends that we haven't seen in a while.  It was awesome.  So relaxing after the week I've had.  I needed it.

 Erika had such a blast playing with the kids.  Isabella enjoyed changing her clothes a lot...ending up in Princess pajamas.  It is a blessing to see Mandy grown with such sweet children.  They are so blessed to have her as a mother.  And her husband is an amazing dad as well.

Sunday, we went to church at Life Church so they could pray for me.  It was an emotional morning and then we went to lunch with my in-laws...and other friends from church were there.  We ended up going and visiting with them too.  One of the ladies gave Erika a whole box of mints.  She was so excited.

Unfortunately, she ate the whole box, instead of napping.  When we would go check on her, she would hide them under the pillow...oh, boy...the benefit?  She crashed early that night.

the next step....

so, we met with the surgeon today.  she was awesome.  but...nothing new happened.  she is sending us to an endicronologist.  on monday.  so the saga continues.

i wish i was typing on here that i was all better.  keep praying with me on that, please.  at times, i do feel better, but then all my symptoms come back.

one encouraging thing is that she is not rushing to surgery.  we will try some other things first.  remember, that was my first thought...no surgery.  so hopefully that remains the same.

so, i am really not encouraged or discouraged...just really want this thing figured out.

oh, and i want to touch on something...yes, i do believe God can heal me.  but God gave doctors knowledge and medicines to help us.  so, if my healing comes medically, that is okay too.  it is not wrong to seek doctor's expertise.  or mean i have no faith.  trust me, i pray about who to go to and pray that they will have wisdom...and this just gives 6 more days for an amazing miracle.

i think about going to Belize.  their medical system is different.  everyone doesn't run to the doctor all the time.  so i would love to have a testimony of healing to take with me.  but i also want to be healthy and strong physically before i move to Belize...

so, there you go. 

Whose report do you believe? I will believe the report of the Lord.

This whole thing with my thyroid really knocked me off my feet.  But as I knew He would, God is stepping in and taking care of me.  Giving me peace.  Sending me words of true comfort from friends.

My friends have slowly gotten the word about me needing prayer.  But I have one friend who does little on the internet and I just felt I needed to go let her know what was going on so she could pray for me.  So after I dropped Erika off at preschool this morning, I stopped by.  She only had a few minutes because she was taking her daughter for a pre-op visit.  I began to tell her about my doctor's call on Tuesday.  I kind of lost it, because she is the first person I have talked to in person in a couple of days.  So, she shared that her father-in-law had had the same surgery last year, then asked who I was going to?  When I told her the doctor's name, that was the same doctor operating on her daughter Tuesday morning.  Another confirmation that we had chose the right doctor.  Then she told her doctor about me at her visit today.

Well, at 11, after much time in prayer and worship this morning, I picked up Lee to go for the ultrasound with me. Everyone was so nice, but we would not get results until Tuesday.  Wow, I thought.  That is such a long time to wait!  But what can we do?  My life is in God's hands anyways. 

Around 1, I was shocked and a little terrified when my doctor's name showed up on my caller ID.  Especially since I knew he was out of town.  The other doctor in the office had gotten my results.  And guess what?  They were not as bad as my doctor had thought...did you read that????  And I may not need surgery!!!!  My God is big and awesome and I love Him.  Even if it had been something else.  God has given me such peace in the midst of this storm.  All my friends have offered to help.  And I know they mean it.

I still need to go to the doctor on Tuesday afternoon.  But am just believing that God is healing me.  My legs were shaking so bad on the table when I was getting the ultrasound...but I am feeling so peaceful and happy now.

Just thought I'd let you know:)