A friend of mine recently asked me, “Did you ever, even for a second, think that Josiah might not make it? And if so, how did you overcome that?” I am so glad she asked this question. The easy answer is, “yes, I did” and “I overcame that with God’s peace.” I know you’re looking […]
MU Healthcare
If you didn’t know, I’m a last minute planner, and it drives my Type-A first born daughter ridiculously crazy. Anyway, I wasn’t real worried about planning for Halloween, as we always come up with costumes, and the creativity that comes with last minute planning is kinda fun. (most of the time. Sometimes it’s stressful…) It’s also resourceful! […]
Halloween
Happy Halloween! Three years ago we were blessed to be home and able to get our kids dressed up and go trick-or-treating with them. Here’s a picture of our tiger, ninja turtle, wolf, and football player. Two years ago we had a frog, tiger, pop star, and ninja. Last year we had a pioneer girl, […]
HOME!
Three years ago today we were FINALLY discharged from the hospital following Josiah’s brain surgery. 28 days of unexpected hospital living were done! Here’s an excerpt from my journal of that day, and the excitement surrounding our arrival home. When we got home, we rang the doorbell for the kids to answer. They bombarded the […]
Master of Distraction
October 28, 2012 we finally moved out of the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit and into the regular pediatric floor! October 28, 2015 Josiah is home, sticking carrots up his nose. He doesn’t usually smile like this for pictures… When Josiah had his surgery, doctors weren’t sure how the tumor and stroke had affected his brain. We […]
Everyday Struggles – Part 4
Going out to eat at restaurants is sometimes a challenge with Josiah. It’s definitely getting better, although when we do go out, it’s usually fast food (Chic-Fil-A where he can play or the drive through) or HyVee where we can leave and get groceries when Josiah’s done with sitting at the table. Going to a […]
Everyday Struggles – Part 3
Why church was hard: Following Josiah’s surgery, he fell back into somewhat of a newborn’s sleep pattern. If he was overstimulated (which was often) all we had to do was take him to his dark room (ok. It was our master closet-completely dark and very quiet as it’s away from the rest of the house.), […]
Everyday Struggles – Part 2
In my first Everyday Struggles post, I mentioned that Mondays (chemo days) were the easy ones. I also shared that Tuesdays were another story. Chemo days were on Monday, and our normal time to be home was anywhere from 8-10pm. Josiah had never slept the best, but Monday nights seemed to be worse. He needed […]
Everyday Struggles
When thinking about a brain tumor, surgery, chemotherapy, doctors appointments, and medication, you may think one of these items would be the hardest things about Josiah’s journey. They’re the obvious struggles. I’m not wanting to give the impression that any of those things are or were easy. I think I was in survival mode and did […]
Praise
Josiah’s first post-surgery MRI was in January 2013, four months after his surgery. We had left the hospital at the end of October with no sign of tumor on the MRI (even though we knew 3% was left behind.) This MRI was a standard follow-up in order to check for tumor growth. We were hoping and praying […]