Favorite First Grade Quotes

Gotta love first graders...

A little boy walking out of the bathroom saw a picture of the political candiates and said to his friend "John McCain will steal all your money."

Saying the pledge of allegiance "I pledge allegiance to the flag....one nation IN God, Under- is- a- ble. With lizbery and justice for all."

Our superentindant visits the school regularly... walking through a first grade classroom in his suit and tie a little boy looked up at him and said "Are you John McCain?" He laughed and said "I wouldn't want that job!"

I looked on the spelling list on Friday morning before the spelling test and realized that "bong" was one of the spelling words. Try using that in a sentence! All I could think of was drug accessories. YIKES!

Teaching the other day I went to sit on the stool by my overhead projector and slid right off of it! The kids looked at me in total shock. :) I am such a dork!

"Are you voting for Obama?" A little girl in pink said to her friend. Her friend said "Yeah." "Well I can't be your friend then." (Isn't that sad that kids think they can't get along with another child because of their parents political views! What are we teaching our kids!? We later talked about being friends no matter who you vote for.)

Walking back into class from recess the class is quietly getting ready to start the math lesson. "Sam peed his pants in the lunchroom!" A little girl blurted.

They always keep me on my toes. Its amazing what their little minds think of.

One foot in front of the other

I was slowly getting better. We went for our post op appointment and we had to see a different doctor. He went over the whole pathology report and talked again about the problem of there being abnormal cells in the blood vessels. He wanted to do CT scans every six weeks once I was all healed and really monitor me closely. The team of surgeons were going to take my case to the tumor pannel in the springs. This is a pannel of doctors who all work with gastrointestinal tumors. He told me that he wished that he could tell me that this was all over, all behind me but he couldn't. I felt really unsettled. I didn't feel like there was a closed door there was still a question in my mind about what was happening. It was all really hard to understand. In hindsight I can see that this team of surgeons had never seen this kind of mass with the behavior that my mass had. Its such a rare type of mass that there was not much research and NO research with the types of traits that mine had.
I started working with a nutritionist to help with all of the digestion problems that came with having this surgery. She put me on a low glycemic gluten free diet which made a huge improvement in my energy levels, and with digesting food again. It was a huge change and it was and is a really difficult process. It doubled our food bill month after month but I am finally figuring out the tricks to it (thanks Lynn and Auntie Gay).

Food is such a social entity. I have felt really isolated and misunderstood by a lot of people because of the change in my diet. People who dont understand tease me about my weight, how picky I have to be, and ask if I have eating disorder problems. People are so judgemental when they don't understand that if I was to eat like most people I would be sick, and with out energy most of the time, and feeding the cancer cells in my body. I have a great quality of life when I make these better choices. I feel so amazing compared to how I felt before I started it. I have tried synthetic enzymes to help break food down but it just makes me feel awful. So by making these different, somewhat strange eating choices I can live healthy and strong and not let cancer win.
In August I got to see my brother graduate from BASIC. It was a hard trip for me but it was so good to be with the family and see all that he had accomplished.

I went back to work with a huge amount of help from my sisters, mom, jeremy, and friends. I could never have gotten my classroom set up with out all of their help. My friends Chaela and Sara were there the first weeks of school and beyond to take my class, give me extra breaks, help me teach lessons, and start the school year. It was really difficult to go back to work. The emotion of reliving all that had happened with everyone from work was a lot to handle. I found myself just wanting to feel normal but I wasn't.
Jeremy and I started having some pretty serious marital problems at this point. It was brought on by a lot of the problems we were facing and other things were being uncovered. We got some counseling and that gave us a lot of tools to work through things.

September came with more sadness. Jeremy's sweet grandma Elnora started to decline. She never recovered. Later in September she passed away. It was extreemly sad to loose such a dear person to us all. The day of her funeral I had an apointment with my surgeon to go over my latest CT scan.

It was clear but she had some hard news. She said that they had discussed my case at the tumor pannel. Rather than calling it an ok mass they started to refer to it as a low grade malignant tumor. The problem was that the cancer is in my blood. She said that we needed to see and oncologist to discuss options for chemo and radiation. She said that the cancer could come back in my lungs, liver, lymphnodes, bones, or again on my pancreas and if it did they would cut it out again. She expected this CT scan to be clear becuase this is a really slow growing mass so it may not show up anywhere for years.
We went to the funeral, put on the dinner for the family, and left to celebrate our 2 anniversary in Breckenridge.
When we got back we saw an oncologist in the springs. She was shocked at how long it had taken us to get into see her. She reviewed my case, did some research, and decided to send us to MD Anderson Cancer Center in Texas. She thought that by getting into one of the bigger cancer centers I would be able to get in front of a pancreatic specialist. She left it up to them to decide whether I would get chemo and radiation. She was not comfortable with doing radiation at that point because there were many places that the cancer could show back up. And by radiating the pancreas would not guarantee that it wouldn't come back.
It took me three grueling weeks to try to get an answer from MD Anderson. They were so SO AWFUL to work with. Every time I called I had to wait on the phone for 45 mins to a hour just to talk to someone. Once you got someone on the phone they were rude and transfered you all over the place and then eventually you would get hung up on. IT WAS TERRIBLE. And I was trying to do all of it while I was working because they were closed by the time I got home. Parents from my class started complaining to my principal. They made me jump through so many hoops trying to get in to see a specialist and in the end they wouldn't take my case.
So I went and saw a pannel of doctors at University Hospital in Denver. On Monday we went in thinking that we were going to see the pannel and we got scheduled with just one Radiation Oncologist. Like most people she kind of flipped out when she learned of the details of my case wanting to do a lot more tests and scans. They took more blood. She reiterated that we should have been in to see them weeks after the surgery rather than months. They gave us a lot of information regarding treatments. It was pretty frightening. The next day she scheduled us with the pannel. We went in and sat in a room with 3 oncologists, 2 med students, and a nurse. They all discussed my case and explained that there are 2 routes that they consider. The first is a survaillance route where they monitor me really closely for several years and then intermitten for the rest of my life. The other was using radiation and chemo and such to treat the cancer. In my case they decided that the survaillance was the best option. They were hopefull that I wouldn't have to deal with this cancer again. But also highly suggested staying on the diet that I am on and getting CT's every six months for 2 years. They also said that I shouldn't get pregnant for several years. They said this is going to be a part of my life but hopefully I can move on from it and get back to my life. They told me to eliminate as much stress as possible. But most of all they gave us some sense that we had done all that we could to be proactive about fighting the cancer and the rest was up to God.
So here we are. October. Our train is derailed. A lot of the dreams that Jeremy and I had as a couple are not possible right now. Slowly and with a lot of support and prayer we are getting back on our feet. Wrestling with God. Finding that he gives new desires, and dreams for our lives when the others get taken away. We don't quite know where we are going to end up in the long run but we are really open right now. We are paitently working through our struggles as a team and eventually I think God is going to show us what he has for us. We'll let you know when he does.

Surgery

On June 23rd I had surgery at Penrose hospital that removed "the Willma", about 1/2 my pancreas, and my spleen. I included some pictures from that time.

I felt like I was learning to walk again the day after surgery. It was so hard to get out of bed and walk down that hall. Showers were a whole new experience (thanks shan, Jer, and mom). I was in the hospital for 5 days. Jeremy was there with me every step of the way. I had high fevers at night and had nurses in and out all the time. I felt like a human pin cushion. Our family was there with me as much as they could be playing cards, walking, bringing me all the random things I was craving (thanks mom!). They were such a blessing. The doctors told us later on that the mass had abnormal cells that had gotten into my bloodvessels but that it was mostly ok and I didn't need to get chemo and radiation. Just get better they said.

I had lots of visitors and lots of flowers!! Jeremy burried me in all my flowers the day I got to go home and took pictures. It really brightened my room to have visitors and pretty colors all around. I was so high on all the meds and having reactions to each and every pain med they gave me so those days were a blur and I have no idea what I said to everyone who came to see me.

I got to go home and learned a whole new meaning to "taking it slow." It was a grueling process recovering from surgery. It was painful and slow. My family stayed with me when Jeremy went back to work and I had lots of friends and family bringing meals and things to take care of us. I wasn't allowed to carry anything over the weight of a milk jug for six weeks. I had pain for weeks and weeks after the surgery. Slowly I was able to do more and more things on my own but it was quite a process. And then all of the emotion of all that had happened hit me. The summer months were quite a healing process for us. I got really good at card games that Jeremy's grandma taught me. Friends came by as I got stronger and sat with me just talking and comforting me. My emotion was raw.

In July Jeremy's granddad passed away. It was very sad to learn of his passing and not be able to attend the services. Jeremy's dad sent a really nice email remembering his dad with pictures and things for the family.

I decided it would be good for me to put down in writing all that has transpired over the last few months purely for the theraputic process of telling my story. I hope this is a place that friends and family and people who care about me can read about what I have been through and maybe understand me a little bit more. This has all been such a huge change for me its often hard to put it all into words. But here is my attempt.

In June I went to the doctor because Jeremy and I wanted to get pregnant. I asked the doctor if there were any vitamins etc that I should get on because we were going to start trying for kids. She gave me some suggestions and then told me that she wanted to have some ultrasounds done to check for a family history of poly cystic kidney disease. I went into get the ultrasounds done and was very nervous because I didn't want there to be anything that would keep us from getting pregnant or any bad news. Jeremy came with me that day because I just wanted someone there. They took me back for the ultrasound and the tech explained that my doctor had ordered the wrong ultrasound. She had ordered a test that was much more through than the one that just checks the kidneys. The one she ordered checked my entire abdomen and all of my major organs. But she decided to do the more extensive test because it couldn't hurt.

As she was doing the test she was pointing out my different organs and was very nice and chatty. She was on her last picture and she started to get really quiet. She was focusing on one major area but couldn't get a really good picture of whatever it was that she was looking for. I asked her what that image on the screen was and she said that she had to go and get someone and she would be right back. I said "ok" but as she left the room my stomach sank. I tried to push away the lump in my throat as the techs boss came into the room. She started digging around in the same area and taking pictures of what they were seeing. Then she started to label the different organs on the screen. Pancreas, liver, spleen, kidney...mass. "Mass" I said, "that sounds like cancer." They werent allowed to tell me any details about what they were seeing. They told me that they needed to bring the radiologist into the room to review the pictures. Then they asked if I had someone there with me. They went and got Jeremy.

He came into the room and I couldn't stop the tears from pouring own my cheeks as I told him that they had found something, it was big, and they were calling it a mass. I was so scared. But still trying to believe that it was some kind of mistake. The radiologist came in and explained that they had found something but they didnt know what it was or what it was attached to. They said they needed to get a better picture of it through a CT scan but it was probably nothing and not to worry. I waited for hours drinking this nasty stuff that lights up the bad things on the CT scan. I called my mom to tell her and it felt sureal saying that they had found a mass and I was getting a CT scan. I had the scan done. We waited again to talk to the radiologist.

He pulled us out into the hall way of the CT scan place and told us that the scan showed a 7.7 cm mass attached to my pancreas. Usually they measure these sorts of masses in milimeters so my mass was VERY LARGE. They didn't know exactly what it was but it was serious and it needed to be surgically removed, my doctors had been contacted and I was going to go see a surgeon that day. His face was white and it seemed like he felt so bad to tell me. I was shocked. All I could say was ok, ok, ok. Jeremy was the one keeping a level head and asking all the questions.

In that hallway my world stopped.

When we got to the car I broke and cried and cried. The next day we got into see a surgeon. She confirmed that the mass was a type of cancer probably begnine but they didnt know for sure. It needed to be removed. We scheduled the surgery that day for about 2 weeks later. A lot transpired in those 2 weeks, good things and really painful things that I cant write about here. I lost a lot of weight from the anxiety, one of my best friends Melissa got married, one of my other best friends Diane had a beautiful baby boy, we canceled our italy trip, we made plans for my recovery, and my sister and mom threw me an awesome Farewell Willma party. It was a great time to be surrounded by so many friends and family who cared so much for me. It really helped me to be brave enough to go through the surgery knowing I had that much love and support. I named the mass willma mostly because I had to laugh to keep from crying. All these pictures are from the party. Shanna and mom made it so special. We played operation, people talked about what they love about me, we ate a bunch of yummy desserts and played pin the verse on willma. Farewell Willma.