Two weeks later

2 weeks and 3 days later after waking up from a "routine" Gall Bladder surgery that never took place and seeing my sweet husband's face before me with these words "Lucy (that's my nickname from him) they weren't able to remove your gallbladder and there's a chance you have ovarian cancer" My response "are you messing with me" then tears falling from his eyes I knew something was wrong.

God has overwhelmed us with His great love, grace and strength. It's almost like I'm watching all of this from someone else's eyes. Every card, text, Facebook message, blog post, phone call, flowers, food etc are constant reminders to me of God saying " See how much I really love you." His word is more true to me today than ever before. I feel like Psalms was written for me.

Psalm 18:30 "This God-his way is perfect; the word of the Lord proves true; he is a shield for all those who take refuge in him". Some have questioned why does this kind of stuff happen, all I want to say is "Lord please use this situation I'm in to bring You ALL the glory you deserve". He's never failed me yet, and I can look back on everything in my life and see He was in control of it all from the beginning, why would I question His sovereignty now? There are those who may read this blog and not have a clue of what true peace in our Savior means and not have a personal relationship of ever asking Jesus to take over your life and to let Him have complete control. My prayer is you would realize we were all created to bring our creator honor and glory and there is nothing more precious than knowing He will give you that grace and strength if you will just ask for it and believe and trust in Him. He walked on this earth as Jesus, died for all our sins, and rose again. He's coming back someday and I want to make my life ready for His return. Until then, He left His Holy Spirit to guide and lead us thru this life. We never have to be alone, EVER!

I had my first chemo treatment on Tuesday, February 14th with my sweet Tony right by my side. I wasn't scared or anxious (these are times I feel like I'm watching thru someone else's eyes-GRACE!!). There were 5 other ladies in the room with 2 nurses. They put Benadryl in your port to help with any pre allergic reactions to chemo treatment. One Benadryl can knock me out for the night and this dosage had me feeling very sleepy and heavy from the second it hit my port. I had to fight to stay awake cause I didn't want to miss anything. After about 6 hours of chemo I was unhooked and headed home. For the next 3 days I was on Phenergan and Zofran every 6 hours to keep nausea and sickness away. I can say hallelujah it worked!!! Now the side affects of the drugs were super sleepy slow motion. I went to work on Wednesday. The Duggar family (TLC 19 Kids and Counting) were speaking to our youth group. Not the whole clan, but Josh & Anna.

This is me and Jordan with Josh and Anna Duggar.

Thursday came, went to work and as the day moved on, I started not feeling the greatest. I actually started thinking I might have a bladder infection. I came home took a pain pill and told Tony I wasn't sure what was wrong, that things weren't feeling right. His response "Lucy, you have cancer and you've had chemo". Hmmm I never even put the two conditions together. Friday morning woke up with more abdominal pain and called the nurse to see how much longer I needed to be on nausea meds and to report the pain. I only need nausea meds if symptoms occur and she said the pain means chemo is working! Thank you Jesus!! I took Friday morning easy, then went out with Jordo for lunch and a little shopping. It was good to be out and started feeling better just by walking. I haven't slept in our bed for over 2 weeks and decided to give it a try again. I slept so good and woke up feeling good. Psalm 3:5 "I lay down and slept; I woke again, for the Lord sustained me."

This weekend was our annual girl's String of Pearls retreat at the Embassy and I'm so thankful to have been a part of it. We had over 100 girls, 23 college leaders and a lot of amazing women that helped make this event powerful. Cari Trotter was our speaker and really challenged us all. There is so much garbage for our teenage girls in this world that is full of lies and deceit. If we could all "love what God loves and hate what God hates". Huge thank you to Maegan and Jordan for pushing hard and seeing that God was honored this weekend.

Jenna's friend, Brittany, made me this wreath in honor of the fight against Ovarian Cancer, and I love it! Psalm 121 is written in the center.

It is now Sunday night and thankful to have had some time to write my thoughts and to be able to journal this time in my life, so we as a family and friends can look back and see God's great masterpiece unfold in our lives. I'm so blessed to have such an amazing support group even people I will never meet have prayed for me and my family. May we all look at life thru God's eyes and know there are a lot of people all around us hurting and hopeless, we that know Jesus, have the truth and should be sharing Him.

Susan Goss (a very dear friend) calls me everyday to say "Janet, this is the day the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad in it". Psalm 118:24. It doesn't say rejoice when things are going great or when you feel like it, it says REJOICE!!!

--Janet