What Happend??!

Thank you all for your sweet comments and prayers!  They are working!  It's been a wild few days around here... Let's see how much I can write before it's time for another nap. :)

Mark, Landrie and I flew to Florida to spend some time with his parents.  We were having a GREAT time!  Wednesday was our last full day here, so we left Landrie with her grandma and Mark and I headed to the beach. 

We'd only been there about an hour when my stomach started hurting really bad.  Mark was swimming and when he came back up a few minutes later, I could barely talk, was blacking out and trying to throw up!  I've never ever had pain like that.  Mark sprang into action and started throwing our stuff in the car while  we quickly realized I didn't need Advil, I needed an ER.  We were in this beautiful little beach town called New Smyrna Beach.  Thankfully, Mark remembered seeing a hospital and we didn't have to flag down the ambulance next to us!  If you want to see an angry Mark, just tell him that you can't take his sobbing wife back to a room right away.  He was NOT happy with them.  I vaguely remember begging the receptionist for Advil while Mark filled out paperwork.

If you know me and needles, you can only imagine how hard the next part was.  They had to take lots of blood and put in an IV.  After they finally gave me some medicine, I was much better.  We did various tests all day and after about 8 hours, the doctor said nothing was wrong, but he wanted to do a CT scan just in case.  I drank all that stuff (the nurse was so sweet to flavor it with lemonade crystal light!) and 2 hours later was able to do the test. 

About 10pm, the doctor came in with the news that I had a 10 cm mass in my abdomen.  (A baseball has a diameter of 7cm.)  He called in another doctor to consult, and they agreed that I needed surgery.  At this point it was close to midnight, I was throwing up again, our flight was scheduled to leave the next day at noon, and we had two complete strangers saying that I should have surgery.  Did I mention that they told me I wouldn't be able to fly home for 2 weeks?  Or that I couldn't lift anything for 6 weeks?  I held it all together until that point, and I sat there in my bathing suit, with my still sandy feet, clutching the pink throw up pan and listening to a man tell me I couldn't hold my baby girl for a month and a half.  It was a long night.  It couldn't get any worse, right??

The sweet doctor gave us his cell # so my doctor could call and talk with him in the morning.  They wheeled my bed upstairs and into a room.  There was already a lady in the room.  You guessed it.  Since the room was shared, Mark couldn't stay the night.  We were both exhausted and scared and Mark faced an hour drive home and leaving his wife alone and in pain at 12:30 in the morning.  We whisper-prayed in the dark together and he left. 

I eventually became friends with my roommate, but I'm convinced that she is the real- life actual lady that the SNL "Debbie Downer" skits were based on, and she was having her colon removed in the morning.  You can only imagine what was going on on her side of the curtain.

The next day started around 3 or 4am with an attempted blood draw again.  Mercifully she finally gave up.  Then they took me down to get a sonogram, which is not a big deal, normally.  It was a big deal for me though because this week was the anniversary of the miscarriage of our first baby.  I cried all the way through the hospital and down to the sonogram rooms.  God gave me the sweetest nurses who just hugged me and loved on me.  The day was starting to brighten up...

As the elevator doors opened back on my floor, all the nurses (the ones who watched me crying in the wheelchair earlier) couldn't wait to tell me that my husband was here!  It was SO GOOD to see him.  I paged my doctor who called this new doctor and we got his confirmation on doing the surgery.  I think I took a nap.

Mark had started to call and tell people about what was going on, and many of you had started praying for us.  It's AMAZING the difference we felt.  Our circumstances didn't change, but all alone in a strange city we felt completely loved and cared for.

"Again, I tell you that if two of you agree on earth about anything you ask for, it will be done for you by my Father in Heaven.  For where two or three come together in my name, there I am with them."  Matthew 18:19-20

They wheeled me away for surgery, and I felt complete and total peace.  I should have been in a panic because of all the possible outcomes the doctor listed, but I wasn't.  I laid there alone and peaceful while they prepped me for surgery.  Next thing I knew, I was back in my room and awake!

We cancelled the flight home, spent 5 days in the hospital, endured a lack of sleep and a lot of pain.  I lost an ovary, a bigger-than-a-baseball mass, and some other parts I probably didn't need.  And through it all, God was right there by our side.  Although I would have loved to have lots of friends and family physically there with us, I know that these crazy circumstances forced me to rely fully on God and have certainly developed my faith! 

I'm going to stay here with Landrie for a few weeks until I am cleared to fly.  Mark and his parents have turned their lives upside down to help us out.  Landrie may not be getting any hugs from me, but I promise she's still getting way more than she needs. :)

Thank you, thank you so much for your prayers, calls and sweet notes.  We are so blessed to know you all!

(Disclaimer: I think I took 3 nap breaks while writing this:) )

Mark said he's going to blog for the first time about everything from his perspective.  He said I left half of everything out!  :)  I'm letting him blog about how the Church was able to take care of us, even though we are so far away!