Another Introduction Friday!!! Let’s see here….where did I leave off?

That’s right. I had just gotten engaged! 😀

We had a pretty short engagement. I think we were engaged in May, and we got married in October.

Our wedding was just mostly family and few close friends. We got married in my in-laws backyard, and it couldn’t have been a better day. It was a perfect day. No wind, around 70 degrees, and everything went as planned!  The only ONE thing that caused a little bit of stress was my photographer ended up being 30 minutes late because she was stuck in construction, but she made it with time to spare, so all was well!

My sisters, from near and far, came to the wedding as well as all of Justin’s brothers! It’s always a blast when we all get to be together.

Definitely one of the happiest days of my life.

After the wedding, we headed to Othello and had a reception at my parents church, and then we sped off into the sunset and headed down to Lincoln City, Oregon for our honeymoon. We got to walk on the beach, listen to the ocean all night, watch people blow glass (CRAZY!), stopped at the aquarium, and we HAD to make a stop at Tillamook for some ice cream and squeaky cheese!

We definitely need to make a trip back there soon!

Fast forward a year, and we had a pretty hard blow to our family. Justin ended up getting a sore throat, swollen lymph nodes and all. He got better after about a week later, but his lymph nodes seemed to be the same size. It stayed that way for about 6 months until he finally decided he needed to go back to the doctor. They gave him a few rounds of antibiotics, but that didn’t help so they decided he needed to go get it further checked out.

He had a CT scan and something didn’t look right, so he ended up having a needle biopsy done on the lymph node which came back negative for anything cancerous, but his doctor was still pretty concerned, and they wanted to do surgery to completely remove it. Everything started kind of building up, and we had no idea what was going to happen or what it was. We didn’t know if it was cancerous or not. It really was the worst feeling not knowing anything.

Justin went into surgery and they removed three lymph nodes. One was the size of a golf ball, and the other two were the size of large grapes. We waited anxiously for the pathology reports and they came back……..positive. At that point, Justin had to go through SO much testing and blood draws it really just turned into a big blur. I do remember having to take him in for a bone marrow biopsy, that wasn’t fun for him. After all the tests came back, and weeks of waiting, and crying my eyes out, and stressing, all while trying to work at a dental office full time, we had a diagnosis.

Hodkins Lymphoma.

We knew his prognosis was pretty good, but it didn’t make it any easier. Since the doctors removed the main lymph nodes with the surgery, and there wasn’t any other nodes effected from what we could tell, he was done with that, but he still needed to get a Medical Port put in for future use. It was an outpatient procedure, but he was pretty sore afterwards.

The he started chemo. He went in every other week for chemo.  The first time was not a fun experience.  I was able to go with him, and I am grateful I don’t work in that part of the medical field, we’ll just leave it at that.  He went from being really sick, to starting to feel normal again in the two week period, then would go back for another round.  It wasn’t a fun experience.  He was tired more often than not and took a lot of naps.  After eight treatments of that, he started his radiation.  He went in every day for 2 weeks.  He got pretty tired from that, but it was nothing compared to his chemo.  I have amazing in-laws that were able to take him to his chemo appointments after the first one because I had to go back to work. It was rough for me not being able to be there for him, but it probably would have been bad for everyone having me there. I’d end up this sobbing mess just thinking of all those people’s poor families, and knowing what they were going through. Rough stuff.

I can gratefully say that now he is doing great! He goes to the doctor every six months to get checked out and so far so good. I think after the next appointment it will switch to once a year. I’m SO grateful that we made it through that rough time. Thanks to many prayers and blessings, no doubt.

Because of him having to go through chemo and radiation, we were unsure if we were even able to have children. Before Justin went through it all, we had to go to the cryo-bank to get some, uh, “specimens” to be saved in case things was affected by that. THAT was an interesting experience for everyone. HA!!!!

So fast forward again about 4 years from when we got married, we were ready to start a family. We got pregnant naturally, and couldn’t believe it! I had a miscarriage scare around 12 weeks, and I can feel for all the ladies out there who have experienced that. Your heart drops, and nothing else seems to matter. That was the worst morning EVER.

It turned out, I just had a hemorrhage, and the baby was fine. Because of this though, I was monitored pretty frequently. I had to go in every month from then on, and because of the small size of HER (did I mention it was a girl), and how unreactive she was on the NST, I had to go in every week for the last 2 months. I ended up sitting on the stupid table for at least an hour every time because she just wasn’t active enough. Even when I was is in the hospital having her, she wasn’t reactive enough. They induced me three days early because they were concerned about her small size. The doctor believed she was only about 6 pounds and they wanted her out NOW.

Here’s a fun little blurp from my journal…
“**Around 11:30, contractions were about every 5 minutes and lasted 30-60 seconds. Called L & D and they told me to come in and get checked.  I was at a 1, booo. Nurse told us to go walk around for an hour and get checked again.  Walked down Chesnut then up mountain view. creaky gates and owls and a frog creep-ed us out. Check in at 1:00 AM and was at a 2 so Dr wanted us admitted.  Around 2 they stared talking about giving me something for the pain so i could sleep, but NST showed her not reactive enough (go figure). They kept trying with no luck. Around 5 AM, contractions started getting worse.  About every other minute and they HURT!  Was finally up to a 4 around then and was told that i could get an epidural.  Took an hour and a half until i finally got it and i felt like i was going to die.  Contractions were coming so often, and i was sleep deprived and just ready to be done.  Finally at 6:30 AM, the anesthesiologist came in and gave me the epidural, after asking about 2545685654 million questions. It was a lot of pressure, and pokey a few times, but pretty much kicked in right away.  It was GREAT!  Slept for about 4 hours, just felt pressure with contractions.  Woke up around 10 and Dr came and checked me. Water broke naturally around 10:30 and he came and said i was ready to start pushing. Pushed about 3 times until he came in then 3 more and she was out.  Biggest relief of pressure when she came out, the Dr pulled out the placenta and showed us. “This is where she lived.” Well, that was nasty. Don’t know how people eat that. *gag* Raylee Jo was born May 28th at 11:03 AM at 5 lbs 14.7n oz, 18.5 inches long. Latched about an hour after birth and did pretty good first day nursing. Pooped twice. First time was when she got a bath with the nurses. Perfect timing. Justin thinks she looks like me. Nose, lips, and forehead at least. Mom A thought she has his eyes. Neil, Becky, mom, dad, Dr FP, Michelle, Alyssa, and Jared came to visit day of. Glad i had some visitors. Supposed to be released tomorrow. Cant wait to be home.”

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AGAIN! I can’t give away all my secrets just yet (though you’ve just read A LOT of it!). I can’t wait to share the rest! To see the next blog of this series, check it out HERE!

If you missed the post before this one, you can read about the beginning HERE!