God knows how to put you in your place..

While doing my quite time, I kept remembering what happened last year and how unhappy I was. My quite time was talking about how we should always be joyful at all times and that God is bigger than all my problems. I wished I could have seen it then, but I was hurting too bad to even think about what God was doing in my life. Philippians 2:14-15 states, "Do all things without grumbling or disputing, so that you will prove yourselves to be blameless and innocent children of God above reproach generation, among whom you appear as lights in the world." That scripture just spoke to me, and I felt as though I should share it with you!! When times are tough, God is there with you holding your hand in every step you take!! I wished that it would have been easier for me to see that last year. I have to tell you that I just down right mad at God because of everything. It probably wouldn't have happened if I would have listened to Him along time ago about my career choice. Everything happens for a reason; you just have to be willing to listen to what God has in store for you! I pray that this has helped you in some way to day! God bless my readers!!

Let the Journey Begin....

Last year today started my over a month long visit to the hospital. I had went to the dr. the day before, and she said that everything was ok, so she let me go. Well at about 2:30 the very next afternoon, I called her crying. I was running a very high fever like 104, and I was telling her that I wanted to go back into the hospital. She said come on and go to the ER for Rapid Admit, and she also said "I knew I should have kept you yesterday." Her gut feeling was kicking in I guess. I just needed someone to drive me. I was in no shape, form, or fashion to drive. I was crying like an idiot, and I didn't feel well at all. So, I called Paige and Christine to come sit with me for awhile until Andrew got home. During this time, several people started to call me to check on me and tell me that I need to drive myself. I was not in a stable condition to drive myself, or I would have. They didn't want Andrew to lose his job over this. If someone would get fired over something like this then they shouldn't have been working at that job in the first place. I know I made a few people mad, but Andrew was my husband, and he married me for sickness and in health. This was definitely that!! Once he got here, we debated on which hospital to go too. Should we stay here and go to one in Memphis or go back to Tupelo where they really didn't seem to care to help me get any better. It was a nightmare! I called my dr. in Tupelo to get her opinion, and she talked me into coming back to Tupelo. This was about 5:30, and we still had a two hour drive to Tupelo. It was so heckit and crazy. Andrew was mad the whole ride there, and he barely said a word. I cried most of the way because I was tried of going back and forth to the hospital and didn't want Andrew to be mad at me!! I mean could they not fix me!!?? Once we got there, all of my favorite nurses where on rotation that week!! I was excited to see them, and they were me but not under the conditions that I was in. My parents were waiting on me when I got to my room. It was so good to see my daddy!! I know that I should have been excited to have just Andrew there, but I'm truly a daddy's girl and always will be!! Also our good friend, Luke, was there to visit. It was great to see him. He's a pre-med major at MSU. He's going to be a great dr. someday!!
I had no idea that what was going to happen next. I just knew that I wanted to be better and get on with my life. I finished my second semester at Ole Miss with 2 B's and a d! I was not proud of any of those grades, and I kept asking God why? Why are you doing this to me? Will I ever get over this? Can you please help? My marriage is awful. (Not because of being mad at each other just that everything had stopped, and I do mean everything for about 3 months!! He told me this later, but it goes in here. He told me that him working was his escape! It makes me cry just thinking about it. He was tried of me crying myself to sleep, crying all day, and sleeping most of the day! He wanted to help but didn't know how. He also said that he thought that he was going to lose me, and he didn't know how to act around me. Every little thing made me cry!! I'm not big on crying, but I was then. We also fought a lot during this time!) My house was a wreck, cooking was not done, and I could have cared less about everything. I just knew that I wanted something to be done, but I didn't know what!
I know this was putting a strain on everybody in my family and in Andrew's. I know that I wanted to stop the steroids and get back to my happy married life!! I wanted to move on but couldn't because UC was killing me literally!

Before I get into more details about what happened last year......

I want to tell you what Ulcerative Colitis is and how it came about that I had it. It's Ulcerative colitis is a type of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) that affects the large intestine (colon) and rectum. There is no cure, no way to prevent it, and no way to tell how it starts. They think that someone in my family has had it and that's how I got it, in my genes somewhere. It all started before I graduated high school. I remember going to see my first dr. about it the day I had community college orientation. They referred me to Dr. Bailey in Amory, MS. I went to see him, and he blew me off. I didn't like him very much for that. He just gave me Mirlax and said it was stress. Well, it wasn't. I went to see him again and then he believed me when I said I had a problem. I referred me to another dr. in Tupelo. I went to see Dr. Earnest Williams, and he wanted to schedule my first colonoscopy get this I was only 18 years old. I have never had so many people who wanted to look at my butt. I know your wondering, what symptoms did I have that I needed to have a colonoscopy. I had blood that would drip everytime I went to the bathroom and more diarrhea. Blood also covered my stool, and I also had some abdominal pain on my left side. After Dr. Williams finished my colonoscopy, he came in the the little recover room and told me that he thought right. I looked at him kind of funny and I asked him to repeat himself. He thought before he went in to look that it was Ulerative Colitis. The colonoscopy was just a way he could prove his thought process. So, he immediately put me on predizone and colozal. Now you should know why I hate steroids. I've been on them off and on for 4 years!! He asked me to come to his office in two months to see how I was doing. I was going on with the rest of my life as if nothing had happened. I would have the frequent spells that I thought I would die if I didn't make it to the bathroom in time, but nothing like I experienced over the last year and a half. When I went to my follow up appointment, Dr. Williams told me that after age 30, I would have a routine colonoscopy every two years after that to check for cancer. CANCER to an 18 year old was every scary!! Well, CANCER at any age is SCARY!! Dr. Williams could tell that I was about to cry after hearing those words, and he told me that colon cancer was the easliest to detect and to get remove of. That did make me feel better, but the every thought of me one day having cancer just caused me to shut down in a way. I never wanted to have cancer!!
While all of this was going on, my dad was talking to his buddies at work about what was going on, and he found out that one of the guys that he worked with had a son that had the same thing. They instantly started to compare stories. His son's name is Brandon. I'll tell you more about him later.
I wanted to post pictures of UC on here, but I think they are a little too graphic. You can always google the term and find pictures for you to look at.

What do you think now???

My foot has been giving me a lot of problems, and when I got up this morning it looked like this:

Ugly isn't it!!! It hurt so bad, inched a lot, and I could barely walk!! Andrew looked at it, and I called my mom to get her opinion too! They both said that I should go have it looked at! I never thought in a million years that I would be allergic to Honey bees, but I know now!! It's crazy how many things I'm allergic to now!! I wasn't like this when I was little. I guess that means that my body is changing. I was told that when I was younger, but I didn't believe it until now!! The dr. gave me steroids, and I'm not sure if I want to take them after what I went through with them last year. Maybe I won't swell up like a puffer fish!! LOL

OOOUUUCCCHHH........

Today Andrew and I decided to take Casper to the Vet!! Casper did wonderful and as a reward we decided to take him to Conger Park for a walk. We were walking along just fine and were thinking about making another lap. Until, I started SCREAMING!! It was awful!! I looked down and a honey bee was on the top of my foot!! Andrew said it sounded like I was getting murdered or something to that nature!! I wanted to cry it hurt so bad!! I have never been stung by a bee before!! I know now not to wear flip flops to the park!! I hate that the bee decided to commit suicide, but I was doing nothing to him!! Here are some pictures of it:



My Wonderful Dr. Andrew

Andrew doing his work!!

He said that he's fees were a lot. I hope I can afford it!! He was great. He even went to get the Jeep and picked me up so I didn't have to walk on it. :) I just hope that all of the stinger came out when he pulled it out with the tweezers. He called be a baby because I could handle all the needles in the hospital but not a simple little bee sting!! I know I'm a baby!! I'm just a girl!! What could I do differently!!

Grades, moving in and etc...

Well, I didn't finish Chemistry with an A, but I feel like that I had a really high B. I can't complain due to the fact that I was taking two Sciences classes in the same semester. I finished with 3 A's and 3 B's. I finished the semester proud of myself for not going in to the hospital before finals!! Yea me!!

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Over the weekend, I began to think about last year. We moved into our beautiful home that I could have cared less about then. I love my home now. I remember the day that we moved in last year I had only been out of the hospital about 2 days and rode up with Cathy and Grandma Lee, Andrew's mom and grandmother. I remember eating breakfast and sleeping the whole ride up. I just told them to put my bed up and I would be out of their way. And when they did and I slept the whole day!! I had no idea that I was so depressed as I was. I knew I had another dr's appointment coming up in the next few days, but I didn't think it was serious until everyone started to notice. Andrew told me with tears in his eyes that he wanted me to get some help. I have never felt so alone in my life. I didn't think that I was depressed and that I needed help. I didn't want the help. Even Cathy and Grandma Lee noticed it. They are the ones who brought it to Andrew's attention. I don't think anyone could understand what I was going through. I lost 30 pounds in two weeks in Oct. 2008, and I was going up and down due to all the steroids that I was on. I hate steroids by the way!! We were here for a few days, and I went back to the dr. I told Carah about everyone had started noticing my sleeping habits changed, my mood had changed, and that I wasn't feeling like myself anymore. Then I started crying like my best friend had just died. I didn't know what was wrong with me, but I needed something to help! She gave me a medicine to help, but I took it only one time! A lot of help that will do. It made me nervous. I would see the commericals for it and hear may cause suicidal thoughts in teens and young adults. I was NOT suicidal; I just wanted some help. I stopped taking them because I did NOT want to kill myself. It's hard to think back on all this. It makes my cry just knowing that I had no idea that I was making my family hurt just as bad as I was. It was like life had stopped for me! That's all I can share about that for now!!

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Let's move on to our house!! Here are pictures of it before we moved in!

Front of House


Back Yard


Garage


Kitchen(My favorite room in the house!! I love to cook!)


Pantry


Landing


Over Looking the Landing(Yes, that's the Laundry Room.)


Master Bedroom( I believe we have one of the biggest Master Bedrooms in the Neighborhood.)


Master Bath


Master Closet(A GREAT selling point!!)


Spare Room 1


Spare Closet


Spare Room 2(It has the same size closet as the other spare room.)


Looking Down to the deck(Yes, the deck was included with the price!!)


Looking over our side yard!

If you come to our house now, and from other pictures from other blogs, we have a fence around the yard and the appliances are in! I truly love my house, and I can't wait to do some other things to it like adding hardwood floors and adding a jetted tub to the master. I love my baths in the morning! God has been great to us over the last year, but I was too sick to notice! Thank you God for all you've done for us!!