As the journal Continues Part One

I was very upset right around this time last year. I had an appointment at the end of July to have my J-pouch checked to see if I could have the reversal soon! Well, when I went to the appointment which made me feel awful, the tech checked it and then I had to go back upstairs to Dr. Cannon's waiting room. We waited there for about an hour because so many people had to look at the pictures of it to make sure that some one didn't miss something.
When we finally got back to a room, she came in and told me what had happened. My pouch was not healing as fast as she wanted it too. Which meant that about 1 more month of living with the colostomy! I started crying right then and there! I didn't care! I wanted it to be gone the next week! I cried the most of the way home! It was awful. I then started asking about my diet. If I really needed to be on a low fiber diet and if I could have a hotdog during the baseball game that I was going to! You can't go to a baseball game without having a hotdog in my opinion! Dr. Cannon said that I could have a hotdog and to watch how much fiber I was eattting. Not to eat to much of it!
To help my spirits, my parents and Carlie thought that it would be a good idea for me to go with them on their vacation! So I went because I was getting so hurt that nothing was seeming to go my way! Everything happens in God's time and not mine! I just didn't understand that part yet!
We went to St. Louis and while we were there the Jonas Brothers were in concert. I wss to go with Carlie to the concert. I had the worst time with my bag on the trip up there. I went throught about 4 bags just on the way. My skin was so red and raw that it wasn't funny. I finally got one to stick, but I was now only down to about 3 bags to last me until we go home. So, I got the local phone book out and started to look up Health Care Supply stores. On Monday, we drove all over St. Louis to a store that carried Ostomy supplies. The lady that worked at the store didn't want to give me directions because she didn't know which way we would be coming from! It took us an hour and a half to find this store! I Mapquested it on my phone. I just hate that they didn't take my insurance! That's one good thing about the company that I ordered from. My insurance covered all the supplies. I paid nothing out of pocket. It did take us a while to find the store, but we did find a Cheesecake Factory and a mall that we stopped at after the Health Supply Store!
That night we went to the St. Louis Cardinals game. I did fine there and even ate that hotdog that I had be dieing to eat! I think that was the high light of my trip! Thank goodness. I was so scared about something happening while I was there that I carried everything I needed! I even carried scissors to cut my bag if I need it to be but was worried that Security would think that they were a weapon of some sort. I made it in there just fine! They didn't even look in the smaller bag that I had.
The game was great, and they won!
The next few days were pretty good. I almost had a heat stoke walking to the car fromt the Arch. My dad had to carry me to the street side where he sat me on a bench with my mom while he went to get the van. I have never felt that way in my life! Another reason I felt bad is because I felt like I was ruining their long waited vacation! But months later I told them that I was feeling that way and they told me that they didn't think anything about it because I was only 6 weeks out of two major surgeries!
We stopped at Lambert's on the way home to eat! I bearly ate many of my food, but I did come home and eat the rest of it over the next two days!
I came on home to Hernando after that trip. I hadn't been home in almost 4 months by this time! I felt good to be at home, but it was lonely while Andrew was a work!
I felt like doing nothing, and I did nothing! Andrew and I seemed to be on two different planets.
I had a hard time sleeping because the raw skin kept burning! I cried myself to sleep most of the time. When I could sleep, I did! Andrew helped me when he could, but he knew that I needed to learn this on my own!
I was also still mad at God and was doing everything I thought was right to figure out what I needed to learn from this experince!

Justin Bieber Came to Memphis!!!

My younger sister, Carlie, called me back in March to ask me if I wanted to go with her to the Justin Bieber concert with her on July 31! I told her I would! I like him!! I just wished I would have gone with her to the Jonas Brother's concert last year with her!(another story and another time!). So this past weekend, my parents, Carlie, Carly Botts, and Sydney Kate came to my house. I used to keep Carly and Sydney Kate when I worked at a church preschool! They have grown up so much!! Andrew has even noticed they have grown up! I was so excited to see them. They make me feel old! We had a great time at the concert. I hope I wasn't being an old fogie at the concert! I loved it! I think he's cute! Girls were screaming everywhere! They were screaming as soon as they were taking their seats! It was crazy!! Sean Kingston was one of the opening acts for Justin!! I think he did a good job. He sings a lot more songs than I thought he did! Here are just a few pictures from the concert: Justin changed clothes so many times I lost count. I have never seen a guy change clothes as much as he did! I think we almost got a picture of every wardrope change that he had! Justin also flew over the crowd a few times!! It was so neat! He really does know how to put on a good show!!

It's Offical...

Friday of last week, I had my nursing orientation at Baptist College of Health Sciences. I was so nervous and scared about what I've gotten myself into. Orientation lasted from 8am to 6pm. I was so worried about what they would preach to us during that time.
They started us out by having the president of the college give us word of encouragement. She had pictures of nurses long ago to today's nurses. I got teary eyed looking at those pictures. I'm so excited about becoming a nurse!
Then, the next part was to take a tour of the campus. It's a lot bigger than I thought it was. They have a swimming pool and a gym. I never knew they had a swimming pool. It's nice too. It was so hot that day!! The last stop on our part of the tour was nursing building. They have over 10 human body simulators. They are so neat. They can do just about anything. They have a lady that can give birth and an infant. The lady giving us our tour told us that the lady had given birth 10 times on Tuesday and 8 times on Wednesday. She looked bad bless her heart. The infant died 10 times on Tuesday. The infant had a heart defect that the nursing students had to figure out and had to react fast. Needless to say, the infant only died once the next day because students had been talking back and forth about what had happened. I can't wait!! The simulators really help student nurses get over their fears of working on a human patient for the first time!!
We had lunch from Chick-fil-a!! It was great as always! Then we listened to all the other speeches of the day. They are really protective of their students. Security is always willing to help. If I don't feel comfortable walking to my car at night or at any time, they will walk me to my car. They want us to feel as safe as we can. They also said that the crime rate is better because students report everything they see. They also have cameras all over campus. I feel better about knowing that.
They also told us about what happens if someone fails a class. That's were I started to get scared! I don't want to fail out!! I have worked to hard to get here!! I'll need a lot of prayers to help me through this!
All in all, I'm very excited about going to nursing school! I can't wait to get to work on those human body simulators!! I just ask for prayers for both Andrew and I while we both are in school!

Dog Sitting, Camp, and Everything Else

I know it's been awhile since that last time I've posted!! I have done a lot these last few weeks. I've dog sat, went to camp, and have had a few interesting experiences. Our great neighbor's Brad and Brittany went out of town for vacation. Andrew and I offered to keep their dog, Abby. She's a Boston Terrier. She's just the cutest-sweetest dog. Casper, our dog, didn't know what to think about having another dog in the house for the week. Casper is very laid back after a few minutes. Abby on the other hand isn't. Casper looked at me like why is she here several times that week. She was fine!! I loved keeping her!! She was very easy! Abby was good until it came time to sleep. I have never heard a dog snort and snore as much as she does. The first few nights we let her sleep with us just like Casper does. One morning at three, I woke up by her snorting and snoring. I got her and took her down stairs to the cage, and she slept there the rest of the time that she was there. She even does this when she's awake. Here is what it sounds like:

------------------------------------------- The next week, Andrew and I went to church camp. It was a great time with the Lord that I really needed. This was Andrew very first camp experience. Andrew enjoyed it, and I'm glad he did. Andrew was asked by David Fields to help with music by playing the drums. We both were excited to get to go. It was just like camp when I was younger, but girls and boys where both there at the same time. It was different not sleeping next to Andrew at night. We were however in the same cabin. Andrew on the boys' side, and I was on the girls.

I had a lot of fun with the girls in my room. I was in a room with Anna, Mackenzie, Cora, Katie, Avery, and another lady. They asked about everything, and I was willing to share with them. I had told them what God was doing in my life and how He has changed me into the woman I am today. The lady that I was in a room with was Mrs. Vivian Jones. I had a lot of fun talking with her about everything. She and her husband, Russell, are the camp's Supervisors. They have worked the camp over twenty years I would say. They are truly compassionate about for everyone to know about the love of our Lord. I love to take pictures as most of you know so here are just a few of the pictures that I took. There are some from almost all the events that took place. There was quiz bowl, singing, playing, and worshipping.

The next picture is of Andrew and his shadow for the week. He's name was Ray. Ray followed Andrew everywhere. He even ate with us a few times. I thought he was just he cutest thing. Ray was also saved this week at camp. I smiled on the inside and out when I saw how much of an impact that Andrew was making on his life and all the lives of the kids at camp. I'm married to my best friend who really shows God's love to everyone.
Andrew also had some googly eyed girls that liked him as well. They thought he was just the cutest thing. I didn't get a picture of them. I wished I would have now. I picked on one. She came up just before we were about to leave and asked for his autograph. I looked at her and said, "So you have enjoyed my husband this week." She looked at me like I was crazy which I am if you ask some people. I still don't think she believed me. I wasn't trying to be rude just wanted to see her reaction when she found out that he was married. He had a lot of fans that week. Andrew wasn't to sure about all of it. LOL!!

Here are the rest of the pictures from camp. They included pictures of everyone in our cabin. Andrew missed the picture because he was helping pack up all the band gear that we brought. We both had a lot of fun at camp. We loved watching people grow in Christ. I had a tearful moment thinking about what was going on last year, what I was about to do, and how I have really changed over the last year. I was nervous about starting nursing school and what it would do to our marriage, but I left all my worries at camp because I know that this is God's will, and I have nothing to worry about. On the trip there, Arkansas has some beautiful mountains that we have never seen before. I didn't take pictures on the way so I took some on the way back. I'm going to leave you with a video from camp: