Back to school, and on their own!!

One by one the kids are heading back to school. The first one to move out was Noelle! On August 8th she moved to an apartment! So unbelievable! We are so proud of her. Technically due to her large amount of absences over the last two years especially, Noelle has one semester of high school left. She will begin Hawkeye Community College in January. She will be there for two years and then pursue her BSN at Allen Nursing School. Here are a few pictures of her apartment. She has two roommates that were assigned to her. They are doing well so far.

August 19th Teme headed back to school. He is in the 8th grade.

August 21st the big guy headed back to Ames. He has changed his major to Chemistry with a teaching certification, with the goal to teach high school Chemistry. I think this is a good fit. In fact, I have been encouraging him in this direction for awhile. I actually felt the need to ensure that he did not change because of my pestering. I would hate to be responsible for an unhappy choice. He assures me it was all his decision.

His room is TINY! And I have laughed at the difference getting a girl off to her own place for the first time versus a boy, especially Jake. So funny.

Sabrina will head to second grade tomorrow. I will definitely add photos later.

Family Vacation

August 11-14th we had a vacation with my family in southern Iowa at the Honey Creek Resort on Lake Rathbun. My mom and dad, sister Karen and her family and my sister Kat and her family were there. We were just about to load up the car when Jake came down with the flu. Unbelievable. So we went ahead intending to come back and get him the next day. He ended up feeling icky most of the time we were gone so he missed out and we missed him:(

We had lots of yummy food, kayaking, boating, inner-tubing, wave runners, family sand volleyball games, golf, indoor waterpark and a bonfire. I did a really bad job with the camera but I have a few shots from Noelle and Scott's phones. Have I mentioned that I still have a "dumb" phone?

Endometriosis:(

Unfortunately the results of Noelle's laproscopy showed that she does indeed have Endometriosis. She does a great job of explaining her diagnosis on her blog.
http://myjourneythroughlymes.blogspot.com/

Please pray with us as we decide which treatment options to consider.

Best day EVER!

Friday, July 11th was my 48th birthday. One of my love languages is definitely gifts! So I have harassed Scott a little bit about the lack of acknowledgement last year on my birthday. This year made up for any lacking EVER:)

I woke up for an early morning potty run and returned to my bed to find a card and gift number one. I was barely awake enough to process it but Scott wanted me to know right away that he had planned everything, ahead of time.

For lunch the five of us (Jake is in Ames) went to lunch. I was greeted with two more gifts. A lovely Vera Bradley makeup bag from Noelle. And the greatest gift...EVER! (Sensing a theme here?!) Scott, with lots of help from Noelle got me tickets to see Cher in Chicago!!!!!!!!!!

I seriously could not decide whether to pee or cry. Part of it is excitement for the concert and part of it is the complete surprise over the effort and the idea!! So nice to be loved.

Then Teme went to a friend's house and Noelle watched Sabrina while Scott and I got away for a whole 20 hours!! We had a couple's massage, dinner, overnight at a hotel, farmer's market...so amazing!

Thank you Scott and Noelle for making my birthday so unbelieveably special. Love you both to the moon and back!

Surgery scheduled

We have scheduled Noelle's exploratory surgery for Tuesday. Please pray with us for her safety during the procedure.

More pain:(

I haven't updated on Noelle in a while. She is struggling with three major issues currently.

The most intense is pain associated with her period. Please pray for our decision making as we see the doctor today. It seems very possible that this is endometriosis. There have been links between Endometriosis and auto-immune diseases, like Lyme disease. The only way to verify this diagnosis is through laparoscopic surgery. During this procedure, if they find evidence of endometriosis an effort can be made to "clean it up". This procedure can help with the pain. Hard for me to believe that my daughter may have TWO different pain causing diseases that are difficult to control. Poor baby!

The second issue is weather fronts. We have had thunderstorm after thunderstorm. The changes in barometric pressure intensify Noelle's Lyme pain drastically. One of our biggest issues with her pain has always been finding pain relief. Nothing works. She allows herself to take an Oxycodone every three days at the most frequent. And even that, diminishes but does not take away her pain. Hopefully our weather will soon turn into a regular Iowa July, lots of sun.

Third remaining issue is with emotional struggles. There are situational responses and then there are days when she doesn't know where the crazy emotions are coming from. We will address this with her doctor today as well. I read an interesting article in Prevention magazine that talked about the impact of chronic inflammation on depression. This doctor suggests that using something like Celebrex along with an anti-depressant can yield better results. This idea is something I will be talking to the doctor about.

There are improvements since Arizona. Her leg pain is much improved. She has not used a wheelchair since sometime in Arizona. She has rarely had migraines since her treatment. Please pray with us for continued healing and answers to the above complications. As always, thank you so much for joining us in praying for Noelle's healing.

:)

After getting her hair "softened" by Noelle. She loves it! Though it is not as easy to comb as I had hoped. Getting it trimmed tomorrow and hoping that will help.

The girls did each other's makeup one day:)