Well hidy-ho neighbors! Long time, no blog…shocker. At least I'm still consistent with blogging at unreasonable hours of the morning. Some things never change.
So much has happened since I last checked in. First off, in late August-early September, I was finally approved for the spinal fusion that we had been praying for, well, for many many months! I couldn't believe it was real. Even when it was scheduled, on the books, going in for my pre-op…something had to happen. This is NOT happening!
Meanwhile, God was at work other places in my life as well! I have felt the tug in my heart with Mary Kay that I should try and complete their Director in Qualification process prior to going back to work full-time at Baptist. If I don't do it now, I'll never do it. But the first thing I needed was over $1000 in retail sales in two weeks…uh- yeah. In MK, based on your wholesale production, you move up a STAR ladder and I was going for the $1800 wholesale (roughly $3600 retail) Sapphire STAR. And this was all within the two weeks prior to my surgery.
Most importantly, Travis and I have found an amazing church that is great for us. Travis had never even been there or heard a sermon before he told me it was our home church…he told me, "I've prayed about it. God is definitely moving there. It's home." I was overjoyed! It is truly a come as you are, we don't care about your baggage, we don't care what you've done, we just want to see people far from God learn to run after Him with everything in their lives! I quickly hopped in on the action and started to serve there, meeting some of the most incredible people I have ever met. Not only are their transformation stories about how God radically turned their world upside down amazing, but they have now given their life over to Him by serving His people rather than serving themselves. We like to say that we take off the bib and put on an apron. My church family (even after only being there a month) gathered around me in prayer and celebration when my surgery was finalized! I knew them a month people…how long does it take you to form family when you first visit a church? We want you in our house! We want you to hear the Word! We want to make you family so we can change the world! OH MAN- I'm getting into preaching mode- but what I'm saying is that if surgery had happened even a month sooner, I would not have these people in my lives. Thank you, Journey Church…for putting on your aprons for your own as well.
Okay- back on track here, Elisabeth. So then we had the exciting event of my brother-in-law, Kyle, marrying Ellen Cruise the weekend before my wedding. SUPER exciting, but certainly did not leave much time for all the things I thought I 'had to get done' before surgery.
Then came rainstorms…hail storms from the enemy where Travis and I were dodging them like bullets. A tree limb fell on my car a few months earlier. Still needed fixing. My disability check got caught off and I did not have a check for over a month. Travis had a potential health scare that left us quite uneasy for several days (he's fine now, bt-dubs!). I even had a GI bleed the night of Ellen's wedding, leaving us all wondering if surgery was going to even happen and a long afternoon on Sunday in the Baptist ED.
The biggest rock thrown at us by the enemy was the day I became approved for surgery and we set the date. A morning filled with immense joy!!! We took Duke to our awesome vet, Eric Taylor, for what we thought was a cyst on his shoulder. He wasn't acting funny…he would still get the zoomies…he was still Duke, just with a lump on his wither. Eric aspirated it several times and it's never good when your vet says, "Well that looks weird." He could not diagnose anything on site because the slide showed so many deformed cells. In his words, "It was a drunken party of abnormal cells." He was really concerned and voiced that to us. His thoughts were that it possibly be a mast cell tumor (which we researched and can be really nasty suckers to deal with…not to mention EXPENSIVE) which would need to be surgically removed. Problem…because of where it was on the shoulder, to properly excise the tumor, his leg would probably need amputation. Seriously….no- seriously??? Is this REALLY happening?? We spent DAYS taking as many photos and videos of Duke as we could. We knew that amputation was not a choice for us and yet, the big C-cancer word wasn't out of the equation. We spent days in tears…days mourning. When the cytology reports came back from the aspirate- it showed NOTHING! Non-diagnostic and basically fatty cells, probably from around the site. UGH! Really? So we then decided to have Dr. Taylor go ahead and surgically remove the tumor the Monday before my surgery and 4 days after we found out about the tumor. He was not able to remove it all, so we brought our drugged up and oozy dog home, left wondering what was wrong. Wondering, will these be our last weeks with him? Knowing that we just wanted for him to be comfortable in anyway possible and since the tumor would more than likely return, just let him be. If you've ever been there before…in that limbo- it's the most devastating thing imaginable. Sometimes more so than a human (don't go crazy! I love my passed loved-ones, but you can't replace my dog! ). It IS like your child…I felt like what my parents in the PICU must go through, except they are there, forced to watch their child suffer while still wondering. Worst feeling ever.
Thursday arrived and while visiting a friend in the hospital, I almost collapsed on the floor after receiving a voicemail. It wasn't malignant. It wasn't mast cell. But it was something so rare that our vet had never seen one in person before and there isn't even much information about them out there in pets. Duke had a necrotic lipoma. Basically, he had a fatty tumor (harmless) that underwent some sort of trauma. Travis and I probably think it was when we taught him how to roll over a couple of weeks before we noticed the mass. After the trauma, it became SUPER inflamed and encapsulated itself off and the tissue died. It wasn't gone, but Duke wasn't gone. He was here and as far as we knew and still know- staying here! Thank you, Jesus, for your sweet sweet healing and love. (PS: He had to have a drain placed because he had so much fluid build-up. The only way we could HALFWAY control it was to put Duke in Trav's old t-shirts to let the fluid soak up. ICK!)
And then there we are! Surgery day…somehow, everything had been taken care of. The Lord worked it to where I didn't have to work for a single order that came in and in two weeks, I bypassed my goal of $1800 whole sale by almost $200. Just by texts, emails, website orders…I didn't "WORK" for a single one. How could I? I was consumed with STUFF and ISSUES! But wow….over $1800 produced. That was God. I take no credit…..and our dog was healed. He would be there with me to be in my recovery bed. Everything with loose ends had been tied up. All I can still do is look up with my hands open wide and say, "Thank you." I never lifted a finger.
………..breathe…….ouch. I'm getting long-winded and would love to go ahead and tell you my surgery story now, but I think I'm going to call my dad to go for a doughnut run at Krispy Kreme. I promise, I'll blog my very exciting surgery and recovery (thus far) story soon. But can we just get a huge "Amen" and round of applause for a God who had everything under His control!? We are so blessed to be His people and receive His grace. "The beauty of grace is that it makes life not fair".
Promise. Surgery next up….
