The Long and Winding and Very Hilly Road

I really have the best intentions on keeping up with this blog. I know I haven’t done a great job. Really, I haven’t done a great job at anything lately. I haven’t been a good wife. I haven’t been a good mom. I haven’t been a good homeschool teacher. I have not been good at any of my roles lately. I have been thinking about what to do with my mom and about my mom and her health and what seems to be the lack of concern on her part. I have been consumed with these thoughts day and night for nearly a year now.

When we started down this road a year ago, I didn't expect it to be so winding and hilly.  I expected a straight path from problem to solution.  (My engineering brain at work again.) Life this last year has proven to be like our drive on the Blue Ridge Parkway last fall; up and down, left and right, and sometimes you go down so quickly, that it makes you a bit sick to your stomach. 



In talking with my uncle a couple of weeks ago, he suggested for me not to be obsessive about my mom and all of her needs to the detriment of my family. That was just what I needed to hear. It is time for me to shift responsibility back to where it belongs. It is her responsibility to fight the cancer. It is her responsibility to keep hydrated. It is her responsibility to take her medicines on time. It is her responsibility to eat 3 meals a day. It is her responsibility to quit smoking. I can’t make her want get better and live. It reminds me of the old saying, “You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink.” That is where we are with her now. We have lead her to the place where she can receive care from those who love her, but we can’t make her WANT to get well.

I will continue to be responsible for her finances. That is something I can do without harming my family. I will continue to pray for her healing and for her desire to live. I can love her, even when it is hard.

For the last 2 weeks, I have made the trip from home to Louisiana twice to help deal with the doctors’ appointments and the plan for the future. We have been so consumed by the recurring UTI, that we didn’t even consider the possibility that something else might be wrong. This last Monday, we went for a follow-up appointment with her urologist and found out about the mass in one of her kidneys. This was the first we had heard of this. He began to scramble to get a CT or PET scan done, indicating that he wanted to do surgery this week.

As I type this, we are waiting to get approval from her insurance for a PET scan to further investigate an abnormality in her kidney. She was supposed to have a CT scan this morning, but she has not been keeping herself hydrated, so her kidneys are not functioning properly, so she can’t have the contrast. My sister and I were both there with her last week and even with both of us watching, we couldn’t keep her hydration at a level where her kidneys function properly. It is out of our hands.

Please pray for my sister, my brothers and me to have wisdom as we make decisions about the future of my mom’s care.

For now, we rest in the knowledge that this is only temporary and that someday we will see the light at the end of the tunnel.

It's been awhile...

It seems like just a few weeks ago I posted here.  Time has flown by so quickly.  I guess that happens when you are preoccupied with an illness combined with normal everyday family activities. 

Over the next few days, I will be updating you on quite a few things that have been happening around the TD Family household.  For now, I will start with the most obvious.

Princess TD cut off her hair!!

Yes.  She finally let my stylist cut her hair - it only took 4 tries!!  She decided that she wanted to let it grow long enough to donate it to a charity.  While most kids her age donate to Locks of Love, she opted to go with Pantene Beautiful Lengths.  With the Pantene program, her hair is guaranteed toward making a wig for a cancer patient.  She really wanted that.  She helped my cousin, Jo, pick out her wig after her diagnosis, so this was dear to her heart. 

I am so proud of my little girl for being so generous.

We have had a few tears over the missed long hair, but she is convinced it will be long again next week.  Well, it won't actually be next week, but it will grow back!

Make your own collage

In case you were wondering about the song, she said this was her favorite song.  It is called When I Get to Heaven by PureNRG.

The Homeschool Mother's Journal - Week 2

In my life this week...

We took off school last week to work on redoing our kitchen floor.  It was a big job and the whole family helped get it done.  We were very grateful for the help from Grandpa and Grandma.  We wouldn't have been able to do it so quickly without them!


On another note, my mom had her last chemo treatment this past Friday.  She will have another follow up with her oncologist in a month, at which point he will run further tests to see how she is doing.  We are all praying that she can be finished with chemo and that the cancer has not returned.  She recently ran out of cigarettes and mentioned to my sister that she was "done" now.  I only pray that is true!

In our homeschool this week...

It is always a slow start back when we have taken time off school.  Since we took off last week to work on redoing our kitchen floor, today was the first day back and it was crazy!  I am hopeful that the week will end on a good note once we all get back into the swing of things.

Places we are going & people we are seeing...

Just before our week off, we took a field trip to our local aquarium with our homeschool group.  We had a wonderful time with a great group of people!  We even got to have one of Princess TD's friends hang out with us for a day. 

My favorite thing this week was...


On our field trip, I was able to convince Princess TD and her friend to touch the stingrays in the touch tank! That was priceless!  Princess TD has always been afraid to touch, but the two of them together developed the courage they needed.  They both were afraid of the sharks, but it was so much fun teaching them both about the stingrays and sharks.  Princess TD and Little TD have seen the pictures of the sharks we saw on one of our SCUBA diving trips and really aren't afraid of them, but it was priceless seeing the eyes of her friend as I described how close were were to them. 

What's working/not working for us...

Obedience.  First time obedience.  That is always a challenge.

Homeschool questions/thoughts I have...

We finished our reading program we have been working with for a year.  We started a new one, Drawn Into the Heart of Reading.  I love the program, but my brain is not comprehending how to make all of this happen.  I am sure that I am just making it more complex than it needs to be; I have a tendency to do that.

A photo to share...

The Crazy Aquarium Kids!

Our New Kitchen Floor

We have been planning and saving for a while for a new floor in our kitchen. Something more urgent always came up, so it has taken us a couple of years to have the money to replace our 13 year old, contractor grade linoleum. It is amazing that it even lasted as long as it did! Here is the transformation...

Picture slideshow personalized with Smilebox

It was a great family project!  After stirring all of the dust and debris, my allergies have been going bonkers, but they are beginning to subside now and will be even better once I complete a deep cleaning of the house!  We can't wait to have everyone over to see our new floor...maybe we'll just have to have a party!