So Many Blessings

Last week was kind of a huge week for me in a lot of ways. I received a lot of tender mercies from the Lord. John was home with me every day except for Thursday. Instead, my dad was with me that day to take care of my kids for me. My dad also stayed with the kids both times John and I had to go to the ER. At the beginning of the week I had no clue what was even wrong with me. I was in so much pain and had no clue how I'd injured myself. It turns out, I didn't. Thanks to someone leaving a comment on my blog, I realized that I actually had an abscess. I went in to the ER days sooner than I would have if it hadn't been suggested to me. I had amazing people helping me while I was in the ER. On Thursday evening, as our bishop sat in our living room for a visit, he was inspired then and there to give me a new calling. I will be honest, I cried tears of happiness and relief. Within a minute of him extended the calling to me, I physically felt myself coming back to life. It was that pronounced. John saw it in me too. I got the opportunity to watch almost all of the 4 gold medal games I'd wanted to watch (I missed the last few ends of men's curling when I was back in the ER on Friday for my follow up). I also got to watch the amazing hockey game when our Canadian boys beat the US on Friday with one of my friends. On Friday I was very nervous about them taking the packing out of my wound and if they'd need to repack it. I had heard it can all be extremely painful. I was so grateful that I only had a moment of pain while the packing was taken out and was grateful again when the doctor told me it was small enough and healing well enough that it didn't need to be packed again. What a huge blessing! And yesterday I started the day with Caleb. We woke up at 4:30 am to watch the men's hockey team win gold. What an amazing memory it is for me to have shared that with him. I will remember it for years to come. And then in the afternoon, during ward conference, I was sustained as the Mia Maids adviser. I had all of those girls in activity days as well as when I was serving over Beehives. I have served one of the girls in Mia Maids in 6 different callings in the (not quite) 8 years I've been in this ward. I am so grateful for all of the good things that happened to me during the past week, and also that I was willing to see and focus on them rather than just the negative things that were occurring. My testimony grew leaps and bounds during the week. I truly am blessed!

Huge Thank You!

I'd like to send a huge thank you to the person who made an anonymous comment on my last post. I looked into what you suggested, and you were exactly right. I went in to the ER yesterday morning, they confirmed it and sedated me to drain the abscess. I have been pretty drugged up for the past 36 hours and been in a fair bit of pain, but I'm starting to feel a LOT better. I am so grateful for that anonymous comment, it probably saved me days more of being in really bad pain.

How Did That Even Happen?

Somehow last week I managed to bruise my tailbone. I have NO idea how it happened. I don't do any kind of sport, I didn't fall. Absolutely nothing sticks out to me about what could have caused it. At any rate, I've been in a lot of really bad pain most of the time. It hurts the least when I'm laying on my stomach, but even then it's still not totally gone. I have found 2 things so far that have made a dent in the pain. The first is Tiger Balm. I can't say enough good things about that stuff. It's the only thing that helps with my upper back pain and it's the only pain reliever I've tried that's even made a dent in the pain in my tailbone. John also went out and got me a seat cushion this morning with a U cut out of the back so that my tailbone isn't sitting on anything when I'm sitting down. Apparently a bruised tailbone takes 4 weeks to recover from. Here's hoping for a quick 4 weeks...

Thoughts and Reflections

I realized this morning that over the past 12.5 months, I've actually become a lot more private of a person. Hardly anyone knows about the bigger things that have gone on in my life. I'm okay with that, some of it just doesn't belong out there. I wasn't even going to blog about the whole cancer thing, but then I realized that since I really suck at journalling, I should at least have some record of this somewhere. At any rate, here are 10 things that have happened in the past year that I'm willing to share:

1 - I was released from the Young Women presidency in our ward in a VERY VERY VERY emotional meeting with the bishopric member. Apparently they drew straws over who had to be the one to tell me. I still miss it a lot. But I am enjoying the calling I'm currently in.

2 - After spending years growing my hair out and getting it back to it's natural colour as well, I chopped it off super short. I enjoyed it being short, but have now started the process of growing it out again.

3 - Caleb lost his first tooth. He was over the moon about it and has lost a few more since then. In our house, we buy the kids a milkshake when they lose a tooth, which he loves.

4 - We found out that Brettley is allergic to something in creamy salad dressings. Since then, I have made a LOT of homemade Caesar salad dressing.

5 - I burnt my arm really badly while making Rice Krispies squares. I have a permanent scar from it. I have not made any squares since then.

6 - Caleb had his first piano recital. He did well and looked so dapper in his suit.

7 - We finally got a brand new couch and love seat. I think my mum fell out of her chair when I told her they were brown. (She is HUGE on decorating in brown, and I kind of hate it, but I'm really warming up to certain shades of brown).

8 - Brettley had his second strabismus operation. His eyes are a lot better, but not 100%. I'm trying not to make him do another surgery, since he never fully recovered from the second one.

9 - Ty started Kindergarten and my mornings got a LOT more quiet. His favourite thing to do at school is the house centre.

10 - I finally got a laptop. I got inheritance money from my grandparents and while most of it went to paying off debts, I got to buy one really frivolous thing, so I got a laptop and a wireless trackball mouse. I love em!