People don’t understand that us only children-our mothers’ hearts beat for us when we are hurting, their hearts beat with ours when the good times are upon us. People don’t understand our hearts can’t beat without theirs.
My amazing, precious mom in law had a massive stroke this morning and will be going into open heart surgery tomorrow. I am crying out to you all-if you are reading this-it is because God brought you here. He wants you to be a part of this. Please pray with me! I am petitioning and begging for a miracle. Please Lord!! I don’t know why this is happening to an angel here on earth. But then that’s just it. She is from heaven and is lent to us. I don’t know what tomorrow holds. I don’t know how this will unfold. I do know that God is in control. As out of control we feel right now, He is not a God of chaos, but of order and control. He loves her more than all of us do. Which is impossible to understand as everyone who knows her adores, loves and appreciates her. Always serving, helping, doing, praying. My Rhonda is so deeply beautiful-her soul radiates Christ, joy and love. For everyone. Not just the shiny nice people. The people in the corner of a room no one will talk to. Grumpy people. Children. Older people. The unloveables.
Please friends, please pray God’s will is she will be fully recovered and given back to us.
That God would heal her for His glory.
Please pray for mercy on our whole family, Rob especially.
Please pray God would choose the perfect surgeon and be the surgeons hands.
That she would awake and we can now serve and love on her. Please friends, pray. I need you. Our family desperately needs your prayers.
It’s been foreverrrrr. I miss you all! I miss writing.
Wow 2020. Wow. Excited to never see you again! It’s been too long. I have lots of excuses. The main one being I can’t think straight. Talk straight. Finish thoughts. You are welcome. Writing this post felt like mental olympics and probably confirms these admissions. Hold the bar low people.
So much has happened! I keep looking in the clouds for Jesus, because if he was coming soon before, He has to be hovering. This world. It breaks my heart in a thousand ways. There have been so many blog posts I (PRAISE GOD) didn’t publish. In re-reading I have come to realize maybe I can be a little judgmental. And right. And a sometimes wrong on things. More than anything, I realized chirping about political climate, corruption, or oppression is divisive and that’s really not what this blog is for. That’s not what glorifies God.
I have always been an open book and I regret not sharing with you all the many beautiful things God has given us through this past year, trials included.
The c word has been {enter any negative or hateful descriptive} for so many people. It’s caused unbearable pain and loss for too many, undeserved blessings for some and a universal opportunity to grow in endurance. Or the desire to pound sand.
So many of you are sweetly checking in on me, showing myself and family so much love, please know I appreciate you!
Time for an update.
This last year has been good and hard. So many more blessings than trials. And even if it was not this way, God is still and always good.
Chad is amazing. Working from home this past year was a gift, (for me at least), and it was eye opening to see all that he does and accomplishes in a day-his work ethic is as consistent as his good attitude. He is my everything and I will never stop praising God for his life and heart.
Our spawn are thriving and truly my treasures. They don’t laugh to my face when I get frustrated trying to heat things up in the refrigerator or ask the same question for the 87th time. They are patient when I can’t find words. Their telepathy skills are on point.
We have been given countless provisions and have amazing family and friends that God has gifted us. I could ball my eyes out right now. I don’t know why they/ you all love on me? I smell questionable most days, I forget everything and I can never reciprocate. Another great resume builder: unreliable and again, hate the whole shower-fix my face-eyebrow hunt and pluck-blow dry- hate the style-redo said style-painting of the mug…oh wait, I forgot to shave and deep life decisions ensue. Do I go back?!
Get me?
Back to brain.
January 2020 was the last big surgery. Tumor doubled down and grew again.
July of 2020 gamma knife-radio surgery on a small part of the tumor-that did not work. (Clearly)
My MRI showed more growth back in November, and as I was not a candidate for another surgery, they decided to try and off label chemo pill. (For another cancer). The 1st 3 months were gold. No growth. The next 6…not so much. What can I say? It’s ambitious.
The tumor is aggressive and has continued to grow despite the many efforts to axe that sucker. My MRI last month shows edema-brain is swelling. Justifies the kind of headaches that make you do very unethical things to fix. No balance, more stupid.
I am super fun and pretty worthless 70% of the time.
But God.
God is who He says He is; gracious and faithful-full of mercy. Out of nowhere comes 1-3 days of easy, and for those days I am forever grateful.
Because we have exhausted all options, the surgery they said they would not do is scheduled for Tuesday, August 31st at 1:30.
It is high risk. We had a sobering difficult conversation with my doctor.
I am in denial a little lot a bit. This is the 7th surgery. Each successive surgery holds higher percentages of not great things happening.
If you ask me how I am feeling, I will tell you I am content, my heart is at peace. Fighting looking behind the curtain truthfully. What is holding Chad and I together is our trust that God has us in eternity no. matter. what. What and who does God say He is? This is where I go when I begin to walk the dark path of nonsense. I focus on what is true, and who I have entrusted my forever to.
He is the God of creation, salvation, and love.
He has held us this entire time and I know His timing and plan is perfect. He is incapable of making mistakes. While I am of course not looking forward to the recovery, the only place I desire to be is in His perfect will.
Friends, please pray for us?
Specifically that:
-God would be glorified in every step of the process. He would use this for good!
-God would guide the surgeons’ hands, give wisdom, and enable him to remove a significant amount of tumor safely. i.e. a successful surgery
-my vision would be protected
-God will gift us another blessed recovery and restore me
-God would empower Chad and our parents to take on all that comes with these recoveries.
-The impact on others lives is minimal
And lastly….I am just going to say it. Please pray God heals me again and brings me through another surgery safely?
I love you all. So thankful for each and every one of your souls.
I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.
Now that the celebration of our Savior’s birth has passed, along with buying and wrapping of too many gifts to count, we are actually enjoying each other. I wish I could wear the “success” hat and say we have mastered perfectly savoring and appreciating Christmas time, but I will keep it real. I failed. I yelled and wrestled with my kids each night to sit still while I read the Jesse Tree, one of our new Christmas traditions. My dear friend made us ALL the ornaments to match and wrapped them. She is amazing. They learned to sit without squirming by December 23rd.
I don’t know how to update without doing the blog thing. I don’t think Facebook is the best place.
Rhonda is responding to stimuli. People, tests-she is squeezing hands, making eye contact. She was in pain this morning which as gut wrenching it is to watch her, it was equally reassuring to see her awake and show feeling, give eye contact. They have put her back to sleep to keep her blood pressure down so there is not a rupture, which is fatal. Each minute is so critical. We all are just so frustrated at the time this is taking-as like I said, each minute is so important.
The doctor said she is in renal failure. Which I personally believe will be reversed. She had a 100. 9 fever that has lessened to 99 something just a bit ago. I have faith God will continue to move mountains. Her passing every test and being responsive and awake is just such a beautiful miracle. I don’t use that word lightly.
Friends. You don’t understand gravity and hope we have because of YOUR prayers. The continual answer to prayers. Our whole family will NEVER ever be able to appropriately show our gratitude. I want to cry knowing SO many of you are begging God in her behalf. This is the most devastating trial I have ever been through. Christian was so hard. So painfully hard. But he was not our mom, sister, wife, friend. We NEED her. She is the joy, love, continual godly example, and prayer warrior we all desperately need.
I am going to get personal here. Please pray:
That she would begin voiding urine.
That this surgery would be successful and she would recover perfectly and be restored
that her diagnosis of renal failure would be reversed.
That God will get her transported to the Stanford hospital ASAP. The surgeon is waiting for her. Apparently the surgeons phone died, which we know God’s hand was over that as well. Satan wants so badly for us to cower in fear and be anxious. We WILL NOT. God is so much bigger and we will continue to pray He will be glorified through this transaction.
Hey all, Chad here. Michelle asked me to post something to let you all know the latest. First off thank you for the thoughts, prayers, texts, and kindness. I’ll do my best to give some more background behind the surgery other than “it went well” (which it did). In classic Michelle fashion she was 30 minutes late to her own surgery. Fortunately the surgeon was an hour late to the surgery so we hook slid in before he started hunted us down. The surgery was delayed again when the OR nurse found a hair – you can’t make this up- on the OR table so they had to sanitize the OR all over again. that’s the main reason things took so long to get rolling. Around 7 pm the surgeon called to let me know everything went great. He removed all of the new tumor. It was the size of a large olive, and we all know no one likes olives. He also was able to remove about “25%” of the old tumor. All in all a good day.
With the new COVID rules it was just me there today and the nurses let me spend a few minutes with Michelle before kicking me out. She’s doing great and has her vision and control of all the important stuff like wanting to give me a kiss before I left. 😳
I had to share with you how beautiful she looks after brain surgery. I know, it’s not fair!!! I’ve thought the same thing every morning for the last 15 years….
I’ll be back at 8:30 to see her but as always would appreciate those continued prayers!!
