one more time today...

had to write this down. amazing mail day. it was almost a joke how much came today. perfect timing. justin came to hang with us before he had a meeting tonight but as soon as he walked in the door i asked if he could hang with ava while i ran to the fabric store. i have known for a few weeks what ava was going to be for halloween and i have everything i need for it but i had not made her tutu yet. and i need to today because chemo tomorrow, sick for the weekend, and trick or treating is sunday. so i made her tutu. but needed a little more tulle. i got in the car and backed out and quick checked the mail before i left. it was crazy. so because ava was not in the car i decided to open it all while driving to the store. not safe. i know. a few special things came today. mostly from strangers. which brought the tears. a little dress for ava. lots of gift cards. some very sweet cards. and a check from a church in lexington, ky. and it was crazy because last friday justin got rear ended and the driver is supposed to pay. obviously. but he is being difficult. so we will pay our deductible and then our insurance with reimburse us after they deal with the driver. well when we were coming home obx and talking about it. he said...i pray the lord provides the money. and the check we got was the exact amount of our deductible. crazy. then i got this gift from all the young life ladies in virginia. some on staff and some are wives...its this adorable book entitled...libbys little book of love. full of scripture, songs, and real sweet letters from some women i know real well and others i barely know. i cried as i read each and everyone. so i will never be alone. i got a huge group of women praying for me, justin, and ava. so thank you. then i came home and completed the tutu. fed ava dinner. she is so healthy. she only wanted vegetables tonight. we will see how long this lasts. then she feel asleep in my arms as i rocked her. she rarely does that so when she does its so special. just drinking her bottle and holding her little baby real tight. i am in love. that is for sure. i am in love.

top chef just desserts is on tonight. so if i can stay up until 10pm we will watch that too. i definitely feel a new burst of energy. not really physically as am exhausted. but more in my heart. like my heart feels full.

pet scan results

yesterday we decided to go to the outer banks for the night. some friends have a place there and offered it to us. so we packed up but before we could leave we went to the doctor to check my wbc. while i was waiting for the results of that to see if i needed a shot or not...we found out that my pet scan results were in...and literally the report said EXCELLENT. there only recommendation was to that next time they give me xanax to ease my anxiety a bit. fine with me. those pet scans make me sick. while we were driving to the appointment we prayed in the car...and justin..."lord i hope we are celebrating tonight in the outer banks..." and we did! we do not know any details beyond the fact that my pet scan looked excellent. we will talk specifics tomorrow when i see my dr before i get chemo. it was shocking to read the report the simply said excellent. i am sure there are more specifics and medical terms, but excellent was enough for us. however, my wbc was just over a 1,000 so i did have to get a shot. which was fine considering we were more concerned with the pet scan this visit anyways. so i got my shot, thanked the Lord for healing me, got some chick-fila, filled up with gas and headed to the beach. where it was sunny and 80 degrees. we got there and ava took a nap and justin and i sat on the porch, which was right on the ocean and celebrated! it was nice to experience real joy together. we have not felt that a ton lately. we really love each other. on monday while we were talking in bed i told him i thought he should slow down a bit and that things are getting a little busy. and without even defending himself he said...yup you are right. i have decided that marriage is a bit of a dance. when things are good..its because you are in sync with one another. he loves me so i love him. i serve him and he serves me. the second you lose that...or the dance gets mixed up. its tough. i am short with me so he short with me. he is annoyed with me so i act annoyed with him. it really is dumb. justin and i constantly remind each other that we are for each other.  on the same team. always. and right now we are living that. yesterday was a gift. so after ava's nap we went to dinner and celebrated with all you can eat crab legs. loved it. one bummer is that because we were working so hard to eat to your dinner we thought the conversation was lacking a bit. but we did talk about trips we want to take when i am cancer free and how the pet scan results have given me a ton of strength. i know now that all of this is worth it. because the chemotherapy is working. it was just an easy night. ava took a bath in the giant jacuzzi tub and loved it. i mean loved it. got her to bed and watched the biggest loser. we like this show. its not necessarily our favorite season, but we like it. woke up and packed. got a little starbucks for the drive and ava did well. she does not love her car seat anymore. but never screams. just fake cries sometimes. now she is napping and i am about to do the same. resting for chemo tomorrow. because i am so thankful about the pet results i will not focus on the fact that we still have a long road ahead of 8 treatments, pet scans, injections, etc...but instead...for the first time i am thankful for chemo. its killing my cancer. and God gets the glory.

i love this weather.

today is mild and overcast. we actually have a thunderstorm watch and i love it. i like days like these. it tells me i should nap, lay in bed, and read. i will do all those things right now because little ava is sleeping. my grandma is here. she drove from mi with her friend and they arrived last night. she brought ava this new book with babies faces and she loves it. like she wanted to sleep with it type of love. its precious. we just went out for lunch and ava attempted to talk to anyone in the restaurant that would listen. thankfully everyone around seemed to love her so it worked out. now we are back home and all three of us are resting. i will as soon as i blog. i was not planning on it because i am seriously tired. but i could not keep it inside. all that i am feeling. i am overwhelmed. nearly speechless about the emails i have received in the past few days. so many strangers. i know i just blogged about this and i will give it a rest in a second. but for now thank you. it is such a source of encouragement to us. i just got an email from a women who was coming home from Busch Gardens yesterday and when she stopped at Burger King on the way home she saw a sticky note on the bathroom door which my blog address and underneath that it said. life changing. she thought it was a joke but because she was curious so went home and started reading. the whole thing. that is crazy to me. not because i care about the attention...but because people are reading about jesus and cancer and how you can have cancer and not hate God. it is leaving me speechless. all of it. a little book club in richmond, va was talking about the blog last week and this woman emailed me today because she had come home from her meeting and started reading. because the women talking about it were captivated by it she said. wanna know why they were captivated...jesus. because i have no idea what i am doing. either does justin. cancer is crazy and life is changing. daily. but we know one thing. that jesus is with us. in our suffering. in our pain. when i hate cancer so bad i could cry. he is in it. in our pain he is being glorified. i love that because it does not make sense. how through all of this pain i feel more loved than i ever have in my life. i also love it because jesus does not work in the ways you would you think. but instead he allowed me to get cancer because he knew. he knew he was going to use for his goodness. and its more than clear to me when i get email after email from people who see jesus differently now. love him differently. desire to know him more. or maybe for the first time are thinking about God and what that means for their life. early on i said to i would have cancer for the rest of my life it meant that people who would come to know jesus in a real way. well its happening. and hopefully i wont really have to have cancer for the rest of my life. and i am thankful because we are in the midst of cancer and we are already seeing the Lord work. often times in life we do not know why certain things happen until later...but what a gift it is to be a part of something he is doing now.

saturday, sunday, and today are good days. i wanted to write that down so when i forget what normal feels like i can read this post. feeling normal for me = energy to play with ava, food tastes good and i do not feel the need to throw it up, i have the desire to clean my house, do laundry, and organize areas i have been putting off for weeks, and overall i just feel good. so when normal begins to slip away i need days like today to remind that it wont always be so hard and i wont always feel so sick. three more days until chemo and thus the cycle begins again.

emails, etc.

its always interesting to see how people respond to a particular post. i did not mean for the last post to be so sad. but it was a sad day so i wanted to remember that for later on. i sometimes sit down to write and i am not sure where it all comes from. but its inside me so i write it down. i continue to be so amazed as i receive emails and facebook messages from people after they read the blog or a certain entry. i often think...what is the big deal? not to undermine what is going on, but because its just our life and i sometimes do not understand why people care so much. but wow i am thankful they do. often speechless. particularly strangers who take the time to read this blog. in its entirety. in one sitting. i had a women in sweden email me this morning after she had spent nearly 3 plus hours reading the blog. 3 hours. who does that? wonderful people do that. and then people email me and share parts they loved and how they love jesus more now and how they are praying for me and justin and little ava. i get so overwhelmed with emotion. like when you feel something is in your throat. choked up i guess. but i do. and i cry. sometimes i weep. but sometimes its just one or two simple tears down my cheek. but really its overwhelming. the out pour of love and support. last week i thought for the first time in a while...i do not have anything more to say. i think i may stop blogging. the emails had slowed down and so had the mail. which is normal. i expected that. well actually there was one day this past week that for the first since i had gotten sick there was no mail for me (minus one medical bill). so in my denial i left the mail in the mailbox. strange huh. i guess i realized for the first time really how much it means to me to that people write us and care for us. not in a selfish way. but i began to see how much i draw on others to find my strengthn. i do not think that is all the way wrong. but a little. i think the lord is doing huge things in my life, justin's, our families, and our friends. which is increidble. but i do not want to depend on people. i want to depend only on christ. my dear friend britt sent me a link to a sermon from her church about 10 days ago and i finally found the time this morning to listen. it was about God's love. how vast it is. long. deep. wide. its more than we will ever know or understand. and in many ways its so simple. we know God loves us. i have been told that my whole life. but i am beginning to understand his love in a deeper way. you have to when you suffer. and when life looks different than you thought. and you have cancer. and you honestly never in your life even thought about getting cancer. not once. other people get cancer. but now its in our story. and right now it is our story. not all of it, as i am not defined by cancer. maybe cancer will forever be our story or maybe its just for now. but the gift in all this is that because of cancer i see christ different. i experience him differently. i respond to him differently. i love him differently. his love has always been the same for me. i just did not realize the depth of it. until now. so because today is a good day. that started off with ava sleeping in until 7:30am, a dear young life girl coming over whose heart is different since i last saw her in july, and eating dunkin donuts (i am not actually eating donuts, its just the name of the establishment, as i am getting lots of emails about my nutrition needs) for breakfast...because not everyday will be as hard as wednesday was...i am beginning to feel and experience this deep love that only jesus can offer. his love has always been the same, but because i am not the same i can see him in a new way. and i will cling to this truth not only on the good days but the real bad days too. so thank you for taking the time to read our story. and pray for us. and cry for us. and write me an email. or a letter. i am honestly not sure what to write because everything i try and type sounds stupid. so i will just end it now and ava just woke crying a little.

pet scan. also eggs and peanuts.

ava update. allergic to eggs and peanuts. yup our sweet little ava is "that" girl. that girl who can't have eggs. eggs are in lots of things by the way. no fancy egg sandwiches that her daddy makes or baked goods or reese's peanut butter cups. my favorite. i actually love anything with peanut butter. apples, chocolate, bananas, celery. anything. so sad for ava. we do not know many details. but we are meeting with an allergist next week. for now we are just real careful. we have an epi pen junior just in case.

yesterday was awful. it started good though. i got with ava and for first time since chemo i actually was able to play with her. like really crawl around and play. it was nice. justin had taken the morning off so i made breakfast and we hung out when ava went down for her morning nap. oh, the yl banquet went so great. it really was a success. and nice to see people. because of my pet scan at 4:45 i could not eat anything past 9:45am. which was hard. so because i could not eat anything besides breakfast, i got a horrible headache and was nauseous all day. on the way to the scan i got worst. i closed my eyes the whole way. when we got there i immediately ran to the bathroom to throw-up. just the thought of anything to do with cancer makes me literally sick. we got my pet scan done at a different place than before so justin could not come with me. they took me to this mobile pet scan. it literally is a trailer that moves to different places. it was weird. but nice i guess. so i sat in a chair with an iv with some radioactive stuff and waited. it was just sad. not like oh i am sad...but like this...this cancer...is so hard and i do not want to do it anymore. i sat in this chair with warm blankets all over me because the trailer was cold and waited for my iv bag to empty. when it was my turn i laid down and they put my body into this machine that was like a donut. it was not that bad. i feel asleep. or at least drifted. and music played. so that was nice. got done and met justin in the waiting room. then procesed to throw-up in the parking lot. glad i held it together for the scan. when i was done i cried. cried to justin because this is too hard. and i do not want to do it anymore. i hate it all. i hate cancer. i hate being sick and having no energy. i hate that i have 8 more chemo treatments. and the thought of that literally makes my stomach turn. and as soon as they put the iv in me for chemo and for the scan they put saline in first. and you can taste it a little bit. just typing that makes me sick. i said to justin in the car...how do people fight cancer for years? i don't think i could do that...he said, libby do not say that. now of course i do not really mean that i would not fight it, but i would rather not. i just want everyone to know that cancer is extremely hard. and that if you know someone who has it...love them and love them well. they need it. and for those of you maybe reading who have been battling cancer for years. thank you. thanks for fighting. because i am sure there are days when it does not seem worth it. one more dr appt. one more chemo. one for scan. one more shot. it just gets daunting. even "good" days are still not normal. i honestly i am not sure what that is. not be dramatic or anything, but because these drugs are inside you trying to kill the cancer you never really feel great. you just are thankful for days where you do not feel bad. so i cry and justin drives. we pull into arby's because i love it. random i know, but so good. i was starving. so i hate. but everything tasted bad. the bread. the cheese. the tomato. i knew i had not made the best choice. but i made it our driveway and then threw-up. got inside and threw up some more. pulled it together and put my sweet ava to bed. we had gotten home early so i was excited that i could put her to bed instead our dear friend gaye who was watching her. i love putting her to bed. so i did it. then i got into my pajamas and threw-up on and off for the next couple hours. ate a few saltines and drank some water and went to bed. last night was the hardest night i have had yet. i guess my body does not respond well to pet scans.

justin took the day off. he got up with ava so i could sleep. and i did sleep. it was nice. after she got up we went to our favorite breakfast place, the broken egg. i like being with my family. ava was a dream. and we got to talk. ran a few errands. now home for ava and my afternoon nap. we are okay. we are making it. justin i think is doing well. i am not doing so well. just run down. its all just a lot. a lot to handle. but we are dealing. because we have to. but in the midst of it all i get angry sometimes, and sad sometimes, and wish it were not happening. but not angry at jesus. he is my only hope. we pray because we believe he can and will take the cancer away. and the nausea away. and the fatigue away. so we will keep praying. and maybe you will too. so thank you.

yl banquet

tonight is our annual yl banquet in chesapeake. justin is speaking at it. please pray it goes well and that jesus is glorified. and that lots of money is raised.

i am finally feeling a little bit better. i went to target today. the most i have done since chemo. but it was good to get out. there is this awesome service out there for people with cancer. a cleaning service. they will clean your house 4 times for free during chemo. its awesome. so three real nice ladies came over today and cleaned. which is perfect because i am exhausted. i sleep whenever i can. so pray ava keeps taking two good naps a day. i need the rest. i also need more help. but i hate to admit it. justin pretty much had ava with him all day yesterday because i was too tired. so glad we have justin.

tomorrow is pet scan. i have barely thought about it. but i am a little nervous. wont know results for a week. which is hard. waiting is hard.

i read a blog last night. one i read a lot since sara introduced me. i have never cried while reading it. but last night i did. hard. she was talking about her love for her little daughter. who is close to ava's age. and i thought about ava and how my love for her is scary. like a good scary. so intense and deep. but sad because what slips into my thoughts is what ava's life would be like without her mommy. now i know i do not need to "go there." but i do sometimes. i think about it. not out of fear. but mostly just sad thinking about it. real sad. so i kissed her a little bit more today. dressed her real cute and hugged her. a lot.

monday.

it was a long weekend. restful. but hard. i was pretty nauseous. actually really nauseous all weekend. i was talking to laura this morning and mentioned that this nausea was worse than baby ava pregnancy nausea. mostly because with ava it was more than worth it to be sick. but with cancer it just gets annoying. but monday it usually when it begins to subside and it has. saturday ava and i hung out with oma and papa. she loves them. i love watching my dad play with her like i know he did when i was a little girl. we watched u of m lose. sad. but caught the end of the uk game which was great. they had a comeback win in the last few minutes. justin was at the game with his dad and tommy and chris (his brother in laws, but more like brothers). justin went to undergrad at uk and i went to graduate school there. justin and i texted through out the game about how we wish we had a team here to follow. a team we actually cared about so we could tailgate and ava could wear a cheerleader outfit.  but our hearts are with ky and mi. so it will be tough to care about a virignia school. we are trying though.
                       
the kentucky golf outing. needless to say the golf outing in lexington was a success. justin said he has never felt more loved. how i wish i could have been there. around 70 or so golfers came out and many more friends and family were there to help and hang out for the day. thank you thank you thank you. not sure how to properly thank people who put together something like this. but we feel loved and supported. we do not feel alone. we know we are not alone in this. what a gift that is. to know its not just our little family of three...but hundreds and maybe thousands of people who are praying for our family. words can not express. thank you to all of you helped out in any way shape or form. i am humbled. truly. its a direct answer to prayer that our medical bills will no longer be an issue. we love you.

ava's hive update. she is ok. we do not have the results of her blood work yet. but praying it was nothing. you would never even know it happened. kids are pretty resilient. oma and papa flew back to wa last night. it was a visit full of playing with ava, a little shopping, projects, a few gifts, and lots of resting (mostly for me). thanks mom and dad.

i have a pet scan wed. that will show how my cancer is reacting to the chemo. yellow spots light up to indicate where the cancer is in my body. i am hopeful. the spots in my neck are already visibly non existent. and the pain in my hip and rib are better much. i do have pain in my bones throughout my body but we think its from my injections. so the pet scan is big. it will impact my course of treatment. for today i am not scared about it. we will see what tomorrow brings.