Sunday didn't start off to well. I almost fainted. Nothing like that has ever really happened to me before so it was quite the experience. Since I wanted to go church really badly the doctor's pumped me with medication so that I would still be able to go out. Sunday was just as satisfying as I expected it to be. Church was amazing. Sunday lunch was wondrous. Fellowship was relaxing. Getting a change of scenery was extremely nice even if it was only for half a day.

On Monday morning at 8:31 a new son was born to my oldest brother and his wife!! Ezra Gerben Vroom weighing 6lbs 2oz and measuring at 19 1/2 inches. We were all so surprised because he was 2 weeks early. I now have 4 nephews and 3 nieces! I love them! :)

Ezra :)

A pipe burst on the ward on Monday night so they were moving all the patients to a different ward, but because I was only going to be there one more day anyways, they gave me a surprise discharge! I was so happy. To go and sleep in my own bed for the night was like a dream come true. :)

Chemo day #2 was yesterday. It went much better than the first time. Of course I felt really gross later on in the day but I didn't get any headaches and I slept quite well at night. By the way if you see me all of a sudden burst into tears or do something extremely irrational do not worry. Just remind yourself that it isn't me. I literally haven't been like myself. I feel like someone different...someone who is not me. It's creepy. I know.
Anyways, more to come later on. I'm trying to regain my strength and to feel normal again. 

an extremely long but busy week.

My mind is in a very sad state of affairs. All the days of this week have gotten muddled together and I can't remember which day is which. :( I will try my hardest to remember though. Let's see..

On Thursday some friends came over and Sarah V. suggested the BEST WISH EVER!!!!! A few of you know, but not everyone knows, that I love to play the piano. I am not the greatest at playing by ear but when it comes to competitions I love to play and have lessons. So wish #1 is: a yellow volkswagen beetle and wish #2 is: a GRAND PIANO!!! :) One exactly like this: http://www.steinway.com/pianos/steinway/grand/model-d/  Check it out!! I haven't yet figured out yet what wish #3 should be... I have some ideas but none that have totally grabbed my attention. Give me some ideas ...pretty please. :) One of the reasons that I picked that type of car is because, one, I totally love beetles, and two, Mom had one when she was 18 or 19. 

The medication that my doctors have prescribed for me is annoying. It tastes disgusting and has bothersome side effects. Such as loss of appetite and making me want to cry all the time. Yesterday was one of the worst days so far. Not because people didn't visit me or because I was feeling sorry for myself but because the drugs that I am on make me extremely moody. Either I'm feeling really good and happy or I'm feeling really gross and weepy. Sigh.
Last night was really fun. I was Skyping Elyse and we were chatting, when Elyse got it into her head that we should spam Betty-Ann's (my sister's) Facebook wall. It was soooo much fun. While I was talking to her my some of my family came by along with my 2nd oldest brother Benjamin. He also has a blog if you want to check it out: http://thesanctifiedredneck.wordpress.com/ Anyways, I had a lot of fun with the family.
Now it is Saturday and Jennifer is here taking care of me and we are having quite a lot of fun. We played some games, btw I won both games that we played :), and we watched a chick flick and we are having a great time. Tomorrow my doctor is going to let me go on pass to church and then I will come back to the hospital tomorrow afternoon. They will probably let me go home Tuesday afternoon. Everything so far has been looking great and so I'm happy about that.
Got to go now and watch some more chick flicks. :)

Psalm 27

 ¹The LORD is my light and my salvation;
    whom shall I fear?
The LORD is the stronghold of my life;
   of whom shall I be afraid?

 ²When evildoers assail me
   to eat up my flesh,
my adversaries and foes,
   it is they who stumble and fall.

 ³ Though an army encamp against me,
   my heart shall not fear;
though war arise against me,
   yet I will be confident.

 ⁴ One thing have I asked of the LORD,
   that will I seek after:
that I may dwell in the house of the LORD
   all the days of my life,
to gaze upon the beauty of the LORD
   and to inquire in his temple.

 ⁵For he will hide me in his shelter
   in the day of trouble;
he will conceal me under the cover of his tent;
   he will lift me high upon a rock.

 ⁶And now my head shall be lifted up
   above my enemies all around me,
and I will offer in his tent
   sacrifices with shouts of joy;
I will sing and make melody to the LORD.

 ⁷ Hear, O LORD, when I cry aloud;
   be gracious to me and answer me!⁸You have said, "Seek my face."My heart says to you,
   "Your face, LORD, do I seek."

 ⁹ Hide not your face from me.
Turn not your servant away in anger,
   O you who have been my help.
Cast me not off; forsake me not,
    O God of my salvation!¹⁰For my father and my mother have forsaken me,
   but the LORD will take me in.

 ¹¹ Teach me your way, O LORD,
   and lead me on a level path
   because of my enemies.¹² Give me not up to the will of my adversaries;
   for false witnesses have risen against me,
   and they breathe out violence.

 ¹³I believe that I shall look upon the goodness of the LORD
   in the land of the living!¹⁴ Wait for the LORD;
    be strong, and let your heart take courage;
   wait for the LORD!

A good day.

Last night Dad, Nathaniel, Rachel, Ethan, and Joel came by. I was sort of feeling a little bit low before they came and so it nicely cheered me up. They stayed for a couple hours and we played video games in the really humongous playroom that they have here in the hospital. Even though I hadn't seen them for about only one day I still really loved that it that they came by. Right after they left I started feeling nauseous and gross so my nurse gave me some Gravol and it put me to sleep right away. Unlike the night before I slept really well this night.  It was mostly because of the medication though. 


The hospital, in its own way of course, is really nice because you don't have a set time when you have to wake up and you can stay in bed as long as you like without feeling guilty. :) The morning went quite fast except for the fact that I started feeling a bit sick again. I also had a headache pretty much all day today. At about 2 p.m. Racha, Tabitha, Esther, and Katelyn all came over to visit me. They gave me a really cute stuffed animal/cow which Racha named 'Freddy'. Unfortunately the balloon that they were going to give me floated away into the sky right as they were about to come see me. :( I showed the girls around my temporary home and around the playroom which as I said before is HUMONGOUS. 

    This is me with my cow, computer, and to the right is the machine that I'm hooked up to.

(btw, I haven't yet named my machine so if you have any good suggestions just throw them out there.) :) 
Tonight was like the first night that my stomach felt settled enough to eating dinner. My stomach decided to stay in the middle of my body instead of moving to my throat or a weird place like that.


Jonathan and Jennifer came over tonight which made me really happy. We played cribbage and talked till 9:45 p.m.. Jennifer is going to come on Saturday and relieve Mom of her duties. :)

                                                                         this was right before J+J and left...


p.s. Those of you who heard about the three wishes that I get, my first wish is going to be a yellow volkswagen beetle. :)
p.p.s. I feel like a dog chained to a pole. :D

(written yesterday)


This morning I had a Lumbar Puncture. An LP is where they inject chemo into your cerebral fluid. After getting an LP done you need to lay flat on your back for about an hour. If you don't do this you can get bad headaches and I don't want to get those. I'm on the 3rd floor and the LP was done on the 1st floor and so after it was all done I got brought back up to my room. A few minutes later I got my first visitor!! Mr. Tyler decided to stop by and give me a visit which made me really happy. It was so nice to see a face that I recognize. After Mr. Tyler left I went and watched Gulliver's Travels which didn't really help me any because I got a headache after watching it. I went and had a 1hr. nap which didn't totally take away my headache but most of it then went away. That then takes me to the present where I'm sitting on my bed in my room trying to write this update. Some of the family is going to come visit tonight which I'm really excited about! Anyways, time to go. 

An update coming soon.

Everything has been so busy this past weekend and now this whole week I will be in the hospital having my first chemo treatment. Please pray that everything would go well and that there will be no major side effects from the chemo. 

I am sooo happy! I get to stay home this weekend and go to church!! No Hospital for me. :) All the doctors are very happy that it is lymphoma and not a hard tumor. Lymphoma apparently is easier to treat. Anyways, chemo starts on Monday and I must say that I'm not really looking forward to it. I did find out that chemo treatments are about 5 to 7  days long. Once I get used to them and learn how to administer them I will be able to do it at home, but that won't be for a little while yet. If anyone feels the urge to visit me please do so, just let me know before you come. Also if you have the sniffles or any tiny sign that you might have a cold I shall have to banish you from the hospital. :)

The fine needle aspiration of the lymph node, done yesterday, was not as helpful as the doctors wished it to be and the cerebral fluid from my spinal cord came back negative. Praise the Lord! Because of this good news we were able to go home early!! :) I said before that I hadn't had an ultrasound yet, well now I have had one. I'm sure I've had every single kind of test you can imagine, or that is what it seems like... :)

I am extremely happy that I can stay at home and relax instead of getting carsickness every day and driving on extremely bumpy roads...

Thanks everyone for all your prayers!! It has been a great encouragement these past 2 weeks. 

BTW, please visit me lots....I'm sure I am going to be slightly bored. :)

The main reason I'm starting this blog.

Many people all over the world start their own blogs for many different reasons. I'm starting this blog because I'm fighting lymphoma cancer. 

The past two weeks have been a whirlwind. For the past two years I've had what I thought was tennis elbow or tendonitis in my arm. Well, two weeks ago a doctor's appt was finally set up and my Mom and I met with our family doctor, Dr. Husband, and he diagnosed it as 'tennis elbow' and sent us off for some x-rays. A couple days later the x-ray reports came back and I was sent in to visit the him again. The news that we heard was not very encouraging. So he told me that he was going to send me straight away to BC Children's Hospital to meet with another doctor. 

In the past week I've had some more x-rays done of my right arm and of my hands. I had a CT scan of my arm and my lungs. I had an MRI. I had a full body bone scan. A biopsy of my arm. When they did this test they didn't do a needle biopsy but they did an incision. They took some bone and some muscle. At the same time they took some bone marrow out of my hips, thankfully they didn't do an incision but used a needle. The bone and muscle from my arm was sent to the lab right away.  By putting it under a microscope you could tell that it was malignant. Because they knew then that I would have to undergo chemotherapy they right away put a tube in one of my main arteries. The oncologists administer chemo through this tube.  

This past Monday I had a PET scan. I've had every single kind of scan so far except for an ultrasound. :(

 Another biopsy is scheduled for tomorrow and I will have to put under again. Please pray that all would go well. It has taken a while for me to recover from the biopsy last Friday and I'm slightly annoyed that I have to go in for another one tomorrow. :(

There is sooo much to say about these past weeks I can't possibly right it all down. I will just say that BC Children's is an amazing hospital to be at when sick. The nurses and the doctors are so friendly and I'm getting the best possible care.