Life as a Lewis

Its been a hard two days of juggling work, the role of mom and wife, and cancer. Two long days of tests and appointments and blood work and waiting and complications, two different contrast dyes, blood dripping down my clothes, a cardiac nurse who accessed my port - probably her first one since nursing school - etc., etc.,  I answered the question "are you pregnant or breastfeeding" SIX times Tuesday afternoon. Why, no. No, I'm not. Brian and Becky were stuck with the chore of live-texting through the adventure, so I won't document it step by step here. I actually managed to make it through the 6 hours at Vanderbilt Tuesday afternoon/evening and felt tired, but good. What I had forgotten is that the emotional fall-out always hits the next day for me. And, unfortunately, the next day involved a busy morning at work then a rushed trip to the Sarah Cannon Cancer Center. The lines were out the door. The waiting room was full. The oncologist I was supposed to see ha...

We wrapped up our weekend with cancelled church services because of the crazy 6 inches of ice on our church parking lot which refuses to melt. School is still cancelled (that's 7 snow days in a row) tomorrow. As a result of no church services, we decided to visit a local church ( LifePoint ). I initially didn't want to go - not too proud to admit that I would have enjoyed sleeping in one more day. However, as usual, it was the right choice - Brian's choices are pretty much always right. It was awesome to attend church without having any responsibilities. Now don't get me wrong, we love being church staff and ministering to others. But, oh my stars, was it ever good to just be ministered to. The kid's classes were good, the music was awesome, and the sermon was biblical, practical, and powerful. Brian and I both struggled to focus on the service and not spend all our emotional energy critiquing and comparing this well-established church with its dozens of church...

This week's theme was pastel and there's not a whole lot of pastel in our house, much less with my black-eyed, black-haired Korean gal. However, she gave me about 10 minutes of cooperation in 10 degree weather and we attempted a pastel snow picture. The first one is my official pastel picture, but I included the other attempts because it was pretty darn fun. This is a new face I'm seeing often these days. By the way, she has 3 shirts underneath this dress, a pair of pajama pants and a pair of hot pink sweat pants. LOL

Snow Day #3 and there might be a few cracks in the snow joy. Clarksville is essentially shut down - restaurants, coffee shops, library, city offices and schools. We've made soup and hot chocolate (for the one child who actually enjoys hot chocolate), been completely lazy, finished books, caught up on TV, played a lot of Wii. And we participated in a Monopoly game that lasted 3 hours yesterday. In other words, it was never ending. Brian got stuck trying to take the kids to a friend's house for a sledding party Monday so we tried to recreate the experience in our flat little yard, and it was not super successful. It did, however, get Camden and Rory out of the house and they enjoyed getting pummeled by their dad with snowballs. We also pulled out this snowman kit we received from some friends earlier in the ear and made a snow man on the back deck. [My friend, Christine , has some truly stunning snow pictures (and snow volume!) if you want to se...

So you know Tennessee doesn't get any kind of real snow/ice very often, and while the predicted amounts keep going up and down, Clarksville is currently getting hit with the biggest snow/ice storm in many years. As in since January 2003 (which happened on Becky's wedding weekend). It's fairly exciting, especially if you're a teacher or a kid. And, actually, my own office closed down for the day so I didn't have to worry about work either. I snapped a few pictures while Brian got the van de-iced. He's taking them to some friend's house for a sledding party while I'm staying at home warm and cozy. Does that make me a bad mom? When they were little, I was all over stuff like that. Now that they're 8 and 11, I'm kind of all about staying wrapped up indoors. That is horrible, isn't it. Trying on Brian's hats. I'm cracking up because this is the same snow gear they've had for the last 3 years (which means my picture...

I have to say that this weekend did not turn out exactly as I planned. I went to our women's home Bible Study Friday morning, which I love - I don't always get to go, but am always so happy when it works out. By the afternoon, however, it was clear that I needed to start steroids to take care of the allergic reaction I have to my chemo (Doxil). For instance, this is what my feet looked like. Doxil makes me break out in a rash all over my body that is so hot and itchy I can barely stand it. I made it for a couple of days, but when my feet turned beet red and hurt like crazy, I knew I needed to give in. Unfortunately, the steroid makes me extremely sick. As in, almost worse than the rash. So Saturday I was sick all day. Thankfully, Brian was there to save the day. He surprised Rory and I with flowers, a decorated table, heart-shaped pancakes (which I should not have eaten), and cards. He also cooked a steak dinner that I did not get to enjoy. Rory was so full of...

This guy knows what it's like to love in sickness and in health, and he does it so well. It's not a make believe fairy tale with big romantic gestures, princes and princesses, glass slippers, and happily ever afters. It's putting someone else first, being selfless. It's walking in the door and asking what he can do to help me get supper on the table and then cleaning up after. It's making coffee every morning and then gently nudging my shoulder to let me know when it's ready because he knows I hate mornings and alarm clocks. It's an impromptu trip to the butcher to buy a steak after surgery because I mentioned it sounded good. It's silly written poems on Christmas morning. Thursday morning as I was walking out the door to take the kids to school, I noticed he'd cleaned out the French press and had it ready for a new pot of coffee because he knew I like an extra cup when I'm working from home. I called the kids back inside, showed the...

I'm resolving to stop apologizing for the flaws in my photos so I won't point out that I realize these are mostly out of focus. It's perfectly okay. I'm going to keep telling myself that. ;) Camden and Rory (mostly Camden) saved up all their money from Christmas, report cards, and allowance and bought themselves a Wii U. Camden seriously could not be more excited. This kid lives for the weekend when we allow him a measly 60 minutes on Saturday/Sunday to play on gaming devices and considering the newest device he has is a used DS we gave him for his 7th birthday, this new device is cause for pretty much more excitement than he's had in a long time. Because we are nothing but hard core, it arrived on Tuesday and he doesn't get to play until tomorrow. Okay, so he hasn't played it yet but it's not because we're that hard-hearted. It just took a lot of set-up time, and we've had projects, church, etc. taking up our time. ...

When my friends Jenne and Kari called me (together) a couple of weeks ago, I thought they were calling to arrange lunch together. That's what we do. I take pictures of their kiddos, and we get together for lunch/dinner occasionally. Turns out they had something big up their sleeve. When I first clicked on the link they sent me, I was more than a little overwhelmed. Jenne says I responded with, "Oh, my stars" and that's probably true. And here's the thing. That same morning, literally , I was working on a blog post about how social media is not all bad. In fact, I find it to be all kinds of good. I have made connections with fellow adoptive parents, with photographers, with scrappy gals, with other women diagnosed with cancer, and the list could go on. I've watched prayer chains happen, support given, relationships form. I have 994 friends on Facebook. I'm pretty sure I do not know that many people in real life, much less call them friends. And, ye...

Week 3a Week 3b Week 4a Week 4b Week 5a Week 5b And an old picture I scrapped last month. Credits here .

The combo of surgery followed by chemo 4 days later made it feel like a very long string of sick days. I was probably at 60% Sunday, but Monday was much better and today felt normal. I love normal. It's 7:00 p.m. and Brian and Camden are feverishly working away on yet another school project. I don't know if it's reality that Camden is having SO MANY or if it's just because we're SO BAD at keeping up with them so that it seems as if they're happening way too frequently. I do know that he is incredibly bad at passing on information along to us. Yes, we're the opposite of helicopter parents, apparently, since we have mistakenly placed our trust in a 5th grader to answer honestly when we ask what projects/homework are coming up. Brian is in charge of all things related to school projects. That's pretty close to cruel and unusual punishment for a teacher. Now that chemo bills have kicked in, I am basically working to pay medical bills which is bo...