I can’t believe Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas has come and gone since the last time I blogged. Oh and our 8 year anniversary. Yes 8 years! I can’t believe I’ve been married to my best friend for 8 years already. It feels like just yesterday I was walking down the aisle. And I’m not sure I would have called him my best friend all those 8 years. Lol Yes there’s no secrets that we had our trials in our marriage but we both stuck it out and were committed to working through all of the crap and we are so thankful we did. Because if you ask me we are crazy about each other now. J And coocoo in love. J
Tomorrow will be 6 months since Justin had his surgery at Moffitt. I can’t believe 6 months ago tonight we were heading to bed in fear of the unknown and what life was about to hand us. I feel like we were somewhat naive little kids without a clue as to what we were about to face. Yet still very scared of what the future held. 6 months ago tonight we were heading to bed ready to face one of our biggest challenges in life thus far. However tonight, 6 months later, we are heading to bed with the security that God brought us through and stood by us through it all. He carried us when neither of us had the strength. He was faithful as always.
Justin is doing great. It’s been a little over 8 weeks since he quit Interferon. He is feeling much better. Some of his side effects have lingered. He is still losing hair. It took a toll on us both emotionally. And he still isn’t feeling 100% yet. They have done blood work on him thinking it was his thyroid but it wasn’t. There’s not much more they can do until he has his next scans on January 12th. We both still feel very strongly that quitting Interferon was the best decision. Nobody can fully understand the effects of it until they’ve been through it. And even I being by his side can’t fully understand what he went through. What I saw with my eyes though it was brutal.
The kids are doing great. Jayden was struggling in school and his behavior improved tremendously once Justin quit the treatment. We never realized how much it was effecting the kids that daddy was sick. But they are doing much better. Looking back I have no idea how we survived financially other than God. I can’t tell you the amount of people he placed in our life to bless us. I still look back in awe of his faithfulness even in the finances when it seemed impossible. Justins business has continued to flourish and God has blessed us with a great employee who has done an amazing job at running the business for Justin.
I feel so blessed by the amount of quality time that God gave Justin and I together the last 6 months. We have spent almost every single day together majority of the day. We do just about everything together. God took a very challenging trial in our life to not only grow us closer to him individually but also as a couple. We set our alarm every morning to have an intimate time together doing devotions and praying as a couple. We strive to have him the center of our marriage and the center of our home. I can’t say the road was easy. I can’t say we kept our eyes on him through it all. I can’t say we didn’t doubt him and weren’t angry with him at times. But I can say that looking back God was in the center of it all and he never let us go. He was faithful and loved us through it all.
Justin is still getting his vitamin infusions and he goes back January 12th for a PET scan. Yes there’s still fear. Fear that the cancer will have come back. Justin made a comment to me this past month that this could be his last Christmas with us. I have peace that God has removed his cancer from his body FOREVER! But I know Justin still struggles with it. He still looks at his kids and thinks that he won’t see them grow up. But I continue to remind him that we have to look at how faithful God has been up until this point. He isn’t going to fail us now. And even though much good came out of the last 6 months we are both looking forward to saying goodbye to 2011 and Hello to a happy and healthy 2012! Please keep us in your prayers for his PET scan on January 12th. We love you all and Happy New Year!!!
