These are a few of my NOT favorite things

(Can you hear Julie Andrews singing?) Crutches and walking boots, feeling useless and not being able to exercise, expensive doctor's bills and exhausted, overworn husbands. Being told they need to check my other daughter for cancer and hitting our (high) insurance deducible within the first two months of having insurance: yes, these are a few of my not favorite things.

It has been a turbulent couple of weeks here, medically speaking. Sometimes I want to put my head in my hands and wonder, "Why is that always the way at our house?" I feel so guilty because we have been so blessed through everything - including the last few weeks- and I know we all have hard things to deal with. But I was really looking forward to the way things seemed to be slowing down for us medically speaking and looking forward to opening new chapters of our lives. Not so for now. I guess I must have volunteered for the "medical trials" bit when we are all standing in line for challenges. Or maybe it's that the Lord just knew it would be an area that would stretch me to the utmost and that I really needed that kind of spiritual conditioning.

In a feat that only our medically needy little family could be capable of, we are officially hitting our $7500 deductible within just a few months of starting our new insurance with Eric's work. We have been so incredibly blessed (and had divinely guided circumstances enable it to work out the way it did) to have had a lot of our medical expenses taken care of over the last few years. It was not what we originally wanted or expected, but turned out to be a huge and tender blessing from the Lord. With this new chapter of our lives has come new insurance. Which we are grateful for - it was another miracle because it wasn't supposed to have even started yet, but the Lord provided and it started just a week after Eric began work. But the new insurance comes with a lot of out-of-pocket dollars for us. (And I bet all my fellow cancer parents are thinking right about now, "Yeah, cry me a river".)

Last week we were literally at one doctor or another every day of the week but one. The pediatrician for Lily, running tests for Lily, clinic for Elena, a sports medicine specialist for me and my darn stress fractures, the pediatrician again for Lily, an imaging clinic for an x-ray for Lily, and on it goes. Elena's appointment (believe it or not) was the least traumatizing of the week - just a regularly scheduled chemo treatment. I was following up about my 8 month old stress fractures that refuse to heal and got put in a walking boot and crutches with strict instructions to stay off my feet as much as possible - no weight bearing. (Dr., that's a nice thought, but do you see these two kids bouncing around the room with us??) Miss Lily has been having her own troubles for the last three weeks - superhuman amounts of mucous filled diarrhea (tmi?). Her symptoms have been troubling to us because they have come out of nowhere (no changes in diet) and are reminiscent of when we started on her journey when she was about 7 months old. Three stool tests, a few medicines, two x-rays, and several co-pays later I got a call from our worried and confused pediatrician telling me to stop everything we were doing with Lily, get an immediate appointment with a new GI specialist, and go retrieve copies of her x-rays for re-analysis at the GI docs. One of the stool tests came back highly elevated (normal would be under 50 mcg/g and she is at 450 mcg/g). This level doesn't say anything in and of itself except indicate inflammation in the bowels/GI tract and that something is going on inside her. Then the pediatrician said: "With her sister's history of ALL, we really need to get Lily checked out and make sure there isn't something else going on." This is the second pediatrician in a week hinting to me that they are concerned about the possibility of Lily having cancer. Not fun. And so we wait to get into the GI specialist at the hospital.

Now we have been researching the bejeebers out of every sort of pediatric GI cancer and are pretty positive that we have nothing to worry about in that arena. Interestingly enough, we have a child with cancer and we are familiar with how kids with cancer act. (How many parents can say that?) Lily is not acting that way and she is missing a lot of the other symptoms. We are not experts and we will let the experts give the final word. BUT something is going on inside Miss Lily and we need to get to the bottom of it. She's older than the first time we went through all of this, so hopefully that'll help us get a correct diagnosis.

In the midst of all this, we've been dealing with my out of commission-ness. And I guess here is where I am a big whiner. It stinks. It's really not the big of a deal in the grand scheme of problems in the world, but it sure has turned our lives upside down. I have to sit with my leg up for as much of the day as humanly possible. Sounds awesome, right? Well, it might be if it was just me having to take care of me all day. But there are things that have to be done with little kids in the house. The walking boot and crutches are uncomfortable and my legs hurt. And as I sit down for as much of the day as I can, I just have to watch the house falling apart before my eyes. The counters are covered with dirty dishes, the floor needs to be swept, toys and papers are strewn everywhere, the blinds need to be dusted, the toilets need to be cleaned, I need to make muffins so Eric has something to take for breakfast, I should make bread, and on and on and on. It's like the torture of nursing and staring at your dirty house that you can't do anything about while you're thinking of it- except times 10. And I know, I know - would I like some cheese with that whine?! But seriously, it's like a slow exercise in losing my mind to just have to sit and watch all of that. Eric should receive sainthood for all he's been doing this week to try and make up. On top of working 50+ hour weeks that start around 5am, he comes home and makes dinner, takes care of the kids exclusively, runs back and forth for things, gets groceries, does dishes, checks a few cleaning to-dos off my list each day, and gets the kids in bed (we all know what a herculean feat that is, right?!). Then he collapses in bed way later than he should and gets up and does it all over again. He is exhausted and really feeling the strain. And we've still got three more weeks to go. Two blessings/lessons to take away from this experience: 1. I will be SO grateful when I am back to normal. I won't take for granted just being able to walk back and forth with something from the fridge to the counter. Or running into the other room for something really fast. and 2. I have been really grateful for the forced opportunity to slow down and be still. I've come to love and appreciate my kids so much more and been able to really spend some good time with them. It's something I've been struggling with for a while now and I'm positive this is an answer to prayers.

I call it "Self-Portrait of a Cripple"

But the pièce de résistance had to be last night when we opened a bill for Elena's LP last month. After insurance, we owe $3,000. Holy. Cow. Super excellent.

It'll be even better to get our bill for her port removal surgery in a couple of weeks - it should be a little higher than that. It's just so frustrating sometimes and feels like it just keeps coming. We are trying to be devoted Dave Ramsey followers and get on top of things, but the medical bills just keep on coming. Every time we find a way to make it work, something else seems to be added to the pile. I told Eric last night that I have a strong, underlying feeling that things will work out. The Lord has provided for us in so many ways and I know He'll continue to.  I hope this all doesn't sound too negative. We are very, very, very blessed. Sometimes I just get tired. I guess it's just been a rough week and I need to get it out. A little catharsis is good, right?