It's Been a L.O.N.G Week

It's been a long week.  We are at the end of the school year and no one wants to study or do their chores.  Late nights getting last minute projects done and both football and cheer seasons have started. Baseball is still going hard and I have only one week left of teaching preschool.  You could say that things around the Barrus casa are a little rough.  We will survive.  I hope. 

As I was thinking about the "rough" parts this morning, semi-grousing about how much work we have to do today to get our house back to some sort of inhabitable, I was struck by all the awesome things my kids did this week  Here's a recap:

1.  We still managed to study our scriptures. And no one complained.  Or died.  Or complained.  :)

2.  Bria is working hard on her solo for Cantus' Finale concert this next week.  I am so excited to see her sing on stage.  She has such a beautiful voice!!

3.  Bronx and Boden are amazing baseball players -- between pitching, catching, homeruns, and grand slams, they are rockstars! Bronx is pitching so hard that even the coaches are afraid of it.  Looks to me like we are going to have a pitching/catching duo to take Borah all the way to the state championships in 2017 :)

4.  Boden's heart monitor was placed on Thursday and now we will spend the next 30 days getting monitored.  He hates it.  But he's wearing it and I'm grateful that we might actually get some answers.  

5.  BJ sang in his school's talent show.  He rocked it!  Proud mama right here.  Enjoy!

Seasons...part 2

I cannot WAIT for summer -- kids home, swimming, sunshine, camping....FUN!!  If we can just survive the last few weeks of school and the final push for homework, choir concerts, football, baseball, and the rest of this school season to end...I'll be a happy camper if we are all in one piece and I'm not curled up in the fetal position in my closet sucking my thumb.

On Monday, I struck the doctor appointment lottery and was able to schedule an appointment with the BEST pediatric orthopedist in town...seriously.  I was screaming for joy in my car I was so happy.  He had been out of town for a week and was booked three weeks out already but somehow that magic computer and brilliant scheduler managed to find a spot just for us.  Even she remarked how she couldn't understand how that had happened.  I knew exactly -- GOD happened.  WOOT WOOT!!

Below is the image of little Ben's tibia.  If you look at the right hand side just below the joint you can see the large egg shaped growth.  The good news is that the doctor isn't jumping up and down out of concern and he doesn't think we need to do anything with it at the moment.  Instead, he wants to check it in a couple of months to see if it has grown.  If it has, then we will need to do something -- biopsy, more tests, etc..  If it hasn't, then we just continue to monitor it.  All in all, I definitely feel better.  Moving on to a different season...

This week, is Boden's cardiology exam.  He will see a pediatric heart specialist on Wednesday and have an echocardiogram.  He is still losing weight...still struggling with stamina.  We were out playing in the sprinklers yesterday and holy crumbs that kid is a toothpick.  Still wearing his trunks from last year and they are now baggy :/  This season scares me too.  We are down nearly 6 pounds in a year.  This shouldn't happen in an otherwise healthy 11 year old boy.  Praying for answers, wisdom, patience, and comfort for me and for sweet Boden.

In other news....
*  Mother's Day...not so hot.  But grateful I am a mom to my beautiful children - I am blessed beyond belief.
*  Little Ben tried to light the grill yesterday for dinner and ended up burning his hands, lips, and a few eyebrow hairs and eyelashes.  COULD have been so much worse and again...GOD IS GOOD!! (Enjoy the pic at the end)
*  I took my beautiful daughter cheer bow shopping...I get to do fun things like that now.  I've waited 15 years to be able to do it and oh.so.fun!
*  Little Ben and Bria had their final concert for Mustang Magic.  One more to go for Cantus and Bria was selected for a solo.  So proud...last night she said, "I realized now I have to actually sing...by myself....in front of people....lots of people."  I just had to wonder what she was thinking when she tried out for a SOLO!  Silly pickle.
*  We got a sweet new pet to add to our collection -- his name is Chip and he's a robo hamster.  CUTE CUTE CUTE.  One more thing to join the circus!
*  I'm headed to Utah this weekend for training at Let's Play Music and might need to stop at this wonderful placed called IKEA.  Just sayin'

Seasons

Our life seems to be ruled by "seasons" -- football season, volleyball season, FFA season.  April and May were more brutal than normal.  Felt like all of the forces of nature had turned to make life more complicated, more stressful, more abnormal.  People rallied, I prayed, and we all survived.  I took a deep breath for the first time in months last week.  It felt good -- I caught up on laundry, celebrated Bria's selection as a cheerleader, and was looking forward to our final volleyball tournament of the year.         The end of another "season".

And now, today has been met with mixed emotions.  Relaxation (it's Sunday after all), fear, some tears, deep love, and more prayer.  We are entering another "season".  It isn't the one that I expected and I have to admit, it's a bit scary.  And yet I find myself thinking about faith and small blessings.  I find myself hoping that this season is short and that whatever storms will be coming as part of it will be minimal.

Earlier this week, BJ finished volleyball and was regretting not playing Spring football.  He decided to call his coach and see if he could play for the remainder of the season and was disappointed when the coach told him that the season was actually coming to a close and he wouldn't be able to play.

The next morning, Coach Dan called back to say that after thinking about BJ's call and calling the league, he had found a team that was in need of some additional players to finish out the season.  We immediately answered yes.  A practice and a half later, BJ had his first game on Saturday.  Neither Ben nor I could attend because we were coaching our volleyball team at the AAU Super Regionals.  In between games, Ben picked him up and when he walked in to the gym, he was limping.  One look at his knee, and you could tell that there was something wrong.

Football can be rather brutal.  I've watched him get sacked by boys twice his size and bounce back up.  I've watched him hit others at a full run and knock them over.  He loves it & I tolerate it because he loves it.  Such is the plight of a mother of boys... :)

Turns out, he took a helmet to the side of his knee...in the 1st quarter of the game.  And, to his credit, he continued to play another 30 plus minutes on both sides of the ball on this knee.  I'm watching him sleep now -- leg up on pillows and an ice pack -- and I can't even imagine the adrenaline a person would need to keep playing on it.  The one thing he wanted me to tell Coach Dan last night..."I didn't quit".

We won't know the full extent of the injury until we see the orthopedist tomorrow.  There's a little spot on the film that looks wonky, but there's no fracture in the knee itself (which is good news). There is a possibility that his MCL (the tendon that runs from femur to tibia and keeps things together) tore and in that process broke off a little piece of bone.  But the season I am talking about is actually not the recovery time it will take for him to be back on the field.

Friends, we need your prayers.  Your positive energy.  Your good thoughts.

The X-ray revealed more than just the knee injury.  It also revealed a tumor in his right Tibia -- about the size of golf ball.

The word tumor has been turned over and over and over in our heads today and throughout the night.  This afternoon I held our beautiful 14 year old son as he cried, scared of what the possible outcomes might be and trying to take comfort in the hope for a positive one.  This season has the potential to be ugly, filled with rain and snow and hail and trying winds.  And yet, it could be a benign tumor.  It's not necessarily cancerous and I keep reminding myself of that.  We do know two things -- it's not a cyst and we need to have an orthopedist look at it.  As I explained to BJ today that we "shouldn't borrow trouble", I found myself wishing I was as wise as the words coming out of my mouth to reassure him.

As I sit in the sunlight of my bedroom thinking about God's goodness, I am going to beat back fear and anxiety.  I am going to pray for wise doctors, offer thanks for modern technology, and marvel in the beauty of this season, even if I find it hard to find.