Another one...

Addie obviously doesn't know what I post but decided to make one more milestone happen today :)

Check this out... And she did it all by herself!!! She is so amazing!! 

I love you Addie Lynn Brenden!

Milestones

Another year of preschool begins today.  My girl gets to be just that, a little girl starting her second year of preschool.  To say that we are thankful for these special moments is an understatement.

I am always asked, How is Addie doing?  My most common answer to that question is that Addie does better than me most days :)  I am so thankful for that answer.
As many of you know (especially those of you that personally know me and are forced to deal with me on a regular basis), my Mommy worry-brain never stops.  I have days that are good and days that I literally feel like I might suffocate from the fear that is trying to consume me.  As hard as I try, there are some days that I just can't stop it.  With these milestones come great happiness but for me it also ignites worry... How much longer Lord?  How much longer do we get to live this wonderful life with a PERFECTLY HEALTHY Addie Bean?  How many more "normal" memories will my little girl have?  Can she survive and live a "normal" life?  These are questions I may never have answered and honestly my harsh reality is that I may not want to know the answers.

Here is my dilemma team and something that I can't get a grasp of...why can't I believe that YES is the answer to that last question, I get so mad at myself... is it because I am a pessimist?  Is it because I am in some way trying to prepare or ready myself for it?  Is it the devil??  WHY oh WHY must I constantly think she won't make it when it is very possible she WILL.  Please Lord help me to push out the worry and the fear, help me to trust in your promises.  All of us face futures that are unclear, no day is guaranteed and every day is a precious gift from God.  We have been so blessed and witnessed miracles through Addie's treatment and fight against Naughty Randall.  God has already answered our prayers.  SHE IS HERE RIGHT NOW.  We have been granted time with Addie that some Neuroblastoma families never get.  How inconsiderate and ignorant of me to worry about something that I may never have to face, how dare I place myself there?!  I want so desperately to believe that Addie will never have to fight cancer again, that is my greatest desire... for her to live a long, happy, and healthy life.  My struggle is real but I am not alone, every Mom is faced with worries and there are mothers that I follow that have faced realities I can't even bare to think about.  

THANKFULNESS is how I get through those suffocating moments (and some really good friends and family members)... I force my mind off of my worries and onto Jesus.   I open my eyes to the amazing blessings that I am faced with daily... I get to be a mother to three beautiful little girls.  My hope is to continue to live graciously, this is what I have found soothes my anxious Mommy heart.  There are so many things to be thankful for and today was one of those things, my girl started another year of preschool!!  My greatest prayer is that I will never know a life without my Addie girl.   My prayer will continue to be that my sweet baby gets to live cancer free for an eternity.  I pray that she will grow old, experience a wonderful life, and that her life will never again be plagued by cancer.  I am so thankful that we have a gracious God that never forsakes us and I am so thankful that He has blessed me with three amazing little girls.

Here is to MANY more milestones, like this one!!! I can't believe it... riding a big girl bike without training wheels!! That is my girl!!!

http://youtu.be/LQ-4CCNUxr8

Please pray a special prayer for Addie this week, we had a bit of a scare last week with a lymph node... I don't want to go into too many details but her painful lymph node appears to be better after taking some antibiotics and they are doing a blood test this Weds. to check her inflammatory markers.  Please pray that they have gone back to normal and that Addie just had a little bug that was causing things to go a bit haywire.  She also gets her hearing aids on Weds... We are excited about this :)  but I have been told they take some getting used to.  Please pray that they will be comfortable, helpful and that Addie will like them.
Thank you Team Addie.

News is in...

She is ALL clear (and Lily-Mae is too)!!!!! Praise God!!!  NED!!! We are so happy and beyond thankful!!  Let's do this thing called summer and someone turns 5 next week :)

Scan is on

She is sleeping now and getting her scan... Prayers, prayers and more prayers!  Thanks to Helen DeVos, they do such a wonderful job for our girl. Thanks for all your wonderful and supportive comments.  I will say it again, Team Addie really is the best team in town!!

She was so happy and energetic this morning, being the life of the party as always!  We took a video of her this morning getting her IV.  She amazes us continually at how well she endures everything... She is so amazing, so strong and always brave.  This was her second IV in 24 hours, not a tear, not a flinch or a complaint!  Addie Lynn Brenden you are ONE tough cookie and I am so blessed to be your Mommy.

I will try and share the video later, my phone is not cooperating right now.

That time again...

Has it really been three months already?  Are we really back in Michigan for scans?!  Wow, time flies when your girl is feeling so good :). Addie has her scan tomorrow, please send up lots of prayers for our girl... Clear scans for an eternity!!! 

Also please say a special prayer for a sweet little girl from Ireland named Lily-Mae.  Lily-Mae completed the clinical trial Addie is now in.  She is fighting Neuroblastoma and WINNING, praise God.  She is having her 6 month post-DMFO treatment scans at the same time our Addie girl is having hers.  Their family is such an inspiration to us and we were so thankful to meet them in person today.  Prayers for you Lily-Mae, prayers for a long life filled with heath, happiness and CLEAR scans!!!

We are trying to have a little fun while we are here in Grand Rapids.  We are thankful big sister came along for the trip but we are missing our sweet little Emma.  Big thank yous to Grandpa, Aunt Rachael, Uncle David and Coral for taking care of Emma Sue while we are away.  

Here we go Team Addie... Please storm the heavens for our girl!! 

Preschool

Someone finished her first year of preschool today!!!  

This is a special milestone for any little one and a day that makes every parent's heart happy!  This Momma's heart is especially thankful!!  My girl was able to go to preschool and finish her first year... Just like a "normal" kid!!! "Normal" kid stuff is extra special when your child has had far from "normal" circumstances!!! 

Feeling incredibly blessed in too many ways to count!! Praise God!  Thank you Mrs. Blough and Mrs. Williams for a wonderful year full of learning, having fun, making friends, and making special memories. 

Way to go Addie Bean!! You have come such a long way... When you started preschool we couldn't get you to go without screaming and crying and at the end, you asked daily if you could go to school!  

I love you so much big girl!  I am so blessed to be your Mommy!

Mother's Day & Looking Back

I am truly blessed to be the mother of three precious little girls.  I just adore my girls and being their mother really is the BEST THING EVER.  We had a wonderful day yesterday, we worked our buns off but it was a really great day.  The girls' gave me the sweetest gifts that they made.  My heart was FULL.  I went to bed feeling incredibly overwhelmed about how great life is.  Addie is here with us, and not only is she here, she is healthy, happy and her perfectly SASSY self.  With a heart full of thankfulness, I prayed and I prayed, giving thanks for my three little gifts.  I am not sure why, but anytime I feel overwhelming joy, intense worry follows.  I really have struggled since Addie's diagnosis with feeling happy, I have felt happy countless times and with this happiness comes intense worry and anxiety (vacations, milestones, holidays)... It sounds nuts to struggle with happiness, I love feeling happy and I have had so much to be happy about.  I guess I just am always waiting for the other shoe to drop, like when will my happiness be stolen from me again.  I laid there last night praying that life would stay this way forever.  I prayed that forever I could be a mother to my three beautiful girls.   I want time to stop, because today Addie is here and we are a family of 5 and life is really, really good.  Anyone who has experienced cancer knows how quickly it happens, healthy one minute, stage 4 Neuroblastoma the next.  The life that you lived is completely taken away from you and for me I am haunted by what can happen.

Two years ago, I spent Mother's Day in a hospital room with my almost four month old baby, husband and my precious Addie.  Addie had an IV with morphine to keep her comfortable because her back pain was so severe.  There we waited for a diagnosis, for a reason why our precious 2 year old had a mass along her spine and was experiencing severe back pain.  On May 15, Addie was put under general anesthesia to biopsy her tumor (Naughty Randall) and to have a central line placed because the doctor's were confident it was cancer.  I remember our beloved surgeon, Dr. Potter, talking with us after the surgery.  He said that when he opened Addie up the tumor just came gushing out at him, it was coming through her rib cage, it was in her surrounding lymph nodes, pushing on her right lung, and was extending into her spinal canal.  On Reed's birthday, May 19th, it was confirmed that Addie did in fact have Neuroblastoma.  Addie's cancer was stage 4, it was in her bone marrow and there were multiple other areas of bony involvement.  Devastation doesn't even scratch the surface of what we felt.  Our precious baby girl had cancer, an extremely aggressive cancer, and to top things off she had the amplification that made it even worse.   I remember laying in the hospital bed with her while she slept and feeling like there was a monster inside of her, trying to kill her.  I wondered how long it had been there and questioned myself, what did I miss?  The pain that she had been enduring was brutal, her tumor had advanced into her spinal canal and was putting pressure on her spinal cord, she couldn't even bend over anymore.  The drive to Iowa City from Covenant was terrible, any bump in the road Addie would cry and complain in her car seat.  I remember being scared that we wouldn't leave that hospital with Addie, I was terrified that she would die.  I remember feeling like we would never see home again.  How could I still be a mother to Emma and Grace, when my heart was being ripped out of my chest.   Addie's only complaint during the onset of this was, "Mommy, my back hurting."  I had heard her say that numerous times leading up to her diagnosis, I would give her some Tylenol and Ibuprofen and in the beginning this would relieve her complaints and she would go about her day, playing and being Addie.  She was and still is so tough, the toughest girl I know.  We had a resident tell us during that stay that you would never guess Addie was the sickest kid on the floor.  Wow, did that send a mix of emotions.  Hello, we were on the oncology floor and we were told our kid was the sickest there... talk about scary.  The more I think about that however, the more comfort I find.  Looking at Addie that time in room 33 on 3JCP, no one would have guessed she had stage 4 cancer.  We played in that playroom any chance we got, she was smiling and interacting with the nurses and doctors, and we took numerous walks through the halls.  That resident really gave us a backwards compliment... Addie is so tough, she is a fighter and NOTHING was or is going to get her down.   Through it all, Addie was still Addie.  We literally tortured her, took her to death's door and she fought and she fought and praise God she is still here with us.  There are reasons Addie had cancer, there are reasons our family was put through this... reasons that I will likely not know until I enter heaven.  However, today and through this whole journey with Addie, I have felt His presence.  Our Heavenly Father has been with us every step of the way.  He knows the plans He has for Addie and they are good.  I will forever give thanks for my three beautiful girls, they truly are gifts from God.  I am beyond thankful that I have had two years with my precious girl.  I got to take her home in 2014 with NO EVIDENCE OF DISEASE and she continue to be here and perfect to this day.  No one knows what tomorrow will bring, I remind myself each day to rejoice in each moment and do not take anything for granted.

My precious girl, I love you so much.  Thank you Addie Lynn Brenden for always fighting, for never giving up and for just being you... through it all.  My prayer will forever be that you remain cancer free and can live a long, long happy life.  Lord please let it be so, let my girl LIVE.  I am very selfish, I will never be ready to say good-bye to her, I want her here with me, Please God let it be so.  Thank you for letting me be her mother.  Lord please help me push aside the worry so I can see the blessings each day brings.

Thank you Team Addie, for your love and support the last two years.  I wear my bracelet proudly knowing that I am part of a wonderful Team.  Thanks for supporting my girl and for lifting her up in prayer.  Your comments are so encourging, THANK YOU.