Never been more Thankful!

By -
Together home for Thanksgiving! We are so grateful for this place and time in our lives! We are so grateful for all of you, our amazingly uplifting, faith-filled, strong village of friends, neighbors, and family. We did somehow celebrate last year, forcing brave smiles for the children while Charlotte was in Bone Marrow Transplant. Brian and I vaguely remember gathering for a couple hours at the hospital, the 4 of us eating a meal provided by the hospital that Charlotte was too sick to be a part of. We didnt know the road that laid ahead but we were so grateful she had finished her last chemotherapy of her protocol. We still had her and each other. We tried to convince our hearts it didn’t matter where we were as long as we could be together even if just for a little while. Those thoughts pulled us through. And all of it, every single second of it, makes this year have even deeper roots where our gratitude lies. So this year, we celebrated all together with some friends, who are like family, for a down home cookin’ traditional Thanksgiving. May God bless you all and Happy Thanksgiving🦃❤️🌈



Our little  turkeys

Thanksgiving with the Stalnaker’s.




Going on Parkers Annual Thanksgiving Morning Turkey Hunt he started with Poppy

They didn’t catch a turkey but they did find a opossum 😆 It’ll go down as a legend whether or not Parkers homemade spear got it before a car did 🤣


Charlotte’s placement she made at Preschool ❤️

Looking back to where we were last year 

Lucy made a new friend, Ellie, the Stalnaker’s new pup

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

ROUND 2 under way

By -
Image
It was exactly 4 Monday's ago. We left our pediatrician and ended up here at Duke Children's just about this time of day where we were about to receive Charlotte's cancer diagnosis. It was any parents worst nightmare as we came to learn and understand this diagnosis. It feels like 4 months ago. We are still coping and feeling our way, but never in a million years could I imagine being in this "place" that we are today, emotionally and spiritually. We are still coping and going through the grieving stages, but hearing the news today that Charlotte is healthy enough to begin round 2 was great news. A couple weeks ago, hearing that your child needed chemo was gut wrenching but today it is music to our ears. It means Charlotte has recovered from round 1 and is ready to continue to fight and heal while we all cheer her on. Her spunky spirit is back. She had a wonderful, restful weekend home playing with Taylor and Parker and also getting to see some family and a few f
Read more

Reliving June 13

By -
Image
Today in 2019, was probably the hardest day of my life. You might have thought that would have been the day she was diagnosed or maybe that scary time we had during Charlotte’s transplant, but it was today. We snapped this picture below waiting for Charlotte’s doctors to come into her examination room during her standard check up at Duke. Mere minutes later, we saw more than the normal 4 feet in front of the door (the oncologist and NP that would see her). When the door opened and child life was there—Brian and I instantly knew. Child life had come to distract Charlotte so we could talk to her doctors. The world went into slow motion and I don’t know how I didn’t hit the floor if I’m honest. Brian’s face instantly drained of color. We knew immediately her scans had shown her disease, her cancer, had returned.  After all she had been through, all we had seen, all we had survived as a family…this day drained the hope out of me and I can still have a visceral response remembering it. Of c
Read more

Getting some sleep and planning on a wagon ride!

By -
Image
Good morning! They think we might get to a room later today! Steps closer to coming home! Her X-ray showed improvement with lung fluids. Still fighting a fever and needs oxygen. Finally got put back in solids and ate some bites of spaghetti last night. We both slept better last night too. We didn't get out yesterday so maybe today. We have a wagon and are hoping to take her for a ride maybe even to see the helicopter on the roof:) Got a little kick in the gut with some news specifically regarding her tumor genetics. I was really down and having a hard time last night. But woke to a new day. And Brian has a contact in Cincinnati who put him into contact with a leading researcher for high risk NB and after talking with him we feel better about not just our current plan here at Duke but also about all the new research that hasn't even been published yet which has MUCH better prognosis outcomes for someone like Charlotte. I really needed to hear that and the timing of this doctor
Read more