Thank You, My Pancreas

I had a donut tonight and, thanks to my pancreas, I was able to digest it. If you've ever had pancreas issues, you know how awful they are. It's painful. So for all of those out there who have a functional pancreas, but never thought about it, this song is for you.

Friday

I changed the look of my website to hopefully make it easier for people to read. I hope it works for you! I want my site to be user-friendly and visually-impaired friendly.

Since it's Friday, I thought everyone could use a little fun to end the work week. I often read the blog of Bible study teacher Jennifer Rothschild. This week, she had a post about "Coffee Art". After reading her writing, I did my own Google search for images involving coffee art. Below are some of the images. As a side note, the girls in this household love coffee. Even Qavah will join Mom and me for a coffee moment. At four years old, she knows exactly how she likes hers, too! It makes me smile.

Computer Issues

My internet has been down for most of the morning. That's why I couldn't fix anything on my website until now. I also had some additional research I needed to do for my thesis but I couldn't access any sites. It's been most frustrating.

I figured out why you couldn't see any of the comments on this website, even though I used the same system for the Campbell Family Journal. The reason was because of my background being black. It made the text either gray or black on black. I apologize. I've implemented a new system for my site.

Yesterday's appointment with the hematologist went very well. My labs, especially the white blood count (WBC), was the best it has ever been in two years! Everything else was almost or in the normal range, which is surprising because "my normal" is usually different than the average standard. The actual office visit went well, too. I will start the Boniva drug at my next Remicade infusion on March 27. If I don't have any side effects, than I'll continue taking the Boniva at every other Remicade infusion, so every twelve weeks. My hematologist also put an order in for me to have labs done by the infusion center, so I won't have to be stuck twice on Remicade days. Yeah! My next hematology appointment is not until April.

It's amazing how different my health care is with a team of doctors who truly listen and pay attention. At yesterday's appointment, my hematologist not only listened to me, but also checked my entire body (ears, mouth, abdomen, etc). I was impressed at how he paid attention to the "whole person". He also asked about school, so I of course told him about my harp! That is the most exciting news I have to share recently.

Comments and Thesis

I installed new software that I think will make it easier for readers to post comments. It is not as complicated to understand and doesn't require as many steps as before to post comments. Please try it out, so I can know if it works!

I managed to write some more on my thesis after supper tonight. I didn't get five pages written, but I did complete 1 1/2 more pages. In addition, I also did a lot of background research, organized my articles, and updated my outline. So, I feel productive. Before going to bed, Mom said "I think you should take a picture of your office and bedroom". Based on the pictures, it's obvious I have a major writing project happening!

Writing Mania and Health Update

Just a quick post tonight. I have an idea for another in-depth post, but it will have to wait. I had a hard time feeling well this afternoon, so I haven't gotten much done on my thesis today. I took a Dilaudid after supper and now I'm feeling a bit better, so I want to work on the paper some more. I have a lot to write tonight if I want to accomplish my "at least five pages a day" goal. I submitted chapter two to my instructor, but I have not heard back from her yet.

While resting my back in bed, I planned in my mind how I wanted to proceed with my thesis and what revisions I needed to do. A friend told me yesterday "you will revise your thesis a dozen times before it's completely finished". I'm finding out how correct she was with that statement. Every time I read the paper, I find something else I want to rewrite.

I did look at the college calendar today and realized that next week is Spring break, so I have another reason to do as much writing as I can this week. Next week, my instructor will be basically "unavailable" for assistance. I personally think it's too early for Spring break. Virginia is supposed to get mountain snow showers tonight and have gusty winds. Next week is only the first week of March. We've had some of our biggest snow storms in March! It's not time for Spring break!

Tomorrow afternoon, I have a doctor's appointment with the hematologist. He always gets labs done, so I know I'm in for a "stick" as Qavah calls it. We are supposed to discuss the start of Boniva- a drug taken intravenously to help rebuild bone loss. It will hopefully help the hairline fractures I have in my back due to the prolonged Prednisone use. I'll probably be able to take the drug the same day as my Remicade infusions. I'll of course know more after tomorrow's appointment.

Weekend Adventures

The last few days have been one of those weekends I've prayed for and dreamed about for months. I had a busy, but absolutely wonderful weekend!

Friday night, we had a family night with Colin, Jenn, and Annelise. After a delicious meal and neat conversation, the boys got out their music. Even Dad played his cello. As always, Annelise and Qavah had a fun time playing together. Qavah also opened a package that came from Aunt Judy. It was some doll clothes made from the leftover fabric of the dress Whitney sewed last summer.

Saturday morning, I attended a surprise Birthday party for my friend Effie at the local Petticoats and Petit Fours Tea Room. There were eight girls that attended the party. I dressed up. The food was delicious and Effie was quite, joyfully surprised! It was definitely a celebration!

Saturday afternoon, my grandparents arrived. Saturday night us girls (minus Qavah) and Paul Burton attended a harp concert. The concert was sponsored by the local Scottish Highlands Society and was one of the best events I've attended in a long time. The music was all Scottish and Irish. During the intermission, I even got to enjoy shortbread and Irish tea. Splendid!

After Saturday's events, I wasn't sure I would be able to attend Church this morning. However, I woke up feeling refreshed. So, we got to go to Church as a family. The service was a blessing indeed. After Church, we ate at a local Mexican restaurant with some friends. Then, it was time for a Sabbath nap! Tonight, we had small group. Dad continued his series on Joshua and we had a good prayer time, filled with many praises to our Heavenly Father.

Now, Mom is finishing putting Qavah to bed. When she is done, the two of us are going to end our weekend by watching our next Bible study video. Hopefully, tomorrow will be another day in which I feel well and can accomplish a lot of writing on my senior thesis. Either way, it's been a weekend filled with many delightful memories.

Qavah with her new doll clothes: (By the way, that hat Qavah is wearing is one Paul Burton knitted. He also made one for her doll)


Waiting for Effie:

Surprising Effie:

Effie and Me:

Flashback Friday

Since it's Friday, I thought I'd post a few pictures from this month. It's been awhile since my readers have seen a picture post. Below are a couple of pictures from Qavah's Baptism, which took place on February 10. I'm waiting for some better pictures, but here is what I have thus far:

After Qavah's baptism Colin and Paul Burton sang Fernando Ortega's If You Were Mine to the Congregation. I signed the song:

After church, we always have a time of fellowship known as Linger Longer. Here is Qavah with her new friend:

Then, our family visited together at Colin's and Jenn's home for lunch. Qavah enjoyed playing with Annelise's horse. Annelise has learned how to clap and is delighted with herself when she does it:

We had the rare treat this week of having Grandmom's sister, Clara, visit our home. She has been riding around with her daughter and son-in-law in their R.V. visiting relatives. The day they visited, we had a family lunch together:

Annelise will be fifteen months old on February 25. My little niece is growing up! Here she is with her Nonny:

Qavah has grown this month! She loves to play outdoors and is no longer afraid of the swing. She will soon be getting a cello, so she can begin music lessons with Daddy, who plays that instrument:

Strength for the Day

I just submitted the revision of my Research Design to my instructor. The Research Design is chapter one of the senior thesis, only in proposal form. I received feedback from the first draft over the weekend, but it took me until tonight to gather the strength to do the necessary editing. As a result, I don't have much brain power left. I'm just thankful to the Lord that He is giving me hours here and there to work on the thesis. I have a month to write the entire "first thesis" (all four chapters) . Amazing!

As Mom said, the reality of "beginning" the journey with HPS is settling in and it's difficult to comprehend, even almost two years later. I've heard people say that "time heals wounds". Well, wounds come in all forms and I'm convinced that time doesn't really heal heart wounds. Some days now are just as sobering as the day I was first diagnosed with HPS. The difference is that now I know what the new "normal" is for our family. And with each flare-up, we are learning more and more how to manage my body.

It's only the Lord- either through Him directly or by His working in humans- that heals heart wounds. I'm also learning what it means to keep going in the Lord's strength, especially when I don't see progress or physical healing with my earthly eyes. I've had friends exclaim to me, "You have so much faith!" My faith can and does, from time to time, waver just like yours. Chuck Swindoll said yesterday on a radio sermon, "We won't reach perfection until Heaven, but that shouldn't keep us from trying".

And on that point, it's my turn to read the book that so encouraged Mom. After visiting the Harmony Outreach website and looking at the children's pictures, I wanted to either adopt or sponsor a baby from China!

Health Update

I will hopefully update more later. However, I wanted to do a quick post, since I haven't written on here since last Thursday. The reason is because it was a difficult weekend health wise. Based on my symptoms, Mom and I suspect I have an over-growth of bacteria in my abdomen and pancreas. We went back in our minds and figured out that I stopped absorbing my medications around Wednesday of last week. That means the medicine I take to keep the ceroid and bacteria down in my gut was not working, hence the over-growth. I spent the majority of the weekend in bed. Thankfully, I started feeling better throughout the night. I'm a bit shaky this morning from not eating (my food kept coming back up due to the extreme acid reflux, so I'm not eating very much until everything settles down) but, otherwise, I do feel stronger than I have in awhile.

As with everything that appears negative at first, the Lord used this weekend's health issues for my benefit. Because I wasn't absorbing any medicines, my Ativan taper is essentially complete. It also means I can start tapering my Prednisone again. My goal is to get down to 5mg. At that dosage, my body won't suffer so much bone loss, but I'll be getting enough Prednisone to keep my adrenal system functioning.

Happy Valentine's Day!
Happy Single Awareness Day!
Happy Remicade Day!

To quote Qavah as she is bouncing around the house, "I'm so happy"!
Well, Lord, "I'm so happy" tonight! Thank you for friends who love and pray for me.

I had wanted to do a post, but the day got away from me. Maybe later... we are going to watch a movie now. The little ones (we are babysitting Annelise) are in bed for the night. I feel better. Qavah feels better. Hallelujah!

Monday Afternoon

We have no power, no water, and no telephone service at home due to the high winds that occured Sunday afternoon. The power company said we might have the power return on Wednesday. Therefore, I am at Colin's and Jenn's home, so I can get some writing accomplished on my senior thesis. I wrote another update on our family website (click on the pink text to visit the site). I can check email here, but responding to messages will probably not happen until power returns at home.

I am feeling better health wise and I thank you for the prayers. I have finsihed the round of antibotics, so my body feels more balanced now. My Remicade treatment is scheduled for Friday morning, so I am praying I'll be okay until then. I did bring all of my electrolytes with me just in case...

Pick Your Candidate

It is 5:45 AM on Friday morning and I can't sleep. I've had pain off and on throughout the night, so unfortunately Mom has woken up several times to balance my electrolytes and give me pain medication. She gave me my morning dose of Prednisone early, so while she's sleeping again, I'm awake. Thus, I decided to get up and begin adding more archived posts to the Campbell Family Journal website.

In other news, below is a link to an online "Pick Your Candidate" questionnaire that Colin sent me. If you answer the questions, then it will tell you how well you match up with each Presidential nominee. Based on my results, I got: 64% for Romney, 51% for Huckabee, 16% for McCain, -20% for Clinton, and -26 for Obama. All selections are optional, so you don't have to go through the whole list in order to get results from the questionnaire. A few of the questions, I thought, were not written objectively, but overall the survey was informative and worth my time. Just a reminder that Virginia votes this upcoming Tuesday (February 12) in the Presidential primaries.

Click on the following pink text to visit website: "Pick Your Candidate" Questionnaire"

Childhood Lessons

There's a topic I've wanted to journal about for several days now. As I've stated before, Mom and I are doing a Beth Moore Bible study titled Stepping Up. One of last week's Bible lessons focused on Psalm 123:3-4 which reads, "Have mercy on us, O Lord, have mercy on us for we have endured much contempt. We have endured much ridicule from the proud, much contempt from the arrogant".

Did you know that the Hebrew term translated "contempt," comes from the root word that means, "to disrespect"? Likewise, the Hebrew word for "mercy" is translated to mean, "God's favor, kindness, and grace". This lesson taught how God is the very best one to go to (instead of humans) when we experience disrespect or ridicule from others. The Lord desires a relationship with us- and a relationship means allowing Him to hear the joys of our heart, as well as the sorrows. If we have indeed been dealt with unjustly, then God will treat us with the kindness and grace we need to heal our hearts.

This lesson also cautioned against being a person that displays disrespect or ridicule to others by the words, tones, expressions or manners we use. Disrespect "disregards innate human value," but ridicule is particularly hurtful. Beth Moore states, "A constant dose of ridicule can be hard to swallow. It's difficult enough for mature adults, but I'd like to suggest that ridicule can be toxic for children and adolescents. Even deadly!"

Now, to why I chose to title this post "Childhood Lessons". I do have painful childhood memories of toxic insults, often done in the name of "teasing," or "sarcasm". Thankfully, those negative childhood memories did not come from my family. One of the ways my Mom and Dad parented intentionally was in that they did not tolerate ridicule, teasing, or sarcasm in their household. From an early age, we were given encouragement and "truth in love". Our conversations were not boring with the lack of ridicule, teasing, and sarcasm. Quite the contrary! We had "fun" without emotionally hurting each other.

I added sarcasm to the above paragraph because, in my opinion, it's often ridicule with just another name. Sarcasm hurts just as deeply as words that are meant to inflict injury, shame, and harm. Sarcasm disguises the truth. A person can hide how they really feel by simply stating, "I was just being sarcastic". Out of curiosity, I decided to look up the word "sarcasm" on Merriam-Webster Online. The first definition states, "A sharp and often satirical or ironic utterance designed to cut or give pain".

My first experiences of sharing words that encourage instead of using ridicule, teasing, or sarcasm are childhood memories that I am honored to remember to this day. I firmly believe one of the reasons why my parents are still my closest friends today is because of their intentional desire to speak "blessings" instead of "curses" to me as a child. Beth Moore's Bible lesson only confirmed what I learned growing up in the Campbell household.

Fabulous Friday

I'm sorry for the lack of updates. I'll try to post more tomorrow. It has been a wonderful day. I installed my new mouse this afternoon and it's making using the computer much easier. I took a break from schoolwork today to rest and babysit Qavah. I needed the break, but I'm hoping I have enough strength to do more college reading tomorrow.

The antibiotic is working, however it has made me exhausted! I was given an antibiotic I take two times a day, but only for three days. I knew it must be some "powerful" medicine after looking at the prescription directions. Tomorrow is my last day, so I'm hoping I can regain my strength and stamina soon. Fortunately, the antibiotic seems to be working, as my symptoms have lessened this evening. In other medical news, I'm entering week three (of nine) of the Ativan taper and week five of post-Remicade treatment. This upcoming week is a "test" to see if my body can handle an extra week between Remicade treatments. If it works, my treatments will be switched from five weeks to six weeks apart. I'm hoping and praying it's an uneventful medical week!

Mom, Dad Qavah and I just finished watching a movie. It was wonderful to be together as a family. There were times in the hospital that I remember lying in bed dreaming about having another "family night". Now, we are beginning to make those memories again, but this time our joy has increased with the addition of Qavah. This afternoon, Mom and Dad had an appointment to attend, so I babysat Qavah. We had fun "cooking" together with play-dough. Our meatball soup and cookies turned out delicious, if I do say so myself! *giggles*