A New year a New Blog..

So with a new year comes man things. I know I have been very absent from my blog. There have been a lot things going on in m life this past year. I continue to loose near and dear friends to Melanoma and it just became very overwhelming for me almost too much for me to bear at one point. Then I had medical issues once again that put me in the hospital several times and I ended up have yet another lung surgery along with a few other operations. But I think the biggest blow in 2008 was my dad being diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer. You see my dad is my best friend in the entire world!! Hearing this news made me go into "fix it" mode right away. I was not going to hear the word "die" and my dad in the same sentence that was just not going to fly with me. When I was not comfortable with the first doctor he was at I looked my mom and dad in their eyes and told them how I felt. That if I could beat the odds at stage 4 with my cancer their was no reason why he couldn't with his. I once again went to my maker and prayed for help and guidance. I also turned to those great prayer warriors that prayed over me in my time of need and asked them all to lift my dad and all the doctors taking care of him up in prayer. I am happy to report that my dad has finished up his last round of chemo one month ago. He is in a trial and will continue to take pills (5 of them every day) and he sees his cancer doctor every other week and gets scans every 3 weeks. Please keep him and my mother in your prayers.

Now this is the big news that I have saved for the very end of this entry.

I have decided with the new year I am going to close out this blog. This blog represents a time in my life where I had much sorrow and sadness. I don't want that for myself anymore. I am going to start a new blog so please look for it. I will be posting my creations on it and keeping everyone updated on my dad and of course my 2 boys Zachery and Nathan, boy have they grown!! I will probably be calling it Memory Making Mom and I hope to see you all there!!

Love to all of you!!

Hugs,

Christine :)

It's been a long break....

I know that many of you have been wondering where I have been and why I haven't posted in such a long time. First let me say how sorry I am for not keeping up. My laptop was having hard drive issues and then the hard drive decided to crash and stupid me never backed up any of the million pictures I had taken....so I have a friend whose husband is a computer whiz who was working on my laptop for the past few months trying very hard to get it back up and running or at the very least trying to retrieve my pictures. Well I finally had to just go out and get another laptop but this time I decided to ditch the PC and go with a MAC. Let me tell you right now everything you have ever heard about MAC's is true... they are better and once you go MAC you DON'T go BACK!! the APPLE pro's were even able to get most of my pics from the fried hard drive of my old pc transfered to m MacBook but it took 2 days to do it because of the condition of the hard drive.

I have had NO problems with my MAC and the best part....no annoying pop up ads you don't have to worry about spyware or anything else. So if any of you are on the fence about switching just do it oh and yes you can install Widows if you really wanted to but I have to tell you I am using their Safari program and have no problem whatsoever.

Okay enough talk about that. Let me bring you all up to speed about what has been going on in my life. My dad has had a relapse with his lung cancer. he just went through a needle biopsy 2 days ago and we won't have the results of that for another 7 days. about 9 years ago he had the middle part of his lung removed due to cancer. Please keep him and my mother in your prayers.

My oldest son Zachery, the cutie with the red hair, has been diagnosed with Aspergers, PDD, ADHD, and Anxiety Disorder. He is struggling in his Kindergarden class and his peers are not accepting him and taking their cues from his how his teacher is disciplining him. I have a mobile therapist that comes to the house to do play therapy with Zach twice a week and a Behavioral Support Counselor that comes to the house and his school that works with him twice a week as well and we are getting a TSS worker too.  

Nathan....well Nathan is allll good!! And as for me I am just plain old tired. I still have things nagging cough that seems to be getting worse as times goes on. A recent scan showed a node in the neck and a tumor in the chest somewhere but they saw it's a nothing thing to have to worry about. I can't seem to go outside with out itching and Dr. Riley says he has quite a few patients with the same problem. So now I spend many days inside. It's a real bummer especially when the boys want to be outside playing :(

I sit and watch my little guys getting bigger and thank GOD for each and everyday that I have with them. My heart breaks for all of my fallen friends and for all those that continue to loose their lives to this horrid disease. 

I still continue to struggle with my survivorship and why GOD continues to spare me, but I also know that we are never to question him too. I have always known that GOD had a special plan for me and maybe it was to annoy the crap out of as many people as possible, just kidding, I guess what I am trying to say is I know in my heart of hearts that there is a REAL reason why GOD spares me and chooses to keep me here and when he is ready for me he will let me know. For now I plan on doing what I know how to do best.....taking great pictures of my sweeties and enjoying my time with them.

So for your viewing pleasure here are some pictures of my 2 handsome guys for you all to enjoy..... Until next time my friends....

Much Love,

Christine :)

A Tribute to some Special Warriors...

I wanted to have a special tribute for ALL the warriors that have passed from Melanoma. So I decided to get black balloons and write their names on the balloons and send them off on Christmas day. Here are the pics of me preparing the balloons the night before and sending them off the next day!!!! I send some brightly colored ones off for all of us, "The ground troops" that are still fighting the fight!!!!






The names of those special Warriors in no particular order are:

Bradley Dean Theilsen
Cat Melanie
Pamela Kay Heuslein
Frank
Jim Schlipman
Alison de
Jong Russell Chirico
Krissy
Cindy Blanc
Monica
MaryAnn May
Karen
Doris Mize
IMO
Dawn Stearns
Donnie Forbis
Barnara Brown
John Fla
Lauralyn
Jarrett Boston
Charles (He had his own balloon due to
birthday being on Christmas)
Frank M (Boston Area)
Gail Nikles
Jon Warrington
Lorik
Kathy from Texas
Howard
John in Florida
Trooper Drew
Randy Evans
"Green Monster" Ron
Camilla FL
Michael
Dan Siskowic
Kag (Kathy)
Shayna
Luckyangel
Lottaguns
Mike from OK
Cindy Trauble
Tony
Lyn from OZ
Karen from Indiana
Jarrett from Boston
Nate Thompson
Jimmy Bishop
Mike
Holly Beth Moody Broussard
Glenda Davis
Lesley Czyz
Kim Hanley from Iowa
Kim Wheeler
Shelia
Dawn C
Rusty
"Silly Jillie"
Ken Luke
Joe Tuso
Shelia NB
Bill Walley JR
Joann Horaney Atwood
Sarah Toller
Curt Faus Jr.
Dan Geise
Rob from Va
Mandi
Jaimie
Krissi
Beckyts
Brad
Lester Pickel
Michael George Miles
Calvin Webster
Michael Davilla
Ceri
Michelle Caldwell
Shannon
Heather
Eden
Julie Lyons
Garry Tyson
Barbara GA
Jamie
Maria Carroll Luna
Bryce Brown
Mike












I though it would be a nice idea to make some bright colored balloons and put some names of those of us that are here fighting this beast and send those balloons up with the other ones!!! I called us "The ground troops". I could not remember everyones names so I went to the board and looked some up. There are just so many of us so I blew up a bunch of colored balloons wo we could all take flight with our friends for support. So here are some pics of me preparing all of the balloons the night before for the journey.

















Here is the special Birthday balloon for Charles. His birthday is on Christmas day so on his balloon i wished him a Happy Birthday from all of us!!!!





Here I am out on Spring Street with my 2 little guys Zachery and Nathan and my best friend's little guy Ryan.





I get some help from Jenn,Ryan,Zachery and Nathan...

Nathan sends a balloon off!!!!
Zachery gives a hug to one of his balloons before sending it up!!!
Colored balloons for "The grounds Troops"...

Any families that would like any of these pictures sent to them please email me at cmonarch@ptd.net and I will gladly forward them to you.

For those of you that have never been effected by Melanoma let me leave you with a few facts:
One person ever hour dies from Melanoma.
60% of Melanoma's come from sun exposure the other 40% are from irregular moles.
EVERYONE SHOULD GO FOR SKIN CHECKS
Melanoma does not discriminate!!! You can be dark complected and still have it.
You can LIVE with this disease.
This disease DOES NEED Funding you can do that by going to http://www.melanoma.org/

Twas the night before Christmas...

And all through my house both Zachery and Nathan were sleeping so nice and quite was my house. I sat on my couch enjoying "Dublin Mudslide Ben Jerry's" new flavor when all of a sudden I heard tiny foot steps coming down the top stairs. I sprang to my feet to see who it was, I knew it had to be my little guy Nathan trying get a little peak!!! So I took him by his hand and lead him back up the stairs, got him tucked in my bed next to his brother and gave him a kiss. He went back to sleep and I went back to my ice cream....Grabbed my camera to take a pic of my two little guys. They looked so cute sleeping so soundly on this Christmas Eve....I love them so dearly and I know they love me!!!!!

A Birthday Celebration!!!!

Well we had yet another birthday celebration!!!! Nathan turned 5 years old on November 13th!!!





Another milestone for me~ I remember when he was only 8 weeks old and being told I had only months left to live!!! And now he was turning 5 and here I am to celebrating it with him!!!!














Here are some highlights from our gathering to celebrate Nathan turning 5!!!!

Nathan shows off his new talent of balancing a spoon in his chin!!!!



Ryan enjoys his cake too!!!


Owen takes a test taste before diving in!!!





el
Zachery....Well we all know how Zachery is he just dives right into the cake!!!




And so did his side kick Brady!!!!




It was just a great night and I truly enjoyed having another year with BOTH of my boys!!!!
Happy Birthday Nathan!!!

Love,
Mommy

A Tribute To Shannon...

Welcome to a very special entry. When another warrior and friend had lost her battle to Melanoma I was devastated beyond words. We had been friends for several years and she had reached out to me for support and I found it much too hard to call her back. I had just had the tip of my tongue removed and I was just so overcome with depression with the loss of many others on our support board and with my dear friend Shannon getting more sick that I was afraid that I would not be able to find the words to help her. So instead I just did nothing.... I emailed her and she understodd but I still felt guilty. She was such a great person!!! Then I got the call on Sunday morning from my best friend Jenn....the call that never
wanted to get...."Chris...are you awake??it's me Jenn...Shannon has passed away..." I sat up took a deep breathe and told her I would have to call her back and just sat in my bed and sobbed hard..really hard!!! I don't even remember if I called her back that day or not. I was so mad at myself!! How could I let my friend down like that??? I hit a wall so hard I crahsed and it hurt!!! I shut eveyone out and I was beating on myself and I wasn't letting up. Then one day at 4:30 I decided to get in my car and go down to my church to talk to my pastor. I didn't have an appointment but he had a few minutes to spare. He asked me if I thought that Shannon was mad with me. That made me think... He asked if I was mad at myself for not calleing her back that day or if I was mad that she had died from this disease and not me?? Was I upset with being a survivor??? He felt that maybe just maybe my real issue was with the fact that I was carry alot of guilt around because I have Stage IV Melanoma and have survived for longer than what was expected but yet many others around me are not. He said that I try to support others but them I fall short at the end and then I beat myself up for that and then what good is what I do if I do that??? He was right. If I want to do good and help other Melanoma patients and their famalies then I have to do it right!!! So I went home and got onto 2peas.com one of my scrapbooking message boards and made a plea for some help with making an memorial album for Ed and Allanah and Ryan, Shannon's kids. I posted my story and Shannon's story and a link to her blog so they could read her story and get a sense of what Shannon was all about. Before I knew it I had a ton of women responding and saying that they would help me out and make layouts. So the end reslut are these amamzing layouts that are now on their way to Ed. They filled up 4 albums!!! Layouts were sent to me from all over..Canda,California,Australia just to anme a few places. Some women took pictures right from Shannon's blog to use on the layouts. The thought and intense emotion that has gone into these is just amazing!!!! I could not have pulled this off with out the help of all of these very talented women!!!! Thank you!!!!