Hannah Marie

welp, mom’s chemo didn’t work—again. on to plan c…or d…or e, I don’t remember. now its on to a new kind of chemo…once a month. they’ll do 2 treatments and test it. and she’ll have an mri in 2 weeks to see if the radiation to her brain worked.

other than that, i got all the classes i needed for the fall. i’m really not too excited about any of them but maybe i’ll be surprised. they’re just some classesthat i have to get out of the way before i can totally dive into my major. but i am taking public speaking…at least i get to take one of my major classes. oh, gen ed. katie and i were hoping to carpool together but it doesn’t look like that’s going to happen because of our random schedules. that’s probably the most disappointed i’ve been in a while. if i ride with katie there’s a better chance that i’ll actually go to class…

jake, laura, nathan, and i are hanging out on saturday night. we haven’t all been together since before Laura left for the summer so i’m excited!

and in a little while i’m headed to burnt hickory baptist to watch nathan and brink play with will! yay!

i didn’t know what to name this post and that’s what i’m eating right now, so there you go. : ]

a lot of you ask me how you can pray for my mom–here’s something that you can pray about. this morning i took her for her regular chemo appointment, but the doctor decided that he didn’t want her to have it. the particular type of treatment she does is actually made up of 3 different medicines. today’s medicine is known to be pretty hard on the lungs so she goes every few weeks to have a lung function test to make sure that the chemo isn’t damaging her breathing. well the doc didn’t like last week’s test reults so he scheduled her to have a CT scan so that they can check it out in greater detail. on top of that (there always seems to be something else…) she’s very anemic and tomorrow she is getting a blood transfusion. she feels pretty much ok, but it could be a very bad thing if they don’t take care of it immediately. so thank you if you think to pray for her : ]

in other news: LAURA IS HOME!! and i got to spend a little bit of time with her today.. oh my gosh, i’ve missed her. i’ll be excited when we get to spend more time together and catch up.

AAAAAAND—tomorrow katie and i are going to pick up her WEDDING DRESS! oh. my. i’m so excited! yay for my best friend and for marriage! haha. but for real, i’m very very excited to be sharing all of this with her and to be her maid of honor.

so that’s all. i’m going to go be lazy for the rest of the day. 3 hours in the doctor’s office is pretty draining.

i had absolutely nothing to do today. except for taking our dog smooter to the vet at 8:00. yes we have a dog named smooter…i love her and her name.

usually i hate days when i have no plans. i love to be doing something. but today has been nice. after i came home from dropping off the dog, i went back to sleep while watching a movie for a few hours. other than that i’ve just been reading, watching tv, and hanging out with my mom. nothing exciting, but it has been nice to not have an appointment to go to or somewhere far to drive. i think i’m going to watch another movie and read some more. and i need to stop drinking so much sweet tea. after today.

the book i’ve ben reading is “a heart like His” by beth moore. its about david and his intimate relationship with God…he was probably one of the messiest christians in the bible but he was still a “man after God’s own heart.” that just amazes me and i’m really enjoying learning more about him. i think we would have been friends : ]

so, that’s pretty much it. although i’ve loved today, tomorrow i need to get out of the house and do something…too many of these days will drive me crazy.

nathan and i have been reading through the message remix bible with the help of a devotional called “solo.” today is day 38 and i have have learned more about myself and about the nature of God in these 38 days than i have in a long time.

God has brought it to my attention that i don’t love others the way that i should. what i mean by that is that i get too wrapped up in myself- MY schedule, MY struggles, MY worries, MY plans, MY thoughts- and i push others out of the way. i unintentionally undervalue and discourage the people who have stood by me and helped me. the last thing i want is for the people that mean the most to me to feel ignored or discarded by me, but i realize now that i have probably made them feel that way. it breaks my heart to think that i have been like that.

so to anyone who i have made feel unimportant or devalued, i am so sorry. God is working in my heart and i realize that without love, i am nothing and can do nothing. thank you to those of you who have stood by me and helped me regardless of my failures. i hope that i can bless all of you like you have blessed me.  : ]

in the process of my sometimes overly-crazy life i’ve neglected my poor blog. so let’s see, what’s been going on lately?

my best friend katie’s engagement party was on saturday night. we all had such a good time grilling out and eating by the pool. the wedding party is amazing and we’re going to have so much fun all hanging out over the next few months at showers and stuff. i am so proud of katie…we’ve been friends since middle school and it has been incredible to see what she has overcome to be the woman she is today. i can’t believe my best friend is getting married! AHH! i absolutely love judson, her fiance, and i am so excited for both of them.

LAURA MOORE COMES HOME FRIDAY!!! she’s been a counselor at centrikid camps in mississippi all summer. i absolutely can’t wait for her to be home. to anyone who doesn’t know either of us from high school, its actually kind of a miracle that we’re even friends, haha. but over the past year or so, she has become one of my dearest friends and i’m so ready to have her home. it’s about time for me and nathan, laura and jake to be reunited.

so, everything but my bedding and computer is out of my apartment. nathan helped me start cleaning last night and the goal is for katie and i to finish today. i seriously might cry. is that dumb? i am really going to miss my roomies and kennesaw friends…and living on my own. but let’s not talk about it.

yesterday was nathan’s last day on staff at oak leaf. he’s done such a great job as student pastor over the past year, but i am so proud of him for moving when God called him. he’s an incredibly talented musician and i know that God is ready to use him more in that way. i’m just proud of him all around. i’m very blessed.

mom has been really good lately. the break in chemo for radiation gave her a chance to recuperate and get some of her strength back. that 5 week break was very much needed for all of us. it sort of gave us hope again that things can be normal and life can be ok again. for a while there, i’ll just be honest, there was no hope. but she started chemo on monday stronger than she was before and she seems to be handling it a little better than last time. she has an appointment coming up soon to see the progress of the radiation to her brain since it keeps working for weeks after the actual treatment. i could never thank you all enough for the prayers for my mom.

there’s probably more going on, but i can’t think of anything more. i have to go pay tuition now. blah. everyone have a beautiful day!

so, the other night after a nice date at atlantic station, nathan and i went back to my apartment to move out some more boxes. as we pulled into the parking lot, i realized that i didn’t have my keys in my purse. when he picked me up, i left them in my room. i couldn’t get into my apartment and all of my roommates had gone home for the weekend. so i called katie who drove from cartersville to let us in. (yet another reason she’s my best friend : ] )

after being made fun of a bit by nathan, we finally got in and got the boxes to my car. now, nathan is wonderful, but he definitely likes to give me a hard time when i do things like that. all in good fun though. so we went our separate ways and a few minutes later i got a call from nathan saying that he’d locked his keys in his car at a gas station. after making sure he was ok and that a key was on its way, i laughed and enjoyed the irony of the situation.

gotta love it.

i’ve spent the past 2 days cleaning/organizing my bedroom at my parent’s house. i’m getting it ready to move back into. by the end of the month, i have to be moved out of my apartment at kennesaw state and back home.

i’ve found lots of old pictures, notes, journals and things of that nature that i forgot about…some made me laugh, some made me smile, some even made me cry, and most of them made me realize what a dork i was. haha. all the things that i found (most of which i threw away) have shown me the journey that the past 8 years of my life have been. its been pretty neat to see how i’ve changed over the years and mostly the change that has taken place in the 2 short years since i moved away from home.

i never thought that i’d move back in with my parents. ever. a few months ago my parents and i decided that it would be the best thing for me to do in light of losing hope (way to go me!) and my mom being sick. its going to be very bittersweet. i love my family and i love cartersville and the people here. but i’m going to miss my kennesaw friends that i can see whenever i want to. i’m going to miss getting up 15 minutes before class starts and stumbling into the classroom. i’m going to miss my roommates ! i’ve met sarah, jessica, and mary catherine…3 of my very best friends and had the opportunity to live with them. i’m going to miss seeing nathan multiple times during the week. when he goes back to school we’ll be even farther apart and he’ll be in class 5 days a week instead of 3. and i won’t be right down the road from his family anymore! but we’ll make it work…we always do : ]. i think mostly i’m going to miss the independence of living on my own. it was hard to move out for the first time but i have a feeling its going to be a lot harder to move back. thank goodness katie is moving back home too! : ]

anyway, i’m glad that i get to spend some time with my family tomorrow. we’re doing lunch/dinner at 4…? random, i know. but that’s my family for you.

this week has been wonderful.

i got home from the beach with nathan’s family (which was amazing in itself) and i’ve spent most of the week with my mom, taking her to and from appointments and SHOPPING. freaking miracle that my mom is actually shopping. the break she’s taken from chemo along with steroids for the radiation have made her a new person. it has felt like normal and we’re loving every minute of it. it has always been our thing to leave the house and go shop or go get something to eat at a drive-thru and sit in the car and talk. we’ve been able to do that quite a few times this week and i can’t tell you how awesome it has been. i miss spending good quality time with my mom outside of doctors appointments and hospital visits so much. so we’re thanking Jesus that she’s feeling good.

in other news, i finally got a new phone! no more little red brick! i got a blackberry curve and its beautiful : ] too bad i’m to poor to activate the internet and gps right now, haha. i’m having to enter all of my contacts into it by hand though, which sucks. but we switched from t-mobile to at&t, so what can you do?

by best friend katie is getting married next may and her engagement party is coming up soon. i’m super excited to be her maid of honor and have all the fun responsibilities that come along with showers and parties and all that. i’m sending out the invitations soon and helping her get all the decorations for it together. ahh i love it! katie has been my best friend since middle school and its going to be so weird when she’s married. we’ve helped each other through lots of boy mess and i’m so happy for her. i love her fiance and i know that she’s going to have a wonderful life with him. i’ll miss living 2 minutes away from her and our random runs to wherever. i love her.

anyway, that’s all. i’m just relaxing today and probably cleaning out my room so that i can move everything home seeing as how i have a month to move out of my apartment and i haven’t even started yet. i’m so on top of things. : ]

hello friends : ]

i am so exhausted. i bet i’ll be asleep by 10. i would love that. the past week and a half have been so tiring. i’ve been literally going non-stop since we left for camp last monday morning. after working with students for 5 days (tiring enough in itself) and coming straight into this hospital situation with my mom, i am SO ready for a break. GOOD NEWS! mom came home from the hospital today and i’m going to the beach with nathan’s family from saturday until wednesday. MAJOR relaxtion. yessss!

mom: she got to come home from the hospital today. the MRI that she had last night showed nothing new, which is good. they were thinking that she was going to have a spinal tap, but thank goodness she didn’t. tomorrow at 10:00 i’m taking her to have a CAT scan…the results from that will tell whether or not the chemo that she’s been on is working. if it has been (please pray that it has!) when she’s done with radiation she’ll start back with the same chemo. if it hasn’t been working, they’ll try something different. she is starting radiation to her brain on friday. the treatment is 5 days a week for 3 weeks.

i’m very very excited about going to the beach with nathan’s family. i love spending time with them. the past month or so has been crazy for both nathan and i so i think it will be a MUCH needed break from life. i’m ready to spend every second of the week on the beach or by the pool. : ] nathan bought us each a cool new devotion book to do together and i’m very excited about starting it.

i’m watching extreme makeover home edition with mom now and it always makes me cry so i’m going to pay attention now. goodnight!

i’m sure that everyone who reads this knows what’s going on, but just in case you don’t here goes.

friday on my way home from camp with fbcw my mom told me that during the night on thursday she had some kind of an “episode” and it made her right arm numb. she called her doctor and he told her to go ahead into the ER so that they could rule out a stroke. while she was waiting in the ER she had another “episode” and the doctors could see that it was actually a seizure. after doing an MRI they discovered that the seizures were caused by a tumor on her brain. they admitted her into the hospital friday and she is still there so that they can give her all the tests needed and seizure/pain medicine before they can decide a game plan for treatment.

surgery isn’t an option because the tumor is too big for an operation…its the size of a quarter. so right now they are trying to figure out how to balance radiation for the brain and chemo for the cancer in her lungs because they don’t want to do them at the same time. but they don’t want to stop chemo treatments or put off this new radiation. we’ll find out more today.

my sister updates a lot more than i do, so you can check her site.

www.caringbridge.com/visit/rhettawatts

thank you all so much for your prayers and words of encouragement. on the trip home when i found all of this out, it was just so overwhelming. i immediately freaked out because i thought that i had to do it alone. but then i remembered one of the things God taught me at camp this week (that actually had nothing to do with anything we actually learned at camp). He has placed some very special people around me to help carry this…i was never intended to do it by myself like i have been. so i called nathan who was riding home with the band guys and all of them prayed for my mom. i turned around to krissy who was behind me and she stopped and prayed with me right then. and jake was sitting beside me so he just talked to me about what was going on and kept telling me that it was ok. thank you guys for being exactly what i needed right when i needed it. and to all of my friends who have tried to be there for me but i haven’t let you, i’m so sorry. thank you for praying and for trying. i love you all and God is changing me