Life with Helen

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas with family and friends!  I have to say, this was one of the best Christmases I've had in a long time.  We weren't exhausted from having to go to 100 places in 3 days, but still got to spend time with the people we love so dearly!  Everything was really put into perspective for me this year.  I gave attention to the parts of Christmas that are important to me, and I didn't worry about any of the other stuff.  It worked out nicely-highly recommend it!  This is Charles if you don't know. He is practically the 5th Lilly brother! We are officially 1/3 of the way through treatments!  This time our friend, Charles, took Matt to his chemo appointment the day after Christmas. (side note: the 26th was my first date with Matt 6 years ago!)  Normally Matt has blood work the day before, but since it was Christmas they had to do it that morning....

First things first - Kathy pointed out that I left out an integral part of the "busted chemo bag" story - the part that makes us not look so stupid!  We had been painting, and Matt asked if the white stuff on the bag was paint! It did look like it could be paint, SO THAT IS WHY WE WERE TOUCHING AND SMELLING IT!  It was all such a blur that she had to remind me we weren't THAT stupid! ANYWHO.  That leads me to what I wanted to talk about!  Why were we painting, you ask?  Well, that's because we are bunking with the in-laws for awhile!  We (and by "we" I mean Kathy, Jon, Matt's Aunt Laura, Matt's brothers, and Matt's cousins - Katie, Sam, and Jacob) spent an entire weekend removing wallpaper and painting our new bedroom.  Meanwhile, I spent the entire week and weekend at our townhouse with my parents packing boxes and moving things into our storage unit (generously provided by Noffsinger Mini-Storage) wi...

Well.  We had our first chemo experience, and I won't lie to you - it did not go quite as smoothly as we had hoped! Matt received his first dose at the cancer center on Tuesday morning, which was pretty uneventful.  We played on our phones and chatted with the nurses and other patients for about 5 hours while he received the first 2 medications.  After that, he was hooked up to a pump so he could go home and receive the 3rd medication for the next 48 hours.  This is when the fun began.  I couldn't convince him to rock the fanny pack the way it is meant to be rocked, but he did pose for a picture with it! Small victories ;) He insisted that I go to work, so I did, but by the time he got home the pump alarm was already beeping.  He called the 1-800 number they gave us for such occasions, and they drove to the house with a new pump.  Everything seemed to be going okay until after...

Our New York trip was definitely short, but totally sweet! Aside from the rain and 6 hour layover on the way home, it was a fantastic trip! We did a lot of the normal NYC tourist things since this was Matt's first time to the city, and he absolutely loved it! Now, the reason for our trip - Matt's appointment.  It went well, and we are thrilled with our Oncologist at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.  He answered all of our questions, and we feel - I don't want to say more comfortable because it's SO NOT COMFORTABLE - so I guess I'll say we are more at ease.  They aren't wasting anytime getting started on treatments, and will implant his port Saturday morning. He will receive his first dose of chemotherapy next week, and will continue to receive treatments for the next 6 months.  Please keep praying. Pray that Matt has minimal side effects, the cancer responds to the chemo, and that all of this is behind us in 6 months! ...

WOW. We are so grateful for all of the calls, texts, messages, food, gifts, hugs - I especially like hugs :) - as well as the comments, shares, and likes on our previous post, but we are mostly thankful for all the prayers!  I know it doesn't seem like much, but when you pass us in Wal-mart and simply say "Hey, we're praying!" it means the world! I'm most often asked how Matt is feeling, and the answer is MUCH better.  It has been many, many months since he's felt normal after eating, and he had a NG tube down his throat for days after surgery (the tube sucked everything out of his stomach so nothing would pass through his intestine as it was trying to heal).  Since they removed the tumor that was obstructing his intestine, and he is almost healed from surgery, the boy is eating us out of house and home!  He is finally regaining his strength, has some color in his face, and his personality is back! ...

When Matt and I got married a mere 16 months ago we promised to love each other through the good times and the bad. Well, we're officially into the bad, but hopefully not for long! As many of you know from my Facebook post last week, Matt has been feeling sick for quite a few months. He had surgery to remove his gallbladder in May, but the symptoms never really subsided. We dismissed it as his body adjusting to his lack of gallbladder, but his health continued to decline. We reached the breaking point last week when he couldn’t even hold down a Gatorade. He had lost more than 50 pounds since April, and we knew he couldn’t keep living that way. He was admitted to the hospital the next morning for some scans and tests, and a CT revealed there was a blockage in his small intestine. That blockage was a mass. That mass was a tumor. And that tumor was cancer. Adenocarcinoma to be exact. The mass was removed, but he will still need to undergo cancer treatments to make sure ...

All of the Beauty and the Beast hype has made me a little nostalgic! My husband and I have been reminiscing about old animated movies we loved to watch, and while most of our favorites are Disney, I realized that a lot of our forgotten "oldies but goodies" were non-Disney!  (Of course they didn't have Disney's budget to keep up with their advertising and merchandise, but that's a whole different topic!)  I started to wonder if anyone else remembers watching some of my favorites when they were just wee ones, too! #1.  I wanted to name my daughter Odette because of this movie. That feeling has since passed, but it's still a fantastic movie! We used to rewind and rewatch the Queen's "lip quiver" scene over and over! #2.  One of the saddest movies of all time. Second only to The Fox and the Hound.   #3.  One of the scariest/funniest villains ever, and some fantastic music! "Once upon a December" is jus...

First of all, I am fully aware that this story makes me sound like a complete nutcase, but I have shared plenty of my childhood antics with you all, so why stop now? Jimmy Fallon tweeted out asking for the #worstlieievertold.  I tweeted a couple, and then I remembered one in particular that I'm not even sure if I ever came clean to my family about. Oopsie. It all started with Santa's Workshop.  For those of you who aren't familiar (or maybe your school called it something else) I will elaborate.  When you are in elementary school, you can't exactly drive to the local Wal-Mart and Christmas shop, but being the sweet, innocent child that you are, you want to buy things for your family.  So, the parents at our school would go to the Dollar Tree, purchase little gifts, and set up a shop in the library where you could come at a certain time of day to purchase gifts for your family. The night before the start of Santa's Workshop Helen had a little chat wi...

That's right, I was certain the time had come, and I was meeting my maker this weekend.  The icy breath of death was upon my neck.  The white light was in the far off distance.  BUT as it turns out, it was just a virus!  I think it was karma for telling all of Facebook to stay away from my niece until this nasty stuff passes, but now I REALLY MEAN IT. I felt fine all day Saturday until I noticed a sharp pain in my stomach.  I mentioned it to Matt, then WebMD'd it and found out that it was either indigestion or cancer.  No biggie.  The pain {sort of} subsided, at least enough that I thought I would be fine to go out with my friends for NYE.  We got ready and went to Charles' apartment in Charleston for the festivities.  After about 1/2 a drink, I started to feel VERY queasy.  I tried to just ignore it as we headed downtown, but it was hard to ignore after we were packed like sardines in a tiny...