Can you believe it has been almost a year?

Hard to believe.  Completely amazed.  Totally grateful.  Still processing.  I am thankful that she is doing so well and I know it is because of answered prayers and God's grace.
Those are my answers to that question.

A quick update on the kids today: Amanda has  been feeling very sick today and I feel transported back to those early  days of chemo that were so incredibly difficult.  Please pray that with a day or two of rest she will feel better.   With the timing of her cycle, however, this is not completely unexpected.  We are in week four and she will start chemo a week from tomorrow.  Brandon's foot is still on the sore side but he is doing better with moving around.  Tomorrow will be tough since he will be up on it all day.  Please pray for Brandon to have a good start to his week.

When we started this blog on CaringBridge a year ago this this Friday (February 28) it was a way to communicate Amanda's progress while in the hospital.  It gave us the ability to send out updates to more people at once and prevented us from staying on our phone texting or talking for most of the day.  What a tremendous blessing it has been since that very first day.

The Team Watson blog has been therapeutic for me.  Throughout this past year, Tom and I both have posted updates on Amanda, however, somewhere along the way it became almost a daily journal for me.   I try to be honest and share my heart as a mother with a child who has cancer, I share the details of our day (not sure you really care to know ALL those details!) and most importantly, I share how Amanda is doing.  It has been a roller coaster of emotions, at times a heartbreaking journey, a beautiful glimpse into how the body of Christ is alive and well and how God's grace can defeat your fears and anxieties to a limit you never knew possible.  I want people to know that you can experience difficult and stressful times in life, rely on your faith in God, and see that faith come to life as you live each day.  The days may not always be pretty or easy, but you can survive each day with hope and thanksgiving.

So as we enter this week, I know that I will be reliving those days and moments leading up to her hospital stay and all that followed; not because I am consumed by the past, but rather because I am overwhelmed by the goodness and love of our God.  Amanda's life is a living testimony and I am so honored to be a small part of it.

I told Amanda last week that her life may be known by her experience with cancer, but her life will not be defined by it.  Thank you for bringing that statement to life by the way you have blessed our family in so many ways.  We have experienced much and been blessed even more.

So as I look back and praise God at how far we have come, I hope that you can see that our blog has become a prayer journal.  We asked, and I will admit at times I begged, God to answer our prayers, and through his mercy, he did.  May God receive all the glory.

In those weeks that lead up to our decision to take Amanda to Dell, it was amazing at how quickly we saw the physical changes on her left side. 

• In early to mid February, Amanda's walk started changing.  She was swinging her left leg out when she walked and then later she started carrying her left arm at an angle.
• One Friday, Thomas went on a field trip and spent the day observing her and he knew something wasn't right.  I made an appointment with our family doctor for that next Monday, February 25.  
• On Saturday, she was practicing her piano and had trouble playing her bass clef chords because her left hand wasn't strong enough to make the stretch to play them.
• Monday, we saw our family physician.  Blood tests came back good, but there was a definite weakness on her left side.  We scheduled an appointment to see a neurologist, but the first available was in April.  Our doctor was on the phone Tuesday trying to get us in as soon as possible.
• Tuesday, Tom was at work.  Amanda tripped and fell numerous times at school that day.  Tom and I, with our doctor's encouragement, made the decision to take her to Dell the next morning when Thomas came home.  That evening, as the kids and I walked out of a restaurant, she was holding a soda bottle in her left hand and said that it was too heavy for her to hold and she was about to drop it.  
• By the time she woke up Wednesday morning, she could not use her left arm.  When we arrived at Dell Children's Hospital Emergency Room in Austin, we were back in a room within ten minutes, saw a doctor who then immediately went to speak to a neurologist.  The day was long and Amanda went through many exams - "touch your nose then touch my finger," "raise your arms" and "squeeze my fingers." After an early afternoon attempt to do an MRI while awake (she couldn't sit still in noisy machine for two hours!), a little after 6:00 p.m. she was taken back for an MRI with sedation.  It was late that night that we were told we were being admitted.  That is when we learned she had a mass at the base of her brain and would most likely require surgery the next day.

And so our journey began....

In the Emergency Room - February 27, 2013

From the CaringBridge website:

Day 2

Written Feb 28, 2013 9:03pm

Last night, we found out that the MRI showed a mass at the base of her brain and that it would most likely require surgery.  After a sleepless night, we began a long day two.  While it started with us thinking we would possibly send her to surgery, we learned that would not happen today, but was still a possibility.  We met with the team that would be working with Amanda and reviewed the MRI.  While there are several options of how to treat the tumor, the best option at this point is to go in and see if it can all be removed, or if only a portion should be removed to determine exactly what we are dealing with.  Once they have tissue samples, they will send it off to Pathology, but that will take a few days (next week) before we find out anything solid in regards to exactly what we are dealing with.  So we are looking to tomorrow with hopes for a miracle - that God would pour out his mercy upon Amanda and that she will be healed.  Her recovery will be swift and that through each day, He will be glorified by our lives.  Thank you for your prayers tomorrow for both the medical team and for our family. 

Ephesians 3:16-21
I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.
Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.