Answered Prayers

Friends,
Thank you for your prayers! THEY WERE HEARD: I am clot free! The blood clot has cleared from my lung and I am beside myself with humility and gratefulness. Thank you so much for keeping me lifted up - obviously the prayers of the faithful were heard and I am breathing free and clear of any clots.

God is so good. And I am so, so thankful. Thankful for life, for breath, for friends that have been beside me every step of the way lifting me and and my family up. These have been a tough and fragile 6 months.

Now I will be seen by a hematologist soon and will find out if this is a clotting condition or a one time thing. I am praying that this is not a condition and that I will no longer have to take blood thinners on a daily basis.

Nonetheless, I am clot free and incredibly grateful.

Love, Katie

And Yet Another...

... Prayer request.

I just got an email from one of my best friends, Amy Hall, and she's begging us "prayer warriors" to pray for a dear friend of hers. Here is the email that Amy sent out:

"I am sending out a Prayer Need for your hearts. Our neighbor at our old house lost a sweet baby girl 39 weeks into her pregnancy. They named her Anna. Since then Sara has been having some pain in her abdomen so she went to the hospital. They found out she has stage 4 colon cancer that has spread to her liver and lymph nodes. She has two sons, one older than Ava and one younger. SHE IS 33! They are starting a very aggressive chemo treatment plan Monday and they need prayer. Her Caringbridge site is www.caringbridge.org/visit/sarawalker ! Please pray passionately for her and her husband Brian and their two sons! "

Let's join together to pray for this precious mommy who is already suffering the loss of her baby girl and who is so needed by her sons and her husband. I will keep you all posted as I hear more updates on Sara.

Blood Clot Update

I am asking for prayer. Tomorrow (Friday) morning, I have the 'big' CAT scan to determine if the blood clot in my lung has dissolved. This is a big deal - I have been on multiple miligrams of blood thinners for 6 months now in the hopes of making this clot dissolve.

I cannot believe that it has been 6 months and 6 days since Ellyotte entered the world... And I cannot believe that it has been 6 months TODAY since I re-entered the hospital with a pulmonary embolism.

To date, 27 July 2010 was the worst day of my life. I will never, ever, never forget the loneliness and fear that I felt as they wheeled me into the heart unit into an empty hospital room and having to say goodbye to my newborn baby girl and my husband. In those first hours, we honestly didn't know if I would survive the clot and I was petrified that I wouldn't see them again. I wept openly on the phone with one of my best friends, Amy Henderson Hall, as she prayed for me and passed out updates to our friends and families. The memories of those hours spent alone in that hospital room are still as fresh and as raw as if the event happened yesterday.

But God is good and has a mighty plan for my life and for the lives of my children. We heard time and again that Ellyotte should NOT be alive - that due to the uterine damage I had (didn't know about till Ellyotte's c-section) and due to the fact that the blood clot likely developed while I was pregnant - she is by every meaning of the word, an absolute "MIRACLE."

Had my mom not been with me on 27 July 2010 and had she not lived through the same thing with her brother, my Uncle George, and known to send me right to the hospital, I wouldn't be here typing this today. My Uncle passed away following surgery from a pulmonary embolism so my mom was familiar with the symptoms - Dan and I were not.

I am anxious for tomorrow's procedure because we want nothing more than for this clot to be gone. I want to return to normal life: no more blood thinners everyday at 4:00 pm, no more trips to the hospital to get my blood tested every 10 days, no more visits with an internist I don't really like, and no more fear that this clot is dwelling in my lung and that any minute, I could "throw" it and drop dead. I am sick of the drama that has come with this clot and am ready to hear the words "It is gone."

Sometime within the next week, I will stop my thinner regimen long enough to be seen by a hematologist. He will do full blood testing to determine if this is a clotting condition or a one-time occurrence. Please join us in praying that this was a one time thing and that we never have to worry about this happening again.

I will let you know the results of the scan as soon as possible tomorrow. Thanks, everyone.

Another First

Ellyotte's first visit to our neighborhood park. She is six months old now and is the most precious and (as my dad calls her) PLEASANT baby I've ever been around. She takes everything in stride and when she's had enough, she settles back down for one of her THREE long naps during the day.

Ahhh, I just adore this precious bundle.

Baby Ivan

This is serving as a shout out and request for prayers and funds for my awesome cousins, Karen and Derek Kramer. They are allowing God to work in incredible ways in their lives: they are a family of FIVE (the youngest being about 7 months old) and are following God's calling by adopting a sweet baby boy, Ivan, from Russia. He's got Down Syndrome and they have no idea when he will be placed in their home, but he will be their son soon.

I ask for prayer for them as they follow the calling that has been placed in their hearts. And should you want to donate to their adoption fund, here is the link to their site.

Bless them, Lord, as they strive to fulfill the plans you have for their family.

It's a New Year

Praise God for new years and new beginnings. 2010 was a whirlwind, crazy, beautiful year but I am so glad it is over.

Some 2010 highlights (some wonderful, some heartbreaking):
- We had Ellyotte. What a perfect baby girl. I am so in love with her.
- I had a pulmonary embolism. 6 days post c-section, my life flashed before my eyes and I was back in the heart unit of the same hospital I had just given birth in. With continued care from my internist 6 months later, I am ready to be OFF of blood thinners and told that this was a one time deal. We shall see in the next few months.
- We lost a lot of our precious loved ones:
-- My sweet friend, Tim Ward, passed away from an accidental shooting October 16, 2010.
-- My redheaded, incredible Aunt Mamie Mason succumbed to bone and brain cancer on November 24, 2010.
-- My mom's dear, life long friend, Lucy McKee, succumbed to brain cancer 2 weeks following my aunt's death and after only weeks of fighting the disease. Her death was so sudden and heart breaking for those of us who knew and loved her. My mom's heart is understandably broken.
-- Not a person, but an integral member of the Hawkins family: Mitzi, our Persian cat, had to be put down 2 days before Christmas. She was 17.

The year had a lot of heartache included in it, but the greatest blessing was bringing precious Ellyotte Pierce Beall into the world. I'd live through the sadness and challenge of this past year a million times over if I had to - she is worth all of it.

God is good and greatly to be praised. We are together, we are healthy, we are beautifully blessed and I am so thankful. It will be awesome seeing what He has in store for us in 2011!

My "Soldiers"

New Orleans Bowl 2010

Troy University played Ohio University in the R&L Carriers New Orleans Bowl. And we won! It is always awesome to play in the New Orleans Saints Dome and sit in the sky boxes. There is such a history in that stadium and especially in that city. We love any opportunity that will take us to the Big Easy.

We had a fabulous time. Stayed in a suite with my parents and sister and loved cheering on the Trojans with all of our fellow Troy fans.

That Hair

My sister, Aunt Kelly, always jokes that my children robbed Don King of his hairstyle. She might be onto something.

Above is Ellyotte (5 months). Now you understand why she rarely leaves the house without a bow! If I don't put a rubberband and bow in it, it stands straight up.

Below is Noah at 5 months old. I think he was about 5-6 months old when he had to have his first haircut. Poor thing.... no bow could help his hair!

Boys Will Be Boys

What a DAY!

Our (almost) 3 year old, Noah, and I had a long day: he was obsessed with making me his playmate all day. I don't mean at different times throughout the day - I mean, he made me play with him all day. And after a long month of traveling and parenting without the help of Mother's Day Out, one could say that I was moderately exhausted and ready for him to go back to school.

I had just gotten Ellyotte down for a late afternoon nap and was playing on the floor with Noah and his magnetic numbers when he popped up and ran out our back door (which was open because it was a gorgeous day outside). Within 15 seconds, I hear a crash followed by Noah hysterically crying.

He came running inside and was gushing blood from his chin. I didn't know what to do: Ellyotte had begun to scream from her room, Dan was still at work and there was blood everywhere.

Long story short, I called my neighbor Michelle to come keep Ellyotte, I called my friend Season - who is a nurse - to come check out the injury before Dan got home and I got my things together because I knew we'd be heading to the ER!

We waited for about 3 hours before getting a room (crazy Wednesday night in the ER, apparantly...) and Noah was far past his bedtime at that point. The doc came in and told us that he would definitely need stitches and we chose to not put him completely under and do local anesthesia. Good long term option, but terrible for the short term.

They wrapped his little body in a sheet to keep him from hitting, a nurse held his legs, another held his head, the doctor did the stitches and to top off the horror of it all, they covered his face completely with a sheet. He was beside himself. And so were we. The doc looked up mid-stitch to make sure I was okay (I wasn't).

I wanted to claw my skin off with each terrified scream from Noah. He screamed for me, for his daddy, for it to stop and when all else failed, he pulled out his super defiant "Go AWAY!" and yelled it at the doctor. It was so pitiful. When it was over, his little face was swollen and his eyes almost swollen shut from his hysterics.

But, he's home, got some Tylenol in him (and some ice cream) and is finally asleep. He will have his stitches for a week before getting them removed. Boys will definitely be boys... Noah proved that tonight when - after recieving his stitches - he asked if he could be wrapped up like a "burrito" again!

Needless to say, Dan and I each had a stiff drink when we got home and got the sweet little man and his sister to bed :)