So..

On the 25th of October, my grandfather passed away. His funeral was this past Friday, October 31st, and there was a visitation the day prior to that on Thursday, October 30th. Can you just please keep my dad's side of the family in your prayers? Thanks.

It's really not fair...

Can you all PLEASE pray for my dad's side of the family? My grandfather is very, very sick. He is anemic and is currently in the hospital getting blood and on a feeding tube. He's been sick for a while, but it just got really bad apparently. It sucks, and it's not fair. It doesn't look like he's going to make it 'till the end of October... this Christmas is NOT going to be a fun one, that's for sure...

Also, my orchestra teacher's grandfather just died, and it was very sudden, and her whole family is devastated.

We all need the prayer, and I REALLY appreciate all of you!!
God Bless you all!!


Love always,
Michelle

Huh.

Wow, it's been a while, hasn't it?
My knees never stopped giving me problems, despite the medicine - in fact, they got worse. I went in for a second opinion and that doctor said that Dr. Wilke made way too big a deal out of the cysts on my knees, that they're nothing, and that I have Patella Femoral Syndrome, which I believe I've previously explained. I think. I don't know. But whatever.

School's... hard, to say the least. I've taken on quite the load, and it can get a little overwhelming at times. I've missed quite a few days b/c of my knees, and I missed Friday b/c I wasn't feeling well. Guess I'm getting a little rundown, huh? It'll be okay, I'm slowly adjusting to what's being asked of me.

I hope everyone has a fantastic day !!

Good News !!

It's definatly NOT cancer !!!!! I already knew that, but the doctor confirmed it yesterday. I have fiberous cysts that turned into nice little bone cysts, which means I've had these for quite a while. They will never go away on their own, so I'm supposed to be taking my anti-inflammatory medicine that they gave me for my back b/c it will help my knees also. The reason why they hurt is because of the cysts, and the reason my knee showed activity in the bone scan is because it's inflamed. Nothing huge or scary. I'll probably have to have surgery to remove them at one point in my life because the pain will come and go. If I'm not better in 6 weeks, then I have to go back, and they'll probably change my medication or something, but if I'm worse, then they are going to suggest some other treatment options, one of them being surgery. So all's good on the home front !! I love you all and thank you so much for praying for me !!

Love Always,
Michelle

Anxious? That's not really the word I want...

I REALLY want it to be tomorrow afternoon, to be Thursday at 2:55 PM so I can see what's up with my freakin' knees !!

I got the CT scan and MRI done and it was no big deal, I just lost a huge chunk of my day. My CT Scan was scheduled for 3:30 and my MRI for 5, the CT scan only took like 15 minutes, but the MRI people were running an HOUR AND A HALF behind. Yes. 1 1/2 hours. And the test itself takes 45 minutes to an hour. I didn't get home until like 7:30... lame.

But whatever, I got a cool outpatient wristband thingy !! haha.

School is great, my bookbag's a little heavy though, I have to admit. I'm making new friends (kind of) and the only class I hate is Calculus. So yay school... lol probably not the usual words to come out of a teenager's mouth... or mind... hands? Whatever. You get what I'm trying to say.

UMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM... OH !! I finished Breaking Dawn (like a long time ago, but whatever) and it was AMAZING !! Easily the best of the three, even though theres alot of people that hate it with everything inside of them... bitter people... j/k j/k !!

... anything else? I don't know. I'm going to the book store, KMart, and to Pizza Hut to get a JOB APPLICATION today soooo yeah. Possibly stop by Steak N Shake, I'll see if my mom will stop by an animal clinic or two and see if they need someone to work for them, or even a volunteer. I'll keep you updated !! Love you all, have a great rest of the day, and God Bless !!


Love Always,
Michelle


Verse of the Day: Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.
~ Matthew 11:28-30

Results from the test...

Okay, so last Thursday I had a bone scan done. I went to the doctor yesterday to find out what it showed.

My left knee is completely inactive, there is no activity, which means theres nothing bad happening there - no cancer, no inflammation, nothing.

My right knee showed signs of slight activity.

Let me explain a little bit. The test was pretty simple. They injected dye into my blood stream and it soaked into my tissue immediately, then a few hours later I returned for the bone scan and the dye had soaked into my bones. The dye itself is clear and is only meant to pick up "hot spots" or "problem areas" or "active areas" which are all the same thing, just different sayings that may or may not be familiar to you. It means that my cells or something are going into overdrive to make something better [im assuming], and the dye showed up, but not too bright, on my right femur just above my kneecap. Woo, yay me, etc.

The fact that activity was only shown in the one knee is actually a good thing, because that rules out bone cancer. Big worry lifted off mine, and everyone elses, shoulders there. However, I was in a LOT of pain wednesday night and had to be picked up early from church. It hurt so bad I was crying. I havent cried because of pain since my tonsilectomy back in 7th grade. So I told my doctor about the pain, and he said that the cysts shouldn't be causing it so hopefully he can get a look at what might be.

Today I have to have an MRI and a CT scan [people call them catscans] of my right femur and my right femur posterior or something weird like that, so yeah. I'm not worried, just really curious about whats going on, haha.

I thank you all for your thoughts and prayers and for reading this. I have to go though... I have to get ready for school.

Have a fantastic day, everyone and God Bless !!


Love Always,
Michelle


Verse of the Day: Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize.
~ 1 Corinthians 9:24

Anxious...

Sorry it's been so long, I've been kind of busy.

I went to a book release on the 1st for Stephenie Meyer's new book Breaking Dawn. So far so good on the book !! =]
I finished my first book that I had to read for school, and I am now halfway through my second book, which I'm hoping to finish by tomorrow, then I'll have 4 days to read another book [[I have faith that I can do it !!]].
I went to the doctor and had an MRI done on my back [[I don't think I talked about this already, if I have, I apologise]] to see if I have Degenerative Disk Disease. Well, I don't, as I've found out today. They can't see anything arthritic either, so thats good. =] My back is completely fine, there's nothing wrong with it except for the fact that my neck being backwards caused my spine to be straight - but that doesn't seem to be a big concern. So praise the LORD on that !!

But I DO need prayer. I questioned about pain that I've been having in my knees, and they took X-Rays. At first glance, they seemed to be perfectly normal, however... at a closer look the Nurse Practitioner noticed a shadow of something just below my left kneecap and just above my right. She talked to my doctor about it and she said that they appear to be cists [[I think thats how you spell it...]]. That got me slightly concerned, even though there's a VERY high chance it will be benign. I'm going, on Thursday, to have a bone scan done. Pretty much, they're going to inject my knees with dye, let it soak in for 3 hours [[of which I'm allowed to leave and go home or go shopping or something]], then come back and they'll do an x-ray on it or something like that. Then, if there are any effected areas, the dye will have covered it. The cists will do 1 of 3 things:
1. It will be benign and go away on its own
2. It will be benign and remain there for the rest of my life unless they remove it; or,
3. It will be malignant.
Now, the chances of 1 and 2 are significantly higher than the chances of me having bone cancer, BUT I still would like prayer on this subject, please? There's really been nothing else exciting going on in my life other than this. Thank you for reading, God Bless, and have an AMAZING evening !!


Love always,
Michelle


Verse of the Day: For everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through endurance and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.
~ Romans 15:4

Senior Pictures?

Today wasn't extremely eventful. I took my Senior Pictures today at 3:00, it took about a half hour, nothing huge. But I got to pose wearing my grandma's ring and my grandpa's Bible [both passed away] and I had my violin also. It was fun, 30 minutes of feeling like a model, ha ha. But the weather was kind of nasty, wasn't it? It rained ALL day - but yet, I still found myself extremely happy and upbeat. Usually rain puts a damper on my happy mood, but not today. =] I don't have a lot to report on. I'm not even halfway through the first book [out of three] that I have to have ready by August 11 for my Lit class... yeah... that sucks. I hate being a procrastinator. Oh well, it is what it is, and I need to go read some more. Sorry this isn't longer, maybe it's a relief to not have 20 miles of words to read, but for people that DO read, I appreciate it! God Bless and have a splendid evening and day tomorrow!


Love always,
Michelle


Verse of the Day: When Jesus spoke again to the people, he said, "I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life."
~ 2 Corinthians 4:6

A day at the Doctor... and other stuff

Let me just say that I am SO thankful to have made it to my senior year relatively unscathed. I mean, yeah, I've had my ups and downs in life, some downs that most teenagers don't ever experience - but thanks to GOD, here I am! A senior in high school, and completely loving the idea of school starting in less than two weeks !! I am so blessed to have the opportunity to be schooled and to have made it so far in my education with nothing below a high C in any of my classes I've taken, ever and with a positive attitude towards school and everything that comes along with it. I yearn for the high school experience yet at the same time, I am ready to leave and go on to do bigger and better things in college life !!

Anyways, what brought on that little bit of inspiration was the fact that I registered for my SENIOR YEAR today. =] Lemme tell you - it wasn't fun, but I was VERY happy that I would not have to ever have to register for High School ever again [and so was my mom, because I'm the youngest child !!]. I'm looking forward to this year, like, a lot !!

After the painfully dull registration from 8:30 - 9:30 AM, I had a doctor's appointment. I have this very bad problem with my back. The bones in my neck are backwards, I have the beginnings of arthritis in my middle back, and Spina Bifida in my lower back [though too low to cause me any pain, hopefully]. Not to mention, that [partially] because of my backwards neck, my spine is almost completely straight. Now, the first Orthopedist [bone doctor] that I went to placed alot of emphasis on my neck bones and strengthening my upper back muscles. Now, this led to extreme lower back pain and my knee pain increased. He then declared [without x-rays] that I had Patello Femoral Pain Syndrome in my knees. There was a big mess and confusion with physical therapy, so we decided to get a second opinion. And I'm really glad we did. This doctor that I saw today looked at my x-rays and said that the fact that my neck was backwards was not a big deal, I was born that way, it happens. So that was a relief. Then he said that I had hardly ANY beginnings of arthritis in my spine, and no reason to worry because it doubtfully would turn into arthritis of any kind. Phew! Another relief! He confirmed that the slight Spina Bifida should not cause me any difficulty. What he was most concerned about was the fact that I have virtually no curvature in my spine. He took a look at the vertebrae in my lower spine [lumbar] and said that he was concerned that I might have Degenerative Disk Disease, and he wanted to do an MRI because you can't see the disks in between your vertebrae in an x-ray.

What Degenerative Disk Disease [DDD] is, well, the way he described it, is that your disks are like sponges, soft and... well spongey when wet, but sometimes sponges get all dried out. That can happen to your disks when there is too much pressure on them or they are forced to compensate for something else. When a sponge gets dried out, it gets hard and brittle, right? Well, that's what can happen to your disks. And that is the brief description of DDD.

Anyway, that out of the way, I can continue. So, we went to schedule an MRI and POOF! There was an opening for 1 PM today. Well, at this point it was already 12:25, and you have to be there 15 minutes early. We grabbed the appointment and were handed some information about MRI's to answer any questions I might have had. So, at this point I was a little nervous. I mean, you always hear about MRIs being those things they do to scan for cancer. I was reading the thing and found out that an MRI can take a minimum of 1 hour !! dang. that is a LONG time to sit inside a tuby thing while the machine is taking pictures of your insides while you don't move [definatly not good for clausterphobics]. But, I went and got it done, and it only took 45 minutes [heck yes, I defeated the paper !!], and it went by way faster than I thought it would. No big deal, nothing happened to me. But, we didnt get out of there until 1:45, and we had been gone since 8:15 in the morning... not to mention we were hungry because we didnt eat breakfast. So we stopped at Arbys and got some lunch and went home. We watched The Secret Life of the American Teenager [good show, btw], and then I went to reading my book - Jane Eyre. That's what I've been doing for a while, and it made me stinkin' cry already !! It's a good book, a little slow going, but definatly worth reading. I'm only on chapter 11, but still - pure excellence. I'm getting ready to watch Bones with my mom, read some more, then get ready to take my Senior Pictures tomorrow afternoon !! Shower, curl hair, lay out outfits, etc, etc.
Well, that's all I have for you today !! God Bless and I hope you had an amazing day, and I hope you continue on to have an amazing night !!


Love always,
Michelle


Verse of the Day: Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable--if anything is excellent or praiseworthy--think about such things.
~ Philippians 4:8

Kind of busy day

SO, I woke up this morning to my WONDERFUL sister Jamie calling =] She was sharing the fabulous news that she has gotten promoted to a store [she is currently the manager at Guitar Center] in Kansas !! How awesome is that? I'm so happy for her !!

The morning wasn't too busy - did some paperwork for registration tomorrow, got my book Jane Eyre [which I have to read, along with two other books, for my English class this year] in the mail, and chilled until I dyed my hair. You see, my hair is naturally a light brown, and I dyed it about 3 or 4 months ago to a blondish color, and today I dyed it back to my "natural" hair color for my senior pictures [which I'm taking in two days]. It turned out looking just like my hair did before I dyed it blond, except shinier. =]

Now, this afternoon, my mom and I had a billion errands to run. Okay - not a billion, but a few. We stopped by the gas station, we went to Pizza Hut to get my sister and her fiance's paychecks, went to the bank to deposit the paychecks, started to go to the library until I noticed that I did not have my library card OR ID on me so we turned around, went shopping for clothes to wear in my senior pictures [which we successfully bought $50 worth of clothes at Value City], and went to the grocery store. Phew, that's a mouthful, huh? At the grocery store, we got some chicken fingers, which we ate happily and then settled down to watch Dirty Dancing - which I have to say was a fabulous movie !! I read Jane Eyre some, and attempted sleep but alas, I cannot fall asleep. And here we are !!

Today has been an easy-going day, a day that we often take advantage of, but as I said my prayers tonight, I realized how thankful I was that the day was so simplistic and calm. I was reveling in the time I had to just sit down and relax because over the past month, I haven't had a lot of time to do that. I've always been up and running around - busy doing this and going here, it's nice to just lay back and enjoy life.

I don't really have much else to say - sorry! Even though you're probably bored to death anyway, but hey, this is my life. Take it or leave it. Ha ha. I hope you have a fantastic day, and as I said before, comments are encouraged [wink wink] and prayer requests are also encouraged. Keep in mind that I DO pray for these things. God Bless each and every one of you!!


Love always,
Michelle


Verse of the Day: I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me Heavenward in Christ Jesus.
~ Philippians 3:14

First Blog...

Hm, this is my first blog. It's been a while since I've blogged, let alone since I've blogged regularly.
The night before last I got home from the most amazing trip of my life! I went on a mission trip with my [amazing] youth group to Nashville, TN.

We did a variety of activities including feeding homeless people, getting to know homeless people, and helping a man [Randy] that has HIV clean up and move some things. But let me tell you something first.

About a week before mission trip I started to really feel God in my life for the first time in quite a while. I felt Him near me and I heard Him calling me back to Him. I ran to Him and confided in Him, and then I started to feel this unrepressable need to help someone. I wanted to make a difference in someone's life. Mission trip allowed me to fufill that need, that desire, and made me realize that I can do that here.

Mission trip taught me so much about God and about people and about teamwork. I've learned that not all homeless people are "bums" and that they aren't all jerks or drug addicts or alcoholics. There are plenty out there that are mentally and/or physically handicapped, and veterans, and people who have just ran into some bad luck because of other people's actions. There are homeless people out there on the streets that DO have regular jobs, but you can't live off of minimum wage. You can't put a down payment on an apartment and pay for gas and groceries or anything like that let alone a car or internet or any of this stuff that we are so fortunate to have. We shouldn't judge people just based on their appearance, because not everything is as it seems. Actually, things are rarely as they seem, and we just need to realize that.

I've also learned how amazing it feels to help someone in need, how much people need to just be listened to for once, instead of us just talking about ourselves. People can be so incredibly self-centered at times, myself included. Touching peoples lives is so completely amazing. Spreading God's word and just doing His work, portraying Him in everything we say and do is such a fufilling thing.

Prayer is also really, really important. I've never realized before this trip how much we [or at least I] say that I will pray for someone... and then not do it. I assure them that I love them and will be praying for them, and then not give them another thought. How horrible is that? There are lots of people out there that are relying on our prayers to get them through things. I feel horrible that I say that I will pray for them, then maybe pray once, if that, and then move on to "more important things". What is more important that loving on someone and showing them you care by doing a simple "God, please be with this person today and help them with what they're going through."? In my mind, there isn't. People are often too caught up in themselves and what they are doing to think of those people who are less fortunate, for those friends that are going through a tough times.

Probably the biggest thing that happened for me this past week was my fire for God was reignited. I have this hunger for knowledge, this hunger for serving Him by helping other people, this hunger to tell the world how much I love God and how much God loves them. This fire and passion inside of me is so strong that it's about to explode out of me. My heart is completely filled with Him and I just want to share it with everyone. It's been a very long time since I've felt this, and I've yearned for this fire and passion to envelope my heart and my being. I LOVE GOD and I'm NOT ashamed to show it!!!

This post is getting kind of long, so I'll let everyone go do other things now =] Thank you for reading and I hope you have a FANTASTIC day!!!!! God Bless!


Love Always,
Michelle



PS - If any of you have a prayer request or anything, please, feel free to share, and I will pray for them =]




Verse of the Day: Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.
~ Hebrews 12:1