Our latest hurdle...yep, one more

De and Katie. Awwwww......

See De's face? This is how we are feeling today:) "Yahooooooooo!"

I better explain.

Last week, I took Katie in to the OBGYN for an appointment. She hadn't been feeling right and felt she may have a cyst on her ovary.

The doctor said she felt a mass in her abdomen and sent her immediately for an ultrasound which showed a 24 cm. mass on her right side. They could not see her ovary at all so they felt it probably was a cyst but she needed a CT scan and tumor markers done.

The doctor was very alarmed and even though she remained calm, we could tell she was concerned.

So was I.

Two days before, Aliya had asked me, "What is your greatest fear?"

It didn't even take me a second to think about it. My greatest fear is seeing my children suffer.

And here it was.

My daughter is getting married in less than 4 months. We have the MOST beautiful wedding dress purchased and plans are being made. What if this is cancer? What will happen to everything then? I mean everything. What will we do?

God has brought our family through some real doozies. I know we are not alone in suffering and trials. Many people suffer much, much more than this family has. But most would agree...we've had some big things to deal with...the accident in which Blaine's dad was killed and Blaine critically injured, Blake's cancer scare, the house fire, Blaine becoming paralyzed and now my daughter (my closest friend) has a mass the size of a volleyball in her tiny self.

Yes, I did say the size of a VOLLEYBALL in a girl who weighs 112 pounds and is just over 5 feet tall!

Really? I could not believe we had yet another huge obstacle to overcome in this family.

My mind went completely out of control. I completely related to David in Psalms 31 when he talked about wrestling with his thoughts. I was wrestling big time.

The only way I can describe what was going through my mind is to say it's the emotion you would feel if you lost your little child at the Mall of America and couldn't find them for 15 minutes.

What would you think?

"Who has my child? What will they do to them? Where will they take them? Will I ever see them again? Are they crying right now? Are they scared?" On and on in rapid succession you mind would go. Complete panic! I struggled to control my thoughts.

That is what my mind was doing. Horrible. Agony.

On top of that, I had to be strong for Katie. To act like things were ok and I was unaffected and fine. That's a role I have played before with Blaine and I don't like doing it. So hard.

Finding the words even to pray to God were hard to come by for me. I mostly just said to Him, "Please, God."

By Tuesday afternoon, I began to feel God's peace. I found myself much less panicky and more trusting. Many people were praying and I really began to feel the presence of God holding me up and supporting me.

Thursday was her appointment to review the tumor markers and CT scan. De went with us and we prayed before we went in. The doctor came in and I immediately saw the relaxed look on her face. She told us the tumor markers came back fine...she was looking for a rare tumor that can effect teenagers. The CT scan showed that yes, she did have an ovarian cyst, 24 cm. (huge) but no other organs were involved!

She doesn't feel it is cancer at all and neither do we. Katie will meet with another doctor who will assist in the surgery next Thursday. He is an OBGYN oncologist and will be there just in the rare case that there is cancer present. This is standard procedure in the case of such a big cyst. Her surgery is scheduled for March 21st. She'll be in the hospital 2-3 days and recovery will take 6 weeks.

But she WILL be ready for her beautiful wedding and she WILL be fine!

We are just praising the Lord for His incredible mercy and grace. I'm sure this experience will make us all stronger and even more empathetic to others' suffering. Even though we would never ask God to "Bring the rain" like the song says (we've had to much rain and we personally wouldn't ask for more), we will learn from the things He allows to come our way.

We are even more able to see God's lovingkindness through this latest hurdle in the E. family!

Thank you for your prayers,

Laura