The Internet

So, I just have to quickly say that although I don't know what I would do without it, sometimes the internet is a curse. Let me explain. I am lucky enough to be starting a new medication tomorrow. Ben and I both feel good about it and feel like it's the next step in realizing our goals for the future. I will be getting my first of three monthly shots tomorrow morning. I have realized one very important thing, once you have decided on something and know you are going to do it, DO NOT research it, DO NOT look it up on the internet, DO NOT! I may sound extreme, but the past few days I have been looking up this medication online and it is scaring the crap (excuse my language) out of me. I have to continue to remind myself that no one shares their good stories, people only want to share the bad. All I have been reading online is how awful the side effects are, how I am going to feel like I am 60 years old instead of 30, how CRAZY I will be, how fat I will get, how bad my skin will get, how much hair I am going to lose, how much sleep I will not get, how much my bones will hurt, and so on and so forth. It's all bad, no good and it is scaring me to death! But, I got an answer. I prayed and I know this is what I am supposed to do. This is the right thing for us and I have to move forward with faith. So, I may hate the internet at this moment, but I am so blessed to know that we receive personal revelation from the Lord. He knows what is best for us, and He will let us know what that is, if we ask. There is a plan for each of us and how glad I am to know that!
Oh...and everyone that is reading this...please remind me I said all of these things when I am in the thick of it!

Girls Weekend

This may disgust you, but that's our stash of treats for the weekend...swedish fish, doves, twizzlers, M&M's and so much more~
Jennica and Linds in the kitchen...making more treats
mmm, yummy and pretty fruit pizza
yep, we bought matching coats and don't we look good.
ok...so I am poor, the girls got pedicures and i am the one in the holy socks, hee hee!

My 3 best friends getting pedicures. Yes, being pampered is definitely an important part of girls weekend
Hmmm, that's quite the look Kimmie.
Oh, now she looks all sweet, when she knows the camera's on her. BTW, Britney Spears brought us 4 together, I will be forever grateful!
Sweet Lindsey, can you believe she's a mother of 3 and a dentist's wife, how did we get so old?
Nica, looking beautiful and chipper, as always

So, just a quick update on the above pictures. Me and my best friends from college (and after) Jennica , Lindsey, and Kimmie get together and do girls weekend every year, or more. This is our third in the past 12 months. It is a blast to get a way and spend time just doing girl things. We talk....and talk and talk and talk. We shop, we eat, we watch tonz of movies, we get makeovers, we just do fun girl stuff. It honestly is something I look forward to for months. I love these girls. As you can see from the pictures, we had a great time.

Two words: No Cancer

For those of you who don't know, Carmen went in to have a Laper-something-octomy (where the doc drains her cysts) but because of tests that came back positive for cancer our doctor also looked around to see if there was cancer and found no signs indicitive of cancer. The doc took a biopsy of the cysts and the tests will come back next Wednesday but needless to say we were pretty excited and relieved (he's positive that they'll come back negative). Well, I would something spiritual or deep, maybe even philisophical but I don't know what else I could say, except thank you for all your thoughts and prayers. I know that they helped. The doctor did say he found something unusual though, while he was draining the cysts he found what seemed to be a foreign object, that "object" turned out to be an alien. Yes, that's right folks, my wife was harboring illegal aliens, just joking. Seriously though, the alien object was taken to a local research laboratory to be tested, it turns out the alien was a growth, the growth was harmless however it affected Carmen's ability to differentiate her affection towards her husband versus her dog. The object named, carmenlovesherdogmorethanben (it's latin for "carmen loves her dog more than Ben"), somehow had turned symbiotic while increasing in size, it amazingly turned Carmen's affection towards our dog into an infatuation, basically the symbiote injected enzymes into her blood stream altering normal levels of affection. The doctors' and I concluded that it is this reason is why Carmen treats our dog like a child, a human child, that can speak and communicate like humans do when in reality it really can't and that the only thing our dog is capable of is licking itself and eating tampons. The doctors have prescribed medications that will help re-balance Carmen's sanity and diagnosis is that she will be well and whole once again when I fatten and roast our dog on a spigget to eat.
*Please note: there will be a lua-ow at the Crisanto's home in about a month's time.

too much to say, too little time!

I really don't have a lot of time to write, but it's been way too long. Our computer died and we had to get a new one,(thank you to Ben's mom and to Nate for helping us out with that).
VERY important, MORE important than my health issues, my BABY brother got married on January 25th in the Manti Temple to Melissa Rose and I am SO happy for them and proud of them. I will write more about that later, along with a bunch of other things.
So, I will give everyone a quick update on me. the last you all heard I had to go back in and do the CA 125 blood test again. well, good news was that it had dropped from 2000 to 645. Bad news was that normal is 35, so 645 was still too high to ignore. The oncologist had me come back in and apologized for having missed it the first time. He told me again that he was confident that it wasn't cancer, but that he would suggest I do a PET/CT scan to get a better look at what was going on. We went in the following week and did that. I will write another post on the details of that, it was very entertaining. This week we went back into the oncologist to get the results and were informed that even though he (the oncologist) was still confident it's just the endometriosis, the radiologist reading the scan didn't agree and felt that there was definite possiblity of malignancy. So....long story short, I am going into surgery on Wednesday, February 6. The doctor will be doing a diagnostic laparoscopy. They will look inside, see what it looks like first and he will remove tissue. While I am still under do a biopsy and get the results. If it comes back that its not cancer he will just remove the cysts. If it comes back that it is, he will remove whatever has been infected, could be one ovary, could be both, could end up being a complete hysterectomy. Obviously, that's a big word for anyone that isn't done having kids yet, let alone someone who hasn't even started. We feel confident that it's not cancer, but have faith that no matter what happens the Lord is watching out for us and does not give us anything we can't handle.
I love you all and appreciate your love and support.

hello again

So, it seems everyone else is figuring out this blog thing, the picturus, the captions, the backgrounds, the links. I just can't do it! Oh well, I will figure it out, it just seems to be taking me a lot longer than everyone else. Haha, if anyone wants to give me lessons, i am totally up for it.
I got a call from my gynecologist today, Dr. Watabe. It turns out that the Oncologist thought my CA 125 level was normal....not sure how that is possible, since I had a conversation with him about it..but, I guess he wasn't listening. I had to go back in and have blood drawn today to check it again. If it is still elevated I will be going back in to meet with the Oncologist on Wednesday. We will just wait and see what happens. It's a little frustrating because it makes it feel like last weeks appointment may have been useless, but I really feel like things happen the way they are supposed to. Anyway, it was a week of relief and hopefully that lasts, but we will see.
Hopefully my next post will have to do with something other than my health. By the way, I just have to say that my husband really has been the best through this whole thing. He does so much for me and really is willing to do anything that will make me happy. I love him so much and hope I can do better at showing him that!

Okay, this is the last one!

Well,life is much better! I went to see the Oncologist yesterday and although nothing is ever definite until you have surgery,he feels very confident that I don't have cancer. Actually, he feels like the cysts will resolve themselves and that all of my symptoms, including the blood test, are indicative of endometriosis. I wasn't pleased with just saying, "oh, the cysts will just go away themselves" because I have been through this before and they didn't, but he did say I would come back in a month and do another ultrasound to make sure they are getting better. Also, he told me I MUST do something about the endometriosis, so he put me on a low dose birth control that I will be taking continuously. So...I guess I can no longer say that Ben and I are trying to get pregnant. For the past 18 months I have really tried not to do anything that would hinder my fertility, but it seems that my body is doing that on it's own. Hopefully this will means no pain! That would be GREAT.
I have to say that I truly appreciate everyones love, concern and support. I started my blog just at the right time. It makes it easy to let people know what is going on in life without having to have difficult conversations with everyone. Plus, sometimes I really think we are all too good at acting like everything is great, when it just isn't. It does us all good to be served and to serve. I truly realized how loved I am over the past week. I have a wonderful husband, family, friends, ward, in-laws and co-workers. I really am surrounded by great people!

another-nother update

No seriously, they hurt. I'll be sitting and they'll start hurting. I'm also finding that in the mornings, my right shoulder, hurts... Oh and yeah, Carmen went to the doctors and they gave her some medicine... No biggy. Something thats really odd, the past couple of days I've choked on some wicked water, like I'll be drinking water and like, out of nowhere, I'll start choking, it really hurts my throat. Oh I forgot a couple of days ago, Carmen's stomach hurt...