I'm back, and here's what happened...

I'll try to break this story down to as short as I can to explain my absence. I saw my last happy posting was in April, in May we worked on selling our house, in June, at a regular prenatal physical I had a lump in my breast looked at. Long story short, I was diagnosed (after the biopsy, a lumpectomy and lymphnodal section) with Stage 2 Triple Negative Breast Cancer. After the surgery I went home, had a day of rest, then the movers came and packed up the house. We then moved into the military hotel to await our flight to TX, and in the hotel room I went into preterm labor and I had the twins at 30 weeks. Good news: they were over 3 lbs each and HEALTHY.

My friend gave our family her house to stay at while she was on vacation and we were stuck, our orders on delay. While in recovery I got the word from my breast surgery that I had stage 2 Triple Negative Breast Cancer, with 2 positive lymphnodes and positive margins.

That week we worked on getting new orders and the twins medivaced from WA to TX, I flew 1 week after the emergency cesarean with hubby, 4 kiddos and cat, and we made it. The twins arrived the next day and went into the NICU at a nearby hospital. We got a house within days, unpacked, and I went right into surgery and had a double mastectomy. The twins came home after a total of 5+ weeks in the NICU and were baptized the same week I began my chemotherapy treatment. I finished chemo in November, got the holidays off, and began then the 35 treatments of radiation which I just finished the beginning of Feb. I have some time off again until my next CT and PET scans, and in March see the plastic surgeon to talk about reconstructive surgery.

Good news, the twins are home and healthy and thriving, no developmental delays at all! I am slowly coming out of my chemo and radiation comas and beginning to feel my old self again. The kids have been great, my husband my biggest supporter and I have felt the Lord hold my hand through this entire journey.

My latest research has been of course, on cancer. Nutrition plays such a huge roll in recovery and recurrence, but how do we weight loss surgery peoples deal with these foods? I'm working on it, do I smell ANOTHER blog to come? Who knows.

If you have any questions for me, please post them as a comment and I will get right back to you. I hope many of you have had some help in pregnancy while being a weight loss surgery pt from this blog and I hope the info stored on it continues to help others!

God bless,
Mrs. Murphy

Back from El Paso!

Well, my hubby and I ventured down to El Paso for house hunting and recon, it was great! Not a vacation by any means, but well worth it. We found a neighborhood, a great bunch of connections, a homeschool group even had a coffee welcoming me! I'm excited to get down there.

Now, travelling and food....talk about issues. Have you noticed that nearly all food offered in airports, malls, at hotel continental breakfasts is all sugary carbs? My strategy became to get some kind of grilled chicken sandwich and eat the chicken out of it. We found the store and I got some cheese sticks, travelling is rough for the pouch! And for the babies!

Getting BIGGER!
Mrs. Murphy

We found out!

It was VERY obvious, 2 girls! This make 6 daughters for us and I am so pleased! I think I would be pleased with anything, or anyone! The names I am toying with are Sarah Jane and either Lucy ??? Or Audrey Lucille. I am very picky about the names and it takes me a long time saying them in my head and out loud before I am comfortable with them, I have to FEEL the name fits with the little soul inside.

Best news, I've gained about 7 pounds, a bunch back in my boobs (thank goodness!), but I was worried about the babies being underweight or unhealthy because of the "new me". But, one was 10 oz, exactly the right weight for a 19 week fetus, and the other 11 oz, just above average, so I am relieved that they are both getting all they need from me, but I will have to continue eating more and more to feed 2!

Now for more excitement, it looks like while they are in 2 sacs, they are in 1 placenta, and as there are NO twins in my genetic make-up, chances are VERY good they are identical. How cool!

More pink, more ponies, more Barbies! I need some more bathrooms!

Some cool stuff to share...

I run another blog full time, about homeschooling, and occasionally I run across some cool resources that are not just education related, so I think I'll share them with all of you too! (And of course, if you are interested in this other blog, shoot me a comment and I'll give you the link ;)

First, this lady is AWESOME, in her bio she states that she is "God Fearing" and that her family is part of the military, right up my alley too, oh, and her website is about everything FRUGAL, check out my new BFF, the Happy Housewife! On the subject of saving $, check out 5$ Dinners! Organic and Thrifty is another fav I've been checking out, some of the diets and menus do not seem to be too WLS compatible, as they mostly consist of organic vegetables and little meats and proteins, but the jist is worth a drive by.

Want to go to college for free? kinda? Now is the perfect time to improve your education. I know what you're thinking, though. You don't have the time or money to enroll in a college class. That's no excuse! Thanks to the Internet, you can take college classes on your own schedule. And, you can do it for free. The OpenCourseWare Consortium links to many universities around the world. You can listen to lectures and watch videos of special events. You can also access course materials. The courses cover a variety of different disciplines. But I recommend that you check out the courses on personal finance. You'll learn how to save for your child's college education. Or, you can get help planning for retirement. The courses will also help you reduce your spending and increase your savings. This is something anyone can love! These courses won't count towards a degree. That's okay. What's important is that you're learning new skills. www.ocwconsortium. org

Be alerted to price drops! The convenience of online shopping just can't be beaten. You can avoid crowded shopping centers. Parking and long lines are never a problem. Of course, you'll often find better prices online, too. That's because Web sites don't have the overhead associated with retail locations. But these days, low prices aren't enough. We need to find the lowest prices possible. Fortunately, the Internet makes comparison shopping easy. You can check an item's price on numerous sites in a matter of minutes. There's no driving all over town or making endless phone calls. To make online shopping even easier, try Price!pinx. All you need do is install a bookmark in your browser. Then, when you're on a site's product page, highlight the price. Next, click the Price!pinx bookmark. Price!pinx does all the work for you. You'll receive a notification if the price drops! Price!pinx can also help you with low-price guarantees. It's great for cash-strapped families! www.pricepinx. com

Job searching the easy way! Even in the best of times, job hunting is no picnic. But these days, you need all the help you can get. Fortunately, there are plenty of online job boards. You can search for your dream job from the comfort of home. With all these job boards, your search can quickly become a job of its own. You can spend hours hopping from board to board. That is, unless you visit Simply Hired. Its goal is to build the largest online database of jobs. That's a lofty goal! Simply Hired has a good start, though, with more than 2.5 million listings. These jobs aren't on Simply Hired's site. Rather, Simply Hired does the heavy lifting for you. It searches other job sites and lists openings in one place. To make things even easier, Simply Hired will alert you to jobs that match your search.

Here is just a super neat site called Our Earth as Art that contains amazing satelite photos of our beautiful planet from space. Thanks NASA!

How about gardening? Check HERE for all kinds of awesome gardening info!

And finally, of course you gotta check out the Baby Cheapskate!

Enjoy!
Mrs. Murphy

Insomnia & Guilt

I can take a lot from a pregnancy, but insomnia leading to sleep deprivation is my biggest weakness. I NEED MY SLEEP. Oh well. I woke at 3:30 this morning and just can't get back to sleep, I started thinking about the idiot neighbor with the GIANT dogs who gets up when everyone is asleep so they can s**t in my yard and he doesn't have to clean it up. So I am between the laptop, coffee pot and window. One night I'll jump out and surprise him and get a picture of it. I am kept awake too, thinking about dumping it on his front porch after I have spent my time picking it up. See what sleep deprivation does to me? It makes me downright mean! Back to confession I need to go!

My GUILT also comes from my use, or abuse, of CARBS. I think I am doing so well, and then the kids are having chips-a-hoy and oh boy, one cookie and I'm done. Kaye's last article on depression and why we eat carbs put a lot into focus for me and I have been mindful of the amount of carbs vs protein I have been consuming, and the key I think has been the constant "why am I doing this to myself" thought. That article spoke volumes about me, to me.

A more recent Kaye article about carbs and how many wls patients can still get type II diabetes also was a kick in the pants for me! What? I can still get diabetes? I thought this was a cure all! Oh no, now I'm waking up. Even though I'm super pregnant, DOUBLE pregnant, I think I'm coming out of that mucho weightloss honeymoon phase.... the weight is gone, but now I need to still be HEALTHY.

If you have NO IDEA what articles I am referring to, go to the right and check out Kaye Bailey's WLS articles in the widget. They are well worth the read!

Mrs. Murphy

Finally!

First, I will NEVER EVER recommend Best Buy or the Geek Squad, I might as well have asked the high school tech team for help, it probably would have been better service! We finally have our new laptop, with MOST of our old data (sigh) so I should be back in business!

Well, in addition to the computer frustrations the house has become our albatross and we are on the verge of firing our realtor who just admitted she just made a jump from being a postal carrier to real estate a few months ago. SCREAM! We are having NO LUCK finding people who just know their profession!

We did do some escaping and went for a family weekend to Great Wolf Lodge, tiring but fun! My 2 year old just wanted to cling, but the other girls had a blast getting water logged. My husband was a sword bearer in a Marine wedding and boy he looked sharp! Now, we are also on the hunt for a bigger van! It would seem to me there would be more of a market for large family friendly vans, but no! The dealership was somewhat shocked when I called asking for this specifically, and again, had no idea about the new vehicle tax credit....don't you think a car dealership would know these things?

Physically, I HEAR I look small for having twins, but by the end of the day I don't feel small! I can now feel both babies kicking and stretching and boy is it different than just one baby. Constipation has been another struggle...I had thought it was a medication I was on, but it has continued and is so frustrating! And the only things I am finding in the house I think would be fiberous are also making me sick, so I am still dumping and that is no good.

One day at a time right? Its observation week at my girls dance school, lots of music lessons, gymnastics, bible study....always busy. Soon we will be in El Paso looking at homes, send me suggestions! Rentals, we are NOT buying!

How are all of you?
Mrs. Murphy

I'm Back....Sort Of...

We have strong faith in our home, faith in prayer. For Lent I had prayed specifically for time with family, and less time on the computer....but was not following through and still on the computer as much as ever, until IT DIED. Yup, the cpu just would not wake up one morning about a week ago. Panic, mayhem.....we took it to the Geek Squad at Best Buy and got a laptop at the same time. Asked them to transfer the data from the cpu onto discs and the laptop. My husband goes to pick it up and he gets "what laptop?" I swear that man is going to stroke out one day soon. They LOST our laptop, have no record of the requests etc, but do have the receipt and gave us back our old cpu and the discs with our data. Yikes. So, I've pulled my 8 year olds cpu and hooked it up solely for internet and am somewhat regretting it since I have HUNDREDS of emails and messages to sort through....

Another prayer aswered....my prayer for orders to someplace WARM. For us Marines that would typically be San Diego, North Carolina, Hawaii or even Florida.....we are going to the joint staff at Fort Bliss in El Paso, TEXAS. Right on the border of Mexico and New Mexico! Another ARMY base and yup, it will be warm! And, I will be having the cesarean just weeks after we move there....yikes! Anyone from that area? Know that area? ANY advice would be great!

Other than that excitement, we are selling our house for CHEAP. Anyone interested? And I had my ultrasound, one baby was in an odd position and fuzzy, the other was like my other girls, letting it all show and is a girl! I think it would be soooo funny for us to have 6 girls! What payback for all the torment my husband gave his sister growing up!

Ok, sorting, muddling, bear with me!
Mrs. Murphy