Choriocarcinoma

Well, life has been super hectic these last few weeks. We had our twins, Joshua and Matthew, on August 29th. Following their birth, I just never stopped bleeding.  I went in to get a Mirena IUD to prevent another pregnancy on Monday, November 7 (we know if I were to get pregnant again, it would likely be multiples. Heck NO!).  Prior to getting an IUD, you have to get a pregnancy test. Imagine my surprise when it came back positive. I was sent to get blood work and my HCG level was 5,000 but progesterone level was 1. They scheduled me for an ultrasound, but the night before the scheduled ultrasound, I started to hemorrhage. I was taken in for an emergency D&C where they sent off the stuff in my uterus for testing.  On Monday, November 14, I found out it was cancer.

I was diagnosed with a rare type of cancer called choriocarcinoma that develops from the placenta and spreads rapidly from the uterus to the lungs, liver, and brain. I was very lucky that we caught my cancer early and it had only spread to 1 spot in my lung.  We are lucky I hemorrhaged. My starting HCG level got up to 84,000 prior starting chemo.

Today, I am sitting in the hospital waiting to start chemotherapy Round TWO!! As my port is accessed and we wait on lab results, my hair is starting to fall out bit by bit. I hope I get to enjoy my cute new cut (thanks to Tiffany Rutledge for my cute new short cut) for at least a week or so before all my hair falls out. 

I will be doing this until March at the earliest. This cancer is super survivable but takes a pretty intense chemotherapy regimen.
I am trying to have a positive attitude. My hashtag for this whole crazy journey is #myplacentatriedtokillme and can be followed on Instagram and Facebook.

Round 2!

Perfect little family...not my reality...(yet)

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Through my struggles, I have learned that my reality is the reality of so many others as well. It is not something many talk about. My question is...WHY? Why must we struggle alone?

Many know that my husband and I have had challenges along the way to add a little mini to our family.  For those who don't know my story, we were pregnant with triplets (naturally) in 2013 and tragically lost the pregnancy shortly after finding out God had blessed us with not one but three little angels. I was lost not only because of losing the children God had blessed me with through pregnancy, but also my hope in achieving our desire to be parents. 

We had been trying for 6 months when I finally saw that perfect little pink line saying I was pregnant.  I was so excited. The month before, I had prayed to God to just let me know that we could become pregnant and that we would be parents.  God answered my prayer. 

Fast forward, we find out God had not only blessed us with one child, but three. My husband laughed and I cried. I knew the health challenges that could face us and our little ones with such a high risk pregnancy. At our high risk appointment we were with the doctor and learned baby C had no heart rate.  Baby C.. No hear beat.  Baby A...No heart beat. Baby B...No heart beat. Each were fine a week earlier. I have always only wanted one child. With each assessment, I just kept hoping at least one would be okay. When I was told none of them had a heart beat any longer, my heart sank.
I took it as God answering my prayer but also it was his way of telling me, "Yes, you will be a mother, but in MY time. Not Yet." I was sad. I was angry. I was hopeless!

So here we are, a couple years later. Still trying. We are now seeking the help of a fertility specialist.  I have hope again.  I am working on becoming healthier. Drinking more water, eating my veggies, and maybe even losing a little weight. Healthy mom will hopefully = healthy baby or babies (if I am blessed with multiples again). The coming months will hopefully bring happy news to our reality.

Oatmeal Cottage Cheese Pancakes (A preview of February's breakfast menu)

I tried this high protein pancake recipe and lets just say its like a french toast pancake.  This will be a definite freezer breakfast recipe that I want to keep on hand.  The recipe made 8 pancakes. They are only 2 weight watchers + points per pancakes and are very satisfying.

 This recipe was adapted from The Biggest Loser Recipe for Oatmeal Pancakes.

Ingredients:

6 egg whites
1 cup rolled oats, dry
1 cup fat free cottage cheese
2 teaspoons sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon vanilla

Instructions:

In a blender, blend all ingredients until smooth. Heat a griddle or large non-stick skillet over medium-low heat. Spray with non-stick cooking spray. For each pancake pour 1/4 cup of batter onto griddle. Flip when they start to bubble. Cook until golden brown. Repeat with remaining batches, spraying the griddle as needed. Makes about 8 pancakes.

Number of Servings: 4

Nutritional Info Per Serving: 2 WW + Points
181 Calories, 2.7g Fat, 10mg Cholesterol, 361mg Sodium, 20g Carbs, 2.8g Fiber

Freezer instructions: Flash freeze (see my post about flash freezing here) pancakes laying separately on a bakers sheet for about 1 hour. Place 2 pancakes in a quart size freezer bag. Label and freeze.

Serving day: Remove pancakes from freezer bag and place on a microwave safe plate. Place in microwave for 1-2 minutes until warm. Enjoy!

Reality bites: Breaking cars

Of course I could not be lucky enough to have a few nursing pay checks under my belt before things started breaking. My Escape is not drivable  right now and it is going to cost a bunch of money to fix so DH and I are down to 1 car that has no working heater in it.  The Escape made this horrible grinding noise as I was driving down the street to go to work yesterday. Nothing was dragging underneath, it was just grinding.

We will eventually have to get the Escape fixed but for now we are just going to drive the car with the broken heater and uses a lot of gas. It's Indiana..who needs heat in the middle of winter when you have fun and stylish gloves to wear?

We were planning on replacing a vehicle this year anyway. However, it looks like we will be buying a new car a little sooner than anticipated. But hey, that's my reality so I am going to just take it and make the best of it.

Crock-Pot Haven

My Crock-Pot Haven

So this is what it looks like when you are cooking a whole lot of food in just one day. I used 2 Crock-pot slow cookers. One was used to make a breakfast meal, Bacon, Egg, and Taters Casserole.  The other was used to make the Chicken Bacon Ranch Mac and Cheese.

Getting started with freezer cooking

This months cooking adventures involve a lot of bacon which is why I chose these recipes. My awesome husband just LOVES bacon so what better menu to start my kitchen adventure of freezing multiple meals than one that will be for sure hubby approved?

Here is a good lesson in reality: It really does help to read all of the recipes first and truly understand what needs to be chopped/cooked before assembly.  I made the mistake of getting cook and chop happy and accidentally cooked 1 pound more hamburger than I should have.  It's ok though because I can use the chopped hamburger for one of the other recipes and do double the amount I was originally planning (bacon cheeseburger puffs). I definitely planned on getting a lot more recipes made today but I am a little slow since I am just getting started.


 I did get to use my new RED Kitchenaid 13-Cup/3.1L Empire Red Food Processor to chop all of the bacon and chicken I needed for my recipes.  Lets just say my food processor became the ultimate bacon annihilator (bacon-ator!).

I have cooked and chopped over 3 pounds of meat so far today for meals like Chicken Bacon Mac and cheese (slow-cooker meal), Bacon Egg and Taters breakfast (slow-cooker meal, pizza puffs, and bacon cheeseburger puffs.

Welcome

Welcome to my new blog.  I just graduated from nursing school with my BSN and will be taking (and hopefully passing) boards later this month. To take a little focus off the stress of studying for the biggest test of my life, I am starting this blog. I will be working as a cardiac nurse as soon as I pass boards and I am looking forward to the challenges that will come as I learn to juggle being a wife and full time nurse.  Also, my husband of 5 years and I will be trying to add to our family this year.

I am going to be writing about how I manage life and all of its craziness while working full time.  Life isn't perfect and I will be blogging about my perfectly imperfect life and how I find happiness even in the crazy times.

Tomorrow I am trying my hand at once a month freezer cooking.  I spent $160 at Wal-mart today and will be cooking up a storm tomorrow. I look forward to posting pics from my experience and writing about it tomorrow.