It has been well over a year since I posted. The last 3 months have been crazy let along the previous 20 months or so since I defended my dissertation.
I guess I'll start and just try to cover the big pieces of news:
1 - Dec 27, 2016, I gave birth to a daughter. Her social media name is #BabyLala. #Gymgirl loves her dearly and calls her an answer to her prayers. Lala is amazing and so different from Gymgirl. I love watching them interact and watching Lala develop into an amazing child.
2 - Snoopy dog was hit by a car and quickly passed on to dog heaven back in March. Unfortunately, we were on a family walk and we saw the whole thing happen. Gymgirl was totally lost in grief for many days. It hurt to lose him. For now, we are pet-less. Which is good considering the next piece of news
3 - My dad has stage 3 rectal cancer. We are in the process of getting him treatment but this is no easy task since he has no health insurance. The struggle is beyond real at this point. As a family, we are taking it in stride. I am in charge of paperwork and making appointments. DH is doing the majority of the driving for appointments. The girls are surviving but Baby Lala has always stayed with my dad so being dropped off to other people for care has been hard on her. My mom is taking it as well as can be expected. I can see she is stressed and she is smoking more and running off to bingo to keep herself distracted.
Between the end of the school year, the start of the cancer journey with dad, and some health problems for other family members, I feel pretty drained and at a few points at my breaking point. In the last 2 months, I have gone back to roller derby and running for stress relief. Rather than go back to my old team, I have joined to other ladies in starting a fresh league. It has been glorious as stress relief. I have faith that my dad's journey will go according to God's plan and that I can survive whatever else comes my way.
I'll probably be blogging more just to give myself a way to log this new life journey. In case you don't know, cancer sucks and the American healthcare system sucks too.