Meet Darby and Jessica

The Freeman family is very special and important to me. My mom and Mr. Freeman (Eric) were good friends during college at John Brown. Ironically they both ended up living with their families in the same small town in Oklahoma. Before the Freemans or the Pritzs either had kids they helped start a small church that started out as a family group and is still a very close knit community. I have been priveledged to be raised in this and so the Freeman family is like my family. They have four kids Joel (18), Darby (16), Dustin (14), and Jessica (11). We've been raised like siblings and now that I am home I spend many days a week with these dear people.

Joel recently started his freshman year at JBU and we are all very excited for the family legacy to continue. Darby has always been a dear little sister to me but as she gets older is becoming such a sweet friend (and she's beautiful too which means I beat up boys). Dustin has always been closer to my brothers but I love to embarass and tease him at any chance. Jessica is one of the most special relationships in my life and we have had a unique bond ever since she was about 2 months old. A defining part of my life was going through the awful battle of cancer when Jessica was diagnosed at age 3 with a very severe and rare form of cell cancer. But to God be the glory when Jessi celebrated 7 years cancer free this August and was released from Dr. checkups!!!

The girls and I have been creating a lot of fun memories since I've been home and I thought I would include a few pictures of our recent cooking adventures. It is always a challenge because Darby is Gluten intolerant and lactose intolerant so we have to get pretty creative! Stay tuned for stories from upcoming Freeman/Pritz adventures: Darby's birthday (Darby and Emily Day), I am staying with them for a week coming up while their parents go to Scotland, and Dustin's birthday will occur during this time and I am going to do it up big!

This is My Life

I was in Wal-Mart today just minding my own business doing self check-out, when three very scuzzy looky men walked by me. The next thing I know, I'm being repeatedly whistled at and becoming the recipient of one cat call.

Who does that? Who does that in Wal-Mart?

I guess I'm back home in small town Oklahoma.

Surgery Date

I just wanted to let everyone know that I found out that my surgery is not going to take place until October 24th. I was pretty upset with that news because it originally was going to be done quickly but then the specialist and the surgeon realized they needed to do the surgery together and it was hard for them to arrange their schedules being the very busy doctors that they are. My parents and I also have a trip planned to Florida for the second week in October and couldn't really get a refund on our tickets and didn't want to disappoint my grandmother who we are going to visit that I haven't seen in 3 years. So, because of all of those reasons I will just have to stick it out. They changed my medication yet again so now I am getting used to another type of antibiotic and trying to decide if I am going to take painkillers for the next 5 weeks or if I can drop that and just stick it out with Tylenol. We will see how it goes.

In the meantime I have started substitute teaching more and more and I am tutoring a 7th grade boy a few times a week in English and that is currently my favorite past time. I really love the time spent with him and helping him grasp grammar issues that seem impossible for him to understand and then to see him reach those "I get it!" moments. Good stuff.

I decided to stick some pictures of my student teaching days in this post. I can't believe it was a year ago I started the adventure, challenge, and fun of middle school student teaching!

Sapulpa times...

I love my best friends from home. They are definitely the sisters I've never had and I enjoyed a fun day with these lovely ladies today. Now that 2 of them are married and teachers our conversations are a little different than when we were little girls, or junior high girls, or high school girls, but in the end were still friends like we've always been. They are blessings in my life and I'm glad 2 of them still live in Sapulpa and that I get to part of all of their lives. (I also really love the 2 husbands--Trevor and Jeremy--and think they are great additions to our little family circle!)

Escape to Arkansas---God's Country

While I have been home these last couple weeks I haven't been able to do much and basically twiddle my thumbs between doctors appointments and not feeling good. So last Thursday I decided to run away for four days to the blessed land that is Northwest Arkansas and all of my dear friends that reside there.

It was so much fun. So good to see Teeny and enjoy being on pain medication together (she broke her foot ironically), a dangerous and giggly combination. I love Siloam Springs too. Here are some pictures to sample the fun times I had and the great friends that were a part of them and took such good care of me in my infectious state.

A Change of Situation

So, I haven't posted in quite awhile and I promise I have a really good excuse. I am no longer in Lake City or Colorado at all, sadly. I am now home in Sapulpa and getting used to Oklahoma heat, humidity, accents, Wal-Marts, Sonic, and Taco Bueno (the Sonic and Taco Bueno are very good things to return to!). I had to leave Colorado for health reasons, so here's the story to date:

About 3 weeks ago I was in Lake City still planning on being there for another month and a half. I spent a great day in Gunnison with my friend Amanda and her two very cute children Silas and Priya. We had a fun day of thrift store and grocery shopping, eating at a cool sandwich shop and impulsively jumping in the lake on our way back up the mountain because why not? The only downside was that a lot of this day I kept having a pretty intense toothache. Now with all of my dental history I've never really had this severe of a toothache before. I thought, great now I'm gonna have to tough this out until October. Well that night I mentioned how bad it was to Carol and Doug and Carol got on the phone immediately and set up an appointment with the dentist who comes up to Lake City to do a dental clinic once a month and just so happened to be there the next day (I'm convinced a miracle). That night my teeth hurt so severely I couldn't sleep or even think straight half the time. The next morning the dentist tells me I have no cavities. Bizarre. Why am I practically in tears from pain sitting here then? He takes x-rays and finds a dark mass under my lower teeth directly in the front of my jaw. Long story short I have to overnight these x-rays home and the dentist in Oklahoma says that I need to come home in order to investigate this further. So my dad has to fly to Colorado to bring me back because I'm not supposed to be driving on the pain medication.

Tuesday of this week I went to a specialist who took more x-rays and showed much more intensive damage than we suspected from blunt trauma to my face. The source is a car accident I was in 3 and a half years ago where I was the passenger and I hit the airbag. The dentist says there is years worth of damage absessed in my jaw and there is really no way we could have known up until this point because at the time there was no real pain or outward damage. So basically I have a large absess under my front lower teeth that has eaten away A LOT of bone in my lower jaw. Tuesday they gave me 3 root canals. 3. It was awful people. Anway, Thursday my parents and I went to meet with the surgeon and he will be opening up my gums and cleaning out the "huge, huge lesions" and replacing all of the missing bone by doing bone and membrane graphing. So at this point I am waiting to hear when this surgery will be taking place and more than likely it will be in the next couple of weeks.

I have been pretty traumatized by this whole scenario that has developed so fast and at the same time been going on for so long without me being aware of it. Thank goodness for that toothache that started all of the investigation. I'm currently on quite of lot of medication to control the pain and fight off the infection and get it out of my blood stream. I'll post again when I know the date of the surgery.