Homeschooling and Cancer!!

So I have been off for a few months...  First thank you to the many visitors that came by my humble blog.... It makes me happy to see that people are still reading and sharing....  So lets talk about my Life and Faith.  Because my faith and life are so intertwined we can't talk about one without  talking about the other.  So here we go in 2012 I was diagnosed with Breast cancer.  I had no ideal how my whole world would be turned up side down, how four little words would flip my whole families lives also.  It was a whirl wind the days before my surgery are still such a blur.  I have had surgeries before but this one would be life changing in so many ways. After my surgery my incision got infected and along with having to go to get chemotherapy I had wound care. 

During Chemo to help my mind I would think about how school would look from that point on.  I was working and homeschooling on superhuman momentum that no person should want, but I craved.  I knew that my vision on our homeschooling would have to change.... I started making packages that included math, reading, spelling and language arts.  I would have the children help me on the days that I started feeling better and we would make copies and make enough packages to last a few weeks.  The packages were what some would call busy work but for me and the children it was our familiar friend.  My children were ages 2,4, 5, 8, 11 and 13 at the time. 

I have always loved God but at this point I felt like he had left me....I couldn't understand how I could have cancer... Didn't God know that I had all these beautiful little ones depending on me, what had I done to anger God for him to give me such a sentence. If only I could have seen the blessing then... It wasn't my time.    My husband and I had very little family so we depended on my co- op family and local friends they helped to keep my children feed and they prayed when I was to tired and hurt to do so myself. After my 4 months of treatment my oncology team thought they had did all they could for me, they thought I should go home and die......Oh hell no I was to much of a fighter how could I look at my two year old baby.... well really any of them and just give up. We started looking for cancer centers that would be able to deal with advance cancer. Florida answered my call...God answered me.......   We packed up all of our children and moved to Florida in 2013.  

I had my next surgery three weeks after getting to Florida and started my next journey with chemo for another 4 months.  Each infusion made me sicker and what my body was going through was no comparison to what  was to come, I couldn't have even imagined.  Eight months to the day and 4 months after finishing  chemo I found out that I was pregnant which should have been medically impossible.  Once again God was showing his love for me (even if I couldn't see it)  during a routine OB examination with ultrasound they found a tumor 6 weeks later I was diagnosed with ovarian cancer. To save me I lost my little baby ( a girl Sarah ) ...But once again God knew...Here I was again with chemo and radiation and my life in a spiral I couldn't control....I thank that was Gods plan all alone, for me to stop thinking I could do it all  control anything and to just depend on him.  

It was undaunting but God kept me and through it all we still homeschooled, as crazy as it sounds in my head it was the only thing cancer hadn't took from me and my children.  Homechooling while being sick is no small task,  I would start feeling better just to have to start all over again....My family and I lived at the hospital there where some treatments that would last up to 9 hours. 

Most of my younger children ended up being behind in most of all their " book learning"   but they surpassed in love learning.  My children have always been pretty mannerable  but do to their fathers and my jobs they had been a little spoiled ( just a little ) but this taught them  to now understand that their were thing we might no be able to get but most important they learned compassion for people who were sick. 

We have all grown and learned to be thankful and to praise God for every little thing..... We also learned that we are much stronger as a family than we could have ever realized.  

Like all homeschool moms I can be very hard on my self .... my what if's and if only's are massive.  If only I had not gotten cancer....what if my struggling reader never reads.... if only I could have more good days than bad ones.  There are days where raising my head off a pillow is like a battling match and a major undertaking all on its on and then trying to explain division, or what makes the CH sound might feel unbeatable.  But God is all I could say some days....and that was and is enough.

God has a way of taking my hard days

....my I have nothing more to give days and expanding them in ways I couldn't have even thought of.  

So now that I am on my third bout of cancer, I thank Yahweh for the strength he has given me... The love he has shown me and my family through others for he truly takes care of our every need.  

So what have I learned that I can share that might help you... We get out of homeschooling what we put into it... So I have late readers, so I didn't finish the entire book...It's ok !!!  God has a way of teaching us the important stuff.   I can't tell you that homeschooling while being sick has been easy because it has been very difficult but what I can say is that we are doing it .... and it is worth it.