Do you think Brian's a little over anxious? (posted by Alyson)

How did I get so Lucky?

I was just sitting here thinking about my beautiful wife. She is such an inspirational person. She is able to take whatever comes her way and just roll with it as if it was no big deal. I know for a fact that if I were to go through some of the stuff she has gone through, I would have crumbled like a ton of bricks. She never complains about anything, and she is never without her beautiful smile. I just don't know how I got so lucky. I am of the belief that you get what you deserve, but somehow I beat the system when I married her some 7+ years ago. Alyson has been such a trooper throughout her whole pregnancy, and she has never complained about being tired. She has not even gone through the hormonal moody changes that I have heard a lot of women go through during pregnancy. She has such a spirit about her. Again, I just don't know how I got so lucky.

Alyson, I Love you with all of my heart and soul. You are my life, and I am blessed to have you as my wife. You are going to be a great mother.

WHOA MOMMA!!!!

He has to be ready by now!!! Just look at my belly, it is so big.

Grandma is HERE!!!!!

Well Grandma is here. Alyson's mother flew into Abilene last night. She was shocked to see how "big" Aly's baby holder is (she had to take a picture). She is so excited about meeting her first grandchild. I am glad that Alyson and I were able to do that for her (remember us in the will). I am even more happy that Alyson and her will be able to share in the whole birth experience together as mother and daughter. I know that Alyson is relieved to have her here. Now maybe we can go ahead and have this child. By the way we are 7 days from the due date.

10 days and counting!

We are at 10 days to the due date. Alyson and I are getting anxious to get this child into the world. We are so excited to meet Brooks. Alyson's mother will be getting into Abilene this coming Wednesday, which will be an exciting time. My one wish though is that all of our family could be here for the birth. It is just too difficult to coordinate all of them being here at the right time. I guess they will get to meet him in due time. But for now we are 10 days away from the due date, and hoping that Brooks does not to come later than that.

The waiting game.

I hate playing the waiting game. Now that the basketball season is over for us, I have a lot of time on my hands. We are in the middle of recruiting, trying to get players to replace our departing players. That's waiting game #1. We have to wait for the players we want, to see if they want to come to ACU. Waiting game #2 is even worse. Alyson is about 22 days from her due date. We have all of the nursery stuff done and now we can just wait for Brooks to decide he is ready to come into the world. I am hoping, however, that he does at least wait another 2 weeks or so, just in case we have forgotten to do something for his arrival.

Lamaze classes are going fine, and that sort of helps speed things up for us, but for me I am just excited to meet him for the first time. If he does wait another 2 weeks or so, that will allow me to go to Oklahoma and do some recruiting this weekend. I will probably call Alyson every 5 minutes while I am gone just to make sure she is feeling fine. Anyway, we are just waiting for Brooks arrival.

We ask for your continued prayers as we approach the birth and additional test for Alyson after delivery. We are still optimistic that she will be able to skip chemotherapy all together. We also appreciate your prayers, they are so encouraging to us.

Its March... Its Lamaze...Its delivery time(almost)

Well its March, and that means that Brooks should arrive sometime this month. We start Lamaze classes tomorrow. We are very excited to get going with the classes. I hope that we can get a couple of classes in before Brooks decides its time to meet mommy and daddy. When we woke up this morning we realized that it is March and that our lives are going to change in a great way. There is so much anticipation and preparation that we are going through right now. I just hope we can be ready for all of this, and we hope that Brooks at least waits until his Grandma McChesney gets here on the 22nd. It will be nice to have family here when he arrives (yes, Clint and Alana you're family too).

I sat up last night in bed and just stared at my wife for a while. She is so precious to me. She is going to be an awesome mother to Brooks. She has been through so much these past few months and I am amazed at her courage and strength. Through it all the Lord has been faithful. I just pray for Alyson to be protected from any harm during delivery. And I cannot wait to introduce our son to the community of believers that are in our lives, so that he will know that the Lord loves him and that he has the choice to accept God's Grace and Salvation.

Ahh, March Madness!!!!

30 days and counting!!

I just want to take this time to brag on my older Brother Tim. He has been sober for 30 days as of today. Keep up the good fight Tim. Alyson and I are praying for you and your family.

Alyson is about 35 days or less from delivering Brooks. That is freaking me out.

One Day at a Time

My brother has started a blog to share his journey about recovering from alcohol. I encourage you to go and check it out. He is going through a period of great change and I am amazed at his openness and willingness to share his life. This is something that he would normally not do. I had stated in a previous post that I would like to share the story of my brother, but now I will let him tell you about himself. Go to timjthrift.blogspot.com and check it out.

Sit back and enjoy!

"Sit back and enjoy." Those are the words that I heard as I prayed the other night. Its been a long road for Alyson and me. With her having been diagnosed with cancer, we really had not been able to enjoy the whole experience of pregnancy. Now that she appears to be in the clear, we have had a chance to really enjoy the preparation of having a baby. It has been fun setting up Brooks' room, going through his clothes, figuring out which outfit he will come home in, and just thinking about what it will be like to hold him in our arms. The other day as I prepared to iron my clothes for our basketball game, I sat down in the glider in the nursery to wait for the iron to heat up. As I sat there, I began to rock back and forth, the next thing I new I had drifted off to sleep. I can remember the calmness that I felt as I rocked in the chair, when I woke up I was so excited about Brooks coming home and what a great feeling it will be to look into his eyes. I can only imagine what it will be like to see him for the first time. I am not sure if I will cry, if I will be numb, or if I will be jumping around as if I had just won a national championship or what. All I know is that for the first time in a while I can sit back and enjoy the anticipation of becoming a father/parent. The only thing that I am nervous about now, is the fact that we don't start lamas(?) classes until March, which is pretty late since the baby is due in March. I hope that we at least get through a couple of classes before Alyson goes into labor. We will keep our fingers crossed. But for now I am going to sit back and enjoy what's left of this pregnancy.

Wonderful News!!!!!!

Alyson and I had an appointment with our oncologist (Dr. Hirsch). As you know we were waiting on the results of a test. We got the results in and Alyson got a score of 28, which is a low score, which is very good. She fell in the intermediate range for her chances of having cancer come back in the next 10 years. It works out to about a 15% chance of re-occurrence. This is great news. Dr. Hirsch also said that he does not recommend chemo-therapy for sure while she is pregnant. He just doesn't see any reason to do it now, he also doesn't see why we would have to induce labor before 40 weeks. He also said, and this is where it things get great, that he wants to wait until after Brooks is delivered and do a PET scan to see if there is anymore cancer in her body. If that comes back negative then she WILL NOT have to do anykind of chemo-therapy, however, she may have to do radiation instead. Dr. Hirsch said that we should plan on having a normal birth and normal recovery, which means Alyson will be able to Breast Feed Brooks.

One thought came to my mind, PRAISE HIM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Not just because we are getting the answers we are looking for, but simply because that is what he wants from us.

I heard a song that was called "We must Praise". It basically said this: If you're a doctor, you must praise Him. If you're a lawyer, you must praise Him. If you're a teacher,you must praise Him. If you're a student, you must praise Him. If you're a singer,you must praise Him. If you're an athlete, you must praise Him. If you're a cancer patient, you must praise Him. If you're a cancer survivor, you must praise Him. If you're disabled, you must praise Him. If you're an alcoholic, you must praise Him. If you're a parent, you must praise Him. Just Praise Him. No matter your lot in life you must praise Him.
There's a story of a man who went to visit his grandmother, which he did every week. His grandmother was the one who took care of him when his parents were killed in a drug deal gone bad. He really considered her his mother because she was the one that raised him. She was a spiritual women, and she made sure he was too. On this particular day he went to see her. Normally he would walk in and she would be in the kitchen finishing up the meal that they would eat together. This time she was not in the kitchen and when he called for her she did not answer. The house was clean and nothing looked suspicious to him. Maybe she had taken a nap. Just then he began to pray for his grandmother, for no other reason than to just pray for her. He walked into the bedroom and saw that she was still in bed. This was odd because it was the afternoon and she never sleeps this long. Upon inspection he discovered that she had passed in her sleep. After calling an ambulance and all emergency personnel were there, he went outside to be alone. Now most people at this time would begin to cry out of sorrow. Instead he began to praise God out loud, he began singing, praying almost in a frenzy. His friends began to worry about him after doing this for a good twenty minutes. He kept thanking God for her life, for keeping her safe, and for saving her. This man could have done anything when he found out that his beloved grandmother had passed, but he just praised Him. Forget about good or bad circumstances and just praise Him.
I hope that in all situations I will be able to praise Him. Good or bad. I today praise him for his mercy on Alyson and for his mercy on my brother Tim. Tim we are fighting your battle with you. Just praise Him. If my brother lets me I will tell you his story, but until then pray for him to have courage and endurance and wisdom.

Family Time

Let me start by saying that I have a great family. I love my family with all of my heart and soul. There is nothing that I would not do for my family. The Lord has truly blessed me with my parents. And when I say parents I mean it in the most pluralistic way possible. When I was very young my mother and father got a divorce. They both remarried, so I grew up with two sets of loving parents. Now it was not always and easy thing to deal with, but The Lord made sure that I had four very special and unique parents. Let me first start with my mother.

My mother (Sue) is the strongest most loving person in the world. She is truly my rock here on this earth. She has always been the support system that has kept me going. She instilled in me the Love of The Lord. Her faith is strong and she is not afraid to show it. I probably wasn't the perfect kid growing up and I should have listened a whole lot better to her than I did, but the one thing I always knew was that she loved Christ. It is her prayers and her prayers alone that have kept me out of harms way. She has prayed diligently for all four of her children, and they have all turned out the way the Lord has planned. She has two daughters and two sons who love her with all of their hearts. In order, they are Tim, Missy, me, and Rachel. Tim, Missy, and me are from her first marriage, and Rachel is from her second. She was willing to do anything for us growing up, and still is to this day. She sacrificed so much to make sure that we had everything we needed. We never went without, even in the lean years. She even took on a second job when I was in school. She was at every game and event (she was recognized by her whistle in the stands). She was and is our biggest fan, and she wants nothing more that for us to be happy in life. I can never repay her for her love, except to accept the gift that she told us about growing up. That gift is the sacrifice of Christ. She has done her job and her reward will be great in Heaven. Mom, you are the greatest ever and I love you so much.

Coming from a divorced home can complicate things in life for some people, and it wasn't always fun for me. But all in all, I have been truly blessed in my situation. The Lord blessed me with a great step-father (Jeff). He has been in my life since I was about five years old. He has put up with me for a long time. He is truly a man of great faith. Like so many of us men, he too was saved by the prayers of his mother(thats another whole story). For as long as I can remember, Jeff has been there. He has been a great teacher on how to be a man, and how to provide for a family. He has taught me so many things. He helped instill in me a love for sports of all kinds. He taught me how to hunt and fish. How to shoot a gun, a bow and a basketball. The times I will always cherish are the long walks in the fields hunting for pheasants (I cant wait to get to do that soon). More importantly than teaching me to hunt and play sports, he has showed me how to love someone unconditionally. He took me in as his own son. He expected out of me what any father would expect out of their son. He is a great encourager. He was there to pick me up when I was down, and to put me in my place when I got cocky or stupid. He is not my step-dad, he is my other Father. Do you remember that old television show called "My two Dads", I have that. I love you Jeff.

That leads me to my birth Father (Tom). My Dad, has raised five children of his own plus another. He obviously raised Tim, Missy, and myself, but also Trevor and Nicole from his second marriage. His second wife, Karen had a daughter named Angela. That is six children in all. How you have kept your sanity is beyond me. My dad has such a love for all of us kids, a love that is truly great. He worked at General Motors for 35+ years. Anyone who does that deserves sainthood. He is a great provider for all of us. He instilled in me a love of cars, not just any cars, but muscle cars. I can remember going to autorama in Detroit to see all of the custom hotrods. He used to have this van that he customized. He could do anything with that van. I bet you he changed the interior in that van a thousand times. I can remember it having a mini-bar in it, decorated in 80's disco type. He was ahead of his time when he put another stereo in the back of the van. He put a little t.v. and v.c.r. for long trips it also had atari hooked up to it. That van was the coolest thing I have ever been around. But more than cool vans, he was a cool dad. I have always looked up to him because he can do anything. He can fix anything on a car, and a house. When I need some help with anything like that he is the first person I call. Its like having the biggest desk reference in the world. My dad deserves so much. He has worked so hard in his life to provide for his family and to show how much he loves his kids. There isn't a tribute out there that can measure up to him and what he has meant in my life. I asked him a question just before I got married, I asked him if he had any advice. His initial response was, "you want marriage advice from a man who has been divorced twice". A few days later he gave me a wedding card he had put a note in it for me. In the note he had told me how much he thought he had screwed up in life and how he wished he had been around more. Then he told me not to try to keep up with the "Jones'", to take long walks with my wife and really talk to her, to find out what she is thinking and how she is feeling. I have tried to do that in my marriage. That was the best advice I have ever gotten. Dad you didn't screw up!!!!! You let us make our mistakes, you picked us up when we fell, you loved us when no one else would. You made us feel special. When we screwed up, you didn't make things worse, you made things better. You have six children that love you and would do anything for you. I want so much for you Dad, because you deserve so much.

My dad's second wife (Karen) is a very special women. She took on a whole family when she married my Dad. Anyone that has put up with Tim, missy, and me deserves a Medal of Honor. She took us all, good, bad, and the ugly. She was truly my other mom. She could have ignored us if she had wanted, but she didn't. She loved us, even when it was hard to. When I would go and spend the night at her house she always made me feel at home. She never tried to over step her bounds and she knew when to pull back when she thought she was getting close to crossing the line. She is a truly awesome women and I will forever be greatful to her for the role she played in my life. Karen, I love you and I miss you. I can't wait to come home so that you can meet another one of your grandchildren (his name is Brooks, by the way). I love you dearly.

These are my mothers and fathers. I want to tell you about my brothers and sisters to, but I will save that for another time. I am going to sleep now. Hope you enjoy this, sorry this was so long.

And the Name is...(probably)

We have picked a name for our son, at least for now. How does BROOKS THOMAS THRIFT sound. Alyson really liked the name. The unfortunate thing is that we have a player with that name already. Its actually his middle name but he goes by it instead of his first name. I am sure this will go straight to his head. But for now we are going with BROOKS. Maybe he will turn into the second best third baseman in baseball history (Brooks Robinson).

We have a name for our Son!!!!!!!!

You'll just have to wait until we tell our families. Sorry to do that to you.

Here is a preview of baby boy Thrift. Upper left you can see his nose and upper lip and belly button. Upper right is his face. Lower left are his boy parts (under 21 please look away!!). Lower right he has his mouth open.

Well, we are still waiting!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We were supposed to have an appointment with the oncologist today to find out the results of the oncotech test. The doctor called and said that all the results were not in yet. He is waiting on the genetics portion of it. On a good note, the doctor told Aly that he thinks she is very lucky, because he feels as though we got all of the cancer with the surgeries. I don't think that is luck, as a matter of fact I know that isn't luck. That leads us to believe that the Doctor will be comfortable with waiting on chemo therapy until after the baby is born (we are getting closer to a name, be patient). We will sit down with him next week (hopefully) and determine our next course of action.

On a side note, we bought a crib the other day and have placed our order for the rest of the furniture. We are about 70 days away from being parents. Alyson and I will be responsible for another person. That will be a whole new experience, at least for me. She has been responsible for me for the last 7 years, only she didn't have to change my diapers ( I do that myself now). Anyway, we are eagerly anticipating the day when our child comes.

We appreciate all of your continued prayers. Alyson will be in Michigan this week having a baby shower for all of our loved ones back home. She is really looking pregnant... Finally!!! She is beautiful and will make a great mother. We will update you when we get word of what is next for us.

Still Waiting

We are still waiting to hear the results of the Oncotest DX test. Once we here from the lab we will sit down with our Oncologist and determine whether or not it is safe to wait on chemo-therapy. We appreciate all of your continued prayers. I will let you know when we find out what we are going to do. The Lord has been faithful to His promise that we will never get more than we can handle and we praise His name for all of the good news that we have received.

Just a quick update.

Alyson is doing quite well post surgery. We have an appointment tomorrow to get her port flushed out. We are now waiting on the results of Oncotype DX test. This test will tell us the chances of the cancer coming back. We are hoping for a low score. If we get a low score, our oncologist will entertain the idea of postponing Chemo until after the birth of our son (no name yet, and it won't be Kosmo like Clint logue suggested).

I was just sitting here thinking about this whole "thing" that we have been going through, and I have this feeling of security and calmness. It is nice to sit here and just be still for a while. I have felt lately like I have been running on reserve. But then I thought about what that "reserve" was. It isn't reserve at all, it was the strength of the Lord. I just didn't know how to use the strength He was giving me. I let all this negative energy surround me and slow me down. The negative energy was a weight that I should have given over to the Lord, but in my desire to do things my way I let the weight, weigh me down. What would have happened if I had taken a moment to stop and look up? We all know that answer to that one. It goes back to that night at my small group when I keep hearing the phrase "depend on me". The Lord was probably telling me that long before that night, but I just didn't take the time to hear Him saying it to me. Things may have been less stressful had I taken the time to just sit still and listen. Although I am in no way blameless like Job, I think maybe Job finally listened during his trials. He probably heard God saying, "this is not from me, you know I love you, depend on me". I wonder when the devil figured out that God was right. I would have loved to see the look on the devils face when he finally figured out that God was right, Job would not "turn" on God. I hope someday to put that look on the devils face as well.

Happy New Year!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Merry "CLEAR" Christmas

Alyson's Lymph Nodes are clear as well as the additional tissue!!!! We found out Christmas Eve. What a great feeling that was and is. Praise the Lord and all of your prayers. We are now waiting on the results of another test to come back to see if Aly can delay Chemo until after delivery of our son (no name yet). It was a great Christmas, I just wish I could have been home to enjoy it with our families, although our "family" here was a great replacement. There is such a weight lifted from Alyson and I now that we know that the Cancer has not spread to other parts of her body. Hopefully now we can enjoy preparing for our son to come. At least I'll enjoy it as Aly is really feeling pregnant lately. I want you to also realize that Alyson had a "real" Christmas dinner. Turkey, ham, and all the trimmings. Anyway I just wanted to let everyone know the results.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

Surgery went well!

Alyson had surgery Monday to test her Lymph Nodes and to remove additional tissue. She also had a chemo-port put in her right arm. The port is so that she does not have to get stuck with a needle everytime she goes in for chemo. We are waiting to hear about the Lymph Nodes outcome. The doctor said that the nodes looked grossly clear to her, which is a good thing. We will probably start chemo sometime next week or we may be able to wait until after delivery of our son. We just need the results of another test to determine how quickly we will start chemo. Alyson is doing well after surgery, with just a little soreness. Aly has decided to do both a nutrition and chemo-therapy approach to getting her cure. The nutritional aspect will help her combat the side effects of the chemo by rebuilding her immune system. I will let you all know how the Lymph Nodes come out as soon as we find out.

HAVE A MERRY CHRISTMAS.

I would also like to announce the engagement of my younger sister Nicole. She is currently finishing up her degree at Central Michigan. Congrats Nicole. Aly and I love you and can't wait to see your ring.