I'm a College GRAD!!!

I'm officially smarter than I was five years ago and finally an honor graduate! I would love to say that I feel completely different, but I don't. It feels GREAT to be done with school, and I do feel like I achieved an amazing accomplishment! I'm quite proud of myself and I'm so grateful to all of my family for pushing me to finish when I didn't think that I wanted to. It's an awesome feeling to know that if and when I decide to use my degree I CAN! Plus I can always rub it in that I was the FIRST of my siblings to get a bachelors degree. (Only by 10 hours cuz Diana got hers at 6:00 Friday night). Friday morning at 8:00 was the big day and I was so nauseated. DJ got up and made me pancakes and said Happy Graduation Day when I got up, but I took 2 bites and felt like throwing up. I get incredibly nervous about things like this and no matter how much I tried to calm myself I just wanted to blow off graduation. 5 minutes before we were were ready to walk out, I wanted to turn around, leave the building and get outta there cuz it didn't seem worth it. I'm telling y'all I have such anxiety. Luckily I had found a couple friends and stood with them and that helped a little bit. Even after we were seated in the Events Center, I still wanted to get up and leave. When they started saying how we couldn't have done this without family and friends, all I could think about was mama in surgery but how she's so proud of me. If I wouldn't have walked, she'd a killed me. (Wouldn't wanted to have dealt with that wrath when she gets better)! After the whole thing, I was really glad that I went through with it. It was a good experience.

My lifesavers Bethany and Cynthia (seriously)

Update on Mama

So Friday morning they did the surgery to remove the tumor and it took 7 hours. They were able to remove 98% of it because the rest was in some blood vessels that were in her spinal cavity. It's the kind of tumor that could take 20 years to get to how this one was. So a decision she has to make a little later is whether to do chemo and radiation to get the rest or let it stay. She is still in a lot of pain and still struggling to communicate. When she does communicate it can be very inappropriate things. She was trying to put some lip balm on her lips and instead started eating it. Just hearing this really broke my heart. I knew this was really serious, but last week I was trying to keep busy so I wouldn't get so upset about it. If you know my mama, she's such a strong and vivacious woman so it's really hard to imagine her this way. I'm flying home on the 12 to stay for 3 weeks and help around the house and do whatever she needs me to. Today she still has no strength, and we're not sure when she'll be able to go home. One of mama and daddy's favorite things is to dance, and this morning she told daddy she wanted to dance. He said you do, and she said yeah. Then he said ok let's dance and she just smiled. It's the worst thing to not be able to help and to think of her being this way. I'm staying positive and knowing that these things can change a in a few days. I really can't wait to be with my family.