What a difference a week makes....

This past summer has been....Amazing, fun, joyful, eye opening, successful, hard, stressful, uncertain, frustrating and near tragic...

I had a ton of fun ~ did a lot of things, lost weight, gained muscles, had struggles at work, experienced financial set backs, had some disappointments with our family and had 2 life changing things happen.

The most recent events just about pushed me over the edge...

After getting through the bulk of the summer with all of the stress and activities and then scraping just enough money together to go to Colorado for our sons wedding and hosting 60 people at the rehearsal dinner, we wanted to reward ourselves with a 6 day camping trip to our favorite lake.

My hubby was out of town just prior to going and I was the one to get everything ready for our trip. Needless to say, by the time we were set to go, I was pretty tired. But I got everything together and we set out for our last camping trip of the year.

We were having a great time enjoying everything, when I got a call from our daughter. She tells me to not freak out, she had some news to share. She had just gotten home from the doctors office and they wanted to test our sweet 9 month old grand baby for Cystic Fibrosis. Before that news even settled in, she then went on to say that her husbands aunt had this disease and died from it. That news was quite a blow. The baby has been sick, but I was not expecting this kind of diagnoses!!!! Amazingly I took what she had to say and did not freak out. However, I was very, very worried!!

It's times like this, where I used to lose my head and go back to my old habit of soothing myself with food. But I had made a decision that I would not go there this time!!!

So we continued on with our trip and every time I would think about my grand baby and this disease, I would just pray and lift it to the Lord and asked Him for peace, which I received!!

Midway through our trip, we decided to go home early because it was too cold and rainy. We got home at a decent hour, got everything cleaned up and we were finally able to rest. When all of a sudden our little dog "Beemer" flies off of my footstool and starts crying and howling. We could not figure out what had happened to him. One minute he's sleeping and the next he's in total pain. We picked him up to see what was wrong and after close examination, we could not see anything wrong. So we put him back down on the floor and he just fell over. His back legs were not working.

We, frantically, rushed him off to the doggy hospital and after almost 6 hours of waiting and $600 they tell us he needs more tests and surgery, which would cost anywhere from $3000 - $6000! Needless to say, we don't have that kind of money. So we took our seriously sick doggy home with us to fend for ourselves.

At this point, I have had all I can take!!! With the months of upheaval at work, the stress of the wedding, our financial situation, the struggles our other son is having, the news of our sweet grand baby and now the dog, it was just too much to take. I was at my breaking point and I cracked!!!

Needless to say, we had a very tough weekend!!! I just could not see any hope in anything. I did a lot of sleeping and moping around. I abandoned my exercise routine, but I did not abandon my healthy diet and I did not use food to help soothe my anxiety. The entire weekend, my hubby and I spent a lot of time together, crying, praying and just supporting each other.

Last Sunday night, I just cried and cried, because I just could not face starting a new work week and going through the motions of life with all of this upheaval and uncertainly going on. Just did not think I could walk through my grand baby going through a serious illness and could not even think about putting our dog down or watching him suffer and not being able to walk. I just could not think about doing any of that and still trying to do life. Could not even fathom trying.

So that night I had some decisions to make. I could have either succumbed to the anxiety of it all and gone into a full blown depression, gone back to my old ways of coping (which is overeating and abusing food) or just shutting down. Or I could pray and trust the Lord, pick myself back up, dust myself off and face everything that I was up against. Doing it with His strength, not my own.

I decided to fight and push through!!!

Monday morning I got up and started my regular routine. Exercised first thing, read my Bible, went to work and was very productive. Then I got to the gym and saw my trainer and had a great work out, had a great food day and ended the day spending time with my hubby and our doggy.

I pushed through... I did not stray from my plan and I had success!!!! I made it!!!!

UPDATE......

Yesterday I found out that my adorable grand baby does not have Cystic Fibrosis!!! Praise the LORD!!! The doctors decided that she has immature lungs (I can't remember the name of this problem) and they will be treating her with a nebulizer for a number of weeks. They think she will grow out of this and be fine!!! God is sooo GOOD!!

My baby dog is improving daily.....I don't know how or why, but he's almost fully recovered. Eating, sleeping, pooping, peeing, barking, WALKING and even running and climbing stairs. The little poop...we are supposed to keep him quite, but he keeps getting away from me.

Anyway I'm thrilled....It was so hard walking through these things. But I am so excited to know that even through adversity, I have enough tools and have learned enough things to keep me focused on my goals and that I am able to cope with life and my problems, without abusing food and/or abandoning my plan. I have learned to cope in a normal and healthy way.

Another bonus......I have had 2 mini vacations, all this stress and turmoil and I've lost another pound!!! Down 51 so far!!! Whoo Hoo!!!

How about you, what do you do to help you cope with life?

Hugs!