Hello ALL!!! My name is Christina Orr. I suppose I should start this blog by saying I am recently married to the man of my dreams Elliott Orr. He is so perfectly sweet, kind, caring, and funny, but he just happens to have Osteosarcoma, a rare, juvenile bone cancer. 

(WARNING: I am sorry if I spell anything wrong or if my words don't make sense. I have never been writer, so I am very sorry....just a heads up)

Anyway, for those who don't know our story I will try to write a short version:

         I do not remember a time in my life when I did not know Elliott. We grew up in a small town, and went to the same church. I did not always like Elliott. When we were younger, I found his smartness annoying. We used to play hangman in Sunday School, and he would end up winning every single Sunday. It was irritating. My dad also had coached El in soccer since he was a kid. Needless to say, there were ties between me and him.

        It was around ninth grade when I realized that Elliott had turned from the arrogant, smart kid that I had once knew into a sweet cutey. I would go on and on to all my friends about how I was in love, (whatever that means when you are 13). I suppose I got annoying after a while. Anyway, about a year after liking him my friends were finally in one of his biology classes. Like good friends, they bothered him about who he liked every day, dropping hints that it should be me. Eventually, he told them he liked me too, and we started dating October 9, 2006. 

 

Sorry the quality is awful

         High school was high school. Filled with learning to drive, sports, classes, phone calls, band, and hanging out. It was actually very fun now that I think about it. To keep things short, I graduated from North Branch High School in 2009 and decided to attend Michigan State University! Whoop Whoop! Go Green! But El, being a year younger than me had to stay and finish his senior year.

        This year away from home was one of the hardest ones, up to this point, of my whole life. I felt the culture shock of going to a university with over 40,000 people. I was just a face in a sea of students, and I felt like no one knew me. When I started to make friends, I put them over my relationship with Elliott, and that made things go poorly. But it was all fine and dandy again when Elliott came next year.

        My sophomore year was better with him around. I also started being fully involved in an on campus ministry called Spartan Christian Fellowship and attending University Reformed Church. I am sure that I will blog a lot about this later, but for the sake of time right now lets just say my life changed from the knowledge I gained from these organizations. After my sophomore year of college, Elliott and I had plans to go on Summer Training Project, a place where college students go to grow in their faith with other Christians who wish to do the same, but The Lord had other plans. 

       Two weeks before we were going to head to South Carolina, El was diagnosed with Osteosarcoma in his arm. He had had unexplained arm pain for a while. He then endured 2 months of chemo, then surgery, and then 5 months of more chemo. Honestly, I was only around for the first 2 months of chemo and after his surgery because Elliott forced me to go back to school. He suffered from mouth sores so bad that he couldn't even eat and could barely talk. I went home almost every weekend to see him and try to comfort him. During this time, I was so sad about the situation, I could barely go to class. But I thank the Lord everyday for the community I had at MSU that was always pointing me to Christ and loving me. 

El and I before he had his surgery.

         He was cleared of cancer in January 2012, and we went on with our lives. We laughed, we made friends, we did school work, we finally went to Project, and we dreamed of one day being married. On December 24, 2012 El finally proposed, and I never felt so happy. 

(Photo Credit: Jackie Knapp)

 

         This year has been full of wedding planning and career planning. El was taking summer classes in hopes of going to medical school, and I was interning at Shared Pregnancy to finish my degree. At the end of June, Elliott had a check up with his oncologist, and they were worried about the unexplained hip pain he was experiencing. He went in for a bone scan on 9th of July, and we got a call that night that the scans saw something that x-rays could not. There were small masses in multiple locations. On July 10, we got worse news that these masses were the cancer that was back, and that the likelihood of it ever going away is very small. I have never felt so much pain before in my whole life, for two days I could not do anything but cry. Through all the tears from family, friends, and me, El never cried a single drop. All he said was God's Will be done and Christ be glorified. With the strength that Elliott's got, I am sure no one has any doubt where it comes from, it is not earthly. 

       Around July 12, I supposed I stopped crying, and instead I decided I was going to be thankful for every day that I had. To look to the future is to hard, but to be thankful for each day, each hour, each minute that the Lord has given us is a blessing. It was around that time that we decided we did not want to spend anymore time as single people. We decided that on my birthday July 18, we would be married. 

       6 days to plan a wedding!!! How crazy are we! But we did it. It would not have been possible if it wasn't for my friends and family. If we did not have something, someone would call and offer help. It was so great! I felt truly loved and blessed by everyone!!! On Thursday, July 18 at 1:00 pm about 400 people packed into the church to watch us take our vows. I finally got to marry my best friend and be his wife! Throughout the ceremony and the day, I have never felt so many prayers, so much peace, and so much love. It was more than I could every imagine! Thanks to all the friends reading this that helped THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU!!

(Photo Credit: Jamie and Sarah McCauley)

      Our wedding was GREAT! And for our honeymoon, we went back to Lansing to the Wild Goose Inn which was beautiful. The only bad thing about it was Elliott's leg started hurting him REALLY bad. I noticed that his left leg started swelling, so I pulled out the big guns and called his mom who contacted the hospital. The on call doctors in Ann Arbor told us that we had to go to the ER. So we ended out our honeymoon in the ER, and found out El had a blood clot in his leg. Because of that I get stab a needle in Elliott's stomach twice a day (he better not be mean to me). The next week we started chemo, and I guess I will post about it later.