The Orr House

Hello friends!! Sorry I really haven't been blogging, it has been crazy lately.

Our house is finally done!! YAY!! I am so grateful for all the work that has been done by all our family and friends!! AHHHHHH!!! It is awesome! I love it! 

The house, which has been nicknamed Ian's, is right across the road from Elliott's parents house. El's parents bought it a while ago, and always intended to make it a rec room for the kids. But luckily, it didn't happen, and it is now where we live.

I am sad to say that we don't have a lot of pictures of the house before we started to re-do it. Just so you get a mental picture, it was basically gutted and had a 2X4 outline of the all the rooms. 

This is the earliest picture (right) we have of the house. And on the left is what our kitchen looks like now. 

Before and after of the living room.

Bedroom

In the daylight it doesn't look this green, but in the light you can barely see the green. 

And my pretty, pretty stove :) 

El and I are so very grateful to have a place to call our own! Thanks to all who helped!! We love you so much!

I Left my Heart in Lansing

This week I started my internship back up in Lansing. (I have to finish my internship from this summer.) While I was driving back to North Branch, I started to get a little teary eyed...

When I first came to MSU, I was a girl who's life consisted of sports, good grades, and friends. Being at school with major athletes, geniuses, and 45,000 strange people, took what consumed my life and left me feeling lonely and unsure of the person I was. So what did I do? I fled to home where I could still be the person I was, without having to change. Change is scary, to anyone, but especially to me at that point in my life. I wanted things to stay the same for as long as possible.

It probably took me about a half of year at MSU to realize that it wasn't all bad. The campus was beautiful in fall, winter (even though its long), and spring, and the people at school were great! So instead of going home I stayed at school, and slowly I suppose I began to change. 

You have to know that before school, I had absolutely no insight into myself. My life had a shallow meaning and presence. I had no deep knowledge of why I did the things I did? Or why I was the way I was? It was only through people, long talks, and crazy life experiences that I discovered these things. 

I am definitely an extrovert and a feeler with a crazy spontaneity that a six year old would marvel at. But I think the most important thing I learned is that I am this, freely in Christ, whose grace gets me through every second of everyday, and whose blood was shed for me so thatI am clean. And I also learned that God does all things for my good, and in this crazy mess of life I can see the beauty of what he is teaching me, how he is molding me. 

And I feel sad because I learned it all in Lansing. The place that scared me so much, started to feel like home. Once a place feels like home, I guess you start dreaming about your life in that place. Without realizing it, I dreamed of living there with Elliott as we started are life together. I dreamed of living in a crappy apartment, working two jobs while El went to college, continuing to go to URC, of eventually or probably accidentally starting a family there. It was a dream I did not really know I had until I drove away from it. My dream shattered...

Sad, but I am glad I am back in a town that is so supportive and loving. In a familiar place where I can try to pick up the shards of a broken dream and glue them back together. I trust that God has my future and it is beautiful and good.  

Blessed

Even though positive status day was a while ago, I still feel the need to say how blessed I am by our communities both in North Branch and Lansing. I have been going through James and came upon this verse: Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change. (James 1:17 ESV). I know that God has given us these blessings through all of you, and I just want to say thank you! I am so greatful to have each and everyone of you in our lives.

Here's a few ways that I have felt blessed in the past couple of weeks:

The two weeks after chemo, we got to stay at one of Elliott's neighbors houses. It is right in the middle of the woods and on a beautiful, secluded lake. It was so nice to be alone, and actually feel like we were married. During our time, we got to just chill and relax from wedding craziness and the week of chemo. Here is some pics from the house we stayed at: 

It was beautiful. Thank you so much Beanie for letting us stay there while you were away. We are so thankful. 

Beans at Beanies...that is a little pun

Anyway, two Saturdays ago there was a soccer tournament benefit put on for Elliott. Cody and Kayla, two friends of Elliott and I put it on for us. Even though it was only planned in a week, the whole community showed up to support us. I was so glad Elliott and I got to go for the last bit of the tournament. We were truly touched and felt so loved an cared for by everyone. Thank you everyone who helped! I know it took a lot of work from organizing the teams to the Chinese auction to concessions! Thank you! We are so blessed to live in the community that we do! 

              The tournament board

               Fun team T-shirts 

   Shirts that were sold at the tournament 

All the helpers and more I am guessing

                           Soccer

Another thing I am thankful for is my URC  (University Reformed Church), SCF (Spartan Christian Fellowship), and Lansing family. Two Sundays ago I went to a prayer service at URC for Elliott and for another man in the church who has cancer as well. Elliott couldn't come because his immunity was low. They prayed for El and I, and I just felt so loved and cared for by them. I could feel their prayers. I am so blessed by all of you and I love you all! Words can't even explain. God truly blessed me when he led me to URC. 

Last but not least I am thankful for all the work people have been doing all the work on our house. I am so greatful!!! (Sorry I don't have any pics at the moment)

New hair, don't care

While I was at MSU, I took a East Asian Religions class. One of the few things that stuck with me was the interesting rights of passage that teenage boys and girls would have to participate in before they were considered a man or woman of their tribe. In a tribe I did not know the name of, a teenage boy would have to pull out every single strand of hair on his head before he was considered a man. (Although looking it up I couldn't find the name of the tribe, but I am fairly positive I learned this). Anyway why am I explaining this small bit of knowledge with you? Well my friends it is because my husband, in the eyes of that tribe, became a man yesterday.

(Not to worry folks. This is a natural process that occurs during chemotherapy. Chemotherapy kills all rapidly dividing cells and hair growth stops completely. It was just a bit dramatic because El had so much hair, and it all came out pretty fast. He didn't exactly pull it out it just fell out.)


Elliott a few days before with his hair


Shedding all over his pillow.



Using my brush to take out the hair that was hanging by a thread.


All his pretty hair :( that he took out of the trash and chased me around with it....sick but he thought it was funny.


The finished project.

I think he started to miss it a little bit.


Because he tried to make a wig.



Then a beard



Then decided to keep it :)

The funny thing was that he had a hair cut scheduled for later on the day. But by that time there was nothing left to cut. It was funny for both Elliott and me. Hopefully the rest of this week can be as fun as this :)

Chemo week

I forgot to mention that in the emergency room I got to tell someone my new name, and I got to see it in print. That was exciting.




Anyway that night and the week after we stayed at the Williamson's house which is such a blessing. It is great to stay in a house and not a hotel. Thanks guys :)

So Elliott's chemo is on a three week rotation. He does chemo the first week and then has a two week break. He goes Monday through Friday for about 8 hours a day. They are VERY long days.

But at the beginning of the week when El wasn't so tired we managed to have a bit of fun.



El after his port got flushed



El acting silly from his pain meds.



Eating in the Med Inn

By the end of the week things get tougher. Elliott gets more and more tired, and you realize how little control you have over the situation. That all you can really do is pray that El gets better, and that Christ will be glorified. This situation and the illness is entirely in God's hands and not my own. So when I am worrying, I try to rest on this truth.

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.