A memorial service for Julie will be held on:

Sunday, July 19th, 2015 @ 3:30pm
The Fellowship Church – Round Rock
3379 Gattis School Rd, Round Rock, TX 78664

Attire: Casual

My best friend, wife, and an amazing mother has left behind the hurt of this world. She now abides in the comfort of her first and truest love. Oh sweet soul, my Jugi, how I will miss your smile.

This is my view for more of my day that I really want. Because my liver is being overcome with cancer, it is not functioning in the proper way. And I don’t really know what that means other than it produces fluid. And gravity brings the fluid to my feet. Now, if I was the type who laid in bed all day, I guess I would be okay. But…I’m not. When I feel good, I want to be up and can still find things for me to do. But after a few hours, my feet are beckoning me to be propped up. So I pile my pillows and sit in my beautifully designed new bedroom. Did you hear that story?

I sent an email out several months ago to my friends in town, that one thing I have always wanted was a beautiful master bedroom. It was always the last room to be done in every house I lived in and honestly never really got “done”. And if I had the possibility of spending any amount of time in the bedroom, I wanted it to be relaxing. Of course, my friends got to work. Donations came from friends, life groups, our womens’ bible study. Then a day of painting, A day of shopping. Another day of painting. Bedding, pillows, lamps…. it is perfect. I am certainly surrounded by love.

I hope that many of you follow Fight4Julie on Facebook or Instragram (juliedwhaley) because I do post a little more often there. But I know that it is certainly time for an update here too. The simple update remains to be: When I feel good, I do whatever I want. We went to South Padre for a weekend. I had the luxury of simply sitting in a chair, but that is what the beach is for.

When we feel like dessert, we go out for a treat.

And when my brother comes in town and wants his head shaved… that’s what I do.

But I have to be honest and say that for several good days, there is a bad one. I am still doing chemo, but I haven’t really been able to connect that to the bad days. The kind of day where I take 3 naps. Where breathing is hard enough that I wonder if I could actually suffocate or is it just a feeling. A moment where I take the maximum dosage of morphine. A night that brings no sleep because of discomfort. And the following morning where my husband just looks at me and I know what he is thinking though neither of us want to say it. But, after each of those hard days, has comes a better one. I wake up the next day to more energy, less pain and usually the ability to get out of the house which I didn’t the day before. It is welcomed, but it is confusing. We don’t know if chemo is working, but we don’t want to alter anything either. We can see that the liver is still struggling and breathing has become very difficult, but there are still good days. So, I guess we are just called to live. And that may be a motorized wheelchair at Wal-mart, which I learned the hard way today, or it may be a handicap car tag so I don’t have to walk across the parking lot. But those things mean I am still living.

Thank you for your messages, your prayers, your cards of love, the donations that are still coming in, the texts, the love that I know is thrown our way everyday. We are still doing our best.