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reflectthelight
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Name: Karen
Interests: FAVORITE PLACES: Home, church, GA home, VA with the cousins, work, FAVORITE ACTIVITIES: Reading, volleyball, trying to find my green thumb - currently no luck on that front as I am managing to kill 1/2 of them:( singing, swimming, working...
Expertise: the pretzel, talking, going on sabbatical
Message: message me
Member Since:
9/15/2005
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| We are lovin our new door! It is a gorgeous day today and with the new storm door (installed complements of my baby brother! Great job on the door bro!) we get to soak up the sunshine pouring through. :) .... gotta brag up on him when I get the chance! not every one forgets their mom's bd cuz they are too busy celebrating their gf's birthday...all week long. sigh. | | |
| Today starts with a xanga update. ;) To be followed by a trip to T'ville to pick up about 15 (I think) pound cakes for the purpose of cutting and bagging 400 slices to go into chicken dinners for the north FL prison ministry fundraiser. Then swing by the school and help out there between 12-3. And finish out the day (Mom, J, and I are just guests this year) at the annual Meigs Thanksgiving widow-lady's supper hosted each year by our church. I think this year they are expecting about 100 widow ladies and I would guess close to 20 ladies from our church plus maybe 5-10 of the youth to pre-youth to help serve.
Tomorrow evening we are expecting company for supper (they are bringing half of it) if mom is up to a good brain-scratching game of scrabble.
Mom has been having more pain this week and has even resorted to using several pain pills which she has not done much of since about July.
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| HAPPY BIRTHDAY to the world's best mother!
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| Where to begin?
First on a personal note from Thursday. My day started out normally enough, with getting some laundry started and heading to the kitchen to clean up breakfast. There was an unusual amount of dishes and I was elbow deep in the dishpan when mom said she and dad were going over to see her special box and would I like to come too? I sent them on their way and followed shortly after with Dwight.
We were there for a few minutes when Dwight got a call from our local school board and they wanted to talk with me. They were looking for someone to come help out at the school asap. Now, I have to tell you that only last week I asked a few people to join me in prayer about an issue and this seemed like a rather startling response from above. The timing felt a bit awkward, but because of the prayers I had just prayed I felt I should consider it. Mom agreed 100% and so I headed that way as quickly as I could get my act together. ... and I was blessed.
Now, I also want to tell you, I did grab a minute while getting myself out the door to spend a power session in the Word. The Lord led me to Psalm 8 (because that is what Sunnyside youth class will be looking at on Sunday) and I was sooo blessed! God almighty is good. He has created soooo much and in teaching our children of history, or creation, or the science of math or language, we share a bit of who God is. Also, I don't do it in my own strength. But GOD is good.
Then yesterday afternoon I had a few hours to get supper on (mom did MOST of it!) and move the laundry along a bit, and get to church. So that was yesterday.
This morning we packed the van for the day AND the chance that we would perhaps need to spend the night before making it back home. We ended up not needing to fall back on that stuff. The day went very smoothly. We got into Atlanta about 10 til 12 and were able to eat at Doc Chey's which brought back so many memories for J and me. Mom's appointment was at 1:00.
The student doctor came in first and did the first bit. Chat and examination. When mom asked if he had read the report from Dr. Al-Hakim (mom's former local oncologist) he said he had not and that they would need to see CD of the actual scan, not the written report from the scan. Our hearts sank because we had no idea we would need this and it is 5 hrs away! He explained that they would need to see if it might have been inflamation from surgery or something that was mistakenly read as cancerous matter. (That gave me hope that maybe the report from August was not actually true)
But then Dr. Kooby came in. He HAD read the report. He knows Dr. Al-Hakim and has been in communication with him about mom's case. He has full faith in the work Dr. Al-Hakim has done. ...and I think to myself, THIS is why I quit nursing! To go into a pt's room and give them your prognosis only to turn around and find out you had it wrong! :( ANYway. Back to the visit. Um, it was a good time. Mom feels good about it. She was able to tell Dr. Kooby thank you again for what he did for us back in May. He thanked her for her spirit. He said that surgery was a success. It got her out of the symptoms she was experiencing back then, and bought her some time. He just wished it would have been MORE time!
He remembered that we were doing the light therapy and is glad for any benefit she might be getting from that. He hinted that he felt it possible to be mostly mental benefit, but whatever, he was glad for it. Also sent greetings back for Dr. Al-Hakim, Dr. Stauffer, and Dr. Grayson.
What else? Oh. Mom told him that she is making plans the end of life, but also considering what might be 6 mth or a year from now. He was pleased and said that is what they recommend to their patients. That mom was being an optimist and a realist. He held her hand through most of the visit, and as we said goodbye, we all got hugs or handshakes from him. Most likely we will never see him again.
After we were done there at his clinic we walked through the crosswalk over to the hospital to see mom's old nurses. It was interesting to take this walk with mom as she had never been through those doors. Then we got up to her floor and she was back on her old stomping grounds. Unfortunately none of her regular nurses or techs were on duty right then. One was away (later I found out for a funeral of her grandmother) and one had been transferred to another section of the hospital. But the social worker was there and recognized us. I had only seen her once, but J had talked with her numerous times and knew her better. She told us they had just been talking about us! She was quite tickled to see us, but sorry we did not have better news. Still, she will pass on greetings for us. We chatted for a bit about which rooms we were in and such like. (She remembered the exact rooms where we had been!)
Today was a lot of goodbyes. As far as we know this is all part of our history now. There are no plans to ever go back there again. It had been our world for almost a month and was neat to see all the familiar places again, and especially so to show it to mom. But now it is past, and all we hold is our memories and maybe a picture or two. Oh, we HAD to buy Dwight a Ginger Ale from the machine at the end of the hall even though Yolanda was not there today! ;)
We had a good trip home. Stopped in Tifton to enjoy Starbucks from a gift card from a friend. That was a special treat. Got home a few minutes before 7. Church started at 7:30. We all made it (except for Bobski) but not all on time.
The service tonight was filled with encouragement. Mostly encouragement to love the church, to have a vision for what Christ wants the of your local church, to love the brethren, for being unified and together MORE as you see the day approaching.
And now it is way past time to get to sleep. Tomorrow will soon be here and there is much to do.
... Speaking of which!... My aunt has asked me to work for her a few hours a week. It feels disloyal to everyone that has been so gracious with me down in FL, but it is flexible and local and meets a need. I feel it is an answer to prayer, but also wonder how everything will work out that I will do all I am supposed to do. You all know how exhausted I have felt the last two weeks, and it makes me a bit nervous to think about staying on top of everything and having a workable schedule with everyone at both ends. Ya'll keep praying and I will try to listen to wisdom.
And for a quick peek forward, we are looking forward to having the SMBI chorus here on Sunday. End of next week we have a friend from Texas who plans to be here for a few days. Tuesday of the following week will be mom's next appointment with Dr. Stauffer. And of course I'll do my best to keep you informed.
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| I'm currently in FL to get caught up with some things at the office. It is going sooo much better than I had expected! The lady filling in for me had really relaxed into her role and I am much more confident about things on that end. Also, the main project I came down to tackle is going way better than I expected. There has been drastic improvement with the whole BE/MC system and I am finding very few issues to have to fight through. This is a HUGE blessing, especially because it makes it so much easier to let someone else do this if I am unable to come back down in a timely manner. (or even to let it wait until I AM able to get back down)
I want to thank everyone who has been praying. I just feel so very cared for. The Lord truly has been very good to me.
You might would be interested to hear how my week started. ;)
Let me start with Saturday. Sis, BIL, and nephew got to Meigs Saturday afternoon. Was able to spend a couple of very wonderful days with them, but left Tuesday for FL. (then they left Wed night to go back to their home)
Tuesday was a very um, .... 'interesting' day. But again, I get ahead of myself. Let me back up a few month. When I was down (in FL) end of August I knew it would be a while before I would be able to make it back again and tried to take care of my mail, but found out later they only hold your mail for 30 days. Plus, I did not want it tied up if I DID make it back before I thought I might. Anyways, I started to be concerned about a few things last week and called in a favor. Caryn kindly picked up my mail for me, faxed me something I was concerned about, and mailed everything (minus the junk!) up to me.
Monday night I took another look through everything to find out what needed to come down to FL and what to keep up there. I found that Progressive sent me notice they had sent me notification of termination of policy, .... mid part of last month! Tuesday morning my cousin told me that in the state of GA, if you are caught with no ins, minimum punishment is $300.00+ fine and 6 mth revoked drivers license for the first offense! Can you imagine?! I drive mom to appointment and run errands. Never mind the trip down and back or back and forth to work, I mean, how in the WORLD would I have managed? And here I was, needing to get to FL. I was sure I remembered paying it. Double checked my checkbook. Yep. I had renewed for another year. Called em up and they told me I was current. Have no idea why I got the notice, but they were able to fax me proof of ins and will be mailing me the new cards.
Whew! What a day that was!
Oh yeah, the other thing that happened was that Monday I took my car to town to run some errands. I had some work done on it and had not used it more than 5 miles at a time since because I was always using mom's van to take her wherever. So anyways, I took my own car this time and ran to T'ville and back. By the time I got back it was stinking horribly and smoke was pouring out from under the hood and around the tires. Scary. Called Alvin and he promised to look at it first thing in the morning. Oil on the manifold. Might have been while they were working on it or might have come from a loosely mounted trans. He tightened the transmission for me. I'm supposed to keep my eye on the tem and oil just to make sure. He also found that the hose from the radiator to the engine was badly swollen and soggy. We had to wait about an hour for a hose to be delivered, but he was able to get that fixed up and I got on the road by early afternoon.
The car continues to stink as the oil burns off, but so far so good this trip.
I plan to leave Monday to head back. Mom has an appointment with Dr. Stauffer on Tuesday and another with Dr. Kooby (in Atlanta) on Friday. Yesterday when I talked to mom they were just coming back from looking at the box mom will use, as she likes to say, when she lays down and nobody messes with her. She told me Wednesday of next week is set aside to visit several places of business and decide which one we want to work with when the time comes that her spirit leaves her body. Next week is going to be really full any way you cut it.
God's grace is so amazing. He is right here with us, calms our hearts, meets us in our time of need, and sends little gems even in the darkest times.
Yes. It makes my eyes wet to put this into writing, but there is gratitude, blessed-ness, and memories filled with humor mingled with the sorrow and fear. And I am okay. Don't pity us. We are so richly blessed for mom's godly example. For the wonderful support of so many loving friends. For the knowledge of the love of God. For the hope of eternal life. For each day we have each other.
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