The Road Not Chosen

Canceled

Evans' doctor appointment tomorrow to get his staples removed has been canceled due to bad weather. We are supposed to get 1 - 2 inches of ice & 3 - 6 inches of snow tonight & the city the hospital is located in is supposed to get 10 inches of snow. Guess we got spoiled with that mid- 60's weather we've had the last 10 days. All I can say is:

 

 

 

Winter is here!

Just Dropping In

Just a quick post to say Evan is healing very s-l-o-w-l-y. The days are pretty much consumed with caring for him & trying to squeeze in an hour or so of my paid job. My brain is officially mush. Evan will get his staples (all 28 of them!) taken out tomorrow morning. After that is done, we anticipate that he will be more inclined to walk, as that pinching feeling will be lessened.

We are appreciative of everyone's prayers and especially for Evan's friends Matt & Jon who come by to visit him to keep him (and us) from going stir crazy. I'll post later on when I am more lucid.

The Long & Winding Road

Happy Turkey Weekend,everyone! Hope you all have had lots of yummy food & good family time. We actually managed to have a Thanksgiving, quiet, but full of food and love and thankfulness.

So, Evan's surgery went well. The piece of cartridge in his hip socket was a bit more difficult to remove than they anticipated. They also said it was smooth and shaped like a Hershey's bar. The surgical team thought this was funny as cartridge is usually bumpy. Maybe Ev's been eating too much chocolate?!?

His recovery is slow. He threw up for the first 24 hours after surgery. We were staying in a hotel so this made things a bit, um, complicated. He couldn't keep pain meds down. The surgeon called in an anti-nausea patch for him. It worked eventually except one of the side effects is blurred vision, which Evan got. So getting him up & down to the bathroom was quite the ordeal.

We made it back home late Wednesday afternoon. Right now our days are filled with helping Evan get around and trying to catch some ZZZZ's. He is still not able to weight-bear on his left foot, as his hip is still really sore. We are using a combo of wheel chair/walker to get him around the house. The incision is about 5 inches long, in a crescent shape, and closed with STAPLES! These staples have to come out on Thursday. I'm not sure why the surgeon closed it that way, if that was the only way to do it or if he just didn't think about the fact that getting the staples out of Evan is going to be quite the ordeal. It's hard for Ev to be compliant for a blood draw, much less having 5 staples removed. I can say from personal experience that staples don't always come out painlessly. My plan is to e-mail the surgeon to ask him to call us in some numbing cream to put on the site, so that Evan won't feel them coming out. I also am going to ask him to have a back-up plan in case that doesn't work. (Laughing gas maybe??)

One interesting side note: the recovery nurse said that when Evan was coming to he started reading everyone's names off their badges. They seemed quite surprised by this. We think they may have been surprised that he could read. If so, we are glad to kill a stereotype for them. Yes, people with Down's can learn to read!

I am really longing for all this to be over, so Evan can get on with his senior year and life can get back to some sort of routine. Well, as routine as things ever get around here. At least with less trips out of town to the doc's. Thanks to everyone for their prayers. We definitely felt them! What would we do without God and without friends?

Hippie Time

Well, at long last, Evan is scheduled for his second hip surgery. So next week (yes, right before Thanksgiving!) we will make the trip one more time. He actually seems more mentally prepared this time. His last 3 blood draws have gone smoothly thanks to his "I'm putting on my headphones, crankin' up the tunes & ignoring the pain" method. He seems much less fearful about the whole procedure.

In preparation for the next crazy week, I have already done my grocery shopping for Turkey Day. As we won't be around to get the turkey thawed in time, I have taken the radical step of (gasp!) ordering a cooked turkey from our local grocery store that is conveniently open that day. I figure I can do the pies & potatoes easily and our friend, Kristen, is coming over to assemble the whole shebang and bringing candied yams (yum) and a couple other goodies. Evan may not feel like eating by then, but Harold & I sure will!

So I won't be posting until after Thanksgiving. I think. Maybe.

Euthanase disabled babies says Church of England.

I will admit to being a cynical person sometimes. This move on the part of the Church of England took even me by surprise.

Church of England backs euthanasia of disabled babies.

As I have said many times on this blog, it always surprises me that society doesn't recognize a slippery slope when it sees one. It most certainly surprises me that the church doesn't see it as well.

I understand that sometimes medical technology can keep a life going long past what the Lord may want and that wisdom & compassion must be used to help parents know when enough medical intervention is enough. However, for a Christian denomination to go sliding down this path is folly indeed.

No Thanks!

Thanksgiving, it's inescapable this month isn't it? We are encouraged to make lists of what we're thankful for, to appreciate our blessings and one another, to pause and reflect on the good things God has given us. As I was pondering all this the other day, my thoughts were drawn to a time in my life when I was everything but thankful.

Nineteen years ago Harold & I seemed to be standing on the brink of "success" in every area of our lives. Fresh out of bible school, we were on staff at a church we loved, I was pregnant with our first child, we had a great house filled with new furniture and life seemed to be full of promise and blessing. We were living our dream! Yes, I truly was very thankful for all that the Lord had done.

Then bit by bit things started to change. I was laid off from my job. Then Harold was laid off, on my 30th birthday I might add, oh, and I was 8 months pregnant. Next Evan was born. With Down Syndrome. Did I mention Evan had 3 holes in his heart and, oh yes, neither of his parents were employed? Things went bad at the church we were in. Real bad. I was devastated by deep betrayals in relationships that turned bad. Harold couldn't find a job for a long time. I couldn't even think of getting one as Evan was so sick & we were waiting for him to be well enough to have surgery. I had a hard time finding anything to be thankful about.

Through this our bills still got paid. Time & again God provided finances in ways only described by the word "miraculous". Someone even left $500 on our doorstep once. Our Mormon landlord was amazed every month that we were able to pay the rent. I did have glimmers of appreciation for what God did, but I can't honestly say I was full of thanks. My eyes only saw what was wrong.

We moved to St. Louis, landed good jobs, put Evan in a great daycare, and our marriage began to fall apart. Harold attended the church we went to while in bible college, going only because he knew he should, not because he really wanted to. I gave up on church, mad at God, although I refused to admit it. When we look back at those days now, we can't remember any events. No birthdays or trips or much even about day-to-day life. Just a big, grey, nothingness. I stood stamping my spoiled little, spiritual foot, demanding that the Creator of the Universe put things back the way they were "before". Not a drop of thankfulness could be found in me. None.

Still God was faithful. Harold & I both got regular raises & promotions, Evan grew healthy, bills were paid, groceries were bought. And I in my heart I hated my husband and blamed God for what I thought I didn't have. I made lists of the things that were wrong, offenses that had been suffered, without a thought about the state of my heart.

"And the earth was without form and empty. And darkness was on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved on the waters. And God said, Let there be light. And there was light." (Gen. 1:2-3)

One day I woke up. I realized that I had come to the end of myself and all that was in me had become without form, empty & dark. I was repulsed at who I had let myself become. It was no one's fault but my own. I had let bitterness destroy me. Yet, as He did in the beginning of time, God moved & said "Let there be light". To my utter surprise, light came back into my life. I ran to Jesus & apologized for my arrogance, anger, & pride. I was the prodigal, running back home to my Father's arms. I was overflowing with thanks-giving, daily offering prayers of gratefulness for the restoration that happened in my life. Healing came to me, to my marriage, to my relationships with those around me.

Life has not always been easy since then. I have learned my lesson though. When things aren't going the way I would like & bitterness tries to creep in, I stop and find something, anything, to be grateful for. I focus on my blessings, which are always many even in the worst of times, and say with King David, "I will bless the Lord at all times, His praise shall continually be in my mouth...The righteous cry, and the Lord hears and delivers them out of all their troubles." (Ps. 34)  And for that I am thankful.

The Day After

Yup, that's me today. Can you guess my political leanings? Here in Missouri, I am sad to say that the Stem Cell initiative past, very narrowly, but passed none the less. Also, my friend, Bob, who was running for State Representative, lost by less than 2%. Ouch! He's a great guy and I hope he can find the strength to try again. He and I worked together for several years at a state university. We were about the only Conservatives in the entire Administration building, which was hilarious at times!

My friends and I were talking this morning about how God is in charge of everything. We were also talking about the strange fact that Christianity really flourishes under persecution. Our country may be getting ready to make quite a shift as far as religious tolerance goes. OK, let me go out on a limb and be blunt. Christianity is barely tolerated as it is. I think we may be getting ready to be even less tolerated & our right of expression to be more limited than it is now. So...

I'm happy and rejoice because I am expecting that if more persecution comes, and Christians are put in a position that they have to trust God or else, that wonderful things will happen. I feel as if God is giving us a wake-up call today in America. So many moral issues hang in the balance right now. There is a wonderful song by Israel Houghton and Jonathan Stockstill, called "Let The Church Rise". The lyrics say:

"Let the church rise from the ashes, let the church fall to her knees. Let us be light in the darkness, let the church rise. Moving with power, bringing Your name to the earth, singing your praises, lifting up glorious songs. We are moving in His compassion, Spirit raise us up with you.       Let the Your wind blow, revive us again, Lord"

I couldn't have said it better myself.

What's Up?

Whew! Busy couple of weeks! Harold, Evan & I flew to California last week to visit my parents. It was so good to see them. My dad is home now and on the road to recovery. The last time I had seen him he was in a coma so you can imagine my joy at being able to talk to him and even go out to a restaurant! I am so thankful to God for this blessing.

Evan had a bit of a struggle the first day there, I think. Grandpa looks a lot different than the last time Ev had seen him a year ago. My dad's lost about 60 lbs due his medical problems and has dark bruises on his arms from being on blood thinners. This threw Ev at first, but it didn't take him long to decide that Grandpa was still Grandpa.

The weather was amazing, in the eighties, until the next to the last day when a huge forest fire broke out about 50 miles from my parents. Ash was coming down, coating everything and making it hard to breath. Yuk! Of course, that's how you tell the seasons are changing in So Cal! Fires and mudslides. I like changing leaves better. Ash & fire didn't stop my mom and I from shopping though. Living in a rural area, I really appreciate the chance to go shopping in the "big city". Mom & I had a blast. Everyone came home with new clothes and a lady from my parent's church gave Evan an alarm clock that looks like a drum set. (The clock is in the bass drum.) He was so thrilled!

Scary travel experience: when we landed in San Diego one of the flight attendants called a woman passenger to the front of the plane to talk to her. I was in the first row so couldn't help but overhear as the flight attendant said, "Ma'am, we have no record of you on this flight. You are not on the manifest. How did you get on this plane? Can you show me your boarding pass?" The woman did not have one!!! Needless to say, that incident is a bit scary, don't you think? The woman couldn't come up with any proof so I don't know what happened to her. (As a side note, my friend Lary had his Carmex lip balm confiscated a couple of weeks ago before a flight. Lary is a doctor and was quick to point out that his Carmex (in the tin, not the tube) is a wax compound, not a gel, and was under 3 ounces. You can imagine his chagrin that an entire unaccounted for human being made it onto our flight, while he had to fly with dry lips!)

This week has been playing catch-up at work. NaNoWriMo's call has been hard to resist this year, but I am concentrating on editing a batch of essays to hopefully send out to try & get published. We are also awaiting a call from Evan's surgeon to get his last hip surgery scheduled, hopefully in a couple of weeks. 

The leaves are falling and temps are dipping low. I can sure feel the countdown to the holidays, can you?