Mom Updates

If you're not family and/or don't live here locally, you probably don't know what's been going on with my mom's health. To get you up to speed, here's the short story: Mom had a pacemaker placed in late November due to a slow heartbeat. In the process of working it up, we learned that she has severe atrial valve stenosis. This means that the valve in her heart that controls the exit of blood from the heart to the rest of the body is scarred and quite narrowed. Her heart has to pump harder to get her blood through that barrier and it's severe enough that it warrants surgery.

So we've spent the last month finding out about the options and getting more checks and such. Valve replacement surgery is full on open heart surgery, so this is a big deal. She's had an angiogram as well that showed she has two areas that they will do bypass on while she's in there. So, to cut to the chase, Mom is scheduled for her open heart surgery on Monday - this Monday! It's been a busy week.

good things - she's pretty healthy and strong, our hospital is nationally recognized for cardiac surgery, we requested and got a great surgeon (even our cardiologist said he would pick this surgeon)
risks - she's got diabetes and she's 80. This is not going to be easy to recover from, but my mom is not one to take things lying down. She is very independent and has good drive to stay that way.

I'll be working most of my usual schedule this coming week while she's in the hospital, then I'll be taking 2-3 weeks of family leave to help her at home. Her best friends from Yakima have already arrived and plan to stay until she's home and settled in. We'd appreciate your prayers in the next several days.

Mobile blogging

I just got a new app on my iPhone that let's me blog from my phone. Just thought I'd give it a trial run here.

Denis and I just had our first anniversary that we didn't go out of town. This year we decided to save some $$ by staying home and just did some special things locally. On Dec. 31, our actual anniversary, we had dinner at a very nice place in a neughboring town Jacksonville.

It was a very nice night. Here's what I ordered.




All very yummy. Last night we spent one night in a historic hotel in Ashland. Overall, a very nice anniversary and a happy new year to boot!
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Happy New Year!

It's 2010! We're careering towards a new decade. (BTW, after discussion with a friend yesterday, I've learned that the new decade doesn't start till 2011, so now you know!)

Are you making any resolutions this year? I'm not - I try to avoid making resolutions because I know that I'll never achieve them. However, I did join a group in my church that plans to read through the Bible in a year. I've read through the Bible a couple of times, but the only time I managed to do it within a year was the year that I spent at Multnomah Seminary. Through the course of the school year, we did study all the books and reading them was homework.

This year, I've chosen to use the Chronological arrangement and read it in the Amplified Version. Both of these choices are geared towards making it fresh and hopefully keeping my attention. The thing that often happens when I endeavor for getting through a designated section is that it gets really rote. So, I've never read one of those Chronological Bibles before, so that will be new. And using the Amplified Version means that the wording will not be as familiar to me. I'm looking forward to it. Today was day 2, so far so good, but that's not saying much yet... :o)

I've thought about blogging quite a number of times in the last two weeks, but my computer is being a dweeb and it's too difficult to sort my photos and do stuff with them. I'm typing this on Denis' computer. I'll be taking mine into a repair place on Monday to see if they can find what's making it sooooooo slow.

BTW

I turned on word verification for a while. I've been getting an amazing number of spam comments and it's such a pain to find them and then delete them. I'm hoping this will cut it down.

Going grey

So, my friends and faithful readers will know that I have been coloring my hair since shortly before my wedding. The above picture was taken a few years before that... maybe '01? I don't really remember. The one below was taken in Jan or Feb of '03, shortly before. Believe me, I really did have some "silver" at that time. I got my first grey hairs in college. My friends and I called them "silver" for a while because it sounded much more distinguished.

And here's the picture from my 40th birthday, with all the gray safely covered up. :o) The scary thing is that now there is a lot more of it to cover.

About two months ago, I decided, "that's it! I've had enough" and I started to let my gray grow out. My hair dresser has been putting some color partially into the top of my head for the last two visits, but none underneath where most of the gray is. I was at a party the other day and someone was surprised to hear that I was growing it out, so I take that as a compliment that the technique is working... I don't have any pictures yet of my new look. But I'll get some up at some point.

a new post

Well, I just caught up with reading my friends blogs. It's been quite a while since I've been following them. It seems some action is picking up again as people are writing a bit more steadily again. Shall I join the ranks?

I'll give it a shot.

If you are my friend on Facebook, you probably know that we put down one of our cats yesterday. I've had Phoebe and Monica for about 10 years, which is hard to believe. Bringing Joey into the house two years ago just about did in Phoebe, but she made a miraculous recovery. And now it's Monica who got ill and we had to say goodbye. She got sick very quickly, but I've already written all about that elsewhere.

I just mention it here to say that I've been just kind of blah and dull today. Not much motivation to do much. It seems a bit silly to be depressed over losing a cat, but so be it. I know that I'll feel better soon.

We were supposed to go get our Christmas trees today, but it was quite icey and slick on the roads this morning, so we decided to put it off. Hopefully we will be able to go tomorrow, because Mom is really looking forward to it.

Ho Hum... that's about it for now. It was really fun to read you all's posts. It's nice to see more action on the blogs again.

I don't get it...

what is the purpose of blog spam? It seems that my blog has been targeted for random spam comments because of my inactivity. But I don't quite get what the point is. There have been 5 span comments on old posts from June or so, but who would ever read them to see the spam?

Ugh!

Ok, I'm awake at 2 AM and feeling increasingly bad that I haven't written anything on my blog in months! Now seems like a good time to write something, whatever, anything...

I've been up at this hour several times in the last week - mostly it was with fever and chills last week. Tonight it's with congestion and wheezing in my chest. It's not dangerous, just annoying. I can hear the noise in my ears and it keeps me awake. Asthma is so weird, at least for me. I have started a course of Prednisone and I'm taking my Albuterol inhaler, but I don't really notice that they help much. I'm always left wondering if I would get better just as quickly if I just ignored it and let it run its course. But I won't, because I'm generally an obedient patient...

I haven't written about the chickens lately. They are just about full grown - 5 months old or so. Denis is keeping track, but I lose count on the passing weeks. No eggs yet. This is about the time that they are supposed to start. We've added a light inside the coop to increase their "daylight hours". Some books say they need 14 hours of daylight to be in production mode. Since our girls have never been in production mode, we're giving the light a try to make sure they start on time. I need to take some new pictures - the girls are very pretty now, with all their colored feathers in place.

While I was sick, Denis and I had to cancel our plans for a weekend trip up to the Willamette Valley (just South of Portland) to meet up with friends who were driving down from Seattle to meet us there. This is a friend from my old church's singles group. His wedding was one month prior to ours and we've not had much chance to hang out together over the last 5 1/2 years. We had been planning the trip for two months and then I had to go and get the flu 2 days before we were to leave. One of the reasons that I was in denial about having the flu initially.

Our next trip is going to be a quick one - flying into Denver and driving a rental car to attend a niece's wedding in Nebraska. We'll stay two nights in NE, then back to Denver to fly back home. One nice little detail is that we both have friends in Denver who we'll get to visit, though briefly. I made our hotel and car rental reservations yesterday. I was able to buy our tickets with frequent flyer miles! Yay Alaska Airlines!

Well, that's enough for now. Hope that gives a bit of an update.

Joni and Friends Camp report

Sorry, folks, but pictures on my blog will be very limited due to privacy reasons for the families that attend JAF camp. Here are two - above are myself and Esther, the other nurse who attended camp. I was so grateful to have her there. We ended up taking turns staying the in the "First Aid Station" during the times of day that people were all over camp and most likely to just drop in there looking for help. During "all-camp" activities, though, we went to the location where everyone was gathered and got to watch and participate.

Praise God, we had no serious injuries. A couple of minor incidents were a bit stressful, but mostly we had bandaids and ice packs as our tools of the trade for the week. With all the things that could go wrong, it's truly evident that God has His hand of protection on the JAF camps each year.

I had a wonderful time and am SO glad that I went. Here are some of my thoughts as I reflect on my camp experience:

• Overall, I felt a bit like an outsider/observer. A lot of folks attend this camp year after year and a majority of people already knew each other. It's a happy reunion of old friends for them. I, on the other hand, did not know anyone but the people from my church. Esther and I were technically part of the leadership team, but didn't really know what was going on a lot of the time. I had the wonderful opportunity to wander and meet lots of campers, kids, young adults, parents, siblings, but I didn't get to know anyone very well. A lot of the campers with disabilities are a bit reserved around new people, so I didn't end up on a huggy basis with very many campers. I would love to go some time as a hands-on STM (volunteer assigned to be with a single camper for the week).
• On the other hand, I was priveledged to get to meet lots and lots of campers. I saw a more vulnerable side of them when they came to me with an owie or bump on the head. At first, I was kind of stymied by the communication challenges of treating these kids. But after a day I was really enjoying the challenge of trying different approaches until I was able to address the problem at hand. Keep in mind that the STM who works with the camper about 12 hours out of a day gets to know how to communicate best with them. But I'm just meeting them in a small crisis moment and don't know the best approach.
• The people who go to JAF camp every year call it "Heaven on Earth". People also say, "I can't explain it, you just have to go". Well, I'm going to give it an attempt at explanation. JAF camp is a place where people with and without disabilities are all accepted just the way they are. Not just accepted, but celebrated. People are not made fun of for enthusiasm that may not seem "appropriate". Activities are geared to meet everyone where they are and let all participate with as little barriers as humanly possible. A highlight of the week is the talent show night. It's a performance night in which it matters more that you got up and did something than that you sounded "great". The growth and change in campers from year to year is a real highlight for those who go each year.

I came back from camp feeling much less intimidated by our own plans for disability ministry in my church and much more excited to see who may walk in our church doors. Bring it on!

Here is our group on "camper day", the day campers arrive.

I'm going to camp!

It's been a while since I asked for prayer about Denis and I attending the upcoming Joni and Friends Family Camp as medical personnel. Unfortunately, Denis is not going to be able to go because he's working the entire week. I was not real excited about going without him, but decided to take the step of faith and send in my application. I was in contact with the camp director, making it clear that I hoped to have a second person there with whom to share the responsibility.

So, I'm please to report now that I am definitely going to camp next week. I'll be the "camp nurse" along with another gal who is from the Bay area in CA (where camp is located). I spoke with Esther on the phone and we were both pleased to realize that we have a lot in common. We've both got a lot of experience in hospital nursing. Esther currently works the night shift on a Med/Surg unit, which is where I spent most of my nursing career as well. We are both really happy to have another person to collaborate with. We will be roommates for the week, so I'm expecting to have a new great friend at the end of this. I think we'll be getting to know each other really well. :o)

The medical responsibilities are actually not that extensive. Though there are a lot of medical issues with the folks who come to Joni and Friends camp, they are chronic needs and the families continue to provide any personal care, or they bring a care provider with them. Our responsibilities are to assess any emergencies that arise, treat minor injuries and determine if a hospital trip is needed. All our decisions will be made in collaboration with the camp staff as well as the family. So, we will also get to participate in the camp activities and are not expected to just stay put in a "sick room".

I have no idea what to expect except being challenged to grow as I trust in God to meet any need that arises, give me wisdom and give me a servant heart towards the families that I will meet. I am also looking forward to spending travel time with my fellow church folks who I'm carpooling with and getting to see God work in all our lives. And then to see how our church is blessed as the 19 members who have participated in camp this year infect our church with passion for disability ministry. If you think of me in the week from July 18-24, please pray for camp - for all involved to be blessed and be a blessing to each other. Thanks!