EVERYTHING

WOW!!! A lot has happened since I last logged in and wrote a post. I didn't realize that it had been so long.

We had a great Christmas with family and friends. Tori-bug kept the miracle of believing in Santa. I was almost hoping that she would ask me, but she didn't so we got to surprise her yet again this year. I think it will be a different story next year as she goes into middle school. Her elf, JOY came again this year on Dec. 1st. For some reason though, she didn't get into a lot of mischief. She did toilet paper Tori's bedroom one morning and also wrote on her bathroom mirror with spray snow. Tori is totally in love with that elf and cried on Christmas Eve night b/c she was having to leave.
We camped the last time the week before Thanksgiving with our best friends, The Corbetts. We tried to get our other set of best friends to go with us, but it didn't work out b/c they had football tournaments. We camped at Vogel and it was sleeting and snowing when we were trying to set up camp. It was brutally cold outside too. I think the temps one morning was in the teens. Nonetheless, we had an awesome time. The kids love being together and so do the adults.

My sister's house is nearly ready to move in after the house fire in July. The new house is absolutely gorgeous. I think they are gonna love it. It has been such a tough time for our family in the past year, but now they will get to move back and have all new stuff. This is an answer to prayer and we feel so blessed that God has continued to provide. Hoping they get to move in in a couple of weeks.

Now, we need even bigger prayers. Mom got sick a couple of months ago with a cold. The whole family had it. They had been going through some of the fire damaged boxes and it was really dusty and still smelled of smoke. The other members of the family got better, but with mom's breathing she didn't. She took several rounds of antibiotics, steroids, nebulizer treatments, and such, but couldn't kick it. She finally went to the doctor 2-1/2 weeks ago and he wanted to admit her. She didn't want to do that b/c she said they would put her on the Bipap machine for her breathing so she refused the admission. He gave her a shot of steroids and a shot of antibiotics. She came home with oral meds as well. That night she started having severe shortness of breath and difficulty breathing so my sister and I took her to the ER. They did admit her and her numbers were really bad. Her oxygen sat was in the 80's and she was really struggling to breath. She asked them to sedate her if she needed the Bipap b/c it makes her feel like she is suffocating. We ended up giving three nebulizer treatments back-to-back-to-back and several other IV meds for breathing and she finally settled down. She was in-patient for 3 nights and 4 days. We came home on Sat. on hospice. This wasn't necessarily a hard decision for us to make b/c her lung specialist has been recommending it for a long time, but we didn't feel it was necessary until this admission. Mostly it relieved me of having to be the nurse and daughter. I can just be a daughter now and let someone else do the nursing stuff. Sat. and Sunday mom looked and felt better than she had in 2 years. I was thrilled. Tuesday evening she started having severe stabbing-like pain in the left side of her chest and a horrible deep cough that was taking her breath. We called the on-call hospice nurse and she felt like mom had broken a rib so we started her on morphine. The morphine was only relieving the pain for a short while then it was coming back so we started giving it to her in a pill form twice a day. She was having to take extra liquid in between too. She got really confused and unsteady on her feet so we made the decision to stop it. She was a lot better with the pain and the cough was all but gone too. We put her back on her regular pain meds and this seems to be working for now. She has to take it every 4 hrs. but that is better than seeing her so out of it on the morphine so we would rather do that. She gets short of breath when walking or getting up and down so she gets anxious. Monica and I have been tag-teaming her. To say it has been a stressful, emotional filled 2 weeks is an understatement. I have spent nearly every day and night crying. I know mom probably won't live very long, but I want her to be comfortable and not confused while she is here. We are taking it day by day. So far, we are making it the best we know how. All of us kids have had our moments, but by God's grace we are still trying to make each day the best it can be.

Kevin and I are going on a mission trip to Haiti at the end of May. Our church youth group is going to an orphanage. I am going to do nursing within the orphanage and my hubby is going to do construction type work. I am really excited but nervous at the same time. It is not very safe in Haiti right now and with my bad back and now mom's health, I am a little more than anxious. We have our trip sponsored. We are so grateful for our loving friends and church family that have helped us and are still helping us. Please pray that mom will be healthy enough for me to go. I don't want to leave the country for 9 days with that hanging over my head. I am counting on God to make those provisions for us and I know He will.

Gymnastics is in full swing. Tori-bug is doing great. We have only had 2 meets so far, but we have one next weekend in Panama City and the following weekend in Pigeon Forge. Hopefully she will do great. That girl loves to flip and flop.

Sorry this post is so long, but since it has been forever I had lots to tell you :-)

Thanks for checking in on us,
Wendy