A Little Prayer

Could we take just a moment and say a prayer for Japan and all those in the pacific region who are suffering from this earthquake and tsunamis?  Let us pray and meditate on their safety over the next few days.  Let the emergency relief personnel find all those who might be trapped alive.  Let them stay safe in rescuing the stranded.  Let the healing and rebuilding come smoothly for the people effected.  Let God's love show through this tragedy.

Thank you.  I have a very good friend stationed in Okinawa and when I heard last night, at nearly midnight here, that the earthquake had been the largest recorded my heart skipped a beat.  Thankfully he was logged online and after a few agonizing minutes he responded that he had felt nothing.  As you may have read, the earthquake hit mainland Japan.  He is alright, and it looks as though our military men and women in Hawaii will be fine too, but the people of Japan and any Americans visiting there are going to be healing for quite some time after this natural disaster.  Please keep them in your thoughts and prayers.

God Loves Surprise Parties!

Sometimes it is hard to wait on God's time in our lives.  We get impatient, upset, hurt, and feel as though we've been forgotten.  I was thinking just now how God's timing is a lot like a surprise birthday party.  The birthday girl looks forward to her big day for weeks, or even months!  She gets so excited, dreaming up all the wonderful things she'll do with her family and friends.  When the day finally comes, she hurriedly dresses and gets downstairs to see what fun things her family has thought up.  Instead, her mom has a regular breakfast ready and sends her off to school with her normal lunch and kiss goodbye.  She is a little disappointed but has faith that her friends will have remembered her birthday.  All day long however, her friends act like it's just a normal day.  Completely deflated of hope, the girl comes home and goes up to her room to do her homework.  Downstairs her parents are smiling and giggling though.  They know what is coming.  Soon after she hears the door open and shut several times but never a door bell.  Curious, she peeks around the corner to find a huge surprise birthday party beyond her wildest dreams!  They hadn't forgotten after all.

God's timing seems like that to me sometimes.  I think it ought to be time for something to happen in my life but when it doesn't I begin to lose faith.  I think perhaps God forgot.  All the while, He is smiling down on me because He knows there is something so much greater just around the corner.  We have to remember that our Father has the best intensions for us. 

Jeremiah 29:11 says "For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."

Thank God for Perseverance

I'm almost under 200lbs!!!  Take a look for yourself here!  See?!  So, without further ado...

You're Invited!!!

I weighed in today and wouldn't you know it?  I am only 13lbs away from being UNDER 200lbs!  At the rate I've been losing, I think I will be throwing my party by August!  I hope you'll come and party with me.  If you would like, you can grab my party button from the bottom of this post to help spread the word!  It will encourage me to keep working toward my goal if I know people are raring and waiting for my Under 200 Pounds Party!  {Hmmm I should think up a better name for it... lol}

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Passing On a Request for Prayers

You can click the link below to go to the original post.  Please pray for this family that they may receive a donor for their daughter.  If you are in the Michigan area and are an 0 blood type, please consider being tested to help this young woman.

Seeking The Gift Of Life!

HEATHER ERICKSON

Dear Family and Friends,

Please help spread the word about my 25 year old daughter, Heather Erickson's medical situation and critical need for a live liver donor transplant.

Heather is a wonderful, caring young woman who has shown amazing grace throughout this difficult time and is my only child and a daughter dearly loved. Seven years ago Heather was diagnosed with a rare liver disease called Primary Sclerosing Cholangitis. It's a progressive illness that destroys the liver and despite everyone's best efforts it could not be stopped.

As a result Heather is currently listed for a liver transplant at Henry Ford Hospital in Michigan. The doctors recommend a live donor to give Heather the best chance for survival, due to the critical shortage of cadaver livers available. Rick, my husband, and I would love to be her donor, but we are not a blood match so we are seeking people who are.

Heather needs someone with O blood type (either negative or positive). who is willing to be tested to be a live liver donor. To learn more about donating please call the Henry Ford transplant coordinator Arlene Helms 313-916-9882 on behalf of Heather Erickson.

We understand a living donation may not be an an option for everyone and respect it's a personal decision.

As always with love,

Cathy and Rick Erickson

CATHY, RICK AND HEATHER

To my blogging friends and readers thank you for your support. I appreciate your kind words and prayers.

Surgery Update

My surgery went well.  He was able to remove my gallbladder laproscopically which means I have 4 cuts about an inch in length each and my heal time will be about 1 month.  There were no complications.  He is concerned about my increased liver enzymes but I have been sent home to rest.  I'll be tested again in two weeks to make sure they have dropped.  If not, then I'll just need some antibiotics.  I am doing well.  I'm in minimal pain.  I just took some medication so I'm going to go rest.  I just wanted to post and let y'all know I was home and it all went well.  Thank you for all your loving thoughts and prayers.  I had no fear during the whole procedure.  I should be back to blogging full strength by the end of the week.  If I can't sleep I might be online before then... but with narcotics I don't think that will be an issue lol.  Night night lovelies!

One Thousand Gifts Week 5

Over the next year {roughly} I will be counting my blessings.  Each week on Monday I will post 20 blessings from our dear Lord.  My goal is at least 1,000 blessings.  I hope you'll be inspired by my list and join us all at A Holy Experience.

I will be in surgery Monday morning to have my gallbladder removed so I am posting this on Saturday.  I will link up my next week's post if I am up and about by then.  I might have my husband log on and link up for me, but he likely won't have the time.  Please say a prayer for me if you happen along this post by chance.  Thank you.  I'll post an update as soon as I am able.

My Week In Blessings:

1. I'm having surgery so I'll feel better.
2. My husband is able to be here to help me heal.
3. My mom is able to come up to take care of Little Bit.
4. I have the best surgeon at this hospital doing my surgery.
5. I get to take some time to rest and not worry about taking care of Little Bit.
6. I get to sleep through the night for the first time in over a year.
7. I have family and friends who are praying for me.
8. I have a church family who will be praying for me.
9. My husband's granddad is doing much better.
10. Little Bit is ticklish now.
11. He loves to giggle at DH and I.
12. It's been raining lately which I love.
13. It keeps the smoke out of the air from the wild fires.
14. It keeps the temperature down since we don't have AC.
15. My husband bought me an elliptical machine to work out on.
16. It was only $15 at the thrift store on post.
17. It is practically brand new so I will get lots of use out of it.
18. We also found a George Forman grill for $5 so I can eat more healthily.
19. We found lots of books to broaden Little Bit's mind for .25 cents each.
20. I finished another craft project today and feel great about using my hands.

What everyday blessings have you seen in your life this week?  I would love to add them to my praise list!  If you have prayer requests I would be honored to pray for you.  You can comment here or e-mail me at Darryen8808@yahoo.com.

Medical Update on Me and Granddad

{This is also posted on my main blog.}

UPDATE ON ME:

About a month ago I began having sharp pains in my chest and between my shoulder blades.  After several extremely painful attacks and a couple trips to the emergency room, DH discovered the culprit was tomatoes.  I told my Dr what he had found and she suggested it might be my gallbladder.  After several more attacks, one more trip to the ER, a blood test showing elevated liver enzymes, and an ultrasound showing 1 large and several small gallstones, I have been scheduled for surgery to have it removed.

We were trying to have it pushed back because DH's granddad is in the hospital in very bad condition, but the surgeon is concerned that because of the liver enzymes I might have a stone lodged in my liver. If I do, it could quickly become infected so he wants me in surgery on Monday.  As long as no complications arise, it is a day surgery and I will be home that evening or early the next day, depending on when my surgery is scheduled.  The surgery itself only lasts about 2 hours. It is normally done laproscopically so the healing time is only 5-10 days, full recovery in 2 weeks.  If they do need to do an open cut, I will be in the hospital for 4-5 days and recovery is about one month.

I will make sure to update you as soon as I can.  As you can imagine, it being such a sudden decision, I have a lot to do around the house before the surgery so DH can concentrate on taking care of LB and myself.  

 

I'll still be blogging until my surgery since it helps to calm me, but I will likely not be replying to comments until I am up and about afterward.   

 

So please pray for DH's granddad as he is in the hospital, and for me as I go in for my surgery.  It is routine, but it is still a surgery none the less.  Thanks everyone.

 

UPDATE ON GRANDDAD:

{I received this e-mail from my mother in law just after making the hard decision to stay here for my surgery knowing full well DH might miss his granddad's funeral.  The Lord is so great!}

Today they backed granddad off of the drug that keeps him asleep while they have him on the ventilator.  The nurse was going to clean him and turn him some so my Mother told Dad that she was going to step out of the room so they could tend to him.  He shook his head NO.  She then asked him do you want me to stay in here while she does this?  He shook his head YES.  He also squeezed her hand a little.  As much as he could anyway because he has so much fluid built up, that all of his extremities are still very swollen.  Help me keep praying for Dad as anything can happen.  He is not totally out of the woods yet.  However, tomorrow they believe they will try and take him off of the ventilator after seeing his responses so far today.  Wish us luck with that.


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I want to personally thank you all for your prayers!  God is listening and it looks as though it might be in his plan to keep granddad here a while longer. 
 

Who knows... maybe I can convince DH to make a guest post letting y'all know how I'm doing. :0P  Probably not... but we'll see.

Urgent Prayer Request

 {DH's Grandmother, sister, and granddad}

My husband's beloved granddad is in the hospital and not doing well at all.  He went in a few days ago for back surgery and he has snowballed downhill since then.  It took him an entire day to wake up from the anesthesia.  When he did he had developed pneumonia.  Then he had hallucinations from his morphine.  He thought they were trying to euthanize him.  During these scary hallucinations his 75 year old heart gave out and he suffered a heart attack.  They strapped him down and gave him full strength oxygen.  He was still highly stressed so they put him into a drug induced coma so he could relax and heal.  They did an angiogram and found he has blocked valves.  They are working on correcting those with stints.  They had to put in a breathing tube when they put him into his coma and when they took it out yesterday to do a culture on his lungs (results due tomorrow) they discovered that he can no longer breathe on his own.  He was also running a high fever yesterday that required ice blankets.  It has since dropped to around 100 degrees.  His blood pressure has been low but does increase when family comes to visit and speaks to him, so he is responsive. 

Right now the Dr.s say it will be touch and go and he could quickly go either way.  We are keeping our hopes up that he will fight this.  He is a 10 year stomach cancer survivor but his quality of life has been so low lately that DH and I am not sure he even wants to hold on.  DH's grandmother is not in very good health either and I am afraid if his granddad gives up that she won't hold on much longer either.  DH is talking to his superiors today about possibly taking emergency leave down to Texas to see his grandparents and introduce Little Bit.  Hopefully his leave will be approved, his granddad will hold on, and they'll be able to wake him from his coma so he can see his first great grandbaby.  Please pray for healing.  Thanks everyone.

With that said, if I disappear all of a sudden... you'll know why.  This will be LB's first time on a plane and our first time traveling with a little one so pray for us too if we get to go.  This trip has the potential to be very stressful.

My Walk Monday June 7

brought to you by Scrapping Servant

 

I missed last Monday because it was a pretty trying week.  I ended up in the ER again.   They ran some tests this time and determined that is it most likely my gallbladder.  I go in for an ultrasound on Tuesday to confirm.  I will likely need to have it removed.  The hardest thing this last week is learning to eat differently.  The gallbladder breaks down fatty and greasy foods so when it isn't working properly, eating these foods sends you into an attack.  These attacks can be mild like heartburn and bloating, or severe like I feel.  I get a pain in my chest just below my sternum and also between my shoulder blades on my back that feels like a stabbing pressure.  They are so severe that when I visited the ER last they prescribed me narcotics for the pain.  Thanks to God and my husband's advice on food, I have not had to take them.

While I was curled up in bed awaiting the ambulance last week and crying out to God to make the pain stop my husband watched, helplessly.  Later that week he confided in me that it didn't seem a God would allow things like that, and cancer (another thing we might be facing right now), to happen to people.  I knew what he meant but it made me think about these pains.  If I wasn't writhing in pain worse than my un-medicated labor would I continue to eat those things that make me sick, even if I knew it was hurting my body?  Well, to be honest, yes, yes I would.  I am tempted to eat them now, knowing full well I will be in immense pain.  I don't think God did this to me.  I know I did this to myself with all the crap I put into my body.  I don't need pizza and chicken fried rice to survive.  But I do think that this is a blatant warning sign from God.  I gained weight, I had a very difficult pregnancy and birth, and I feel sluggish all the time but none of those things changed my habits.  This was enough, and possibly the only thing that would force me to take better care of my body.  I don't eat and eat and eat like some obese people do, but I also don't eat the best things either.  I love my pizza far too much.

I know God has something in mind for all this.  I'm starting to see it all now.  We'll see if it all works out the way I'm thinking it might.  There is another seemingly coincidental string of events that is starting to make more and more sense now too.   I'll explain that next time.  Until then, take the time to look at your life and find the way God is working in it.  You'll likely be surprised.