Easter

Our Easter Sunday started at the crack of dawn with a very excited RJ bursting into our room to tell us that the Easter Bunny had brought him a shirt! After the obligatory pictures with the Easter baskets for mom, the egg hunting started. D and G Man were running around the back yard passing up all of the "real" eggs and looking desperately for the plastic eggs that the Easter Bunny usually puts some spendable green in! Once I figured out what they were up to I put a 4 egg per person limit on the plastic eggs. That rule was met with groans from the older set - I'm so mean. RJ's egg hunt consisted of him trying to find all of the eggs that he had personally colored the night before. If he found an egg that didn't look familiar he would just put it back into place and walk away! We were trying to convince him that it didn't matter who colored the eggs because we were sharing but he wasn't having any of that. It was killing his brothers that he wasn't picking up the remaining plastic eggs. Here is a picture of the older two RUNNING for the plastic eggs.

By the way - the cash in the eggs totaled $8 for each kid so they were not searching for $50's or $100's! But you would have thought they were by the way they were moving.

Here are a couple of pics from the egg coloring party on Saturday night. D and G Man were trying to be very artistic and RJ was death to most eggs that he touched. One of the eggs he dropped on the floor and the other he just plain squished as he was trying to reposition himself at the table - with the egg under his hand. In the picture he is pretending that he is crying - what a ham.

After church we had a BBQ with friends and family. We watched golf, talked, laughed and the kids hid and re-hid Easter eggs for each other all afternoon. What a privilege to be able to celebrate that Jesus is alive by going to church and then spending the day with our loved ones. God bless America!

Happy Birthday Sweet Audrey Girl

I have become entranced by this blog recently. The author is Angie Smith and the story starts with her 20 week ultra sound and the news that her baby will not live once she is born due to two fatal problems. I always feel a kinship with women who have lost a baby as I have lost two.

The second baby we lost was at 17 weeks and I was not sure I would recover from that loss ever. Our baby had some sort of heart problem but we never knew what. I know that I will see them someday and I secretly (or now not so secretly) I hope they are girls! If not, I will officially have that basketball team G has always dreamed of. Even though the last loss was 8 years ago this past March, it still hurts now and again. The regret of being too stubborn to find out what gender the baby was since we never did that with other babies is still with me.

Back to Angie...I have learned so much through her writing and I feel like she helped me understand or at least see in a different light the loss of a child. Even if you haven't lost a child I think her blog will touch you in some way. So today on her Audrey's 1st birthday, please honor Audrey by reading a little of Angie's blog and watching this video. Audrey was never supposed to take a breath but she lived for a little over 2 1/2 hours. A Kleenex warning definitely comes with this...


Sweet Audrey-Girl from angie smith on Vimeo.

Finally - It's A Girl!!!

Ok, so she doesn't really live with us, she lives in Ghana! We are sponsoring a child -a girl -from Ghana through Compassion International. I chose Ghana because of my friend Jen who has/is adopting children from Ghana. I was touched by her first hand description of the poverty in Ghana and also by how kind the people were to her when she was there. To follow her blog about adopting from Ghana click here. One of the reasons Jen chose Ghana was that her Great Uncle, Father Fran, was a missionary priest there. I had the privilege of knowing Father Fran when he came on visits to the states and the stories he told of the people of Ghana were always touching.

I would love to adopt a little girl and bring her home to live with us but then I would have to find another husband as my current husband feels that we are maxed out on our household child capacity! So, this is the best way I felt I could help out a child that needs it. Our child is Jennifer and she is the same age as RJ. Someday I will figure out how to post her picture but today I am not feeling very tech savvy. The people that I spoke to at Compassion International tell me that I can write letters and send gifts to Jennifer but my monthly sponsorship will be the greatest help of all to her. She will have clean water, food, medical care and an education. This is an area of the world that is hard hit by the AIDS epidemic and there are many children waiting for a sponsor. If you feel at all led, I would encourage you to visit the Compassion website for more information here. It costs less a month than most of us spend on Starbucks!

Consider Yourself Warned

If you see this kid driving around town you might wanna give him some space for now! D and I did his first driving lesson yesterday. The little kids were still in school and the high school had gotten out early after AIMS testing. I figured there was no time like the present. So we went for a short spin around the neighborhood.

We were in hysterics before he even fully backed out of the driveway! I wish I had the fore site to bring a video camera because it was priceless. There was lots of jerking going on - so much that I had to slurp down more of my half full glass of water or one of us was gonna get a bath! By the way this was not a even stick shift and I don't even want to imagine what that would have been like. We laughed our way through the neighborhood with D even confessing at one point that his dad and I make it look really easy! I was thinking about it this morning and decided that I am grateful to have that fun memory with D - there is only one first time driving and I got to be there. It occurred to me that as your children grow into teenagers they make less memories with you and more with their friends so I am going to cherish this one. We haven't laughed like that together for a while. Thanks D!

By the way - G - you will be taking over the driving lessons from here as I remember the N-O doctor telling us the other day that I should avoid any activities that cause a jarring motion of my neck or head! :)

Today's Giggle and More

First - today's giggle. I felt the need for a little pampering (and some callous removal) so I went for a mani/pedi this morning. I was listening to all of the chatter around me that I did not understand when I looked up from my manicure to see the manicurist's state license hanging close to me and then I saw it - her name was... En My Quach! I almost started laughing out loud. I started thinking that this lady was really lucky that she (probably) did not grow up in our country and go to grade school here! I am fairly certain that the pronunciation does not even come close to what went through my brain when I glanced at her name but it still made me smile.

On another note I have been meaning to post some cute pictures of D and me at the Rock and Worship Roadshow concert that we went to last Friday night. I was essentially his ride since the girls from his youth group didn't have room in their car for him but all of the kids were great to me and even tried to include me in their card games. The show was general admission - only $10 - so we stood in line for a few hours so we could get good seats. To pass the time the kids played card games I had never heard of and raced each other at sudoku puzzles. We had a great time and the music was incredible. I loved Addison Road and D's favorite was Hawk Nelson but 10th Avenue North, Jeremy Camp and Mercy Me weren't too shabby either!

Here we are!


Passing time playing cards.


Sudoku races!


More fun and the line.

Please Exit the Ride to Your Left...

...and remember to take all of your belongings with you. Yes, the ride is over! A visit with my N-O (Neuro-Ophthalmologist) yesterday brought us the medical answers we had been searching for - I had a stroke. There is lots of medical speak in the Radiologist's report from my CTA but what it breaks down to is that I have a Dissection in my ICA, which is my Internal Carotid Artery. The ICA is in your brain and not your neck. My N-O explained it to the strokes for idiots students yesterday as the two parts of my vessel separated and caused a 50 to 60% blockage in my ICA. That in turn caused some "turbulence" in my blood flow resulting in the stroke to my optic nerve. It is pretty rare and I am very blessed that the stroke went to my optic nerve and NOT to my brain. The N-O explained that if the stroke had gone to my brain there most likely would have been much more drastic results. So I never thought I would be thankful for my vision loss, but today I am extremely grateful. I still have the blockage so we are on alert for any stroke symptoms but the N-O believes that the ICA will heal itself in time and I will be able to ride roller coasters again before too long.

Thank you God for bringing the answers to my questions and showing the doctor what the cause of my problem was. Thank you for letting me know that I am not going to go blind and that I will still be able to drive, see my children's faces, see my husband's face, see my grand children's faces, scrapbook, put on makeup, do my hair and all of the other silly things that came to my mind over the past couple of days. Thank you for protecting my brain during my stroke and I ask protection over my ICA until it has completely healed. AMEN!

Roller Coasters

Ask my husband or kids and they will all tell you that I am a huge roller coaster fan. I am the first in line and the last to cry uncle. G Man is my roller coaster buddy - when the ride is over we run around and get in line again. D and G are good for one ride and they are done and RJ is still too short so he is undecided but G Man can always count on me to ride until we drop. I started writing about roller coasters this morning because I decided yesterday on my way home from the 5th doctor I have seen since December that I feel like I am on a roller coaster and for the first time in my life - I WANT OFF!

In the last update I gave, my Neurologist had found my only physical problem to be a B12 deficiency so we started B12 shots given to me lovingly my G every month. Up roller coaster. In a follow up visit with the Neurologist he decided that he was not altogether comfortable with the B12 diagnosis and suggested that I see a Neuro-Ophthalmologist and possibly get a spinal tap to completely rule out MS. I put this off for as long as I could until I had an afternoon of Vertigo. That scared me enough to call and make the appointment. Down roller coaster. So off to see my 4th doctor, the Neuro-Optho...she conducted a visual field test in which the results verified the loss of vision in my left eye and a slight loss starting in my right eye. After a couple of hours with her she informs us that she thinks I might have Glaucoma. Finally! A possible diagnosis that makes sense. When I got home I looked up Glaucoma on Wikipedia and there it was - a picture of how a person with Glaucoma sees and it looks like an exaggerated version of my vision. The N-O doctor schedules some more eye testing with yet another doctor (the 5th doc) and sends me on my way. When I left her office I had a strange sense of relief for someone that had just been told they might have a disease that is the second leading cause of blindness in the world! I was just glad to possibly finally have an answer. Up roller coaster.

To shorten this story (a little) the eye doctor visit yesterday ended with the doc telling me that he doesn't think I have Glaucoma. As a matter of fact, he doesn't see any physical reason in my eyes that I should have the vision loss that I have. He recommended tests on my brain at which time I informed him that I had already pretty much every test on my brain known to man - and some of them twice! He then told me that sometimes we have physical problems that cannot be explained medically. He said doctors don't really like that explanation any more than patients do. Down roller coaster.

It's not that I wanted to have Glaucoma, it's just that I wanted some answers. I am afraid that I will go blind and never know why. And there you have it.

I have a follow up appointment with the N-O doctor on Monday to see what she has to say about all of this. I am praying that she won't give up until we have some answers and can bring the ride to an end.