So I am asking for y'all to say a prayer again.....

♥So today at the OB appointment Valarie was told that baby Evelyn (I still want Olivia) has a Choroid plexus cyst. Now, this may well be nothing (which I believe) or it may mean that baby Evelyn has Down Syndrome. Some babies with Trisomy 18 (genetic condition that causes Down Syndrome) have one or more of these cysts; however, many other babies have these cysts and have nothing wrong AND there are many babies with Down Syndrome that have NONE of these cysts. I believe that will be the case with Evelyn. She didn't say anything about any other abnormalities like with her heart or with her hands or feet which are usually deformed with Down Syndrome. Valarie will undergo another ultrasound in a couple of weeks. I assume this is to look for other signs of Down Syndrome. If Evelyn has this condition, we will just deal with it. Many people with this are highly functioning and able to live independently. Some are not. We will not speculate that she has it until we know she does. And if she does, she will be loved. And if she does not, she will be loved.

You can Google Choroid plexus cyst if you would like more information.

Wikipedia says:

Choroid plexus cysts (CPCs) are cysts that occur within choroid plexus of the brain. The brain contains pockets or spaces called ventricles with a spongy layer of cells and blood vessels called the choroid plexus. This is in the middle of the fetal brain. The choroid plexus has the important function of producing a fluid called cerebrospinal fluid. The fluid produced by the cells of the choroid plexus fills the ventricles and then flows around the brain and the spinal cord to provide a cushion of fluid around these structures.

CPCs can form within this structure and come from fluid trapped within this spongy layer of cells, much like a soap bubble or a blister. CPCs are often called "soft signs" or fetal ultrasound "markers" because some studies have found a weak association between CPCs and fetal chromosome abnormalities.

It is believed that many adults have one or more tiny CPCs.^[1] CPCs have no impact on an individual's health or development or learning. The fetal brain may create these cysts as a normal part of development. They are temporary and usually are gone by the 32nd week of pregnancy.

I would ask that you say a prayer for Valarie, Brandon and baby Evelyn. Please ask for calming and comfort for Valarie. She worries more than I do. She has cried over half of the day. Her nerves are shot.

That still, small voice that I know to be God still says "trust Me" and I do. I will trust in Him for as long as I have the ability to do so.

Psalm 46:10
Be still, and know that I [am] God: I will be exalted among the heathen, I will be exalted in the earth

	Jeremiah 29:11 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.

These verses give me peace. I love the Psalms. I love the Lord.

I love y'all.
To be continued...........

Sharing

Today I was able to share without too many tears part of our journey with someone who is just beginning on a journey of her own. I was able to tell her about parts of our journey and how our journey started and how it affected us. She is not the one facing the actual cancer but it is a close relative of hers. I can tell how much her heart aches. And how similar parts of our journeys are....the effects of the steroids for one. The lack of sleep for another....I hope with all my heart that the radiation and chemo (her family member is a candidate) will give them much, much more precious time. One thing cancer does for you is makes you realize how very precious time with those we love is. When we are faced with the prospects of never ever having another second to spend with them, we wish with all our hearts that things would be different. We try to bargain with God for more time.....we get mad at God for "doing this to us" then we realize that He didn't "do this to us" ....it is just something that happens. We just are not meant to understand it yet. Maybe it is meant to show us how strong we can be. Maybe it is meant to test our faith in Him. Will you still love Him as much if He takes the love of your life? Have you ever thought about that? How would you deal with the loss of your husband or wife or best friend or parent or child? Would you blame God? Would you still love Him? Would you still follow Him? When I lost my first baby, I questioned God, got mad at Him, and had so much guilt because of it. How could He take that child from me? It was so difficult. But a dear sweet co-worker at the time helped me figure out some things....the very things I am trying to portray here. These things happen to everyone. It is not that we have to deal with the grief but how we deal with it that matters.

Ours is not to ask why, really. As hard as that is, it is true. And I have asked and asked. Can't help it, I am human! But I get the same answer. I have told you before. That still, small voice I can hear in my heart (you can hear Him too if you but listen--not with a natural ear but the ear of your heart) that I know to be God says 'trust Me'. And I still do. And I will forever.

Please keep your friends, neighbors, family members in your prayers. Everyone needs the prayers of those they love. Everyone.

I love y'all.
To be continued...........

Rick's last hours at home were one year ago today

1)
A LOVED ONE KNEW HE'D REACHED THE END OF LIFE'S JOURNEY,
BUT HE'D BEEN HOLDING TO GOD'S HAND A LONG, LONG TIME
AND AS I KNELT BESIDE HIS BED,
MY HEART WAS THRILLED AT WHAT HE SAID,"
IF I GO, OR IF I STAY, THE VICTORY IS MINE."

2)
NONE OF US REALLY KNOWS ABOUT TOMORROW,
WE MUST PREPARE TO GO TO HEAVEN ANYDAY
BUT WHILE WE'RE HERE LET'S TRUST THE LORD,
HE'LL LEAD US SAFE TO OUR REWARD
AND BY HIS GRACE, WE'LL BE A WINNER EITHER WAY

CHORUS)
I'M A WINNER EITHER WAY, IF I GO OR IF I STAY
FOR I'LL STILL HAVE MY JESUS EACH PASSING DAY
I'LL HAVE MY HEALING HERE BELOW, OR LIFE FOREVER IF I GO
OH PRAISE THE LORD, I'M A WINNER EITHER WAY.

Today marks the first anniversary of the last time Rick was here in our home. He went to the hospital around 5:30 pm I believe and never was well enough to return. This is a very, very emotional day for us. We will always love and miss him as will our friends and our family. This was his song, even before he got sick, but the last time he was at church he testified about this very thing and he was OK with whatever the Lord had in store for him. And while this man sings this song very well, no one will ever sing it like Noots. Noots sang it for him the night he passed away and at his funeral. We will never forget it!

We will never forget and always be grateful for our family, friends, and neighbors who were there for us all during his illness. We will never forget the response to our 911 call for help and how quickly that help arrived.

I love y'all.
To be continued........

Can't help but think........

Looking back over the past fourteen months, I have to wonder why did this have to happen to us. And then when I do that, that still small voice comes to me and says "trust Me" and I have to! I do trust Him with all my heart. It is when I am thinking about me that I wonder. Out of our 25 years together we went through some very rocky patches and some very wonderful times as well. There were times when I wondered what was I thinking and then there were times (more often than not) that I was so grateful that I had him in my life. One year ago tonight was the last time we went out to eat together. I felt so bad for him. We went to Cheddars, we had only discovered it about a month before he got sick. He ordered the baked spaghetti thing they have, thinking he would be able to eat it. He couldn't really eat it for some reason. They felt bad and thought it was the food, it wasn't. The waitress brought him something else, a chicken dish I think, and he couldn't eat that either. We went on home. Out at Warren East at the light at 68-80 a car ran the red light and he hit them. He was not injured. After all the hoop-la from that, we went home. He coughed a lot later that night, and I thought his breath was short, but he said he was fine. I had a sinking feeling, but he would hear nothing of it. I had to work on Friday, and went down to radiation medicine because he had a treatment that morning to tell them I was worried about him. They listened to me, but when he came in he told them he was fine. Little did we know that would be his last treatment.

On Saturday January 23 I heard him cough a lot during the early morning. He seemed to be sleeping which was a rare thing with the steroids. I let him sleep. After he woke, he was so very much weaker than he had been. He was coughing so bad and obviously short of breath. I convinced him to go see the doctor. The doctor thought like I did that he had pneumonia. And he probably did. He sent us home after a shot and a prescription for an antibiotic. Later that day after much pleading and using up a whole oxygen tank, I convinced him to go to the emergency room. That would be our last day at home together. At least we were able to spend it together. Had he not gone to the ER that night with his oxygen level being so very low, I do not believe he would have survived the night. I often wonder if I did the right thing. He suffered those last 6 weeks. We spent them together. Every day. And I miss him. Every day. And I wonder what if about so many things. What if we had noticed the forgetfulness sooner and what if he had the bone marrow test would it have pointed to cancer and would it have been in a stage that could be cured?

Brother Joe (one of the hospital chaplains) told me how strong I was. I told him I am weak. He just smiled and said he knew better. He was right there for us the whole journey, even on his days off. He is still there for us as are my co-workers and especially our friends and neighbors. Brother Britt (the other chaplain) told me "you took your vows to heart-- in sickness and in health 'til death us do part".......you stayed right with him and helped to do what was best 'til the very end.

Jeremiah 29:11 "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."

I do not believe for an instant that what happened to us was in any was meant to harm either of us. Rick had a better place to go. I will join him when my time comes. I do hope when that day does come, I can meet it with the same strength and faith he had.

And from the book of Daniel Chapter 1 through 3 about Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego and their amazing faith to trust God no matter what. It is a long passage and I won't post it here tonight (I have posted most of it in the past) but if you would like to read it, copy and paste the names here to your URL above and search and you can read about their amazing faith. I do trust God. I just wish I had a fraction of their faith! They had the faith to trust God enough to face the fiery furnace believing that God would protect them. And He did and what the King witnessed converted him as well. The journey we faced was difficult. And I don't know the why of it, but I do know my sweet Lord has a plan and His part of it for me will be revealed to me in His time. And though I am human and I forget to trust Him sometimes, He is still there ready and waiting to help me in the way He knows is best.

Much sickness and hardship in our land. Many of our friends and neighbors have critical illnesses in their homes and / or loss of loved ones in the past year as well. Lets all try to remember our neighbors friends and family in our prayers on a daily basis. Lets make a vow to pray every evening before we go to sleep and every morning when we wake and if we can't say anything else, lets say "thank you Lord for your blessings on me" and ask for Him to bestow blessings on those we love.

I love y'all.
To be continued.............

Come on Spring!

So, I am looking forward to spring arriving! But there are many mixed feelings about it. March 6, which is technically still winter, though around here the weather has begun to warm and though we have had some of our most intense ice storms in March, most of the time spring has arrived. The "March Lillies" aka jonquils or daffodils have begun to bloom, crocus has bloomed, grape hyacinths have bloomed. The snowball bush has budded and begins to get heavy with pods. Forsythia has begun to show itself....all signs of the "life" yet to come. But March has dread with it as well for March 6 is the day we lost Rick. He would have his potatoes in the ground as early in March as he could. He loved his garden. One time, he went to the Amish and bought corn already sprouted in a tray and planted it just to "get" Norman. Rick, Bobbie Joe and Norman has an unspoken contest as to who could get the first tomato and the first corn. They would take their "firsts" to the others to show off. The year he got the corn, it was about 4 or 5 inches high and Norman came by on his 4 wheeler and went straight up to the store. He told Keith, "I said that Ricky done has corn this high" measuring for Keith with his hands. We laughed and laughed over that. Rick did fess up about it though. So maybe this year with the one year anniversary of Rick's death, maybe I can start to heal. If not, then bear with me (or don't I'm gonna do what is best for me). And maybe facing these things and remembering the good times will help!

Last winter and this one as well have been colder than most and more snow than most. I had forgotten how much snow we can have in a season! And they say we have global warming. I don't see it! I miss my 45 degree January days! Most of my life the winter is mild enough I don't have to drag out that stupid coat (sorry coat). I hate to be confined by a coat. I'd rather have a light jacket or sweater. Humm. Come on warmer temps! I am equally as sure when the heat comes in July and August we will be missing some cooler days as we have now! Last January and February, we had lots of snow. Rick was in the hospital and I was with him. Robbie and Connie took me home so I could shower and change more than once because of the snow! I don't know what we would have done without our friends!

This year spring will arrive Saturday, March 20, at approximately midnight is the official first day of spring for 2010 in the Northern Hemisphere (Vernal Equinox).

A little geography lesson:
In spring, the axis of the Earth is increasing its tilt toward the Sun and the length of daylight rapidly increases for the relevant hemisphere. The hemisphere begins to warm significantly causing new plant growth to "spring forth," giving the season its name. Snow, if a normal part of winter, begins to melt, and streams swell with runoff. Frosts, if a normal part of winter, become less severe. Temperate climates have no snow and rare frosts, the air and ground temperature increases more rapidly. Many flowering plants bloom this time of year, in a long succession sometimes beginning even if snow is still on the ground, continuing into early summer. In normally snowless areas "spring" may begin as early as February (Northern Hemisphere) heralded by the blooming of deciduous magnolias, cherries, and quince.

I hope y'all have a great rest of the week and a fabulous weekend coming up! Remember your friends and neighbors in your prayers. Please do pray. They sang a song tonight at prayer meeting about I Want My Lord to be Satisfied With Me and if I had to answer that as a question right now, I would have to say he would not be satisfied with me, but I know what I need to do to get to the point where He would be!

I could thank God every second of every minute of every hour of every day and still I would not have thanked Him enough for all His many blessings.

I will leave you with this tonight:

  So Much To Thank Him For

1)
When I look around and see,
the good things, He's done for me,
I know, I'm unworthy of them all.
But His blessings, He freely gives,
I owe my life to Him,
I've got so much to thank Him for.

CHO:
I've got so much to thank Him for,
so much to praise Him for,
you see, He's been so good to me.
And when I think of all He's done,
and where He's brought me from,
I've got so much to thank Him for.

2)
And each day, while I'm on my way,
I kneel, I just stop to say,
thank you. For all you've done for me.
And some day when I reach heaven's shore,
oh please let me kneel once more,
I've got so much to thank Him for.
repeat chorus

I love y'all!

To be continued..............

Today has not been an easy day for me. I haven't felt well all day, just so fatigued! I also have a strange heaviness of my chest and arms with a little shortness of breath. I also feel like I can feel my heart beating, not too fast, but I feel like I am aware of it beating which is a bit unusual. It feels regular though. My pulse is only in the mid 80's so that is fine. Also, I doze off sometimes and wake with a startle and think briefly that Rick should be home by now then I remember. I think all these things together make me believe this is all stress/anxiety related. So I treated myself with my Xanax. Hopefully I will feel better in the morning. And before you go getting all worried, I had these same symptoms back in July or so and actually went to Dr. Phillips who checked me over including a chest xray and EKG and everything was fine. He felt it was anxiety and gave me the Xanax. I took it for a while when I wasn't working and it seemed to help. I took one tonight. We will see! It seems the closer we get to January 23, the more frequently these symptoms occur. I called his phone today just to hear his voice. I may never turn off his phone. Is that bad? I don't think so.

When I try to talk to my kids about these things, I cry which makes them, especially Nick, uncomfortable. He tells me not to think about it. I see his point in a way, but I can't help it! He was my husband. How can you spend decades with someone and go through "life" with them and not think about them when they are gone? I just still miss him so much.

Remember this blog is for my feelings, and not to generate sympathy in any way. It is an outlet for me so these "not feeling well" episodes might go away!

Made some pretty good beef stew for supper. Rick would have liked it! Meat and taters! It was much better than Dinty Moore! We also had Sister Schubert rolls with it. I love those things! They are the "cat's meow!"

Please remember your friends and neighbors and all the people who have critically ill loved ones and the people who have lost family. They need your prayers. Prayer works.

"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." Jeramiah 29:11

I love y'all.
To be continued..............

Random pictures and thoughts

This is a picture of Tobi and Perry Dale from last fall. She is two and he is one in the picture.



This is a picture of me and my brother, Greg. There are 13 months between us. In this picture, I am about two and he is about one. Do you see any similarities? I did not like my brother any more than Tobi likes hers! My neighbor came to check on us the day they brought him home because he could hear me crying from a few hundred yards away!

This is a picture taken by my friend Tonya this winter of our church. It's "real" name is Pleasant Grove Missionary Baptist Church. Folks around here just call it "Miller Hill." And that is how you would find it if you stopped to ask directions. This was our weekend to have church and I had to work. I really don't like working weekends anyway, but when it interferes with church, then I really don't like it! But there is not much else I can do! Gotta work! I talked to Sandy this evening on the way home. I missed two really good services! :( for me, :) for them! And April said Fairview had 3 or 4 people get saved at their service today! And Ashley missed an ordination of her brother-in-law as deacon at her church today. I have many relatives burried at Fairview. My dad's family is all there. Many cousins, grandparents, great-grandparents, uncles, aunts......friends. Their services are the same weekend as ours.

And this is a picture of my mother-in-law whom I never knew. Rick's sister, Teresa is with her. She was speaking of this "white uniform" on Friday while we were waiting for Donna's test to be over. She said she really didn't like to wear it. I understand! That is all I could wear to work the first 3 or 4 years as a nurse. I remember when we first started to wear color scrubs. They were midnight blue. We thought we were so cool! CCU had their own color. Then a few years later I moved to Massachusetts and could wear any color scrubs I wanted to. The only rule was clean and neat with no obscene logo's! Some rules! I would have loved to have known Lorene. If she was as sweet as her sisters (and I have heard she was) I know I would have loved her! She passed away in the 1970's when Donna was fairly small from complications of an intracranial hemorrhage (if you remember, when we first discovered something was wrong with Rick I took him to the ER because of this history).

In less than a month it will be St. Valentines Day. Thought you might enjoy a short history lesson:

Saint Valentine's Day (commonly shortened to Valentine's Day) is an annual commemoration held on February 14 celebrating love and affection between intimate companions. The day is named after one or more early Christian martyrs named Valentine and was established by Pope Gelasius I in 500 AD. It was deleted from the Roman calendar of saints in 1969 by Pope Paul VI, but its religious observance is still permitted. It is traditionally a day on which lovers express their love for each other by presenting flowers, offering confectionery, and sending greeting cards (known as "valentines"). The day first became associated with romantic love in the circle of Geoffrey Chaucer in the High Middle Ages, when the tradition of courtly love flourished.

Modern Valentine's Day symbols include the heart-shaped outline, doves, and the figure of the winged Cupid. Since the 19th century, handwritten valentines have largely given way to mass-produced greeting cards.
Please Wikipedia Easter for the references used. This is a copy and paste of a Wikipedia post!

And in about 3 months it will be Easter!

I leave you with this tonight!

John 3:16 (King James Version)

¹⁶For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

I love y'all!
To be continued.............