Humbled and Content

Tonight as I read blogs of my friends, I read things about contentment, emergency surgery, gardening, essential oils, Proverbs 31 women, and the list continues.  There are many many people on my subscription list from all over the world, all walks of life, and all stages of life.  I am so very thankful.

As I read about everyone's flower gardens, I allow myself to dream.  I dream of all the beautiful arrangements, flower and vegetable beds, and yard sale finds I hope to find in the future.  It truly is a blessing to visit everyone's blog to get such wonderful ideas of how I can redo the blank slate in our front yard, side yard with overgrown weeds, bushes, and trees, the enclosed back yard with the pool and deck.  I dream....

I want to start with my mail box.  I know this seems rather silly, but my mailbox in PA looked like this:

My mailbox here will resemble this with the Black-Eyed Susans, but a little different due to life circumstances.  We had to throw up a quick mail box, so we bought the materials locally, nothing decorative, but simple.  It filled the need.  So now, I'm looking at it as a blessing.  It is a basic box with wood to hold it up.  I've seen mailbox wraps to make it pretty with the changing seasons, so I'll consider those when I see them again.  I like Mary Englebrett designs, so we'll see if I can find something along that line. ;)  It will probably be a while before I do anything along that line because I wait until I can find it at the lowest price possible. :D

Along the front of our house is a lovely railing.  In some places it needs to be replaced, but it is simple and I love it.  

(The railing in the above picture along the front porch.)  

The railing pictured here shows what I mean.  It also shows the blank slate of the front yard.  We're going to have fun planting and watching things grow.  :0)

We'll replace the bad parts with new, repaint it and put up some window baskets.   The ones pictured below are the ones I'd like to put on the railing.

These are the ones from our PA house that we planted about 4 years ago.  

I'm excited to gradually get my flowers back and add to my collection.  For now, I look back at pictures from my flower beds in Pennsylvania.

For now, I am choosing to be content with empty whiskey barrels, no veggie garden, and the blank slate.  We are still getting doctors testing done, establishing ourselves in practices in the area and getting to know the seasons.  We're researching many things about the area too, with regard to flowers and growing, pest control and things like that.

I am humbled that so many folks have taken an interest in our daughter's story in God of Wonders Beyond Anything and Everything I Ever Knew or Understood and Resting on the Promises, in His Wings of Love.   We are currently in the midst of neurological testing, EEG, Neuro-Psychological testing, MRI/MRA and getting appointments for all those, as well as establishing ourselves with a new dentist.  Why all this testing?  Why now?  Well, in Pennsylvania we were told that once something came up, to pursue testing then.  We've had rudimentary testing done on her, but nothing extensive, giving us a picture of her brain.  So the Dr's down here in Georgia are using this opportunity to get all that done.  I'm thankful for that too.  Now we can see what's going on and if there is further treatment needed for her. There is no need to worry.  Nothing is "wrong" with her, we're just taking this opportunity to get all the testing done that we can so that we can get a better picture of her brain.

As for me, I had an MRI of my right knee done and found I have a complex tear in my miniscus, degraded cartilage (bone-on-bone), and arthritis.  The Dr plans to "clean house" addressing all the issues in one surgery.  The therapy is to just walk.  Wonder of all wonders, it's amazing!  The very thing I've been wanting to do for such a very long time, but can't due to this hurt knee, I can now do after my surgery.  Hooray!  Remind me of that when I am trying to get out of bed or a chair after my surgery and it hurts.  ;)

God has lessons for each one of us, on our own levels, adjusted to each of our own needs.  I am so very thankful He loves me to prune and grow me more for Him.  

God is Good!  

Blessings,

God of Wonders Beyond Anything and Everything I Ever Knew or Understood

A couple crashed computers ago, there was a story so real, so raw and filled with emotion that I had to save it.    You see, it happened on July 29, 1999.  And now that I think about it, my God saved me from looking back to relive that day in all the raw emotion that I had back then by crashing that computer. The story about the day our daughter died and was given back to us again.

The day was gorgeous, hot and sunny.  It had been 3 weeks since giving birth to my precious little boy and I really wanted to cool off for a bit in the swimming pool, so did my husband.  We packed all 3 of our children up to go to Grandpa's house where he and his wife had a pool.  We figured we'd swim for a little while with the kids, then  hop out to dry off for a bit, nurse the baby and head home to make dinner.

While we were sitting in the basement watching cartoons with the kids and laughing with Grandpa, Grandma got a phone call and our daughter followed her upstairs to the kitchen.  She sat at the counter playing with some cups while Grandma was on the phone.  When Grandma got off the phone, she turned around and HJ was gone.  She came downstairs to ask if we'd seen her and we didn't.  Each of us split up to find her.  I went to the lower basement with DA, then 3 and JL 3 weeks.  The moment my feet hit the lower basement floor, I knew she was in the swimming pool.  I told DA to follow me and he did.  I went out to find my husband in the pool going toward my daughter's lifeless body floating face down in the pool with just her diaper on.  My Dad was on the side of the pool ready for my husband to hand her to him.  Since both my Dad and husband have had CPR and Rescue Breathing and they were first on the scene, I knew I had to call and ambulance.  I still had the baby in my arms, but I needed to get DA away from the scene.  I asked my step-mother to keep DA out of the pool area and she tried to do that, but was so upset she couldn't think straight.

I called the ambulance and handed the baby off to her so she could hold him and keep DA away from the pool.  After getting off the phone, I went out to check on things and she was breathing again after about 45 seconds of CPR and Rescue Breathing, but she was shaking and her pupils were very very tiny.  We knew she was going in to shock, so I asked my step-mother to bring us some blankets.  Not having had First Aid or how to treat shock, she was more out of it than I thought she would be and had to explain to her what was going on.  At that time, my Dad took out his anointing oil and prayed over her for God to restore her.

When I heard the ambulance, I ran out to stand in the middle of the road to flag them.  They asked me if it was ok if they went across the grass.  I told them, "I don't care about the grass!  Right now my daughter's life is in the balance!"  They put the oxygen mask on her face and she started screaming.  I was right by her ear when that happened and whispered in her ear, "Leave the mask on honey, but you can cry and scream all you want to.  This mask has medicine in it to help you feel better."  They took a report about what happened and whisked her and my husband off to the hospital.  By this time, prayer chains all over the place were activated by loving people who didn't know what else to do for us, but just pray.  A couple days after we arrived back home, we found out that one lady saw angels carrying the ambulance that took our daughter to Youngstown, Ohio.  We heard report after report of people praying for us and our precious daughter.  When God's people pray, God hears them!  Angels were everywhere and at every turn in the process of our journey.

From the pool side to the local hospital, we prayed.  Then Dad realized he forgot to pray for something when he prayed over her, so he took his oil and anointed her in the ER before the Pediatric EMT's took her.  He asked for God's "complete" restoration and healing of her entire mind, body and spirit.  It wasn't until 6 months later when we found out that when she was dead, Jesus was standing there beside all of us holding her.  She asked Jesus to let her go back to her Mommy and Daddy.  I remember leaning over her little body saying to God, "I don't care what it takes, God, just give me back my precious baby girl."

The worst thing in the world next to seeing your child's lifeless body floating face down in a pool, is having to let them go in an ambulance without you because of all the technology they had to bring along with them in the ambulance.  They only had room for the 2 people and the gurney she was on.  I cried.  As we stood outside the ER watching the ambulance drive away with our little girl, I held up my hand and pleaded with God to go with her and be with her when we couldn't.

I don't think I'll ever fully comprehend all that God did that night, but my husband called his parents to come and get our oldest son while I got ready for one of the hardest times of my life--Children's Hospital.  We went on auto pilot.

We packed all that we could think of that we would need.  The thought never crossed our mind to bring clothes for our daughter at that time.  I don't know what we were thinking, but God took care of the details for us.  He was already there--2 hours drive away with the doctors and nurses, waiting for us, helping us and taking care of us.

When we arrived at the hospital, we brought the baby with us and told the staff that he was exclusively nursing and there wasn't any way we were going to be without him there.  He was such a good baby who would nurse, then sleep for 4 hours at a time.  What a totally God thing to do!  When he slept, we cared for our daughter.  The first night was the most excruciating.  The staff told us we could go down the hall outside the PICU and there was a vacant room where we could sleep.  Sleep...huh!  What an interesting concept.  I tried sleeping, but every time I closed my eyes, her lifeless body floating in the pool was there.  So, I got up and relieved my husband at 2:30AM.  I went in watched all the probes and tubes they had connected to her.  Then she started waking up.  I called the nurse and she said she'd been waiting for that time to happen.  That was when they needed to give her the amnesiac so she wouldn't remember anything that happened to her.  I thought, "Oh praise God!  She doesn't need to remember any of this!"  But, there was the night terrors for 6 months until she could verbalize who "the man" was.

The first morning, we found out that the Ronald McDonald House next to the hospital had room for us, so when our daughter was sleeping, we went over to tour the place, get the information we needed, then hubby left me and JL there to rest while he went to the hospital to be by HJ's side if she woke up.  Within a half an hour, she had woken up, sat straight up in her bed and while looking at her Daddy said, "Daddy, I want to go home!" as clear as a bell, then laid back down to sleep.[Up to this point, she was only saying one word at a time for things she wanted.  Like "Juice" or "Milk"]  Of course,  my husband called me to tell me.  I was too excited to sleep and packed me and the baby and all his things up to go back to the hospital.  I sat there with her sleeping when JL started to stir and needed to nurse and have his diaper changed.  She also started to stir because she heard "the baby".  She loved her baby brother so much too, so it was easy for her to rouse at the thought of lovin' on her baby brother.  While sitting next to her crib with super high bars for their sides, I nursed JL and spoke to her.   She asked me, "Baby having *num-nums* Mommy?"  I said, "Yes sweet girl, now you lay still and get better so we can go home."  Her sweet little voice said, "Ok Mommy.  I wubs you!"  "I love you so very much baby girl!"  She reached her little hand through the metal spindles and held my hand while I nursed her baby brother and cried tears of joy while praying for both of my little ones, as well as my older one who was with his grandparents.

...to be continued...

Here--Resting on the Promises, In His Wings of Love

The Effects of Television...on a Child with an Injured Brain

One of the things I gave my husband for Christmas this year was a Netflix subscription.  We hadn't had satellite or cable TV in the house for 4 years, so I figured this would be a good thing to help him unwind after work.  After discussing it with him, we decided to get a 1 month trial membership.  We saw how many shows were from the History and Discovery channels, which we really enjoyed when we had satellite TV, so we decided to keep Netflix.  The educational shows on there were wonderful!

One of the shows, Burn Notice, my husband especially enjoyed so we watched it.  Little did I know the effect of the female character in this show on my daughter.  The character Fiona is very trim and muscular.  She is able to fix anything mechanically and built bombs for the "team" and their various needs.  She fights at the drop of a hat and exudes strength for her small frame, doesn't want children, doesn't know what to do around children and with them.

This character and similar types in each show we watched has had a draw for my daughter.  My sons were not phased by the shows like my daughter was.  She had taken part of the character upon herself and made it her reality.  The more I observed her reactions to those types of female characters, the more I noticed a common thread.  When reflecting upon situations in the past with doing drama through our home school group, I noticed this same pattern.  She lived the characters.  She lost herself.  She became someone she wasn't, until we realized what was going on and shut those types of shows down.

I can say that I am ultra vigilant now with the TV we watch for this reason.  And, for now, she will not be participating in drama.  She looses herself in her character and cannot draw the line to differentiate between pretend and reality.

She is 14, however, she has had an experience most of us haven't in that she drowned when she was 22 months old.  We don't know how long her brain was without oxygen.  We are still finding out the variety of ways her drowning has affected her brain.  One of those things that is hidden and the entire depth and breadth of the injury truly isn't fully known until situations arise.  I posted a couple days ago about her bedroom.  This has been a battle [for me] for years.  It isn't disobedience for her to go in to her room to clean and actually clean, but get so overwhelmed by everything that she shuts down.  I did not understand why she couldn't go in and just simply clean her room.  I would give her lists, breaking everything down for her to do, but by item #3 it was overwhelming to her and she shut down.  So now, I'm trying to give her specific things to clean up, then report back to me.  I'm finding that the FLYlady way of doing this is very helpful for her.  I give her 15 minutes to do two things like make her bed and care for her clothes whether dirty or clean and needing put away.   After writing the last sentence, I called her downstairs (away from the room where she could be overwhelmed at this time to purposely remove her from the source of her overwhelming feelings), to see what she's been doing.  I gave her "re" direction--declutter her top 2 drawers, put the stuff she decluttered in the give away bag, finish her hair, then come see me.  This seems to be working for now.  It gets small increments done, takes a little bit longer to do, but it needs to be done.

As I look at my daughter now, I thank God for her life.  He's placed her here and saved her life for a reason.  I pray for her future husband--that he would be kind and understanding, coming along side her and love her in spite of her brain injury and understand about her need for medication to help control her ADHD, but that it does not cure it, so for now, it would be a lifelong thing she would have to take.  Please join me in prayer on her behalf.

She is holding a reticulating python at the Creation Museum in this picture.  If you can't tell, she absolutely loved this!