Dear friends,
It has been a very interesting week. Greg began getting a very sore throat on Thursday last week. I gave him all of my home remedies and teas and Airborne, etc. He still got sick. It turned into a messy case of pink eye and his eye swelled shut. Now he is on meds for that and has added in a cough. He is sleeping better now that we have cough syrup for him. Others at the office have been dealing with this for weeks, so we are praying and hoping it gets better more quickly than that.
Last Thursday Jenni got her wisdom teeth out- fortunately only 3. So I was on the end of bringing someone home from surgery instead of being the one brought home. It is hard work caring for someone. Jenni has done well and began eating less soft food yesterday, and moved back toward a more normal diet. That is very helpful. I was running out of soft ideas!
Then on Tuesday I signed up to take a meal to a person in Greg's department who broke her ankle and had to have surgery on it. I was so excited to take food to someone like others had brought food to us those dozens of times. So I got it cooked and set out to deliver it to their house about 15 minutes from here. I had directions and a flashlight to be able to see them, and knew generally where I was going. Well...
In the dark, the road turned, a bus was ahead of me, lanes shifted to the right, but because of the snow and me making sure the bus had plenty of room, all of a sudden, "BOOM!" I had hit the curb in the median that started there. I knew the tire was blown- at least the front left one, maybe both left ones. Also the windshield cracked from top to bottom. I limped to where I could pull off, called Greg and the kids who came with the truck to help me. Remember that Greg is sick and it is 20 degrees outside. So he got the idea to take the tire off and go to Costco, not too far away and get a new tire. We did that and since we had gotten the tire from there initially, we got a new one for $47. They put it on the bent wheel and we drove the car home after going back to where we'd left it and putting the new tire on. Ironically 2 strange noises the car was making have stopped since. When we can afford it we will get a new wheel and the alignment checked. It is a praise that I didn't get hurt or hit anyone or anything else. I got to deliver the meal while my family got the tire off. And hopefully I didn't total the car. We will know more of the story after getting the car checked all over.
I have a prayer request. We have chosen to put our retirement money into rental property in Denver. One of our renters is $6500 behind on rent and we would like to invite you to join us in praying that they can get caught up with their rent so they won't have to move. This situation is making it hard for us to pay our bills for the first time in our lives. They asked for prayer for a job interview for the husband. He has been out of a job for several months. He interviews possibly today. It would be fantastic for him to find something so they can get caught up. Thanks for praying for David.
Also, I saw breast surgeon Dr. Stephanie Moline today. She was absolutely excellent. She is having me try going off one of my meds for 2 weeks to see if all my joint pain lets up. I have been so sore that getting up and moving just hurts all the time. I began to wonder if there is bone cancer happening or something like that. Switching meds is much easier than checking for bone cancer and I think that is a great idea. Bone achiness is one of the side effects for some people.
And she said with an MRI she can tell if what I have going on my left chest wall is scar tissue or not, as there is a blood supply with cancer and not with scar tissue. And she has the same kind of test results from Denver so she can compare. She spent 45 minutes with me and talked clearly and told me enough for me to know that she totally understands my situation with the kind of cancer I had (twice) and that it is hard to track and doesn't make a lump- it spreads. So she was very smart and thinking clearly and also was good at listening and asking and answering questions. I felt that I was given a gift to be given her as my breast surgeon referral. She will do the MRI sometime soon. If things look clear of cancer, she will just keep short tabs on me. She said she had been looking forward to meeting me after talking to my oncologist so she could see the questionable lumpiness for herself. Once she examined it, she totally understood why we are concerned about it. Something about having a woman breast surgeon makes the communication easier for me. At least this one and the one I had in Denver have both been excellent matches for me. I am thanking God for this connection. She really did understand that the last thing I want to do is another surgery after so many last year. I am glad she has ideas to try before doing that.
But she will be honest with me too, however the test results come out.
I saw a few doctors last week too. I was screen for skin cancer and that was an "all clear." I saw my shoulder surgeon for a followup and he I am doing extremely well. He is encouraged and will check in with me again in a few more months. My physical therapist has me coming one time a week now and I do about 1 1/2 workouts a day at home. I had to back off some because I was hurting myself by exercising too much. Now we seem to have a good balance. I am steadily getting strength back in my shoulder.
I also saw my integrative medicine doctor. He went over bloodwork I had done in December. It shows some things going on with my liver that could indicate trouble, so we are going to recheck those liver numbers toward the end of February to see if they have changed. Want to hear some thing exciting? From Sept. to Dec., my colesterol went from 313 to 212! He asked me what I had done, but I really haven't changed anything. Stress is the biggest factor that has decreased that we can think of. So you can join me in praying for those labs to improve in the next several weeks. Thanks.
I hope you are having a great 2008 so far. I am finally getting into the habit of writing '08 on things. I hope you have more sun than we do here. Jenni is getting tired of it. She goes back to Grove City on Sunday. She just got a letter congratulating her for making the Dean's List for having above a 3.75. So she is pretty happy about that.
Well, this is much too long, so thank you for hanging in there is you got all the way to here! God bless you ! Nancy Fritz
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