Wedding #2 - also beautiful!!

Our Thanksgiving weekend was somewhat different this year, but what a way to give thanks! Christopher and Corinne's wedding was a beautiful testimony of God's faithfulness and grace, and it gave honour and glory to their Saviour! What a joy to witness their vows and share this precious moment with them.

We hosted the rehearsal dinner on Friday, a full turkey dinner with all the trimmings! It was a challenge, but thanks to all the help from my family and friends, it was a wonderful evening. Then Saturday was, of course, the wedding day. Sunday we shared with family and friends again, but this time with Chinese food and a good movie to laugh at! And today has just been a lovely day of relaxing! The kids made it safely to their honeymoon destination, my family has gone home, so it's quiet in the house, but that's okay. There's lots to be done, but it will have to wait! Now and then I still need to watch how far I push things, and today was a good day to just take it easy!

Tomorrow I am going back to Vancouver to GF Strong for a follow up appointment with the doctor and physiotherapist. I'm looking forward to their evaluation of where I am at now, and where we go from here. It feels like this is almost the start of a new year, a new phase of settling in. The weddings are over, and now we all need to learn to live in our new normal again. I know I need to start developing a better routine, and get back to working on my endurance and stamina. I'd also like to get back to my music history course, so much is to be done.

Onward and upward!

Wedding Countdown...#2!

I can't even begin to explain how wonderful the past few months have been! And now we have the joy of seeing Christopher and Corinne join their lives together as man and wife this coming Saturday! We have been helping out in Christopher's house to get it ready for Corinne to move into. He has totally redone all the kitchen cabinets, the floor, one bedroom and built a bed! It's been wonderful to see the two of them working together on this project in such harmony. We also had the privilege of celebrating Chris' birthday with his future in-laws and their whole family. They are a generous, loving bunch!! I'm so thankful for all the blessings that we are experiencing - forgive me if I sound like a broken record, but I just feel so overwhelmed by all the goodness around us at this time!

One interesting side note: today I visited the office of the Prince George Brain Injured Group (PG BIG) and will be attending sessions there to learn coping mechanisms for the problems that I am now encountering. As wonderful as it is to have most of my physical abilities back, enough to do the basic things I need at least, there are times that both Ben and I have noticed that I don't always process things correctly. I often find myself not managing my time well, or my perception of how much time/effort I need to do something is unrealistic. There are a few other things that we have noticed as well, and that is why I am seeking help for that. What I found out in my initial interview was very enlightening! There are many other things which I thought were unrelated, or 'had written off' as a result of the nerve damage or bad habits developing, that are actually caused by the brain injury!  So that was good! I am looking forward to learning much more!

This week is going to be wonderful, I know, and I'm looking forward to sharing it with family and friends. I'm not sure what I'll do when this is all over, but I'm sure I'll think of something! Oh, I almost forgot...I recently spoke to the office of the doctor who will be doing my eye surgery, and they hope to have a date for the surgery before Christmas! That is such an answer to prayer!!

So keep checking back - I'll post more pictures as soon as I can! Hope your week is as wonderful as mine will be!!

Surgery is done!

PTL everything went very well! I am done with the abdominal surgery (aka tummy tuck!) for the repair of the scar on my stomach from the accident last year. I am SO incredibly thankful for how well it all went and that I had no nausea coming out of the surgery! There is some discomfort (read: it hurts something awful to cough!) but for the most part, I feel really good! So for the next couple of weeks, I'll be trying to hold things down to a dull roar before we have another wedding! It's coming up so fast! Christopher and Corinne will be married October 9th, and we can hardly wait for wedding number 2 this year! Jason and Dani are settling down to happily married life, and C & C will soon be there! Aaron is working hard at his studies in computer technician training, and Ben is currently in Ottawa for a training course for his new position. Change seems to be the constant denominator for us this year! But it's all so good, and we just have to be thankful that we are here to experience these changes!

I am staying with my sister for these weeks of recuperation, and I'd just like to say another MAJOR Thank You to my whole family, immediate and extended, for their love, care, and support for all of us, but especially me. There is no way that we could be where we are without you!

I wish I had some major spiritual wisdom to share with you but right now my heart is just thankful! So please join me in being incredibly thankful for all the joys we are allowed to experience every day, even when they hurt! God is good...all the time!

It was beautiful!

What an amazing day! The weather was good, the haze from the forest fires wasn't too bad, and everyone looked fantastic! But most importantly, it was a day that was all it should have been - two people who love the Lord committing themselves to each other forever! What a blessing!! God has brought us through so much, and we are so thankful for that. We look forward to where He will lead us next!

Now to get through the surgery...! Then another wedding...!! So much to look forward to!!!

Excitement is building!...

As the days get closer (only 5 sleeps left!) to the big day, there is more and more excitement around here! Today was also Dani's birthday, and we celebrated with her family and ours together. We are so looking forward to many more such occasions!

Updates on the surgery - it is rescheduled for Sept. 15th, and I will be going down to Vancouver with Ben on the 12th. He will be continuing on to Ottawa to take a course, and I will stay with my mom and sister until he returns on the 26th. My mom is having a couple's shower for Christopher and Corinne on the 25th, so we'll be able to be there for that as well. Looking forward to having that done with!! (the surgery, that is!)

I want to be poetic or philosophical in this post in some way, but really, all I can be is me. I'm ridiculously excited about the upcoming weddings, and about my daughters-to-be! I'm so thankful that I am still here to be a part of this! And I'm so thankful for the myriad of blessings that we are a part of! My only prayer is that my strength will hold up. I'm noticing more and more that I really am not able to hold up under pressure like I used to be able to do! And that I don't do well in crowds of people! Hmm. That poses some issues for celebrations like this! I know that I'll get through it all, just may need a "time out" here and there!

I'll post pictures as soon as I can - keep the kids (Jason and Dani) in your prayers as they commit themselves to each other before God and family. I know they are going to have a beautiful day!!

Another change in plans...and disappointment

So we're not finished with our journey yet. This past week has been another challenge, and another chance for learning patience and self-control. I flew down to Vancouver for a scheduled surgery to repair the damage to my stomach that was caused by the accident. It was scheduled for Friday, and we spent the better part of Tuesday (my mom and I) in Vancouver in meetings with various clinics and anesthetists to make sure that everything would go according to plan. My last surgery for my eyes was canceled two days before it was supposed to happen due to oversights regarding my requirements for the stuff that I need to be given to make sure my blood clots - it's the same product that my boys give themselves for their hemophilia. All the tests and procedures that I have had done have shown me that I am essentially a mild hemophiliac, and need to be treated as such in operative situations. So this time they were taking no chances, and I have finally made the connections with the hemophilia clinic at St. Paul's Hospital in Vancouver, also the same place where Jason and Aaron come for their yearly consults. They have a great support program for carriers, and it would have made everything over the past 18 months a whole lot easier if I had previously had a file with them. For whatever reason, it was never done. We had testing done way back when the boys were first diagnosed with hemophilia, and I was aware of my carrier status and that I required treatment whenever operated on, but it was always done at home in PG where they knew me, so I was never involved in trying to make the arrangements for factor replacement and treatment.

Now that this is all under control, one of the VERY good things that has come out of all of this is that the clinic at St Paul's is willing and able to provide treatment for me in surgical procedures done at UBC, where my ophthalmologist operates out of. My eye surgery was canceled due to the fact that there was no hematology department at the UBC hospital to provide coverage for me during surgery. So the doctor needed to get permission to operate out of VGH instead, and then wait for some other doctor to give up some OR time for him to do my surgery! Needless to say, I had no idea when that was going to happen! Now we can schedule the eye surgery to be done as planned at UBC, and the St. Paul's clinic will take care of all the arrangements for my blood work and treatment! Praise the Lord for that! I'm just waiting now to get a date for that one!

So back to my surgery which was scheduled for this past Friday. I went into the clinic (a private one, very lovely and professional!) and everything was going smoothly - other than the fact that it took forever for them to find a good vein for my intravenous! Ouch! The nurse was there from the hemophilia clinic, and supervised the administration of the blood product, sedatives were given, and I was taken into the OR. All was going very smoothly, and as I went under, I felt no fear, only excitement at having this all done with and the outcome of a flat stomach! Well, when I woke up I realized something was wrong, because I could see the clock, and it was only an hour later. The surgery was supposed to have been 3 hours, so I knew something didn't go right. That and I had no pain in my stomach. They told me right away that the surgery was aborted after 2 anesthetists tried 6 different ways to get a breathing tube down my throat. They found that because of my injuries, my windpipe has a very sharp bend to it, and they were simply not able to get the tube past it. In a hospital, they have other equipment to do it differently, but they didn't have it in the clinic. So I was sent home after a few hours with many apologies, a very sore throat, and the personal phone numbers of several specialists just in case anything went wrong!

All in all, I believe (as I have stated many times before) that everything has happened for a very good reason, and there was also a good reason for this. Had this been a crisis situation, the anesthetist told me that I would not have survived. I am now to have the information "failed intubation" inscribed into the MedicAlert that I wear. That would avert a similar crisis in the future. All that being said and done, the surgery is to be rescheduled for after Jason and Dani's wedding sometime in late August or early September, and will be done in the UBC hospital. Who knows, maybe I can get the eye surgery done at the same time?!!!

This is a lot of information, and I hope that it's not too much, but it needed explaining, so there it is. I am struggling a little to not be disappointed that I won't look as fantastic as I had hoped for the wedding, but that's a very selfish and conceited, prideful thought. So it's just as well that it didn't happen! It's good for me to put things into perspective again. It's just so hard when my vanity gets in the way!

Anyway, thanks for your thoughts and prayers, and I trust that you will continue to go with all of us on our journey, which as I said in the beginning, is obviously not over yet! In the meantime I had several opportunities to be gracious, thankful and give witness and testimony to God's grace and glory through the telling of my story to several nurses and doctors. His ways are way bigger than ours, and who knows what the outcome of that will be!

So I pray for continued faithfulness, obedience, patience, and a good dose of humility!! Have a blessed day! And thanks again for taking the time to read all this!!
Judy

And we're back again!

Whoa, that took longer than it should have, but we are back and doing very well, thanks! The trip was absolutely awesome, and I don't think that it could have been any better - only longer perhaps! It was so amazing to reconnect with old friends and people who used to be "youth" who are now older than we were when we were there!! One of the neatest things happened on Sunday morning when one of the men came up to us and said that he still had (and used!) the guitar that Ben had sold to his mother. At that time he was only 12 years old! It wasn't until his young son, who is now about 12, walked up to him that I finally recognized him! Ben was so glad to hear that his guitar was being put to good use - it was his first guitar, and hard for him to leave behind. But knowing that God has had His hand in all things and seeing where things are at now made it all worth while! We had a very special time of worshipping with the church family that still meets in the same room that we helped to renovate 25 years ago! God is at work in His family all over the world, and to worship with them was very sweet! Oh, and our German came back very quickly! It was almost like we had never left...almost!

We also enjoyed a bit of sightseeing time, and some amazing dinners out (although the extra pounds really weren't necessary to bring back with us!). Aaron enjoyed seeing many of the things that we had once known well. If only we had had more time to enjoy it all! Ah, but the desire to return is even stronger now! The church in Traunstein needs a new place to meet in, and is planning on a building project in the next year or so. Who knows...maybe we could help out?! It is certainly a possibility! Anyone want to come help? Just a thought!

As much as I would like to report that we had fantastic responses to prayers for open hearts from those whom we had been praying for, it just wasn't the right time for confrontations. On the other hand, relationships were re-established and communication restored in places where we pray that we will be able to have an impact in the future.  We pray that God will be able to use us somehow in the future, and we want to be available and ready.

Thank you for your prayers regarding jet lag - and I'm thrilled to report that those prayers were definitely answered! We experienced very little at all! Of course, we were a bit tired, but nothing more than usual. Aaron experienced a bit more coming home, and took a few days to really feel like he was 'working' again, but then he was there much longer than we were. I had the energy to do almost everything that I had wanted to do, and (mostly!) keep up with everyone else! Praise the Lord for His strength and good rest!

Next, I am scheduled for reconstructive surgery on my stomach to repair the damage that was caused by the seat belt. Essentially, it's a tummy tuck surgery! Never thought I would ever have that! The procedure will be done in Vancouver on July 23rd. I'm not afraid of the operation, but would appreciate your prayers for a quick recovery - the wedding is only 4 weeks after that! I want to be up and ready for it, not dragging around recuperating. I'll be staying with my mom and sister for a time after, and then my mom will be bringing me back to PG and staying to help me out after - bless her!! She is so giving and helpful! There is still no word on the surgery for my eyes.

As  for the rest, everyone is doing as well as they could be. Ben is still struggling with some discomfort and is hindered in some movements due to the pain in his foot and arm. Aaron's back keeps giving him some trouble and pain, but both of them keep plugging away. Aaron is looking for work for the summer and into the fall, as he plans not to go to school this fall after all. Pray for direction and guidance for him as he readjusts to working life, and that he finds a job that he is able to do without pain or problems. Jason and Dani are only a bit less than 6 weeks away from their special day, and are very excited, to say the least! Christopher and Corinne have to wait until October, so they will have to be more patient! Christopher has been working very hard redoing my kitchen, completing most of it while we were away! What an amazing thing to go away and come back to an almost completely new kitchen!! There are still some things to finish, but oh, is it ever nice!!

Over and over again in the past month I have been reminded to be so thankful for what we have been able to accomplish and take part in! I pray that I will never take any of this for granted!