God Bless Us Everyone....

...To good and the bad,
The happy and sad.
God bless us everyone,
Family and Friends it’s good to be here again….
So, I believe that is how the song goes. My extra chorus would god something like - God bless the medical staff, the housekeepers, the dietary people, the maintenance crew and ground keepers, the chaplains, the respiratory therapist, the lab people, the administration people and all the people seen and unseen. To have access to good medical care is truly a gift. God bless the billions of people who do not have such a gift and may we somehow work towards a more just system of equality among all.
Christmas weekend was the first experienced of being in the hospital except for the night after Ben was born. It is hard to describe what it is like in a semi-private room. Not that it was a bad experience, just not a pleasant one. My roomie was good one – a talker who has had a difficult life. Christmas eve day came and went just like any other day. Usually we would have the kids down for dinner and gift exchange that night but this year just had a different flavor to it. Midnight came and went with the nurses helping my roomie in to the bathroom yet again. Good chance to wake up and wish everyone a Merry Christmas. One of the nurses shared her tradition of mid-night mass that she was missing this year – I thanked her for that and for being there for us. I also had the wonderful situation where most of the kids came and sat with me during the day. My roomie had no visitors.
Jerry and Ben were my early morning visitors on Christmas along with our good friend and hospital chaplain, Fr. Bob Henderson – more on that visit in a minute. The doctor came in and asked if I wanted to go home – silly question. I was home by about 11:30. Jerry had time to get to at least the second half of Christmas Mass.
The rest of the day was somewhat different than most Christmases. I joined in Jerry’s large family celebration for a few hours but then came home to go to bed by 8:00.
The day after Christmas found the kids and boyfriends at the house for dinner and gift exchanged. Clair, with the help of everyone else, too k over the kitchen duties and pulled off a wonderfully delicious meal. Many good gifts were exchanged. Good conversation and laughter. My best gift was just being all together. It was a perfect evening.
Backing up a little to the Christmas blessing delivered by Fr. Henderson. There was a lot going on in the room at that moment. At the tail end of the blessing I caught the eye of the nurse waiting to get the discharge on the move I felt totally distracted and not very present to the moment. But just let me say that God works in spite of us sometimes. So I’m going to give that blessing credit for something that happened a few hours later. I walked in to the house and sat in my favorite old blue chair. A moment later I asked what that smell was. Hmmm, smell…. Those of you who have been around me lately know that I lost my sense of smell and taste just about 3 years ago. But wait, what was that smell? I went to the kitchen and smelled the peanut butter, the vanilla, the cinnamon, the chili powder, the orange juice, the ice cream – you probably get the idea by now. Later on Christmas I could taste the appetizers. What an exciting experience! What a gift! Now it may be the combination of meds and blessing but I just want to say – What a gift! Thank to all family, friends and God Bless ’Everyone’!

picture this

For a few Galapagos pictures try:
https://picasaweb.google.com/112003209825716421057/Galapagos?authuser=0&authkey=Gv1sRgCKiuj6aQ742U7gE&feat=directlink

Road Trips, Road Trips, Everywhere

Road trips, Road trips, Everywhere and so many turns on the way.

So, we got home from our ‘out west – national park road trip.’ It was wonder-ful. So many sights, so many campgrounds, so many star filled nights, so many pictures.

Life was somewhat ‘normal’ for a while. We joined a gym and have worked out on a fairly regular basis. Life was good. Then on Tuesday - 11/28. Clair got an email from a friend offering us a spot on a National Geography Cruise to the Galapagos Islands. Believe it or not we thought about it for a night-looked up air fares and left bright and early the following Friday morning for Ecuador. No grass growing under our feet! If you want the long version of this, talk to us in person. If you want pictures, let us know and we’ll send you a link. It was ten days filled with snorkeling, hiking, swimming, lectures, Zodiac boat rides, indescribable nature – many, many different types of birds, iguanas, sea lions, fur seals, and so much food. It was wonder-ful. We had no internet coverage so there were no blogs written there and anyway it would be hard to find the words to do it justice.

We arrived back home on December 13th. Oh wait, it’s the Christmas season! Hit the ground running! And I did! Just about caught up by the 23rd. Dinner planned for all the kids on Christmas eve. Oh, wait, ‘we make plans and God laughs’. I remember that. So on Dec. 23 Jerry and I took a road trip to the ER. Apparently I had a very serious asthma attack - first ever. O2 levels very low, b/p very high. Did the whole 9 yards of all possible tests. So here I sit in room 2323, knowing that I won’t be home for Christmas eve. But hoping that I will be home for Christmas or at least part of it.

A MOMENT THAT MADE MY DAY. Right now, there is a Hispanic man cleaning the hall ways. Pleasantly dressed, nice appearance but - oh, wait, he is singing Christmas Carols and he has a good voice. I mentioned this to him and he spends and extra 5 minutes in front of our door. That’s what’s all about folks.
MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL AND TO ALL A GOOD NIGHT!