Home

Last week was such a hard, but unbelievably wonderful week.  If I could handpick sisters for myself, Kendra would be at the top of my list.  It was a true blessing for me to be able to go and sit with her.  There's nothing I can do to make her well except pray, but I was able to holding her hand and brush her hair.  I rearranged her pillows over and over as she fought to find a comfortable spot.  Kendra's pain was pretty high last week.  She described it as her entire right side and ranked it as a 10 for days.  Her doctors are/were concerned about something called Central Pain Syndrome which is an unbelievably horrible thing.  With CPS, your nerves send regular signals to your brain, but your brain interprets them as intense pain (Kendra described burnings) instead of what they actually are.  A blood clot was discovered in Kendra's arm on Thursday around her PICC line.  The line was removed on Saturday and now her pain seems to be localized in her right arm.  While pain of any kind is still bad, the fact that the pain is localized is really, really good.  Kendra is still fighting some sort of infection in her lungs.  They are also worried about a pulmonary embolism (blood clot in her lung). She has elevated white counts and heart rate.  Her blood pressure is really high too.  Please keep praying the blood thinners and antibiotics work to alleviate these problems.  I just want to scream at God, "Enough already!  She has enough to deal with.  She doesn't need more."  But I know he's crying right along with us and He's right there with her holding her other hand.  None of this is a surprise to him.

Our wonderful friend Michele and her family were awesome hosts (even if the house was filled with sickie germs).  They live on an island off the coast of Seattle.  I had a lot of new experiences in my commute to the hospital.  I rode the ferry into and out of Seattle every day.  Jaelyn was jealous when I told her.  I took a cab to the hospital every morning (my first cab rides) and walked the two miles back to the ferry in the evenings to decompress and enjoy the pretty city.  I also figured out Seattle's light rail system with the help of some nice strangers.  I was rather proud of myself.   

We had been planning a trip to Alaska to visit Kendra's family in August.  Dan and I had finally sat down the afternoon she had the stroke to pick our dates and flights, but ware waiting to hear back from a friend to confirm our lay-over plans.  The last text she sent me that day was that she'd bought new sheets for us for our visit.  I'm so thankful we hadn't bought the tickets because now I will need to plan a Seattle vacation instead.  I told Kendra and she was very insistent...she spelled "stay my house" over and over.  I'm not so sure about that as her family will have their hands full, but I can't wait to get back to Seattle to hug my friends again!

Dan deserves a big shout out.  I've only left my kids three other times, but I can always leave and not worry.  He did a great job of being daddy and mommy while I was gone.  I even came home to a clean house complete with vacuum lines.  Anyone who knows me well, knows vacuum lines make my little OCD heart happy.  Dan left this morning for Washington.  He'll be gone a week, home a weekend, gone another week.  I joked that he left me with crabby and crazy and a really sweet boy this morning.  I really hope it wasn't a glimpse at the week ahead!