AAAUUURRRGGGG!!!!

"Fay" hit us last night, and we have flood warnings until 1:30, and a tornado watch until 7:00pm. Our Air-Conditioner froze up last night, our roof is leaking, and this morning we woke up to no water. Rick is trying to work on the well in the pouring rain. One of the dogs is in-heat and bleeding all over, and the other has some kind of itchy, stinky skin disorder.

Stress Relief

If you have been following this blog, you know that I deal with depression. Well, I also deal with PTSD, and having a messed up child-hood. I know, I know, EVERYONE has a dysfunctional child-hood. Without going into too much detail, mine is especially dysfunctional. So I'm not incredibly healthy. I mean, I'm proud of my parenting, I'm proud of my relationship skills, I like myself. But I know that I am not healthy. So what I do when faced with stress is to try to escape. This is much better than what I used to do when faced with stress.

What I do now is to escape into sombody else's blog. It gives me stress relief, It's interesting, and sometimes, as in this case it inspires me. So my feature that you see on the left, "My Current Escape" Is just that. Does anybody else do this? Spend HOURS reading someone else's life to escape their own?

Who needs sleep?

Written 5/20/08

Can I vent for a minute?







I'll take that as a yes.


This week SUCKS!!!!! I mean, our lives are always hectic, but someone needs to put me out of my misery this week.

Mon: 8:00- kids to school, to the shop to work, had to get the girls some clothes for their allstar gymnastics tryouts at walmart, at my job at 2:00, out at 5:35, met Rick at the Gym (gymnastics) at 5:45, home at 8:00, dinner, bathtime, and bed.

I missed my first IEP meeting for Andrew, which was at 2:00. They usually schedule these for Fri. because I dont work Fri. but they couldn't get us in until Mon. Rick had to leave the gym, pick up the boys at daycare, and get pizza for dinner.

Tue: This is EOG (end of grade test) week for the kids, which means a hot breakfast instead of their usual cereal. Rick cooked this morning, I will get up and do the breakfast duty tomorrow morning.

8:00- kids to school, Rick and I had errands to run in the morning, and an appointment at 11:00. had to get some stuff for my job, back to the shop at 2:00, off to my job at 2:30. out at 5:30. Pick up boys, meet Rick at the Gym at 5:50. Home at 8:00. Grocery Store for peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and yogurt because it was SO LATE! dinner, bed.

Wed. and Thur. I have to Proctor for the EOG's at my school, which means I will be dropping my kids off at 7:30, so that I can get to my school at 8:00, and stay there all day, walking around a silent classroom, watching students NOT cheat on their tests. I will not be allowed to sit down. In case in that 5 sec. that I rest my legs, one of those crafty 12-yr.-olds breaks out a answer sheet.

Thurs: my job takes a field-trip, with all the other programs like mine, which means that instead of dealing with 25 fresh out of testing, restless, wild, middle-school aged kids, I will get to enjoy 150 of them. I will get out of work at 5:45, and then rush to get to the boys tee-ball game at 6:15.

Fri, one of the kids has an ENT dr. app. I don't know which one, and I don't CARE!

These days of not sitting down or taking a breath until 9:00 at night are going to KILL me!

Did I mention that I can't wait for this school year to end?

Busy, Busy, Busy

Written 2-5-2008

Well, we have four appointments scheduled at Duke in the next couple of months. We have a Doc. app. with neuro-surgeon, and a MRI on Feb. 25th, followed by a PET scan on Feb 26th. On Feb. 28th, we go back for the results of these. Mar. 12th, Andrew has a neouro-psycological eval, which should help with the IEP meetings at school. So, we're very excited and nervous to be returning to Duke, but the transportation issues are beginning to arise.

Although the ride is only three hours, we need to stay up there on Sunday night, since his app. will be early Mon. morning, so that we don't hit any traffic issues. We will also need to stay up there Mon. night, as it doesn't make sense to come home and drive back the next day. (Cost of gas). So, we have decided that we will drive two cars up on Sun. night. Brittney will also be coming along. (Last time Rainia went). We will stay through the app. with Doc., and the MRI, and then Heidi and Brittney will return home to the other kids, school and work. Rick and Andrew will stay Mon. night for the PET on Tue. Then, they will return home to school and work. Thursday, Heidi, Rick and Andrew will drive back for the results, and drive home the same day. PHEWW. A Lot of figuring out who is where and a lot of driving. Our prayer request is that the MRI and PET scans show enough improvement that Andrew will not need to start chemo-therapy.

In other news, Andrew is doing well adjusting back to school. He is eligible for some home-bound services, which we have decided will be about three hours a week at the school (Since Rick and Heidi both work). His wonderful teacher, Mrs. Culbertson, has offered to be his tutor, keeping him in the classroom after school, and then transporting him to Rick's shop afterword. Yeah! He is also eligible for EOG tutoring one hour after school on Tuesdays. Hopefully he will be able to have enough strength and energy to go through the school day plus 1-2 hours after school. (Another Prayer request)

All other kids are doing well, although we have been having lots of discussion about chores since I, (Heidi) am at my absolute stress threshold, and if I find any more clean clothes in the dirty laundry that I have to rewash I will cry. laundry for nine people is impossible. Every time that I think I get the pile down, they clean their room, and in comes another truck-load.

All weddings plans have been put on the back-burner until we find out more about what Andrew will need, but it is a wonderful escape. After talking to doctors on the phone and researching astrocytoma treatments, after going to work and the grocery store then cooking dinner, after dealing with grades and homework, after bathtime and bedtime, and laundry, and laundry and laundry; how wonderful it is to escape into the world wide web of venue locations and dresses and cakes. It has been so fun to daydream and talk about receptions and lodging and of course the honeymoon. Can I stay at this stage forever? We don't even have a date, and thank God, because that would be more STRESS!!!

Thank-God

Written 2/1/08

We were encouraged by the social worker at Duke to begin this page, as it will be an easy way to keep everyone updated at the same time. Please don't stop your wonderful, supportive phone calls, as we love these.

As those of you who know us already know, we have recently switched health-care providers from Charlotte to the Robert Preston Tisch Brain Tumor Center at Duke. I encourage you to visit their website. We are extremely excited about this switch, as we finally feel that we are in capable hands. We feel as if the world has been lifted off of our shoulders, and we don't need to make these crazy, life-altering decisions on our own or uninformed any longer.

For those of you who don't know, Andrew was scheduled for his second brain surgery on Jan. 14th. Both Rick and I were extremely hesitant and scared of this surgery, because of Andrew's experience with his first surgery, and because of our amazing Lord putting fear and hesitation into our hearts through the Holy Spirit. In the last few months Andrew's dizzy spells have increased in number, both at school and at home. He could usually recover from these, by sitting on the floor and waiting for it to pass. Unfortunately, right before Christmas vacation, Andrew had a bad spell at school, which he was unable to recover from. Rick picked him up from school, and during vacation, Andrew got progressively worse, finally unable to walk at all.

Andrew was extremely ill, unable to walk, and spending his days at work with Rick, using his wheel-chair for mobility. This is why we agreed to the surgery, which his surgeon had been trying to get us to agree to for some time. On Jan. 11th, 3 days before his scheduled surgery, Andrew got out of his wheel-chair and went outside to play at the shop (Rick's car-lot). The next day, while home with me, Andrew went outside to play basket-ball with Brooke, where he spent most of the day. The following day, Jan. 13th, we went to church, where our pastors and elders annointed Andrew with oil, and we laid hands on him to pray for healing, and a succesful surgery. Andrew later told us that little Joshua's idea of laying hands was to repeatedly push on Andrew's cheek with his little fist.

That eventing, at home, Andrew was dancing in the living room, while Rick and I looked on in amazement. These three days were extremely hard on Rick and I, as we battled the Doctor's advice with what we were witnessing. We talked, we prayed, we cried, we laughed, we fought, and we prayed some more. Sunday night, we spent over an hour in the car (where we have most of our adult conversations. The only place out of ear-shot) parked in our own yard, and tried to put into words what we both were feeling. Monday morning, the day of Andrew's surgery, we woke up at 4:oo am, both of us praying for clarity. We got Andrew ready, and loaded him into the car. while on route to the hospital, we came to an agreement. We knew what we had to do.

When we got the hospital, at our scheduled time to begin the anesthesia process, we told the receptionist we were cancelling the surgery. After speaking with the doctors, knowing we were doing this against medical advice, we gathered all of Andrew's medical records and MRI's and headed up to Duke, not even knowing how to get there. TGF verizon navigation option on our cell-phone. When we showed up at Duke, without a referral or appointment, crying for them to take our records, we know how we must have looked. When we called our family and friends, we know how we must have sounded.

They granted our appointment! The two week wait was agonizing. Fortunately as you may know, when we finally got our appointment, all of our prayers were answered. We were told that the cyst on Andrew's tumor had imploded, and that if we had gone through with the surgery, the results would have been devastating! Thank-you Lord Thank-you Lord. Thank-you Lord.

Septic System

There is this show on one of the hundreds of channels of nothingness that I sometimes watch. It is called Dirty Jobs, and has a man Mike? Who goes around the country trying out the nastiest professions known to man. These are the jobs that No one wants to talk about or acknowledge, but are needed for our country to function properly. I once saw an episode where he was a sewer worker. I don’t recall exactly why they were swimming in the sewer, but they were. This was so revolting to watch that even though I don’t have HD, I could literally smell the putrid, vile, horrid, foulness seeping out of my television. I almost threw-up.

That is the vision I get when I think about my emotional state in the last month. The things I’ve been confronted with, they are the contents of that sewer. And I am swimming around in the stuff, holding my nose, trying not to vomit. So mostly I have been wading around at waist level, some of the time I was up to my neck in it, and for a couple of days it was over my head. I could actually taste it. I am here to report that right now, today, I am only in it up to my knees. And? I can see a spot ahead, somewhere in the distance when I will be on solid ground. I’m not positive what this spot looks like, but I know that it is there. And that is good enough for me.