Archive - June, 2008

Happy Father’s Day 2008

June 15, 2008 in Everyday Family, Lana's Journal with 0 Comments

Happy Father’s Day, Dave! I hope you had fun on your present scavenger hunt! Lauren had a blast helping make clues and hiding your presents. You are a wonderful father who is not just surviving life but passionately living. I am proud of you for wanting to do more and more and more for others. Your girls adore you and I love you very much.

Happy Father’s Day to my dad in Texas! I hope you had a really great day!

We have met some truly great dads in the Tay Sachs community and I want to wish all of them an extra special Father’s Day.

Today we went to church and we were excited to see Carmen’s Hospice nurse, Leslie. We knew she also attends COR and this was the first Sunday we met up.

After church we came home and Lauren and I set up a scavenger hunt for Dave to find his Fathers’ Day presents. Carmen gave Dave a bunch of pins for her stroller sunshade. Everything from a Washington Redskins teddy bear pin to a Toronto BlueJays baseball hat pin to a Guatemala Starbucks pin. I had fun scouring ebay for fun pins! One of my favorites was a pin with both a Guatemala and a United States flag. Lauren gave Dave a Happy Father’s Day Ariel Disney World pin and a Starbucks gift card and a book from my dad about fathers. We hid this stuff all over the house. Under Lauren’s bed, in Dave’s shoe, in the Camry, behind the couch, etc. We gave Dave the first clue and then each time he found a present, he also found the next clue. I videotaped the whole adventure!

For dinner, I got take-out Thai food for Dave. Thai Farm is Dave’s very favorite restaurant. He LOVES Panang chicken. Panang chicken is a curry, coconut milk and peanut dish. We always feed Lauren first before getting Thai food because she is allergic to peanuts and we don’t even want her around them. For dessert, Lauren decorated Trader Joe’s yummy chocolate pudding cakes.

Thanks to my dad for the fun Disney Princesses music/book box for Lauren. She just loves it!

Tornado Adventure

June 14, 2008 in Lana's Journal with 0 Comments

I have a lot of catching up to do as we have had a busy few weeks! But, first, please keep Carmen in your prayers. She seemed out of sorts yesterday and had a fever last night and this morning.

Let’s see, I’ll start with our tornado adventure on June 4th. I decided to take the girls to the mall to the play land. I have not taken the girls anywhere together in months so this was a special outing. (We go to church all together but Dave is there to help me!) We got to the play land and Lauren was excited to see friends from church so she had a blast running all around. I was sitting with Carmen and suddenly heard heavy rain. I decided to stay put and wait it out. Bad decision! A few minutes later the electricity in the mall went out. Lauren then had to go to the bathroom so I had to take her to the bathroom in the dark. Some bozo decided to lock down the mall so we could not get out. I walked past some windows and saw the winds whipping around and the sky had turned green.

Maybe 30 minutes later mall security started letting people out but we were on the lower level and my car was on the upper level (the entrances on one side of our mall are on the upper level while the entrances on the other side of the mall are on the lower level). This was not good because I had Carmen in her Kid Kart stroller with oxygen tank and feeding pump and I could not possibly get up the stairs. I could not get up the elevator because the power was out so the only option was to walk around the mall in the rain! Lauren had lots to say all the way around the mall! We got a little wet but nothing too bad. The drive home was ridiculous though because all the lights were out so a normally 10 minute drive took over an hour.

The next 24 hours were interesting because we did not have power. Carmen’s feeding pump, pulse oximeter, and suction machine have back-up batteries for maybe 18 hours and we have back-up oxygen tanks. We drove to my friend Lori’s house about 30 minutes away to give Carmen her VEST treatment and nebulizer treatments. Thank you, Lori and Rick! The night nurse sat in the dark with a flashlight! The following day, the temperature was rising and our house was HOT by 9am so we drove to my friend Karen’s house and sat in her nice air conditioning! Thanks, Karen! I was able to recharge Carmen’s equipment. When we went home around 2pm, the power was back on and I was just happy as can be!

Fast forward a day and I was getting ready to take Lauren to a Go Fish kid’s concert at our church. I heard Lauren hysterically crying and she came running into my room crying that she had swallowed a marble! I called the doctor and he said to wait a few days and it will probably pass. So, I poked around in poo for a few days but did not find a marble. Four days later Lauren woke up crying that her tummy hurt and she had a slight fever. I took her to the doctor and they did an X-ray and there was no marble. I think Lauren was most upset that she lost her marble! She has been saying things like, “I won’t swallow my necklace because I don’t want to lose it.” Funny thing is that Lauren hasn’t put anything in her mouth since she was a baby. Maybe she is regressing a bit because of Carmen. She often tells me she wishes she was a baby.

Dave went to Los Angeles this past week for business so I had the girls by myself. I am very tired but we survived. It was a HOT week. On Tuesday I decided to take Lauren to get ice cream and the thermostat in the car said 111 in the sun. Wow!

I took the girls for a walk yesterday. Lauren found sticks and flowers and a ladybug. I found myself wishing she would hurry up and move along. Then it hit me that to Lauren, it’s all about the journey not the destination. I so often want to hurry up life and move right along. Today I am going to enjoy the journey.

Back in May Dave and I had the privilege of sharing Carmen’s story again, this time at a Ladies’ Tea. We thought it would be easier to tell it the second time, but it was not. Dave’s parents drove down and we were happy to have their support. We want people to know Carmen and we want to share her with as many as possible and the only way we can do that is to share her story. So, as hard as it is, we will continue taking that opportunity.

Tina, we got the CD in the mail. You are an incredible young lady. I think God has amazing plans for you.

Coincidence

June 1, 2008 in Dave's Musings with 0 Comments

I was in the bathroom earlier this week. I knew it would be an extended visit so I grabbed a book off the dresser nearby. The book is called Sex God and it was written by Rob Bell, one of the four pastors who influence me the most. Although I’ve had the book quite awhile now, I have yet to actually read it. It’s not that I’m not interested in reading it, just that I’ve prioritized other things for the moment. But anyway…

I decided to play a little, “pick a spot and start reading.” I flipped through the pages and landed on Chapter 6: Worth Dying For. I began to read. I won’t go into details about the chapter but it was essentially about submitting to others. Submission as it is used in the Bible means “to place yourself under, to give allegiance to, to tend to the needs of, to be responsive to.”

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Lana and I are privileged to host and facilitate a small church group in our home each Saturday night. Yesterday morning, I was preparing for our then-upcoming small group meeting. Our group has been working through the Life Rules DVD series and study by Andy Stanley, another one of the four pastors who influence me the most. We were on Part 6: Submit.

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We went to church this morning. Dale O’Shields, pastor of the local church we attend and yet another one of the four pastors who influence me the most, spoke about submission and humilty, specifically how the two of them lead to joy.

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I know what you are probably thinking. God is telling you something, Dave. But I have to be honest. I’m still not quite convinced that the message is intended for me. Now if the fourth of the four pastors who influence me the most, Erwin McManus, happened to have spoken about submission today (I’ll have to wait till the podcast is published later this week) then I’ll consider it a message from God. Until then…I’m just gonna consider it a big coincidence.*

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* I’m kidding! I got it. Loud and clear. I hear ya, God. Thank you for being so patient with me.

Soaked Hotdogs

June 1, 2008 in Everyday Family, Lana's Journal with 0 Comments

We had quite an adventure today. After church we walked to our neighborhood’s annual picnic. It was a beautiful sunny day and I slathered all of us with sunscreen. We had just arrived and gotten our hotdogs when huge icy raindrops started pouring down. There was no where to run so Dave stuck Lauren under a table. He took off his shirt and draped it over Carmen’s stroller. We stood there, literally getting soaked for 5 minutes or so. Our hotdogs blew away in the wind! The rain finally stopped and the sun came out. Lauren had fun jumping in the bouncy house and getting a face-painting (a purple heart with sparkles). Carmen fell asleep. All that rain must have worn Carmen out!

Speaking of Carmen, she is doing well. She continues to have daily seizures but they aren’t too bad. Her breathing is labored but no worse than her “normal.” She is on continuous oxygen and I hope this makes breathing less work for her. She does have a stubborn case of thrush that Nystatin and probiotics are not getting rid of. Maybe we can get something stronger. I suspect the frequent nebulizer treatments (every 4 hours, around the clock) are not helping.

I’ll share something funny from Lauren. I took Lauren to Rita’s for frozen custard and Italian ice. We needed to hurry home because a friend was watching Carmen and had to leave for an appointment. We got chocolate custard with sprinkles for Lauren and cherry Italian ice for me and got back in the minivan. I realized we had a few minutes so I told Lauren we could eat in the van. Lauren said, “Well, we need to go home because I might be expecting a phone call.” I asked, “Who are you expecting a phone call from?!!” Lauren answered, “I don’t know. But, I might be expecting a call.” Wow, four years old and expecting phone calls!

Tuesday Dave and I have a funeral home appointment. We decided to make as many decisions as possible while Carmen is doing fairly well. I’ll feel better knowing we are as prepared practically as possible.

Last week Lauren and Carmen got a fun package in the mail. Dee, mom to 4 kids including a daughter from Guatemala, sent the girls plastic totes decorated with their names. Lauren’s is pink with fairies and Carmen’s is orange with flowers. Lauren’s was filled with fun crafts and a wedding-day Barbie. Lauren LOVES her Barbie! Dee sent money for us to buy something for Carmen. I know just what Carmen needs for the summer- a swimsuit! I’ll try to find an orange suit as orange is my very favorite color for Carmen! Thank you Dee! You are truly an angel who makes our days brighter!

To my friend Christina in the Land Down Under, I thought of you today when I had pink lemonade! I surely miss the days of popping over to your house and talking about whatever and drinking pink lemonade.

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