December in Victoria

 The first week of December the children and I headed off to Canada for a visit to the Grandmas.  It has been five years since the children have been in the North.  For the Dude, it was kind of like his first trip as he couldn't remember much.  He was only 2 1/2 when we went last.

 I was wondering how they would react to family they didn't really know.  I didn't have to worry much.  Family is family and I loved to watched the interchange.

You never know what you will find in Victoria.  My last trip it was men in kilts for the Highland Games, this year...

 This fabulous carriage in the parking garage of the grandmas condo complex.

 They enjoyed a lot of time with their Great Grandma.  She is pretty amazing.  She suffered a heart attack in January and was home in three days.  She is one tough cookie.

This is my Aunt Lois and the children's grandmother. She has no idea how valued she is in our lives.  One of my best friends and the kindest person I know.  We love her so much.

 One of the highlights of this trip was going down to the docks and feeding the seals.  Miss Boo got the hang of it, but a seagull tried to get the fish from the Dude and almost took off his finger.  He spent the rest of the time avoiding all animals. We went to a fish market close to the docks for some fish scraps, but it was a high end fish place and they didn't have any, but the gentleman was kind and gave us about $30 worth of free fish so the kids could have a good experience.  I love the generosity he showed.

 I love, love these two kids!

On Monday, miss Boo stayed home with great grandma and the rest of us went out to shop in old downtown.  The Dude had me cracking up most of the time.

 Fat Cranky Bear, he was dubbed by the Dude!

 My friend Sandy came up and spent the day with us.  So much fun!

 Christmas time in Victoria is amazing!

 It was a delightful time.  One of my favorite places to spend time is with my family.

And for it being a first flight alone with both the kids, it wasn't too shabby.  So glad Mr. Finn let us go.

For once in my life...

It's been two weeks since the "incident" and I am disappointed.

Really, I am.

Wasn't I supposed to be different, feel different somehow from going through such a life changing event?

I feel the same.  The same old ME.

That is disappointing.

And then I had this thought while talking to an old friend.  We can have life changing events, but it takes work for those events to truly change us.  Nothing of value is easy or given without much sacrifice and work.  Not too mention desire and need.

Where does that leave me?  Disappointed.  I wanted something easy.

I do see some changes.  I don't like loud, angry voices anymore and that includes mine.  It feels wrong!  I can't figure out how to impart this to Miss Boo.  She likes to yell.  Too much and many times I rise to it because I get frustrated.

I want that idea of a peaceful home where n'er is spoken an unkind word.  I believe it is doable, even necessary.  If we are to prepare our homes to be a refuge, I believe it is essential.  Life is daily becoming a challenge. The world is making the lines blurry for many in it.  I see the daily assaults against the family, against freedom, against honesty and integrity.

I pray that I am up to the challenge as I believe the attack on what we believe will become harder than we can ever imagine.

I love my family.  I want to be with them for eternity.  Given that, change must happen.

I don't believe our Heavenly Father is going to accept mediocrity when it comes down to it.  It's time to allow the change...

Lords' Hands

I need to catch up on so much, but this post has to be done before the duration of time wipes the clear memories from my mind.

On Saturday, the 22nd of February I had a pulmonary embolism.  Seeing it in front of me, it seems so ordinary, so nothing.

Yet, it was so much more than nothing.

The Lord's hand in all of this is what makes it so much more than nothing and the reason I am blogging today.  Without it, this could possible have been my obituary posted by Mr. Finn.

I had a hysterectomy on Tuesday.  Was a little sick in the hospital, nothing major.  Came home and was tired, a few bouts of nausea and then came Friday.  I was so sick.  So much vomiting and nausea, but woke on Saturday feeling a bit better.  Finally by lunch I decided to try some lunch.  Grapes, cheese and pretzels.  I ate it all and thought I should try a shower and clean up after Friday.  I told Mr. Finn I was going to shower and headed upstairs.  As I got up the stairs, I started feeling very tired and thought I would lay down for a bit first.  As I laid down, I felt I should get up and take that shower.  Three times I felt I should take that shower before I finally got up and headed that direction, but it felt overwhelming.

I had my hair washed and working on shaving when I started to feel odd and felt like I should sit down.  As soon as I was sitting down, I yelled for the Dude to get his Dad and instantly felt as if I should get on the floor.  As I was lowering myself to the floor, I passed out and fell the last several inches.  This sound prompted my son to hurry Mr. Finn up to the bathroom.  When he got there, I came to and told him I was going to be sick and he ran for a bucket or had the kids bring one.  I wasn't really in the moment at that time.  I became sick before the bucket came and passed out again.  Mr. Finn realized at this time that there was something more wrong than just being sick.  He was able to extract me from the shower and he says I came to and passed out several more times.  The final time that he raised me up to try and get a robe on me is when I had some kind of convulsion and my eyes went blank and rolled back in my head.  He believed at this time that I was gone.

There is much more from his side of what happened.  A lot of it very emotional for him and quite frightening.  He left me slumped on the floor to have Miss Boo run to the neighbors and call 911.

The neighbors and Miss Boo's story:

Rose rang the doorbell and no one was answering although she could hear that someone was home.  She knocked frantically, stating that it was important that they open the door.  As Kim's sister opened the door, Miss Boo asked for Kim.  Kellee went upstairs and told Kim that she was there.  Kim thought it was odd for her to be asking for her and had a feeling to ask Kellee to see what Miss Boo wanted.  She could hear her saying, "There is something wrong with my Mom, can you please call 911?".  Kim said at that moment that she froze.  (Kim is not the freezing kind of person.  She is action personified.)  Her husband asked what was wrong with her and she said she didn't know, but she felt like her feet were glued to the floor.  Roger grabbed the phone, jumping over the bed and headed downstairs and out the front door.  Kim asked him later why he went outside and said he felt like he should.  As he went on the front porch he could see our neighbor three houses down pulling into his driveway and began jumping up and down shouting for him to come over to my house.  (I did not know that our neighbor Chris was a paramedic for the fire department.)  Roger was the only one that would have known.  He pulled into my driveway almost immediately, all the while calling others in the neighborhood that were fire and paramedic.  The ambulance arrived within five minutes of my last episode.

My story:

I was having the most beautiful dream.  Brilliant whites and reds and this amazing feeling of happiness.  Not any feeling I have ever had in this world.  I felt like I could be there forever, it was so peaceful.  It felt so long and yet so short of a time all at once.  That is the only way I can describe it.  Do you know in the movies where someone is out of body and they are all of a sudden sucked back into theirs?  That is how it felt as I intook a deep breath and looked up into the eyes of my neighbor Chris.  He asked me if I knew his name and I said that would be "AWKWARD".  I could not recognize him at that point.  That was a good thing as I was unclad, to say the least.  I didn't understand why there were so many people in my bathroom and I told them I would be ok. They all said they didn't think I was just ok.  As I was put in the gurney chair, I was able to see myself in the mirror and I understood the fear I could see in Mr. Finn's eyes.  I have never seen that shade of white before and Mr. Finn said I had some color at that point.

Other quick notes:

Mr. Finn was supposed to go target practicing with some guys and none of them got back with him.  He woke up early that morning and decided to do his errands so he was home at lunchtime.  The Dude has not left my side since the surgery and happened to be in my bed while I was showering.  Although I believed I was shouting, he said he could barely hear me.  As he was going down the stairs that were under our shower area, he heard me fall.  He yelled at his Dad that "Mommy Fell!", which got Mr. Finn in motion.

I believe that it wasn't time for me to go.  Too many things went right, when if only one of them went wrong, I may not be here today.  The blessing I received in the ER from our home teacher, Bro. Klopfer, was that this was in the Lord's hands and had been from the start.  He blessed our family and that the doctors would figure it out.

After being there for a couple of hours, the doctor determined that I was dehydrated and prescribed some Zofran for nausea.  While the nurse was getting me ready for discharge, Dr. Guzman came running back in and said that they found a pulmonary embolism and I would be going up to ICU.  He kept asking me if I was having chest pains, which I did not.  He was surprised by that.  Thank heavens I did not go home.  As I said earlier, a hundred things went right.

Mr. Finn and I couldn't sleep Saturday night and we spent it talking about all the ways we had been blessed over the last 24 hours.  There was so much...

I am so grateful for a loving Heavenly Father that was there the whole time for me and my family.  Grateful my children were given a role in this testimony strengthening moment.  Our lives will forever be changed by it and rightly so.