Raynie is fine.

Here is Raynie and Trish today after Raynie’s surgery. Whew! What a day! Trish has some really cute pictures of Raynie BEFORE the surgery, but I don’t have them on my computer. She’s doing really well. It was not so simple this morning, though. They came out and told us the surgery was done and Trish and Rob went in to see her in recovery. When they got back there, she had started bleeding again and they couldn’t stop it, so they had to take her back into surgery and redo a portion. It’s more complicated than that, but we were pretty shook about it. They took her in for another 45 minutes. When she came out that time, she did real fine. She whines a little sometimes when she swallows, but mostly she sleeps. Someone holds her all the time, so we’re all liking that part. The freaky part was when she kept having to be in surgery.

I kind of melted down. I did fine until I had to call Gretta to tell her. I knew I had to call her because she was expecting us to call when the surgery was over. If I didn’t call her she’d think something was wrong worse than it was. When I called I got her voice mail and talking to that was hard. I broke down and cried and then I felt terrible to be leaving an awful message like that. It’s not very convincing to tell her everything is fine when I’m crying! I told Don he’d have to call her the next time and he said that would scare her worse; she’d think if he called it must really be bad news. I really felt so terrible because Raynie was really fine; she just had a little complication but I was falling apart! If I’d been there with Gretta when she LOST her son I would have been totally worthless and even a liability to them. I felt like I really let her down. Of course she was an angel and called me back and told me not to even frett about it. I think I just needed a melt down. I think I lumped in all the stresses of the last couple of years and crashed today. No doubt it was good for me. It only happened when I called Gretta, so I wasn’t too bad for Trish and Rob. They held up beautifully.

All the kids went to a friend’s home who have 5 children around the ages of all Trisha’s kids. They loved being there. We picked up Grace and Mason and brought them with us to spend the night at the hotel with us. They loved swimming in the pool and eating at the Sonic. The big kids will spend the night at that same friend’s house and we’ll pick them up in the morning before lunch. Then we’ll go spend the afternoon at their house and play cards all afternoon. Hopefully Trish and Rob will be able to bring Raynie home tomorrow afternoon. They’re spending the night in the hospital with her.

There are hard times, but I find comfort in knowing that God is in control through all the bad times as well as the good times, and He gives us the support we need to make it through the tough times. We’re so sad to have lost Gretta’s baby Leo and I don’t have any sweet answers for that loss; all I know is that Leo is with God and he won’t have any struggles. I thank God for the memories we treasure of our hopes and dreams for him. I thank Him for the recovery that Gretta and Joe are making. I thank Him for taking care of Raynie today and for the recovery that she will have over the next few weeks. I thank Him for all our kids and their abilities as wonderful parents. I thank Him for the recovery I’ve had and ask Him to continue to watch over us over the rest of our lives. I thank Him for our safe travels and ask Him to continue to keep us safe as we travel to Houston. Thank you for sharing my prayers.