Friday, August 22, 2008

Peaceful sleeping.



I really had to put two pictures on the blog tonight, because both are so meaningful to us and they go together. The first is Don with his brother, Gene, yesterday. Gene wasn’t so impressed with our visit, so he slept through nearly all of it. I wanted to get their picture, so Don said, “Well, I’ll take a nap with him.” Gene is 12 years older than Don and sleeps much better than Don does! We had a great visit with his daughter, Mary Beth, who lives there and also with his daughter, Donna, who lives in Nigeria! The second picture is Don with Donna on his right and Mary Beth on his left. It was precious time for us. Mary Beth’s husband, David, is the one who prayed thanking God for placing us in families. I’ll always remember that (as long as I have memory) and continue to give thanks in the same way. Our family makes up so many blessings for us. Thank you, God!

After our visit with Gene and the girls we made it back to Blackwell, Oklahoma for the night. I finished up my exercises for that day. Then when we got up in the morning I did all my exercises for yesterday except for the ones I could do in the car. I am an exercise machine these days; I remind me so much of my mom because she was an exercise machine, too. I wonder as I look back if she had lymphedema, too. Lymphedema wasn’t something they knew much about after she had breast cancer, but I’ll bet she had it. It feels so much better to me when I do the exercises with the cane where I hold my arms up and it reminds me of her walking around the house on her tiptoes with the broom over her head. I don’t know if it just felt good to her or if they told her to do it for her arms. I thought she was doing it for weight loss purposes. I know that she was always concerned with the size of her arms, but I thought it was about weight; maybe it was about swelling. I was 17, so I’m sure I didn’t have the whole picture.

Anyway, we made it to Oklahoma City for my appointment to be measured for my sleeve. I even got the sleeve yesterday. It’s wonderful. On a scale of 1-10 with 1 being, ‘I don’t like this,’ and 10 being, ‘I can’t stand this,’ the wrap was a 10; the sleeve is a 2. I don’t like it, but maybe it will become my good friend if it gets the job done. It looks like that fabric they use to make costumes for ice skaters. It’s almost like skin. I’ll have Don take pictures of it for the blog tomorrow.

We got to see Tricia’s kids all come home from their first day of school. Then Nate watched all the other kids while we went out to eat with Trish, Rob, and Davy. After dinner we went to see the documentary. It was about the country’s debt. It was something we wanted to see, but it’s not like it was a great movie. It was fun to all be together for an evening. We sure thank Nate for watching the kids and all the other kids for behaving so that he could do it. It was a month ago tomorrow that Raynie had her surgery and she’s all fine, now. It’s amazing how God takes care of us. So much has happened in the last month! Thank you, God!

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