First Things First

When I have learnt to love God better than my earthly dearest,

I shall love my earthly dearest better than I do now.

Insofar as I learn to love my earthly dearest

at the expense of God and instead of God,

I shall be moving towards the state in which

I shall not love my earthly dearest at all.

When first things are put first,

second things are not suppressed but increased. 


~ C. S. Lewis, Letters of C.S. Lewis (8 November, 1952) ~

An Open Hand

Well…I thought I would share a few notes and photos about the adventures and news of our week! First the blessings….the extra in home care for Papa and Gigi. The hours we thought were going to start next month actually started this week and got bumped up from 15 to 21 hours a week!! That will flesh out to roughly 3 hours a morning M-Th and 8 hours on Friday….what an amazing blessing from the Lord! We have a wonderful caregiver who is so good with P & G, she will come 3 days a week; and another great gal we are just getting to know who will come 2x’s a week. In the midst of this excitement, we were reminded again that we must approach each day with an open hand and continually give the details of our daily schedule to our heavenly Father. Yesterday was our first 8 hr. Friday we had free and I had made plans for our first real outing of the summer to enjoy the warm day at a waterfront park with dear friends. Sweet R (our caregiver) came at her appointed time and started waking P & G, but unfortunately fell quite ill here at the house and ended up going right home, about an hour after she arrived.  Ahhhh…..to rest in the sovereign will of my Lord. I recognized that He must desire me home this day for whatever reasons He has. We quickly changed gears and invited our friends out here for the afternoon instead…and what fun we had! Barb, Joel and Sarah joined us for an afternoon of sunshine, feet in the kiddie pool, the boys throwing the baseball and Aerobie, snacks and visiting. Sarah brought some delightful flowers to brighten the day, Papa and Gigi had a good afternoon and Papa even joined us outside in the warm sunshine for little bit. Barb stayed with Papa and Gigi while Sarah and I took the kiddos to Edaleen Dairy for some yummy ice cream and double espresso shakes! All in all a beautiful afternoon and much thankfulness for the beauty of dear friends with kindred spirits.

Of course there is plenty of other exciting happenings at the Honey home right now….including but not limited to… 2 toilets not working, a backed up septic, a torn apart bathroom and for quite a few hours last night and into the morning, no water available for use at all….yikes!! This is the first time we have ever been thankful for the quirky septic system in our home as it still allowed one bathroom on the other end of the house to work. BUT…..thankfully, this morning an angel… in the form of a plumber named Curly… came out and helped my HANDY and HANDSOME HUBBY unclog the septic, so we have use of 2 bathrooms and all water again! Our main downstairs bathroom is now in demolition mode as it still needs some plumbing issues taken care of so we will be doing a sooner than expected remodel in that bathroom!

On a more pleasant note, yesterday the boys put together my new outdoor park bench for by the front door, and the girls had fun making a wedding dress from the bubble pack! The middle 3 have also enjoyed playing Red Cross… Nurse Isabelle, Nurse Shelley and Doctor William and Isabelle and Shelley put on a short musical presentation with a few songs from the Sound of Music! I love seeing their imaginations in full swing! It has been a little crazy around here but it has been good and by God’s grace we are not just surviving but thriving in the adventures He is giving us!

Healing

I had hoped to get an update on here sooner but this last week has just not allowed for the time to blog. Gigi is home now, we brought her home last Saturday night (the 10th). We had thought that she would go to an extended care facility for more recovery before coming home but due to “regulations” and the fact that the ECF doctor did not examine on weekends she could not get into the extended care facility before Monday and she was not doing well in the hospital. As to be expected, in an unfamiliar place with people constantly poking and prodding, she became increasingly agitated and combative, including pulling out her IV in the night, fighting, yelling, hitting and not sleeping well. We have come to realize that being unable to move her to an ECF before coming home was probably the best thing for her. Even though her care needs were more intense, she simply needed to come home. With that said, her homecoming has been difficult, but with time she has been healing well and we are so grateful! This past week has had extremely hard days mixed with decent ones and the last couple days, for the most part, have been peaceful. We are trying a new medicine and thankfully she has been willing to take it. For now this medicine truly seems to be making a difference in her clarity, language and mood; so we will use it for as long as it works for her. The difficult side effect of course is that she sleeps quite a bit. We are diligently trying to walk the fine line of helping her to have more peaceful days but not making her too sleepy. We are also so thankful that soon we will start getting more in-home help in caring for Papa and Gigi. Right now we have a wonderful gal that comes in about 5 hours a week but starting next month that will increase to 15 hours a week. What a blessing that some of the care will be provided by this dear lady and we can give more focus to loving and spending time with them as grandchildren and great-grandchildren….not just caregivers.

We again praise the Lord for providing just what we need, when we need it, just as He has promised! Many, many, many thanks and kisses for the blessings of meals, caring for children, hugs, listening ears, encouraging words and the many other ways our family has been blessed as we nurse Gigi back to better health. We still covet your prayers for Papa and Gigi, for our wisdom in caring for them and we are so thankful for your willingness to continue to bring our family before the throne of grace.

Hebrews 4:16

Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace,

that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

Psalm 55:22

Cast your burden on the Lord, and he will sustain you;

he will never permit the righteous to be moved.

Update

We are thanking and praising the Lord for your prayers and a positive report….Gigi showed some improvement yesterday! Her infection is clearing and possibly the adjusting of the meds is helping the situation. She was quite sleepy during the day and only woke for a little longer than an hour in the morning and about an hour and a half in the afternoon then unfortunately she was awake from mid/late evening until early morning with some agitation to the nurses, but she finally fell asleep around 3am. She sat up in a chair for an hour for her breakfast yesterday and then walked once to the bathroom, other wise she remained in her bed. She was more interactive both with her eyes and in speaking. She fed herself a quarter of a small, soft sandwich and with help, held her own cup to drink but using a utensil was not successful. She had increased communication and was able to comprehend more although she was still unable to answer her last name, where she was, what year it was and a couple different times she did not know who I was. Not being able to answer those questions truly is not alarming to us though as this is more in tune with her normal ability at home. We are hoping she will get transferred to a care facility, maybe even today, but more than likely tomorrow; then home after what we are assuming will be a couple more days of getting stronger. We still covet your prayers for Gigi’s peace and comfort and the wisdom of the Doctors and our decisions. Another specific prayer request that she is able to get a bed at the care facility close to our home.
We have been blessed, once again, at the huge outpouring of love and care we are receiving as a family and are so thankful for those God has intertwined in our lives. It is our privilege and joy to experience such love and we look forward to the opportunity to return in kind to others in need what we are being blessed with at this time. Whether you are loving our family through prayer or practicality or both we praise the Lord for each of you dear ones!


The JOY of the Lord is my strength.

Hospital

I just wanted to write a quick post and give and update on Gigi. We had to call for 911 aid for Gigi on Wednesday afternoon and she is currently still in the hospital. At this point her communication is limited to random/unintelligible words and phrases with just a handful of coherent sentences or responses to questions in a span of a day. She is unable to feed herself and as she is being fed, she is eating very little. She is getting IV fluids though, so that is keeping her hydrated. On top of this matter, she bruised/fractured ribs in a fall on Saturday night so that is not helping the situation either. They have ruled officially ruled out stroke but she does have a UTI. UTI’s can wreak havoc on Alzheimer’s patients and increase the symptoms of the stage of Alzheimers they are in. They are also changing some medications to see if they are contributing to her condition. Since the stroke has been ruled out, we were hoping that with the clearing of the infection we would see an improvement in the physical/communication/confusion issues. As of right now, even with the infection getting better we are not seeing much, if any, change in her condition. There is also the possibility that this is simply the beginning of the last stage of her Alzheimer’s, but right now we are simply at a “wait and see” stage. We covet your prayers for Gigi’s comfort and peace, our wisdom in talking to doctors and making decisions and for tender hearts toward our Heavenly Father’s perfect will in this situation.



The JOY of the Lord is my strength.