Thursday, September 24, 2015

Where I Am–And Why

If you’ll look at Older Posts you’ll find ten days of praise. The first, Saturday, August 29, was done on my desktop with internet connection. The next nine were done on my iPhone because we lost our internet connection – could not get our “just bought out by another” ISP to fix it within the first week’s difficulty, then another two weeks before they would commit to a service call.  Within that length of time we could get a new IPS – which turned out to have given erroneous up/download info – and still a third ISP to put us back in touch with the rest of the world.

But that’s only half the story.  As you long-time readers know, my Beloved Husband suffers from Myasthenia Gravis and requires plasmapheresis – a filtering of proteins from his blood. The proteins “plug” the nerve lines to specific muscles – an outpatient process. Within three months of his diagnosis, he was in ICU over a week in an MG crisis. Another three months later. A third that summer. There is no cure, but plasmapheresis holds the disease at bay.

If you are interested in learning more, Google – there’s tons of information on this “rare” disease. The important part is “disease” and “plasmapheresis”. You see, toward the last of May, the graft necessary for his process plugged with clots. Removing them is “thrombectomy” and requires hospitalization. Our summer ran like this:

May 12 – plasmapheresis fail – graft clotted
May 13 – thrombectomy – worked
May 14 – plasmapheresis
June 13 – plasmapheresis failed – graft clotted
June 9 – thrombectomy
June 11 – plasmapheresis – worked
June 30 – plasmapheresis failed – graft clotted
July 6 – appointment with nephrologist – new graft required
August 3 – additional graft – original blocked
August 24 – first of three plasmapheresis process – every other day - due to length of time without one. Symptoms increasing.
August 26 – second plasmapheresis failed – thrombosis
August 27 – thrombectomy with stent inserted
August 28 – “second” plasmapheresis worked
September 3 – third plasmapheresis worked – returned to monthly schedule.

As you can tell – we basically lost our summer to hospital halls. There were other doctor visits – to his endocrinologist and neurologist – not listed above, as well as a couple for me, but they didn’t entail being admitted to the hospital’s outpatient. This gave me a greater respect for those needing dialysis multiple times each week, too. Surely you know someone like that! Please spend extra time in prayer for them.

Anyway – while this was going on, our “Together We Can Change Lives” ladies mission group got its late start on our now-annual craft sale for missionary support. I do not sew as well as the others, I do not create jewelry from semi-precious stones and I certainly am not adapt at paper crafts – so I am typing our second cookbook, just as I did the first one.

I am good at typing and organization!! (Except for my own work areas.) All of the recipes come from ladies in our church. Some may sound similar, but are tweaked - feel free to tweak for yourselves. There should be no repeats of same recipe/same donor from last year's book. All of the paper and printing is donated by a wonderful company and I do the assembly, so every $10.00 received for a cookbook goes directly to missions – no overhead! Last year we printed 100 books and reprinted 25 more so that $1,250 went to three specific mission projects. This year we’ll print more and hope they go as fast. 

If you missed last year, it is available as PDF on CD for the same $10.00 – just mail a request to:  TWCCL c/o First Baptist Church of Cottondale, 145 CR 3355, Paradise, Texas 76073.  Then you can say your cookbook came from Paradise!!

That’s my story. Beloved Husband is doing better. Internet connections are installed and doing better, too. I am back to blogging – between typing a cookbook – and wondering when I can get bites of these new recipes (well, some not so new, but sounding very good!)

May God have provided for your life and loves as He has so graciously for mine. His mercy is everlasting.

2 comments:

  1. I had no idea that was going on. So glad to hear that things are somewhat normal again and that your husband's health is back on track.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks - it has been a whirlwind, but we had wonderful prayer support. I recommend membership in an active, caring church family. That allows us to participate in providing support to others and receiving theirs, too.

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