Recycled Post: In the waiting "room"

I posted this almost a year ago. I think it is a good reminder to myself, so I wanted to post it again.


I have spent multiple hours waiting around the hospital all week. If you don't know why, see my post here. In these hours I observed a great deal of people and situations.

In the initial waiting room of the ER, I watched an elderly gentlemen on a stretcher being transported to a psychiatric hospital. In the post assessment room, I saw a student with either a deformity or a large amount of swelling in his head/on his brain. He sat in a wheelchair with a hole in his shoe and a thin jacket on to keep him warm from the harsh wind that night. He was alone. That room also housed a husband and wife. The wife was in a wheelchair and crying.

Once we were given a room in the ER, the room across from us had a number of people pass through. The first, a woman who had surgery recently, was discharged but began throwing up once home. The second, a man in a wheelchair bent over in pain. His clothes were tan and I could hear him moaning in pain. His feet and hands? Handcuffed to the wheelchair. He was escorted by a police officer. The last patient I remember was someone I saw in the initial waiting room. He was also hunched over in pain. His face gaunt. His coat was about 3 sizes too big and his winter hat sat atop his head, not covering his ears. He was a homeless man.

For about an hour my chair was positioned in the hallway between two floors. To the right was the ER exam room floor and to my left was the pediatrics floor. Hospitalized babies filled the beds that night. As I sat there I could hear the cry of a baby that sounded like a one year old. It wasn't a cry of need or discontentment. It was a cry of desperation and pain. I found myself pleading with the Lord to give this baby, whose face I didn't know, some relief and rest. The babe continued to cry off and on for about 10 minutes, and then, from the silence, I assumed he was able to finally rest.

I walked down the hall to the bathroom several times and each time I walked by one of the empty beds for babies in the hospital. The kind that we have all seen Stellan in through MckMama's pictures. I pictured all those parents who just want to hold their children and bring them home to their own bed, yet all they can do is reach their arms through the bars of the bed to comfort their child, letting them know they are close.

My mind raced knowing large quantities of parents walk the hallway of the pediatric wing every day for days and weeks on end. Millions of tears have been shed in that wing and in that hospital.

Yet, there I sat with warm winter boots on my feet, without a hole. My family was together. My coat fit properly. I had a home to go to and have never known the feeling of watching my child sit in a hospital bed, feeling hopeless.

It doesn't mean the Lord loves me anymore than He loves each person I observed. He loves us all equally.

It doesn't mean I have good luck and they have bad luck- I don't believe in it.

I means that I am responsible to take what the Lord has given me to give back to Him. It means sitting in that hallway looking for ways to extend His love to those who are hurting. It means praying for one another, even when we don't know their face or even their name.

It means no matter how bad things become, the Lord walks with us.

It means the elderly, the homeless, the incarcerated, the emotionally exhausted, the 24 year old grad student, and the wife with no answers have hope. That not one moment of their life goes unnoticed. There is hope in the One who created them.

Even in the darkest hours of life, there is always hope.

Philippians 1:6
"Being confident of this, that He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus."

Tis so sweet

Tis so sweet
To trust in Jesus

Tonight I learned of the death of someone many loved dearly. I cannot say I know many who are loved so deeply by so many. Truly. She was a woman after God's heart. Her love for Him was so tangible and sweet.

Only a couple months ago was she diagnosed with leukemia. She missed her daughter's college graduation and her son's high school graduation due to the cancer and having a very difficult time with treatment. Her battle was hard and long. Yet, I can testify that when she came to church one Sunday in between treatment, she sat in the back with a blanket over her lap. When the pastor called attention to her presence in church that day, she simply raised her hands to heaven, eyes fixed on Jesus, giving all the glory to God.

I'll never forget singing in choir when she directed. The joy on her face when she sang praise is indescribable.

Just to take Him at His word. Just to rest upon His promise, and to know "thus saith the Lord"

There are hundreds shedding tears tonight over the loss of a friend, wife, mother, sister, aunt etc. My heart aches for her family. I can only pray and take confidence in knowing that Jesus will watch over them. He will hold them. Oh these coming days will be more difficult that my comprehension. But we have to trust...

Jesus, Jesus, how I trust Him! How I’ve proved Him o’er and o’er; Jesus, Jesus, precious Jesus!
Oh, for grace to trust Him more!

No doubt in my mind...she is pain free tonight and singing with the angels. Glory to God, what a wonderful site she is seeing.

Please pray for her family. She leaves behind many who desperately need Him for comfort.

A Time For Everything

Ecclesiastes 3: 1 & 4
"There is a time for everything,
and a season for every activity under the heavens:

a time to weep and a time to laugh,
a time to mourn and a time to dance"

For my family, 2010 has been a time for the former of both these verses- a time to weep & and a time to mourn.

I can never remember a year that was filled with more sorrow, heartache, and pain.

My heart has never longed like it has this year.

The death of family and family friends.

Sickness that still haunts us.

Stories that don't seem to have the capacity of more negative outcomes to only disprove this theory.

We have mourned health and life this year.

We cried over thousands of unanswered questions.

Laughing and dancing has had no part in my vocabulary many a day this year. There have been many nights where I have driven around, talking aloud to the Lord asking and wondering "how long" until this season will pass. Pleading for a season of "the Lord's favor" to rest on my family, specifically the health of my family.

This Christmas season has especially been hard for me. I can hardly believe how many things remind me of my grandmother. There is a small part of me that wants to walk down to her house (she lived right down my street) , sit on her back porch, and just cry. I have so many memories in that house. Some of my most cherished childhood memories were formed there.

I sit here, with tears that still continue to stream....

Yet, my earthly desires, questions, and wants can still be coated in joy because He is the One Who gives me strength. Even when I fail to ask. Even when I question and doubt. Even when my sinful wants and desires overtake me, He remains faithful and reminds me of that little baby in the manger.

He is why we are here.

Yes, He is the reason for the season.

What joy fills my heart when I stop thinking of myself and focus on that baby, so soft and so sweet.

So full of promise and HOPE.

Because I am selfish

'tis the season to be selfish, right?

No?

Darn....well, CSN has picked me once again to run a giveaway or review. Since I did the giveaway last time, I thought I would use the review option this time. Does it count as being selfish if I use it for a gift?

Anyway, if you haven't heard of CSN stores, don't be ashamed! I hadn't until I started blogging, and now is the time to be educated! They have over 200 stores and you can find ALL kinds of things. They have everything from

a fun briefcase

Seriously, how sweet is this one?!

To dog beds
I just want the dog in this picture

To lots of cookware!

Seriously, go check out their 200+ sites! Finish up (or start!) your Christmas shopping with them! I love to shop online, especially when shipping is free on many items!!

From the sky

Over thanksgiving week, I spent time in 4 different planes. That means taking off and landing 4 times. For me, this translated to 4 times I had to deal with intense pain in my ears. When I say intense, I mean screeching, knife stabbing pain in my ears. I have tried every trick, but the ol ears still give me grief. Of course the higher altitude, the more pain upon descending. Good times.

But my ears are not really the point of this post.

It was not until the fourth flight I was on, from Newark, NJ to Manchester, NH, that I began to look at the ground from my window seat. As we took off, I could see hundreds of houses and cars. How tiny they looked from my little seat on the airplane. Their size did not amazing me, though. I began to think about all the people coming and going from those houses and how any people are in those cars. Each house likely represented, on average, four people living there.

Do the math; that is a lot of people. What took my breath away was thinking about how the Lord knows every person in that city. Every tear. Every laugh. He beats every one of their hearts. Are you getting the picture here? His power and omniscience in knowing that city alone is amazing. If you take it farther and think about our whole country and then our whole world? I am overwhelmed just thinking about it. Billions of people!

He loves each one.

He hears each one.

He longs to have a relationship with EACH one! I can barely maintain a close relationship 15 people, never mind billions.

That airplane ride showed me just a glimpse of this power. My finite mind does not even have the ability to comprehend what He is capable of being and doing.

"For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength." 1 Corinthians 1:25

Work was canceled today

So I spent some time with my new pictures from my trip...

Partially

I certainly have not been a good blogger lately.

Partially because I have been too lazy.

Partially because I have lacked the desire.

Partially because I can hardly keep up with reading the blogs I follow

But mainly because I just haven't had the time!

I will be on a break from school in two weeks, so I am definitely hoping to write some posts then- including a CSN review.

I hope everyone is well and had a wonderful Thanksgiving with family and/or friends. I, for one, and happy to be back home from a trip to the mid west!

VERY blurry, but here is what my suitcase weighed in at the night before my flight...

Yes, that's 49.6...that means I had 0.39 to spare!! Don't ever question my packing abilities!

Be back here soon!

A piece of my heart

is in these photos

and will remain there

and with them

in heaven

Until we meet again.

My heart has been changed forever.

They taught me the meaning of a beautiful life.

They never wasted a day.

They stole a lot of my heart and love.

I will never be the same again.

Cinco Question Viernes

Somewhere other there my old Spanish teacher (who is now a very dear friend) is shivering! :)

I haven't done 5 Question Friday for a while. Who am I kidding, I have hardly blogged lately.

I'm jumping in with Mama M this week! You should, too!

1. What is the most physically painful thing that has ever happened to you?

Oh, this is NOT pretty!! Like REALLY ugly! It has to do with my bear bottom butt!! I had a cyst on my tailbone. LOOOONG story short, I was basically taken in for "emergency surgery" to remove it. The doctor was HORRIBLE! I felt the WHOLE thing...all the cutting, digging, cleaning, more cutting, more digging...

and THEN...WAIT FOR IT....I had to keep the hole open for 2 FREAKIN weeks.

Thanks for making me remember all that. Really, thanks.

2. How much sleep do you get at night?

Different every night...I know, bad...anywhere between 5 and 9 hours. Usually 7. I would sleep for 10 hours every night if I could.

3. How long did you believe in Santa Claus? How did you find out that he does not exist?

My parents always told us he was not real. Fine with me. I would have been afraid of him anyway. My parents were always very "strict" about the true meaning of Christmas. Although they never did the Easter bunny, tooth fairy, etc either

4. What was the last movie you saw in a theater?

Ramona and Beezus.... GOOOOD MOVIE!

5. What do you wear to Bed?

heated mattress, smartwool socks, flannel or sweats with hoodie, and 2 down comforters...no heat in my room, people.

New Hampshire Fall

GIVEAWAY time again!! Over

**Giveaway now over!! Thanks to all who entered! Winner announced by tonight!!**

CONGRATS TO MAMIPDX!!!!! Thanks for enter everyone!! definitely a fun round!!


Welcome to another CSN giveaway!!

Anyone can enter...just be aware of the shipping. I believe most shipping is free as long as you are a US resident.

On with the giveaway....

CSN works hard at promoting their online stores. I have been on the receiving end of some of their wonderful products. Check out their bar stools, so many to choose from. I personally love these:

from here

and here

This time I am not doing a review, I chose a giveaway, so one of you will get to choose...AND you are not limited to bar stools. Check out all their different stores! If you win, you will get $45 to spend at one of their online stores!

SO enter as you wish....as many times as you'd like! I'll let you know when I am getting close to shutting the giveaway down, but for now, no stipulations.... enter away!

the week that followed

Tuesday morning will mark 2 weeks since my grandma went to be with Jesus.

The days that followed her death were some of the hardest I can remember. I walked around in a daze, just trying to get through. I was literally on the verge of tears at every second. I can't even tell you how many times I broke down. Anywhere and everywhere...including the dinner table with the whole family.

I will admit, my fear got the best of me. I started to worry about others. Pleading with the Lord not to take anyone else away. I was trapped in my fear. Somehow the Lord is helping me to release this fear and breathe again.

One day at a time. If you think of it, please continue to pray for my brother-in-law. He is still very sick. He did not return home with my sister after the funeral out here because he was not stable enough to fly. He still continues to seize several times a night and have severe headaches. His uncle also just dropped dead 2 nights ago....there has to be some respite for him...and I am hoping it comes really soon.

on a positive note, I will be posting another CSN giveaway this week!

Still

It still hurts to look at her pictures

I hated how she was frowning in her casket. She never frowned...and I know she is certainly not frowning in heaven!

I still can't drive to the end of my street (where her house is).

It still doesn't seem like she is gone.

I still don't believe it.

I still keep thinking our bi-weekly dinners are part of my life....waiting for her to call me and ask what I want her to make. :)

I still look with expectation that one day I will see her again in heaven where we will sing and dance before the Lord forever.

Afterall, she taught me to Greek dance!

if you were to ask me

what yesterday looked like, I would tell you....

black clothes and cool fall weather

my grandmother's wake

my grandmother's funeral

my tears, snot, and whatever makeup I had on all over my dad's suit coat

a white wine toast to my grandmother's life

a cemetery burial in the middle of beautiful fall leaves

a pink carnation placed on her casket

hundreds of people

hugs and laughter, tears and sobbing

my brother having three seizures

my brother-in-law having three seizures

piano and singing from the hymnal as a family

prayer

love & support

memories & pictures

more tears

a goodbye a promise to see her in heaven

it turned out differently than I thought

When I left the ICU 2 weeks ago with my brother, who was being moved to a regular floor, I said if I was never there again, it would be too soon.

Little did I know.

In that same room, room #7 in the ICU, I would be following the nurse with my grandmother in the bed two weeks later. I spent all day yesterday beside her. Her breathing was labored and she was so irritated, confused and the most miserable I have ever seen a person. She also had hypoxia due to the lack of oxygen she was getting. She kept telling me all day she was dying. The doctors assured her she was not and just needed to get over this hump.

One week ago she fell and broke 5 ribs. She was taken and admitted to the hospital because she had aspirated and had pneumonia. As she was weened off the pain meds, her breathing became more labored and even a 100% oxygen mask was not keeping her stats where they needed to be, thus the need to move her to ICU for the night.

The doctor told my aunt and I we were causing her breathing to be so bad by "micromanaging her". Dear Doctor, if you would give her some pain meds maybe she would not be suffering. Clearly the small dose you gave her is not helping.

Once she was in ICU, (where we thought she was just spending the night and would be moved back to a regular floor in the morning) she started to talk nonsense. Because I have been with two other grandparents during the dying process, I knew this was all too familiar. She was taken for a CT scan and the cardiologist told us she thought my grandma was having a heart attack but her stats were improving. We went to her bedside and she was very ash. We stood around her bed as she sang lullabies in Greek, never opening her eyes again....and then she just stopped breathing and went to be with Jesus. I had just been helping feed her lunch 7 hours before.

If she was going to go, it was for what I had prayed- quickly and peacefully.

It's so hard knowing she was so healthy and walking 2 miles every day just over a week ago. I just look at pictures and can't believe it.

I won't lie, I really wish life would stop hurting because this has been a very long year and I'm tired. So very tired.

I miss you my YiaYia. Thank you for always being at every school play, graduation, and cooking for me every Thursday night. I'm glad you are with Jesus and Papou now. I know how much you missed him. I love you! xoxo

Want List

I've been spending way too much time online lately just browsing instead of doing school work ...here are a couple things I'm putting on my 'want list'.

I actually need a new pair of good winter boots. I love this and really love the company. Always loved ever shoe I have bought from them.

I have been drooling over Dansko lately and want to spice it up with these. I actually saved up for the last couple months for these and hope to buy them soon. Yes, they are patent!

Some really cute Sam Moon finds:

I think this is just beautiful!

Color theme much?

I LOVE LOVE this Columbia parka, but for someone who hate the cold weather the $270 is slightly excessive! And when I say "slightly excessive" I mean RIDICULOUS!

Love these sweaters from Old Navy


Guess that sums it up for now! :) Please excuse me while I continue browsing do my school work.

mmm mmm good!!

MckMama's Spinach/Sour Cream Pancakes!! SOO delish!!

Over the Hump

Wow...

the last week has been a whirlwind.

I can honestly say I am exhausted!

Tired of hospitals and watching monitors. Tired of going back and forth. And goshdarnit tired of sitting on horrible ICU metal chairs!! I'm pretty sure my butt was flattened out!

I have spent more time in hospitals this year....between my brother-in-law being in Boston for weeks (remember this post?) and this past week....too much time. I has made me realize how amazingly strong are all the parents who have spent countless weeks and months with their babies in the hospital.

Heartbreaking.

If you didn't already know, both my brothers were in the ICU this past week for seizure activity. My brother-in-law in Ohio and my brother here, in NH. I was woken up on Tuesday morning to my mom telling me the ambulance was on their way because Ben was having grand mal seizures, one right after another. I was confused because I knew my bro-in-law was in the hospital for the same thing, and surely my mom was just confused, or I wasn't hearing her correctly because I had been woken from a dead sleep.

Sure enough, I rushed down my stairs, my dad was in my brothers room and Ben was face down having a grand mal seizure. He stopped breathing a couple times and aspirated. The ambulance arrived after what seemed like forever, and he was taken right away to the trauma room at the local city ER. By the time he was there, he had had over a dozen grand mal seizures. He was intubated and placed on a vent to breathe for him. He was completely sedated and remained in this state for over 48 hours. They tried to take him off the sedation meds but he was showing more signs of possible seizure activity, so back to a medically induced sleep he went. The second attempt over a day later was more successful.

I'm tired just writing all the details. I'll spare you the rest. It has been a LOOONG week, but both Ben and my bro-in-law are home from the hospital now. Ben is doing well, but experiencing some negative behavior due to all the med changes etc. My bro-in-law is still dealing with severe headache pain that is not even touched by morphine.

People kept telling us having 2 family members in the ICU at the same time, thousands of miles apart was too much for one family to deal with.....

Amazing, though....the grace of God....was abundant and evident.

So we press on hoping, praying, and receiving the grace He gives.

it gets worse

My mom woke me up this morning to tell me the ambulance was on their way. Ben, my brother, had several grand mal seizures this morning, and he was not coming out of it and continuing to seize. They brought him to the ER, and now he is heavily sedated in the ICU.

We are waiting on an EEG. Ben is a complicated case due to the 7 other meds he is on, so every single medical decision has to be made with great caution.

So now both my brothers, who live 14 hours apart from each other, are in the ICU for grand mal seizures. What in the world is going on???!!!

This has to end somewhere, right?!

Thanks for the prayers and encouragement. We are trusting the Lord to work out the details.

the hands of men

Things aren't looking good.

My brother-in-law was making great progress over the last 2 months, but 2 weeks ago he took about 100+ steps back. As of tonight they cannot get his seizing under control and no one has any freaking answers.

No doctor has cared enough to see this through.

Why does no one want to figure this out? Why does no one care?

I love the medical field for all it has accomplished for SO many, but I also hate it for what it has done to my family. I hate that no one really seems to care. How can you allow someone live with a migraine for 10 months with little to no relief?

I don't know what it's going to take, but I fear it's his life....

so I can only remind myself that his life is in God's hands....not the hands of men.

**Updated: It's just after 4am and I just talked to my BIL. He is being admitted to the ICU right now...

Nantucket Beach

Funk Take 2

I still can't put my finger on the funk, but I have spent sometime thinking about it. I should have clarified and told you it's not an emotional funk. It's just a I feel very strange all the time funk. For example, things that seem normal to me, appear to be strange in my mind. Weird, I know. It's enough that I have considered going to the doctor if I don't feel better soon.

I have felt better the last couple days. But I have to be honest, there has been a part of me experiencing an emotional funk in addition to the strange-feeling funk.

The emotional funk stems from feeling unappreciated.

It's true. I'm an affirmation girl. I need to hear from you that you appreciate what I am doing or that I am doing it correctly. I am not looking for high praise, but to simply have the satisfaction that my effort is worth it.

When I don't receive this affirmation that I so desperately seek, I begin to not only feel unappreciated, but also taken advantage of.

It finally "hit me" the other night. One of my favorite quotes states, "Intense love does not measure, it just gives" (Mother Teresa).

If I am giving of myself to others, I don't have to feel unappreciated or taken advantage of. If my actions are out of love, measurement has no part of the equation.

But if you want to affirm me, I won't mind! :)

Funk

I have been in a total funk lately.

I have no idea.

I have been feeling very strange mentally.

And it has put me in a real funk.

To the point where I don't want to do anything.

I don't feel depressed.

I am not really anxious.

Just in a funk.

And I hate the feeling.

It's a feeling of not being able to be present in the moment. ever.

I keep thinking I will wake up and it will be gone.

But it hasn't.

I've felt better for a couple days.

And I have moments when I feel normal again.

But then I go back to the strange feeling.

Today the funk just made me totally annoyed at everything.

UGH!

I wish I knew what the deal was....

Brother-In-Law

Many of you have sent me messages, e-mails, and comments asking about my brother-in-law. I have been maintaining a blog for them so everyone can stay updated. Should you want to continue following their journey and read a letter my sister wrote recently, please visit their blog here.

Thank you, friends, for all your prayers and concern on behalf of our family.

this and that

I always have so many blog ideas running through my head, but I hardly even write them down or have the mental energy to type them out.

I have no idea where the last two months have gone. SO crazy and I hate how it's the end of summer. I always say I don't even want to think about my Bday (Aug 14th) because that means summer is winding down. UGH!

I turned 25 this year. Time to grow up! :) I spent it snuggling with a 4 week old baby. I stayed with some friends for a couple days to help out with the baby. But wow I am tired. Last night was my first night back in my bed and I am pretty sure I could have slept until my 26th birthday!

My sister and BIL where here for a week. We went for lunch at an amazing restaurant called Latitudes. It's the summer restaurant for a hotel call Wentworth By The Sea. The owner saw some of my pictures and is interested in using some of them!

THE BEST salad I have ever eaten!!

My sister and BIL's wedding rings

Sister

Mom and her girls