A Very Scary Night…

My husband was on his way home from a business trip last night. He called just as I was getting myself ready for bed.  My daughter answered the phone, and when she brought the phone to me, she simply told me that Daddy needed to talk to me. I knew right away something was wrong.  His voice sounded agitated and scared. He proceeded to tell me that he drove into a white out (sudden flurry of snow that makes visibility impossible), lost control of his car, and rolled into the median of the highway….Panic ensued.

“When you say roll, do you mean you actually rolled the car?” The answer was yes. By this time I was screaming, wondering if he was ok, where he was, if police had been called, and how I could get to him.

When he hit the white out he could not see the road.  He drifted onto the rumble strip that signifies you are going onto the shoulder of the freeway.  He jerked the wheel back to the left causing his car to spin out of control  He crossed three lanes of freeway, narrowly missed a guardrail, and then rolled over into the median.  He couldn’t tell if he had rolled into oncoming traffic, so he began to panic.  Within seconds, a trucker who was going the opposite way on the freeway and witnessed the accident, banged on his window asking if he was ok.  When Andy said he thought he was ok, the guy busted the right passenger window out, and Andy had to crawl between the front seats on the roof of the car and out the window. 

The kids and I jumped in the van and took off for the accident site.  In retrospect, I shouldn’t have taken the kids with me.  I knew Andy was out of the car and safe, but coming up on the accident scene was one of the most horrific things I have ever experienced.  I could see the silhouette of his car in the oncoming headlights, and all four wheels were straight up in the air.  I FREAKED, and my poor girl got hysterical.  I couldn’t believe he survived this. Thank the Lord he was wearing his seatbelt.

EMS had come, but Andy thought he was ok, so declined an ambulance ride to the nearest hospital.  Given his recent health history, I was having none of that, so I drove him straight to the hospital once we had taken care of the car details.  He was put in a spinal collar right away.  They were not amused, given his history, that he was not brought by ambulance. They did an immediate chest x-ray because his airbag didn’t deploy.  He had a CT scan and other tests and everything came out fine.  He had some wounds they needed to clean up, but I was able to bring him home very early this morning.

This afternoon the trauma has hit all of us. What a scary night.  Tears have been shed, gratitude has been expressed to God for sparing his life once again, and we are very grateful to still be together the four of us.

We were told this afternoon that the car will probably be totaled. We’ll go take a look at it tomorrow and get all of Andy’s things out of it.  I’m very sad, as he LOVED that car.  But I love his life more, and I’m so glad he’s still with me.

Please pray for Andy as he deals with this trauma, experiences the impact pain, and is now dealing with a nasty sinus infection on top of it all. 

I can handle a sinus infection…so grateful I’m not planning his funeral…

I’ve shared this all on Facebook, but thought there might be those here that aren’t on my friends list there, and might want to know what has happened.  So I thought I’d share it here as well.  I’ll keep you posted on how he’s doing, and what happens with his car…

Update on my boy…

Andy has been back to work for a little over a week.  It has been going well.  He is still very tired in the evenings, and is not quite back to his normal self yet.  It will just take some time. 

His doctor would like to monitor his coumadin levels, so he will finish at the coumadin clinic at the end of this month.  He has been going once a week for a regular blood draw.  When he starts going to his doctor’s office, it will be every other week, and will just be a quick finger stick that will give us the results within seconds.  That will be great!

Please keep praying.  We are starting to receive all of the hospital bills now, and that is just depressing…

Andy has been back to church, back teaching his Sunday school class, and has gone with us on some shopping excursions.  That all still exhausts him, so we just have to take it a day at a time.  I’m SO grateful he is here…just so grateful.  I thank God every day that he chose to spare Andy’s life, because it very well could have gone the other way for us. Every time he calls me, or he pulls in the driveway, I breathe a sigh of relief.  I look forward every day to getting to hold him in my arms when he comes home.  I don’t think I’ll ever take that for granted again…

Will continue to keep you posted on our dear patient…

A New Look For March…

I thought I’d give my blog a new look and cover all of the holidays at once! The green is for St. Patty’s Day, and the rest is for Easter.

My kids still love Easter baskets and egg hunts, so we do that on the Saturday of Easter weekend. We have never had a large bunny visit our home, the kids have always known that we have bought the gifts and hidden the candy. 

I like to be sure that Easter Sunday is set aside for remembering the resurrection and celebrating the real reason for Easter. 

So my new header has some eggs in honor of the baskets and egg hunts, and the crosses are in honor of the One who gave His life for us, defeated death, and rose on the third day so that we could spend eternity with Him. 

***Patient Update*** My hubby was able to drive to the grocery store and get a few things for me tonight.  He let some little girl scouts snooker him into buying some cookies too! He is planning on teaching his 2nd grade Sunday school class tomorrow, and will be heading back to work on Monday.  I am still praising God EVERY moment that He spared Andy’s life, and He is still here with us.  It could have been so.much.worse.

Happy March everyone!

19 Years Ago Today…

On this day, 19 years ago, I was introduced to the most incredible man I have ever met. Andy is the love of my life, my best friend, my spiritual leader, and my soul mate. He is my biggest encouragement, and a gift from God. It was not love at first site that evening I met him. However, I knew as soon as he walked through the door at my sister's house, with one lone rose, and those beautiful green, tender eyes, that he was quite possibly "the one" :) My heart skipped a beat, and it has every time he has walked into the room since.

Andrew, I love you with all of my heart, and thank God every day for the 19 years I have known you. We had no idea when we met, all that God would give to us from His sovereign hand, but there is no other person on this earth that I would rather have gone through it with! Thanks be to God for His unspeakable gift in giving me the one desire of my heart…YOU! Love you so much!

UPDATE ON MY PATIENT: Andy saw his doctor on Friday, and he was a bit concerned that we have not been able to keep Andy’s coumadin at a therapeutic level, and that he was just that week up to getting out of bed.  So his leave was extended, and my boy is home for another week.  We’ll see how it goes for a return to work on March 11th.  I’ll keep you posted…

One Month Ago Today…

On January 28th, around 10:30am, I got a call from my husband.  I sincerely thought from the tone of his voice that he had lost his job.  That was not the case.  Andy said he was having severe, sharp pains in his lower right abdomen.  It came on suddenly while in a meeting, and felt as if someone stabbed him with a 4-inch knife.

Andy works in the city.  It is a city that I won’t even drive to unless I HAVE to.  He works in a pretty unsafe part of it, so I’m always a bit worried about him.  He talked about going to a hospital just a few doors down from his office, so I KNEW the pain was REALLY bad.  I told him that there was no way he was going to that hospital…what if they admitted him?  The kids and I would have to drive there to see him, and that wouldn’t be good.  I offered to get someone to come with me, and bring him home myself.  That was our plan when we hung up.  Andy called me back a few minutes later, said he couldn’t wait, and he was driving home then. :(

God protected him, and brought him home safely.  When he arrived, I was outside to meet him.  His face was a gray color, and I had to help him into the house.  I lay him on our bed, and started palpating his abdomen.  I was looking to see if the pain was surface, or deep.  It was deep.  Here is where I should have called 911.  He would have been seen immediately at the hospital.  Instead, I drove him, and we waited for 30-45 minutes in the waiting room :(

Once seen, things moved very quickly.  Tests were ordered, blood was drawn.  A few hours after we got there, Andy got sick to his stomach.  Some of the worst wretching I have ever heard.  I thought he was going to throw up his lung or something.  He spiked a fever, and his WBC count started to go up signifying an infection.  Doctors suspected appendicitis, but he had more symptoms.

They admitted Andy to observation, and there we remained for the next two days while they did tests to try and figure out what was wrong with Andy.  On the second night, a CT scan with dye was ordered, and we found the culprit.  Andy had suffered a kidney infarction, or “heart attack of the kidney” as the kidney specialist explained it to us.  It killed 2/3 of the tissue in Andy’s right kidney.

The next 10 days were spent doing tests to figure out where the infarct started from, why it happened, and treating the damage it did to Andy’s body.  He suffered extreme fatigue, relentless fevers, severe pain requiring many doses of dilaudid, and headaches.  Several specialists were called in. He saw a urologist, kidney specialist, infectious disease doctor, a hematologist, a cardiologist, and a vascular surgeon.  The last doctor told us that if this had happened in Andy’s heart, brain, main aorta, or carotid artery it would have killed him.  It is very rare to happen in the kidney, but this time it did. Thanks be to God!

Andy was put on coumadin, which is a blood thinner, and had to remain in the hospital until it was at a therapeutic level.  He has it checked every week, and they lower/raise the dose based on the blood work results.

After 10 days inpatient, Andy was released, and came home to recover.  He was released on February 6th, and is still home 2 weeks later.  He has just this week started to be up most of the day.  Up until then, he was still extremely tired and fighting fevers, so he spent most days in bed.  He is seeing his doctor tomorrow, and is hoping to return to work on Monday.

What a month! Andy will remain on the coumadin for 6 months.  If he makes it through that time with no more incidents, he can go off of it.  If there are anymore incidents, and he lives through them, he will be on the medication for life. 

Phew! Please pray for Andy, that God will continue to restore him to health, and protect his body from anymore infarctions.  Please pray for me…I’m a nervous WRECK about him going back to work on Monday.  He is 45-60  minutes away, and that is causing me great worry.  He’ll have to change his job a little (no more lifting, or working with sharp objects).  We have to watch every little scrape, cut, bruise, bump, wall, whatever.  It may look like nothing, but Andy could bleed internally. Our ENT doctor even told us that he would be treated in her office as an emergency if he gets a nosebleed.  She’s worked with coumadin patients, and would know what to do.  That was comforting…

Here’s my boy when he started to feel a bit better…

One of my favorites with his sweet girl…she was so worried about him…

  
And another…

Getting ready to leave the hospital…

Walking out with my man…a bit blurry, but I love this picture…

Morgan took this last one.  He was smiling because he saw the van pulling up to the door, and was so glad to be going HOME!

I’ll keep you posted, but for now we are on the road to recovery, and I almost have my boy back to his normal self. Praise God for that!

Still Recovering…

Sorry I have not been around.  We are still recovering here.  Andy is shooting for a March 4th return to work, but we’ll see how that goes.  Recovery has been difficult and slow.  I’m a bit overwhelmed with life right now, so blogging has taken a back seat.  I’ll be back as soon as my man is better.

I’m not sure anyone even reads this blog anymore, so maybe you won’t even know I’m gone…

A Frowning Providence…

Sometimes life brings us frowning providences.  Those ordeals God brings us through to make us more like Him, to cause us to trust only Him because there is nothing else to trust in, and make us realize that He is our only hope.  Our frowning providence started two weeks ago tomorrow.  I very nearly could have lost my husband.  When I think about the circumstances of two weeks ago, my head spins.  I weep for the grace God showered on us by sparing Andy’s life, and for working things out as He did.

Andy spent ten LONG days in the hospital, and finally came home this past Wednesday.  We’ve spent the past couple days tackling Mt. Laundry, Mt. Trash, Mt. Dirt, and Mt. Dishes that piled up because I was too tired when I got home from the hospital each night to wash them. We’ve also been caring for our precious patient, and thanking God that he is here to be cared for.

Andy will be recovering at home, and can’t return to work until after he sees his doctor on February 20th.

I’ll be back soon to tell you the story, but I’m still trying to process it all, and think clearly again.  We are exhausted…simply exhausted.  It was a long 2 weeks for all of us.  Graciously, ladies from our church have signed up to bring meals for a couple weeks while I care for Andy, and a couple of friends have offered to come over and help me clean/organize our house.  I am grateful…

I would appreciate your prayers.  Andy is weak, tired, sore, and has a few weeks of recovery ahead of him.  His body suffered quite a trauma, and it could have been so so much worse…

My sweet Love when he was so very sick…

I’ll be back to tell you what happened once our home is back in order, and we have caught up on our sleep.  Please keep Andy in your prayers as he recovers over the next couple weeks…

Anniversary Weekend…

This Sunday, June 24th, is our 17th wedding anniversary. I love to reflect on my wedding day on the days surrounding each anniversary.  I pull out videos, programs, pictures, music tracks, and just enjoy thinking about what was one of the most amazing days in my life. 

By the time I got married in 1995, I had already played for close to 150 weddings myself.  So I had TONS of ideas for what I wanted to do at my own wedding.  I started by hiring the most AMAZING wedding coordinator known to man.  When I hired my friend Patty, she basically told me to tell her what I wanted, and she’d make it happen.  And that she did!  I wrote a “script” for the ceremony and the hours surrounding it, because I wanted to be sure that everyone involved knew exactly what I wanted to happen.  Patty took that script and made it come to life.  She did it in such a way that I could focus on Andy and me on our wedding day, and not worry a BIT about what was going on in the background.  It just happened…

So a good coordinator is a MUST.  She walked through everything with me ahead of time, and on the big day she was on a mission.  And she didn’t take any guff from anyone that didn’t want to cooperate. If she told you to get out of the sanctuary because pictures were about to take place, you better get moving. :)  She was GOOD. Not one thing went wrong that day, and I owe it all to Patty.

I also hired another friend to be my personal assistant for the whole day, and I think that is a MUST as well.  Joann was never out of my vision the whole day, and all I had to do was look at her and she came running.  The only time she wasn’t right there is when I walked the aisle.  She fluffed my train, and then sat and enjoyed the ceremony.  There is a point in my wedding video where I can see her get up and walk to the foyer, so she would be out there when I came back down the aisle.  She was a God-send that day, and an immense help to me. 

I hired another friend to shoot our pictures. Since she came with my other friends and stayed with me, she was there to shoot pictures of all the set up, decorating going on, rehearsal pictures, and the ceremony, and both receptions we had after the ceremony (a smaller reception in the evening with Andy’s family at their home).  I got EVERY proof, every picture, and I LOVE my pictures. She got a lot of behind the scenes stuff that might not otherwise be included in wedding albums.

Music….I am a musical girl, so I wanted my ceremony to be VERY musical.  It was everything I hoped it would be in that department.  I had a friend who had just graduated from the music program at MSU, and he was AMAZING on the piano.  I had had my heart set on coming down the aisle to the wedding song from “The Sound of Music” minus the part where everyone sings about how to solve a problem like me. :)  I wanted the big pipe organ sound and all.  Only thing was, that was my specialty for weddings (big pipe organ sound), and I would be kind of tied up that day. :)  My friend suggested an original wedding march he had written for a friend’s wedding, and I would be only the second one to have it played at my wedding.  He played it, and though I thought is was beautiful, I didn’t want just piano. I really love a full, orchestral sound. The song would play for the whole wedding party entering, the flower girl/ring bearer, and then the bride.  He mentioned that he could sequence the song into his keyboard and add a whole orchestral background.  He asked me to imagine the song building right before I would come in, and a big cymbal crash when the doors would open and I enter the room.  I was sold! The song was WAY more than I imagined it could be, and is one of the most beautiful pieces of music I have ever heard.  I can now play it myself, and am finally comfortable to suggest it to brides that I work with now. (Doug had it played at his own wedding the next year, with a live orchestra!) The day before our wedding, the girls and I practiced walking down the aisle so that Patty could time the music, and know when to send each person down the aisle.  She timed it perfectly.  I was a bit worried about “canned” music, but it went fine. Doug just hit a button on the keyboard, and away we went. I had so many people tell me that it was a breathtaking moment when the cymbals crashed, the doors flew open, and there I was.  It is a moment I’ll never forget.  I watch the video each year, and I still get shivers.

My pianist friend had a great lineup of prelude music, and we had a dear friend playing her flute with him.  He also played the postlude, and the flutist’s husband played his soprano sax.  It was all amazing music. I had four soloists. They were all vocalists in a praise band I was in at the time, and all of my musicians played in the band as well.  I wanted a song sung as soon as I came up the aisle, so that I could stand with my dad for a bit.  I didn’t want to be given away too soon :).  My friend Dina sang “This Day” by Point of Grace, one of my most favorite songs.  I had just sung it 7 months earlier at my sister’s wedding.  My friend Deb sang a song by Debbie Boone called, “Friends for Life” a bit later in the ceremony.  After the charge to the bride and groom (by none other than Dr. Emerson Eggerichs, author of “Love and Respect”…yes he married us!), our friend Rick sang “If You Could See What I See” by Geoff Moore & The Distance.  Then during the lighting of the unity candle our dear, soprano friend Penny sang “The Lord’s Prayer”.   Later, the whole praise team played at our reception (songs from a CD we had made together) while we had our pictures taken.  I even got to join them on the keyboard for a special number I was featured on, on the CD.  It was fun playing in my wedding dress! :)

We paid each of these musicians (soloists included) for playing in our wedding, and each one of them gave the money back to us as a wedding gift.  Their music was our gift, and that was so special to us. I was so touched by that… They were dear dear friends of ours, and remain so to this day!

Our ceremony was an hour long, but it was all we had ever hoped for and more! We knew we were only doing this one time, so we wanted it to be special for us.  It was an incredible day that went off without a hitch, because of the people that came alongside us to make it wonderful.  Andy and I always like to watch our wedding video on each anniversary, and this year will be no exception.  It still feels like it was yesterday to me, and doesn’t seem possible that we’ve been married 17 years.  We were different people then, and marriage has been hard work, but there is no one on this earth I love more than Andy, and no one I’d rather be with.  He has been an incredible husband, and has loved me through some of the worst times of our lives.  I would go back and do it all over again, and not change one thing.  God has been with us, and will continue to be the center of our marriage.  We are nothing without Him. 

Happy Anniversary to my dear Andrew…I love you with all of my heart!

A Much Needed Weekend…

I’m so excited for this coming weekend.  My kids will be attending their first winter retreat with their youth group.  Parker was able to go last year, but didn’t want to go without Morgan.  So, this is the first time for both of them.  They’ll be going to a wonderful Christian camp that our church supports.  I have always had great times there, and I know the kids will too. I’m a little nervous, as this is the first time they have gone away overnight with anyone other than family and close friends.  They’ll be 3 hours away, and that is causing a bit of high anxieties as well.  I’m excited they get this opportunity…

What I’m REALLY excited about is that my love and I will have a weekend all to ourselves! The first since 2006!! WOOHOO! We really don’t have the money right now to take off anywhere, so we are just going to plan some things to do around here for Friday evening, and all day Saturday.  I have to play Sunday morning, and the kids will be back that afternoon.

Andy and I have had a tough year for many reasons.  There have been some great stresses on our marriage, and we have fought together through them, and have come out still going strong.  It’s tough…marriage is work.  But I love this man, I promised my life to him, and NOTHING will make me change my mind.  I am looking forward to concentrated time talking to just him, sitting next to him in a booth at a restaurant (instead of next to the darling girl that always says, “sit by me mama! :), walking hand in hand with him wherever we go, and getting to love on him in ways I don’t always get the opportunity to do when the kids are home.  Andy is just as excited as I am, and we are going to try to do this a couple times a year from now on.  I really think it’s important for us as a couple.

I’ll post pictures if we go anywhere cool, and I’ll let you know how the weekend goes.  I will be off the radar until at least Sunday evening, so have a great weekend! I know I will! :)