Filling in the Gaps: Part 1

I posted about God bringing good out of my self-induced surgery cancellation, then went radio silent until I came up for air to ask for prayer. My apologies for leaving you hanging in between🤓 I’ll try to fill in the gaps...

Setting the scene: Friday, March 8th, Dave & I are enjoying an almost traffic-free drive to LAX (one of the silver-linings to the “Covid Effect”) while the boys put the finishing touches on the house in preparation for company (thank you, boys!🥰). We were picking up our dear college friends who flew in from Michigan. We had a spring break ski trip to Colorado and a 50th birthday trip to NYC planned with them in April that were cancelled, due to the Covid quarantine, so they came to us (can I get an “Amen!” from anyone on God’s gift of good friends and the blessings they are!?). And thus began a fun-filled weekend of surfing, hiking, SUPing, swimming, sunning(SoCal weather which we can take for granted was a huge blessing to these Michiganders), laughing, sharing, and making memories! I gotta give a shout out and accolades to my sweet (& sexy!😘) boy who SPOILED us on Mother’s Day down to smallest of details! My firstborn, Kaleb, who knows his mama loves the mountains and hiking them even planned our “Potato Chip Rock” hike. 

Then Monday morning, bright and early (to the tune of 5:30am), we went “back to life, back to reality.” That left me little time to mess up again & break my "NPO" (nothing by mouth) status🤓. This was 8:30 Michigan time so my sweet friend volunteered to “drive Miss Daisy” while Dave, all too gratefully, accepted her offer.  He was there, after a much-appreciated morning cup ‘o Joe, to do the pick up shift and a few hours later we were back home.  I was the proud new owner of my very own Power Port, a central intravenous catheter threaded into main vein of the heart with an access “port” implanted under the skin and sewn into my chest wall, that can be accessed with a needle to put “poison” (aka chemo and other drugs like anti-nausea PTL!) in and take blood (for lab work to keep tabs on the effects of the chemo on my essential blood cell production).  Hopefully that little medical explanation was helpful. 

I woke up in the recovery room about the time the kids woke up from their beauty sleep.  Dave drove me home and we packed up for our final hurrah at the beach before our friends' return to the Midwest and their wonderful home on the lake. This is where they’ve shared all the fun and adventure of lake-life -  boating, water-skiing, etc with us over the years. Even though I couldn’t join them in the water that day, I found great joy watching them have a ball together in the waves! It’s always a great day enjoying God’s beautiful creation!

Tuesday was airport visitation day😄. We packed up our Michigan visitors and dropped them off at LAX to return home and swing through John Wayne Airport in Orange County to pick up more Michiganders (the one and only Mema & Papa/my precious parents/my boys GRANDparents). Although a good part of the day was spent on the road, we got home in time for my afternoon chemo class, which my magnificent mom was able to attend with me and take notes. We basically just didn’t ask for permission, risking rejection, she just went in with me and they didn’t have heart to kick her out🤗This goes against her motto “it never hurts to ask.” In this case it worked and I was so grateful to have her there with me! All glory to Him and appreciation to the nice nurses!