Things to Remember

If I even halfway liked the Sound of Music, I could have writen this post in the form of the song, These are a Few of My Favorite Things.  Only this post is about some of my favorite remembering things and I'm not feeling all Sound of Musicish. 

Last night out of total boredom and in an attempt to keep awake until Roy got home I took pictures of the needle bruises on my arms and hands and posted them on FB.  I remind myself that every victory leaves some battle scars and bruised arms tell my story.  Good thing Roy got home when he did or I might have taken other bruise pictures on my legs and stomach.  Phew, he got home in the nick of time.  After the long Thursday-Saturday adventure of Survivor, how much sleep and hospital food can one get while staying with the person who gets drugs to survive the adventure, Roy had to go into the office on Sunday.  He left at 7:00 am and got home close to 11:00 pm.  The soft roll out of a new program had a few blips and bugs to work through.  In my finite mind I can only understand it on a much lower level, such as, when you buy a new computer, TV or phone it is never easy peasy.  They come with a load of frustration.  So what to do on a day by myself?  Here is the clunker, I felt great!  I wanted to do a lot.  Only thing, I have to ease back into normal.  That sentence just made me laugh.  So to start the day I watched my church's web cast and ate breakfast at the same time...in my pajamas.  God Bless America!  Peggy made her triumphant return to church after her knee surgery.  Right off I noticed that John Bolin didn't have on a tie.  I am madly texting Peggy because if John doesn't have a tie on for Sunday morning we are in the last days.  I was able to see Bill and Peggy in the balcony during the meet and greet time in the service as the camera did a wide sweep of the worship center. 

Now here is something funny, my Tweet during last Sunday's service was the Tweet of the Week and made it in the church worship guide.  Peggy texts me and says, your tweet made the bulletin.  So last week while Peggy was home recovering from surgery and I was at home preparing for surgery by staying away from germy crowds, we texted back and forth during the web cast.  Later on I tweeted about our stays at home and that texting to each other during the service was better than whispering in church. 

See, I just lost focus and went into a new paragraph and I hadn't completed my thoughts on a long days journey into night.  I did CBS homework, read, watched a little TV, and did some writing.  I wasn't cleared to drive until today so I stuck around home.  Normally, I look forward to a day by myself, but when it is imposed, well your attitude changes a bit.  I did have a lovely surprise in that my blogging friend from Shreveport stopped by for a few minutes to say hi.  This was our first time to meet in person but our hearts had bonded a long time ago over our blogs.  She brought me a prayer journal and a cute little wall hanging that will look great out in the casita bedroom. 

There are several things I will never forget during these past few days.  To ensure that I never forget them, I am putting them down in blog form.   I will never forget the love and care and dare I say patience that Roy has had with and for me.  The sacrifices he made to accompany me on Thursday for pre-op stuff humbles me.  He rearranged his schedule, even having to go back into the office on Thursday afternoon so that I wouldn't have to stay at the hospital for six hours after happy, happy, joy, joy juice because my usual friend option on things like this is pretty much grounded.  He took me out for lunch, brought me home and headed downtown.  The second thing I will never forget is David and Emily coming to the hospital early Friday morning to pray with Roy and me and to keep him company while I was in surgery.  I am even more grateful because of the sacrifice of time because this is tax season and David is up to his eyeballs in tax returns.  Their presence made the wait time fly by quickly in the pre-op, wearing the lovely hospital gown waiting area.  Roy was so thankful for their company as the wait time began.  The third thing, Dr. Ivy.  She is an associate of my doctor and she just introduced herself as Ivy.  She was full of joy and light.  I teasingly asked her if she was in a good mood because I didn't want anyone to be in a bad mood while working on me.  She responded, oh the joy of the Lord is my strength and she began to testify.  All of us Roy, David, Emily and I began testifying with her about the God we love and serve.  Wow, what a HUGE God thing...#livingwonderstruck!  She is from India, but born in Kuwait.  She heard the call from God to leave her family and go to a land she didn't know...America.  She led us in a verse of He is Lord which we all joined in and sang.  Before she left she put her hand on my heart and said Jer 29:11 and be healed in Jesus Name.  I also saw her right before going into the operating room and she told me she would be praying the whole time I was in surgery.  I could feel God's peace because there were so many praying but Dr. Ivy was a gift for me from my loving heavenly Father.  The fourth thing I will never forget, the teaching director of Katy CBS, Jennifer, coming up to the hospital to keep Roy company, they had never met, and her voice was the first familiar voice I heard as I was coming out of anesthesia but I didn't know if was Jennifer.  I heard, that is the quietest I have ever seen her and I thought oh there must be someone like me in here and although I don't remember too much from that time I know she came over and touched me and accompanied us to my room.  She stayed and visited and prayed with us before she left.  The fifth thing I will never forget is Bill and Peggy coming up to see us Friday night.  Theirs was an adventure in finding St Luke's and they persevered to find us.  Gerti on her new knee and Bill tired from a day's work.  She also was the bearer of some helpful news, if you felt like you had to go to the bathroom there was a kink somewhere in the catheter line.  That was good to know and proved to be so very helpful.  The sixth thing I will never forget is the doctor who was covering my doctor's patients.  He sped up the progress of getting me released from the hospital.  Let's just say the echo cardiogram came to me and he stood there to watch it so that I wouldn't have to wait for radiology to read it and then release me.  He pronounced my heart perfect.  This is the first time I have heard my heart beating in rhythm and not all slushy sound.  The seventh thing is a Saturday night's visit from Margaret.  She is in my core group and she brought over such delicious food but the best was being able to visit with her and hear a little bit of her story.  The eight thing I don't want to forget is Teresa coming over on Sunday night for a quick in person meet and greet.  We've known each other from our blogs for several years. Those few minutes were meaningful and very fun.  On her next visit this way we are going to do lunch.  The ninth thing I never want to forget is waking up and not being a member of the zipper club because there was a chance I'd be joining.  Thankfully some of the issues that have caused me to drop to my knees and if you know me that is a very difficult thing for me to do, to ask of the Lord to do a healing ina my heart, ina my heart.  Lord I want to be a Christian ina my heart.  The CT and the echo showed none of the issues.  Gone!  They weren't there anymore.  I don't want to ever forget how Roy prayed with me on Friday morning and how for just a brief moment I saw just how concerned he was about this procedure.  If you know Roy, you don't see that side of him very often.  The tenth thing I never want to forget is how good I felt on Friday night trying to fall asleep.  Even with the noise and lights and Roy's snoring, I didn't awake in the night due to my heart beating too fast or too slushy or stopping for a nano second or beating too slow.  My chest didn't have that continual vibrating buzz feeling that has been part of the nightly timetable of my existence for the past four years.  I slept not waking up to the feeling of drowning because that was a nightly occurrence as well.  There weren't the tremendous nighttime coughing jags from too much fluid in my lungs and for the first time in a very long time I went to bed without swollen ankles. 

Think I will stop at ten things to never forget and to always remember.  There might be some more but soon Monablog will get back to normal and not writing with everything being in relation to heart health.  I will say after an appointment this morning I did a baby step look see into my stamina.  Spending more than 15 minutes in a bookstore has been impossible the past few years.  I can't even make it around the store to visit all the favorite sections.  Today I made my way through the store and even added an extra half a lap to pick up a couple of things that really, really needed to go home with me. 

On Saturday when the guy came with the wheelchair to take me down to the car, we stopped before leaving the 6th floor.  He leaned over a desk and got a pair of scissors and asked if I would like the hospital tag cut off.  Yes, it was rubbing on my open puncture wounds.  He then asked if I wanted to keep it as a momento of my time in the Texas Heart Institute.  No, that hospital tag will not be a part of my Ebenezer but I hope it represents freedom, health and light as I proceed onto live a lively daily life.  I'm leaving that 'shackle' behind.  You know so I can dance...oh that was off my feet not my wrist.  OK take it off so I don't have another blood fountain incident.  Guess it wouldn't be right to sing, there is a fountain filled with blood drawn from Nancy's vein...  Had shooting fountain blood in the CT and in the OR.  Which means when they stopped the flow and cleaned me up they were just TCBing it...you know taking care of blood.