Being at home

We are very happy that we live in Canada and that we are home. It is a good thing to be far, far away from what you know so that you can remember to be grateful for what you have and where you live. To be able to have fruit whenever I want, or having cold milk that smells normal with my cereal, or eating something other then chicken are wonderful things. To explain these good things a little more, we were not supposed to eat fruit because it would have been washed with their regular water which we were told not to drink either. (Funny thing though, my husband thought he would eat and drink that stuff anyway so that he could tell people that it was fine. Well, he got sick.) Poor guy! I guess he can't tell people to just eat it anyway:) And, who eats boiled milk with cereal? And the smell was not so great either. I really do like chicken, but a variety of food is nice. I am a picky eater as it is, so this was not a great part of the trip for me. However, Mike and Kevin found a Pizza Hut one night and they smuggled in a personal size pizza for Jen and I. I had a cheese pizza and it was like I had never eaten anything better in my life. We were all very happy after that supper.

On a more serious note, my leg is getting better. I had a bruise from my groin all the way down to my foot. I was sure that I was going to have to get my leg amputated. That would have sucked seeing as how this procedure is supposed to help my legs and my walking. Losing a leg would just seem wrong because of that huh? I was very concerned. My groin is torn and more then likely it will not grow back together. But, the doctor says that it won't affect me too much. the pain is so much better. Mike was so concerned for me and he felt so bad for me. He is so good to me. If you can believe it though, I can make him mad sometimes. It's hard to imagine, I know. One morning, my leg was looking so bad, he told me to stay in bed all day. He caught me rolling my eyes at him and that did not go over very well. So, I made a deal with him. I said I would stay in bed until 10 AM. He ended up thinking that was ok as long as I put my feet up all day. He was just caring about me and rolling my eyes at him just kind of came out, accidentally. It was not very nice of me. I mean he had every reason to be concerned about me when he was not there-I was getting dressed one morning to go to a movie with him and I could not fit my left leg into my pants. Once I did get them on, I looked ridiculous. One normal leg and one that looked like it was about to tear my pants open. And i could not put my shoe on either. It was either one shoe or no shoes. I went with no shoes. Sounds fun, right?

Anyway, we are going to be interviewing physio therapists; we want the right one. Now that my leg is healing, I will start excersising again. I have a tough road ahead of me but I am going to give it my all. I know there will be ups and downs-I will share them as they come. My ups and downs are my husbands as well. He is always with me every step of the way. We need your prayers for this part of our journey.

LaDawne

Jet Lag-What a Thing!

I have never flown across the world before and so I did not know what to expect to feel like. I feel pretty bad and I don't like it! But, It will get better. More importantly though, I am finally able to post some stuff. I was not allowed to leave my hospital room so I was never able to post anything. Well, I am finally home and so I will be writing about a few things. I will do it in different posts though. If I don't, it will just be one big blob of information.

The day before my procedure, the doctors had been looking at all my tests and they were very skeptical as to whether or not even had MS. This made the surgeon question whether or not he should even do the angioplasty. My tests showed that I had a number of small blockages, but nothing big. The angeography was the test that would show exactly what was going on with my veins. The doctors just needed to take my case. I will tell you that I was very upset-I tried to be strong. But, that did not work out to well. I really did believe that God brought us to India for this purpose and so I was really scared that it would not happen. Doesn't that sound horrible? Thanks God for bringing us here for this procedure that might not happen. I have a problem trusting Him, obviously. I cried a bit here and there, but I needed to remain strong and positive for my husband. I prayed that God would allow this procedure to happen and that the doctors would see what was wrong. And I really could feel all of your thoughts and prayers. Thank you. Well, they did; in fact they found more then they thought. Three veins were blocked! Incredible! Incredible that this made me happy-but I was so happy.

Before I go on, I want to try and explain the procedure to you. They get you all set up and then they give you some "sleepy medicine." This kicks in right away so I did not even feel the catheter go up my groin. I only knew it was inside of me when I began to feel this tightening all through out my body. It was as if something was being moved around in my chest area. That's when I realized that this exact thing was happening. And then, I knew the balloons were in there because I could feel them opening and I could hear the veins stretching. That was weird. It was painful, but not un-bearable. I was just so glad to be getting it done.

The doctors talked to us lots during the next few days and they were very encouraging. This has been going on in my body for years and so I need to give it time. Also, it is in my spine and so when your spine becomes damaged, it shrinks. This means that the doctors cannot tell what spot is a lesion and what spot has not been nourished by proper blood flow. We need to be patient. Deep in my heart, I knew that I could walk out of the procedure but I also knew that God doesn't always give us miracles the way we want them to happen. However, I believe this is a part of His plan for us and so now, Mike and I wait for the good things that God will reveal to us inside my body. I can't wait!

More to come,

LaDawne

Home Sweet Home

Well we made it back safe and sound. Everyone is a quite tired but very happy to have arrived home with no delays or mishaps on the trip.

For the next few days LaDawne is going to take it very easy, just to recover from all the physio she had to endure as well as the jet lag. There was an incedent on our last day at the hospital during one of LaDawne's physio treatments. It happened when one of the therapists was stretching out her muscles. He seemed to have over stretched them and caused an injury that will set LaDawne's therapy back a bit. This frustrated me more than LaDawne. You know, my wife has a such a good attitude! I'm still learning a lot from her.

Once we get a little more rest we will post again. I am really excited about what is too come. Both LaDawne and I have a lot of hope that God is going to show us all a little of what he can do.

Mike