I've Been a Little Quiet

I haven't been feeling very good lately so I've been a little quiet. I have been having a lot of muscle and joint pain in my shoulders and arms. I am putting up with it as best I can. I also tend to want to stay quiet. I tend to not want to associate with many people when it gets this bad. In addition, as you all know, I have been getting use to wearing the oxygen. I actually have learned to be okay with it. An older lady came up to me the other day, she looked me up and down and said "what, you have a cold or somtin?". I loved that! She reminded me of the granny on Golden Girls, so sassy. I have been able to talk to people, tell them of my condition, hopefully all to glorify God. I have had to tell people who have known me casually and never even knew what was wrong. No more denial now huh?

So, what's new? Well we celebrated Manuel's Abuelita's 90th birthday! I hope to post the pictures and a blog on that soon. Analiese has been selling Girl Scout cookies again and has done very well, especially with the help of her grandparents who took some orders at their jobs. Now comes the task of delivering over 230 boxes. EEEK! Analiese has also officially begun another track season. She loves to run and has extra incentive to do a little more for mommy. Hopefully some day I can run with her, I use to run and would love to do it again with my little girl. She is excited to be out there again. Bella is quite the student who loves to learn and has put the Almanac down for awhile. She now exclusively reads the Algebra book. Bella is also addicted to "lipstick", which is pink chap stic, and has to have it taken away because she gets a little too obsessed. Manuel got to go to the 2007 NASCAR NEXTEL 500 in Fontana with Mark and the boys. I on the other hand love to play games. I have never been into board games like I have in the past couple of months. I have been playing Boggle Deluxe, Scrabble, Pop 5, Cadoo (with the fam), Othello, and Whoonuu (again, with the fam). I have been obsessed with Boggle Deluxe and Scrabble. Manuel and I have now begun to have marathons of these games. It can get very competitive and many of our friends get phone calls in order to settle a couple squabbles. I thought we were done with the game marathons when we overplayed Yhatzee and Othello but we have found some more and am sure we will keep searching. I must say I have fallen in love with most Cranium games. I highly recomend Whoonuu and Cadoo. For a good game to play with friends you have to play Cranium's Pop 5. My friends Laura and Rochelle introduced this game to Amy and I, it is so fun! Well that's enough for now. Off I go to try to have a good nights rest. Love you!

Can I ask a favor?

First off I would like to apologize for my last post. I now realize how redundant it was. At the time I needed to work it out more for myself than anything and for me it takes being redundant to get the job done. So sorry.

Anyway, I wanted to let you know that I now have oxygen at home and am getting use to using it. I am still waiting for them to bring me the portable oxygen for when I leave the house. I wanted to ask those of you who have kids if you could please let them know that when they see me I may be wearing it. I don't want any of them to see me with it for the first time and be confused. I so love to interact with all of your kids and I just don't want them to think it's not the same person. I also think it would be easier on my girls. I know it will be different for all of us to get use to seeing but it just would be better if it weren't a surprise to the kids. Thank you and God bless you!

Another Learned Lesson

Do you remember how many times I would blog about not being honest about how I was feeling? I really struggled with this for a long time. I would put on a happy face and tell people, probably even you, that I was fine and everything was great. My main focus during this was not wanting to be a sadness to anyone, a downer, or a burden. It was really hard for me, and still is to some extent, to allow people to know just how hard things were (are). Now that things are all out in the open I can be more honest. Now the form of honesty comes as me being more open to how many good days/bad days I have had, or letting you know that today isn't a good day. This is progress right? I have told myself that this is honest and good. My main focus has been to rejoice and give all glory to God for ALL of the circumstances in my life. In doing this though I have created yet another "la la land" for myself. As many of you know I had a period of about a month of feeling great. During this time I would tell people how great it was. I was basking in the glory of answered prayer, for a moment in time. Which was fine. I have an agreement with God, a covenant I have made to Him. Part of it was that I was fine with having a number of great days in a row and I knew that it could either be temporary or permanent. The thing is that I was fine, and still am, with either road. During my great days (which I am sure I will have more of) I was so thankful, so excited, so joyous, so touched, and so in love with the fact that God was gifting me yet again. I would talk to people and as I would say how great things have been and explain how I had no symptoms I would look over to Manuel for reassurance as to these statements. When we would make eye contact, me smiling, he would only give me a half smile. I could not understand why he was not feeling the same excitement I was. How ungrateful, I would think, God is answering prayer right now and Manuel is not jumping up and down like me. I argued with him about this two times. It actually was me being mad and getting a blank look from him. Many of you may not know that in the time that I was doing great Manuel got sick (unheard of), was exhausted, worn down, slept a lot, and grumpy. I started to realize even more just how awesome our God is. When one of us was down He kept the other going. I hadn't seen this in our lives for awhile and I wondered why. It was because I had been the one who was down and my honey couldn't be. Once I realized this I understood his half smile, his "ungratefulness", his lethargy, and his grumpiness. My eyes were open to what he had been going through the last year and a half. As a couple "we" had been going through this life change. We go through it as spouses, parents, and individuals. I had seen and felt the spouse, parent, and individual (me) part. What I didn't see though was his individual grief and stress. I honestly feel that this is precisely why I was having no symptoms during this time. I needed to see his individual pain and stress. God gave me those days to see my hurting husband. He couldn't rejoice with me because he, in his heart, knew that it was temporary. That the doctor's visits were going to come again, the bad days, the test results, and further ahead a double lung transplant. This is where I say I have learned yet another thing about myself. I don't like going to my doctor appointments because then I have to know that I am sick. When you go they don't tell you the silver lining, they tell you the worst case scenario. They don't tell you survival rates, they give you death percentages. I just want to feel the joy that our gracious Father fills me with. But I figure now that obviously I am not healed so maybe I am supposed to know the reality and rejoice in it. I do honestly think I am doing this but there is that part of me that doesn't want to go to my appointments so I can stay happy. I guess it's bound to happen. Now don't get me wrong here Manuel and I both know that at any time I could be healed, we would embrace that wholeheartedly, but in the mean time we need to go down this road of learning and embracing all that comes in our path.
Psalms73:26 My flesh and my heart may fail,
but God is the strength of my heart
and my portion forever. AMEN!

UCLA Visit

I don't really even want to write this. I do want to keep you updated on my health though, so here we go. I NEED TO START USING SUPPLEMENTAL OXYGEN. I went to UCLA yesterday and did a 6 minute walk. The nurse had to ask me to sit down 3 minutes into it because my oxygen saturation went down to 83%. I have not had a problem saturating oxygen so this is new. This is just another little step down in my health. The good thing is that I don't need oxygen all of the time, just during activity or bad days. I will continue to have good days and bad days. That's just how it goes. Dr. Lynch (the surgeon who will perform the transplant) says I definitely need a double lung transplant (as we all have known) that is not the question. The question is when. We (and the Dr.) are waiting for the girls. We are giving them as much mommy time as possible. Dr. Lynch does not like to do transplants on mommies. I am able to wait because I still do have good days and am even happy on my bad days (mostly). Until I can no longer be happy or tolerant of the bad days and don't have good days I will not have a transplant. There is no time frame that the Dr. or we have, it could be a day, week, month, or years. I need the oxygen to preserve my heart. Thus far my heart is in good condition. I will soon have another EKG to make sure. I was once again told that I am a "unique" case and not even the health insurance has a code # for what I have. So tired of hearing that! So the way it goes is, they will continue to monitor me closely and frequently. Again I have to make sure I don't get sick, stay home on my hard days, and thank God for ALL of this. Right now is an awesome time in my life. I get to focus on LIFE. I get to know that right now really counts and enjoy it. I just really hope and pray that on my bad days I can be patient with my loved one's and understand that they are going through this too. So yes, you may see me with a little clear tube around my face but it is still the same me so don't worry. I have more to write about this but I think I still need some time to process. I love you!

AMY!

You are a true friend! I hope your day is filled with LOVE AND LAUGHTER! YOU DESERVE THE BEST! MAY YOU BE JUST AS EMBARRASSED AS I WAS WEARING THE BIRTHDAY HAT! YOU ALWAYS BRING ME SUCH JOY AND ON THIS YOUR ___ th BIRTHDAY YOU WILL BRING MORE WITH THE SIGHT OF IT.

MAY OUR GRACIOUS FATHER BLESS US WITH MANY MORE YEARS OF YOUR BEAUTIFUL INFLUENCE!

I LOVE YOU!