Togetherness

    Well, God's definitely given me the opportunity to have a lot of togetherness with my family over the last few days!

     For obvious reasons, Harris and I have had lots more alone time in the last month or so than we've had in a while.  Other than an occasional small outing and three days in the hospital, he has been homebound.  Home is a great place to be, and he typically longs to be here, but he's come to the realization that balancing home and life outside these walls is a good thing!

     Last week Friday Haley and I took the opportunity to have a "date" at home all day so we could work on graduation and college details that had been accumulating on our lists.  It was a very good, fun, and efficient day, and we loved every minute of it.  Our family will definitely not be the same when she heads off to college in the fall.  We will miss her and her smile and laughter so very much!

     Kelsey and I had a couple opportunities on Saturday to be in the van together longer than our usual mile-long jaunts to the high school and back, so that was fun for us.  She also decided to bake a cake for a friend in the afternoon, so we bonded over cake and frosting making, and then she thanked me for cleaning up her mess when I dropped her and the cake off for a sleepover.  This girl has so much going on in her life, and it was great to just spend a lot of my Saturday with her. 

     Last night was Keaton's "welcome to middle school" meeting, so we went to that together.  I fought off the urge to hold his hand as we walked up to where everyone was seated.  Sigh.  Since I didn't get to go on his field trip with him yesterday, I surprised him with a very rare visit to Dairy Queen after the meeting.  We sat in the van together, ate ice cream, and just solved all of life's 5th grade issues.  Oh, how I love that little boy. 

     Heath and I had lots of chat time on our way to and from his appointment in Iowa City this morning.  He even brought a rap CD along just so I could listen to it, and I will admit that the one song he really wanted me to listen to was pretty cool.  Our visit with the seizure doctor was just as nonclimactic as we anticipated it would be, which we were very thankful for, but before we left, they took a couple vials of blood and said they'd let us know the results.  He's been doing great on his medication with no immediate side effects, but someday we will need to consider the long-term side effects.  June 9 is the day he can officially drive again, and wow, are we all looking forward to that!  His tumor was not really the topic of discussion for today's visit, but we'll be having a repeat MRI done later in 2011 to check on that, and at that time we'll see this seizure doctor again too.  That's the plan as long as everything continues to go as well as it has since last December.  We talked all the way home and were just grateful for the time together despite the circumstances.  I'm so proud of all he's accomplishing in his life.   

     And now we're back to Harris.  His bowel prep instructions were to include a bottle of Miralax mixed up with 96 ounces of fluid.  When he saw the bottle of apple juice that he needed to consume, he flipped out and promptly gave us an earful of what he thought of this whole thing, but I just kept measuring and mixing and pouring and then lovingly encouraging him to just get started.  The first 32 ounces were to be consumed over the course of an hour, and nothing passed through like it should have in the first two to three hours.  Keep in mind that that's more than he's probably had go in his system than in the last two or three days combined!  The cramping started back up again with a vengeance, so calls were made to the GI doctor who's doing the procedure in the morning and to the surgeon who viewed the CT scan yesterday.  We wanted to make sure that his colon wasn't completely restricted and see if we could prep for the procedure any other way than by drinking more stuff, and thankfully they did give us another option.  Oh, how I wish that all this togetherness we're experiencing was on a week-long cruise together somewhere and under much different circumstances!!

     Today I'm finding myself very thankful for my family and for the special times that we've been able to spend together lately.  I just love them all so much, and I would be lost without any one of them.  The kids are pitching in and helping where needed, and we're just taking one day a time.  Pray for Harris, if you would.  Pray that he would be comfortable tonight.  Pray that the procedure is successful tomorrow and that another surgery and hospitalization won't be necessary.  Pray that this won't be a problem again down the road.  Pray that complete healing will come quickly and that he can get back to work and enjoy life once again.  Then just thank the Lord and praise Him for keeping Heath seizure free thus far and pray that He will never have another one again.  Then just know that you are loved and appreciated.  Thanks for caring for us.  And now just go love a little extra on your family tonight!