tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-63204300929110952502024-03-04T22:26:14.778-08:00Be Still and KnowDavid and Larisahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05945642113180904643noreply@blogger.comBlogger221125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6320430092911095250.post-85468448703533811602019-02-16T10:27:00.000-08:002019-02-16T10:29:16.303-08:00Recovery and the Power of Prayer<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12pt; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">10 days later</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It’s hard to believe it’s been only 10 days since my surgery. To anyone reading this post who offered a prayer for me, thank you so much. I firmly believe that your prayers enabled me to experience a blessing of healing in the last week and a half. If you want to skip the over sharing, you can jump down to “Heading Home”.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Ten days ago I was in the PACU, prepping for surgery. Beyond the typical questions and prep, I was also given a smorgasbord of random pills whose collective intent was to coat the lining my small intestine in order to dampen the pain and promote post-op healing. These meds collectively were part of an ERAS (Enhanced Recovery After Surgery) protocol; I’m sure most procedures now have this protocol, but I was amazed at the effectiveness of the seemingly random conglomeration of meds used for GI surgery. Celebrex? Really?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Anyway, because I’m me, and I cannot move my neck, I need to get intubated before they knock me unconscious. The idea being that if they apply the general sedation and then cannot move my head to secure the airway, game over. They need to secure the airway while I’m conscious. If that sounds bad, the reality is much worse. In preparation for getting intubated, the nurse anesthetist (CRNA) stopped by to start numbing my throat. First, she gave me a shot to dry out my mouth (I can’t even imagine the rationale for developing such a med) and then hooked me up to an inhaler with lidocaine in the bowl. Folks, it’s 2019; you’d think that they could develop a vapor med that tastes less like licking a compost pile but, alas, no.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Fortunately, after answering all-the-questions and getting an IV started, Larisa was permitted to join me. We had over an hour to kibitz, worship, and listen to a recording of breathing techniques intended to help us relax and help me heal better. All too soon, the transport service was there and I said goodbye. If you’ve never been through surgery, this is a really poignant moment. Your brain is grappling with the realization that you may only have 30 minutes of human consciousness left; this may be the last time you ever feel your wife’s hand, or look at her lovely face. Faith is real. To fear the unknown is human. Through my multiple surgeries and procedures, Larisa has learned not to say goodbye. Instead, she says, “See you soon,” because no matter what happens, it’s true. Hopefully in just a few hours, but if not, just a few short years until Heaven. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">They wheeled me outside of OR 47 at 8:26AM and parked me beside a bunch of empty boxes. Literally lying beside the trash to be taken out. Cleveland Clinic needs to work on this metaphor a bit. The CRNA came out and added more compost to my inhaler. Thanks. Then my perky nurse came out, introduced herself and asked what surgery I was having. After I explained my redo, she piped up with “and you know you’re getting stents placed, right?”. Stents? What stents? To grossly paraphrase Acts 19:2 - I had not even heard that there was a stent… this is not what you want to hear immediately before surgery. When your mouth tastes like compost.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">At 8:33 I was wheeled into the OR and shimmied over to the operating table. It’s bizarre because the table is so tiny they have put arm boards on the side so your arms don’t hang to the ground. </span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">There was only about an inch on either side of my hips. I’m not sure what they do when they one of the Cleveland Browns shows up for knee surgery… presumably two arm boards?</span></div>
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<span id="docs-internal-guid-87905c29-7fff-a0f8-be4f-c6264cd0717d"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Over the next little while, my CRNA alternated between spraying lidocaine down my throat and and keeping me on the inhaler. Good times. Also, my surgeon arrived; this was cool because, during any of my prior surgeries, I don’t ever remember seeing my surgeon before the procedure. While discussing possible outcomes, my surgeon opined that I would almost certainly need a temporary ileostomy. While he was confident in his skills, he didn’t intend to let everything pass through the newly connected site unless all the conditions of the surgery were perfect. This isn’t really what I wanted to hear, or what we had discussed previously, but there isn’t really any turning back when you’re on the operating table and know that both permanent and temporary ileostomies are possible outcomes. I was also able to ask about the stents and got an answer that didn’t help much at the time. Later, I came to understand that the stents were inserted into my ureters to provide rigidity so that when the surgical team was poking around with small bowel they could feel where the other plumbing was located.</span></span></div>
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<span id="docs-internal-guid-87905c29-7fff-a0f8-be4f-c6264cd0717d"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It turns out, we were waiting for the Anesthesiologist to show up. The doc was covering two cases and because of the complication of my intubation, she wanted to get the other case started first. I could tell that my surgeon was not amused by this, but he passed his time fiddling with a new machine off to my right. Somewhere in this timeframe, the CRNA administered two doses of Versed. This is a sedative that blocks short term memories from being formed. I remember asking her “So, I’m talking to you fine now, but won’t remember it later, right?” Right. Except I do. I’m guessing the adrenaline of the impending intubation negated the effect of the drug.</span></span></div>
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<span id="docs-internal-guid-87905c29-7fff-a0f8-be4f-c6264cd0717d"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Anesthesiologist finally arrived and the team huddled one last time. I asked if I could pray with them, which they graciously allowed. I hadn’t factored in the super dry mouth (that med worked!) or my now thoroughly numb tongue and throat. I’m not sure the team understood what I prayed; hopefully they got the gist. Regardless of whether they understood a word, God understood it all. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It was time to be intubated. I hate this part. They literally blindfold you and then put a bite guard in your mouth with a hole in the middle. At this point, you just hope it goes quick. It didn’t. I remember squeezing my nurse’s hand hard enough that it probably bruised. I remember three times being told to “take a deep breath” as I could feel the tube in my throat and my body fighting to stop it. This is so hard because your mind is trying to suppress every gag/fight/flight reflex while your body is, understandably, sure that it is being murdered. Finally, they must have secured the airway and, like a light switch being flipped, all memories ceased.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">My next memory is in the PACU (aka recovery room). If you’ve never recovered from surgery, the only way to describe it is non-linear and random. There isn’t really a “first thought” or progression; all recollections are kind of held at the same time. My “first memory” is telling </span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">Larisa that I didn’t have an ileostomy (Yay!)... but I have memories of talking to my nurse before Larisa was called back, and also of discovering for myself that I didn’t have an ileostomy. What is first anyway? </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Woven into these memories is the slow realization that you are, still, alive on Earth. This is a mixed bag; I’m so thankful to see Larisa again, and to know that she is not dealing with the crushing grief of loss. I’m grateful that my sons do not have to deal with yet another separation. But, truth be told, it is also a little disappointing. There’s a lot of Philippians 1:23-24 happening in this moment. </span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;">I don't remember this, but Larisa tells me that I asked her to pray with me. She asked if there was anything specific that I wanted her to say, and I responded, "I'm just so thankful." Later, I told Larisa that I was pretty sure that if Paul had been married, his take on Philippians 1 may have been slightly different. Not that the good Apostle would ever have put a wife above Jesus, but waking up to Larisa was an awfully good option if I can't be in Heaven. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">One of the amusing, or so I’m told, consequences of all the meds I was given during surgery is that I say a bunch of funny things. Larisa says that I don’t have any filters. This isn’t exactly true: I do have filters. It’s just that all thoughts and words are inspected and given the green light. They seem like really good ideas at the time. I’m pretty sure I chatted up all the medical staff and propositioned my wife multiple times. It seemed like a good idea. Pretty soon a kind man named Paul came to transport me from the PACU up to H51, which is a colorectal floor. I’m fairly certain I mentioned something about the trip being a missionary journey. Again, it seemed like a good idea.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>Heading Home</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">When I was hospitalized in October and December, I was fortunate enough to have a room on the H51 colorectal floor both times; being admitted through the ER is pretty much luck-of-the-draw as to where they can find a bed, and I was thankful to land on the very floor where they were so acquainted with my kind of problems. As a result of these experiences, I got to know several of the nurses really well and in the PACU requested to be transitioned to H51. Thankfully, a bed was open and I was able to return to my home away from home. I adore these nurses! They know what they signed up for, and are gracious and kind through the most disgusting and humiliating moments of life.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In the grand scheme of things, I had very little pain. This is amazing since they couldn’t finish my surgery laparoscopically and had to do an open incision to wrap things up. However, they were able to do a “block” on the pain receptors in my abdomen. Between this block and the ERAS medications they had given me pre-op, I required virtually no narcotics to deal with the pain. It was all NSAIDs and Tylenol… and something for my nerves (sensory nerves, not anxiety nerves).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">One of the major concerns with surgery, especially colorectal resections, is that the general anesthetic administered during surgery stops the peristalsis in your intestines (this is the muscle action that pushes things along). Restarting peristalsis is a complete unknown - in 2009 it took me about a week to get things working properly. However, this time around my peristalsis restarted immediately, and I was moving things along within hours of regaining consciousness.</span></div>
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<span id="docs-internal-guid-d283f37f-7fff-8ac6-ebbc-fb4e94445597"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Honestly, the worst part about the recovery was having my catheter removed. My nurse aid was training a new aid. I’m pretty sure the new aid had never removed a catheter before. She was almost, but not quite, able to walk the line between caution and torture..</span></span></div>
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<span id="docs-internal-guid-d283f37f-7fff-8ac6-ebbc-fb4e94445597"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Prior to surgery, I was told that typical recovery time for this type of surgery would be a minimum of 5 days in the hospital. I was discharged on day three. I was expecting a lot of pain and an ileostomy. I had neither. </span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;">In fact, my surgeon told me afterward that ileo-rectal redos are extremely rare, because you need almost the entire rectum to accomplish them. In spite of 3 prior surgeries, I still have all of my rectum, which is almost unheard of in this type of situation. </span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">I was expecting to burn through a lot of PTO time, but was able to start working on Tuesday, less than six days post-op. On day nine post-op I ceased all pain meds, not even needing the occasional Tylenol.</span></span></div>
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<span id="docs-internal-guid-d283f37f-7fff-8ac6-ebbc-fb4e94445597"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I attribute this success to two factors: excellent care, and the power of prayer. It is true that the Cleveland Clinic is amazing: from my excellent surgeon to the the ERAS protocol and pain block, and on to the nurses on H51, everything went smoothly and was optimized for a rapid recovery. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">However, this is true for all their patients, and few are blessed with the speedy recovery I’ve experienced. As far as I know, there is no way to prescriptively restart peristalsis. There is no way to insure that wounds heal or infection stays at bay. There is no guarantee against a leak at the surgical site, no matter how skilled the surgeon. All these factors are dependent upon the body responding and doing what it was designed to do: the miracle of our fearfully and wonderfully made bodies. I attribute my body’s response to all of you who prayed so diligently on my behalf. Thank you.</span><br />
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David and Larisahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05945642113180904643noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6320430092911095250.post-73059919574377271862019-02-04T18:05:00.001-08:002019-02-04T18:05:32.824-08:00RedoIt’s not often in life that you get a redo. Yet, as I sat in the office of my colorectal surgeon in the middle of January, that was the opportunity presented to me. A redo of a surgery that I had performed nearly ten years earlier.<br />
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In winter of 2009 I got spectacularly sick as the result of a Crohn’s disease flare. I lost about 25 pounds over the course of two months and was in a significant amount of pain. After some testing showed that portions of my colon were perilously narrow, my doctors decided to surgically remove the remainder of my colon. (I had previously had half my colon removed in 2005.)
As a result of my surgery, I currently have the end of my small intestine (the ileum) connected to the remainder of my rectum in what is called an ileo-rectal anastomosis (IRA… like an Independent Retirement Account… but completely different.) That’s the short story.<br />
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The long story has many more details. You’re welcome to skip to “Back to 2019.” My wife tells me that I over share. ;-)<br />
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As I just mentioned, in 2009 I was spectacularly sick; so sick, in fact, that the weekend before my surgery I had to be admitted to the hospital to get blood transfusions and IV fluids, just to be stable enough to operate on. The imaging tests that were run before the surgery showed a colon with advanced disease and extreme narrowing. This was indeed the case and, just for bonus points, the surgical team also had to deal with a softball sized mass in my colon that had been previously unknown and was wrapped around my spleen. The whole procedure ended up being long and “bloody” (their words.) They also said that I was a miracle and should not have survived as long as I had.<br />
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To top things off, I had a very difficult time recovering and was in the hospital over a week. By the time I got home and had hit rock bottom, I had lost a grand total of 50 pounds and was very weak.
Worse, I was in a lot of pain. The medication I use to control my Crohn’s disease also alleviates my Ankylosing Spondylitis pain and does a good job of keeping the AS from worsening. However, I was required to be off this medicine for eight weeks before the surgery and for as long as possible after, by which time the pain and fever associated with my AS was running rampant in my body. Following that surgery, the AS was so out of control that my doctors eventually took me off of any medications to control Crohn’s so they could instead put me on a drug that they knew had previously controlled my AS.<br />
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Predictably, about 18 months after my surgery, my Crohn’s was back. This was really scary because, based on estimates from my surgeon, if the Crohn’s kept progressing at this frequency, there was a good chance that I wouldn’t live much into my 40s.<br />
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Several things changed at this point. First, I did some testing and found that certain foods really irritated my GI; while I had intuitively known this, it was affirming to have it revealed through testing. Second, I started to see a naturopathic doctor and the holistic treatments really helped. Finally, I switched medications to a very powerful drug that addressed both my Crohn’s disease and AS. Over the next three years, I stabilized and ever so slowly started to turn the corner and improve.
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So, getting back to my IRA, one of the difficulties with this type of plumbing is that over time, it can start to form scar tissue and narrow. Not everyone with an IRA has this problem, but I did almost immediately. In order to keep this condition from closing off my bowel, I need to undergo stricture therapy (the narrow part is called a stricture) every 6-12 months. I kid you not, they literally insert a balloon into the narrow area and inflate it, thus stretching out the tissue. However, as scar tissue isn’t as elastic as healthy tissue, it doesn’t like being stretched and often bleeds, tears, and otherwise rebels; ultimately beginning the process of narrowing once again.<br />
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After my annual stricture therapy in spring of 2016, the doctor announced triumphantly that for the first time in years there was no sign of active Crohn’s disease. He then mentioned that he’d used a new procedure to cut out some of the scar tissue rather than do balloon dilation. In summary, this new procedure put me in the hospital in 2016 and 2017 with copious amounts of GI bleeding.<br />
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That brings us to 2018. For various reasons, all related to the stricture in my IRA, I ended up in the hospital in March, October, and December of 2018. Five trips to the ER and five hospital admissions (including two stints in the ICU) in three years was enough; stricture therapy had reached the limit of its usefulness, and all my doctors agreed the old IRA needed removed.<br />
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Back to 2019.
Thus, I found myself in the middle of January, sitting in the office of my colorectal surgeon. I wasn’t sure what he’d recommend. In order to keep all my plumbing on the inside, there would need to be enough healthy rectum to remove the old IRA and still have room to reconnect. Otherwise, I would need a permanent ileostomy.<br />
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The news was all good: I currently have the entirety of my rectum still intact and, even after removing the old IRA, there should be plenty to reconnect. Further, the part of my rectum currently involved in the IRA is notorious for having poor blood flow and forming scar tissue. There is good clinical evidence to suggest that a new site lower in the rectum will behave better.
Additionally, in the intervening decade since my last surgery, the surgical community is much less concerned about the medication I am taking and now only requires a little over four weeks off the drug. Further, the plan is to restart my treatments (the medicine is given via IV) as soon as it’s clear that I don’t have an infection post op.<br />
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There are several key unknowns with my surgery. First, during my last surgery (2009) I had a temporary ileostomy while the IRA healed. As explained above, the surgery was so big and bloody and traumatic that the new connection needed time to heal. Once the IRA was healed, they stuffed everything back inside and stitched up the site of the ileostomy. This site is further up my ileum than the IRA and has also experienced its own minor episodes of narrowing. There is healthy intestine between the ileostomy repair and the old IRA and the surgeons are optimistic that they can use a procedure called strictureplasty to “fix” this area. However, there is no clear direction on how much intestine to remove. Do you hack out 16 inches of irreplaceable healthy tissue, or risk surgically repairing a small section that has historically narrowed a bit, leaving two surgical sites to heal?
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Second, the redo: once the surgeons have removed the gnarly (that’s the medical term) old tissue and used their Singer sewing machine to restitch my innards, they will put the whole thing under water and force air through it to make sure the wound is sealed. Bubbles, bad. No bubbles, good. If that process sounds familiar it’s because it is exactly the same high tech process used at Winkler Tire to look for leaks in my tires. Should the new IRA not be completely sealed, I’ll need a temporary ileostomy to give the wound time to heal.<br />
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All that said, the prognosis is good and the surgeons expect to be able to redo things, use strictureplasty to save as much small intestine as possible, and not have a temporary ileostomy. They expect the best case scenario: I get a redo on a better location on my rectum. I’ll be on powerful medication almost immediately following surgery, and my Crohn’s will never have a chance to bother the new IRA. I live the rest of my life with my plumbing all on the inside, no complications, and no more trouble beyond the monitoring. (Of course they cannot predict this last sentence... but hey, best case.)<br />
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But, the truth is, what does anyone know of “best case”? Maybe the redo heads down the same path as 2009 with annual stricture therapy and subsequent hospital stays. Maybe the “best thing” for me is a permanent ileostomy. Or maybe a permanent ileostomy is a bad idea for some reason we don’t currently know. We don’t know the future.<br />
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The truth is, I don’t know what is best. But I know who does. And I know He loves me. If you’re reading this post, I ask you to join me in praying for my surgeons; not only for their work, but also their decision making. They will be faced with decisions of what to remove, where to cut, where to stitch and, ultimately, what solution to provide. Pray that the “best case” will be the obvious decision based on what they find.David and Larisahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05945642113180904643noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6320430092911095250.post-51519053263733373162016-02-26T04:51:00.000-08:002016-02-26T05:37:12.056-08:00WaitingThis is the final in a series of four posts. Please see the previous posts for context.<br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Honestly, there is not much more to tell. I was healed. As the GI consult team cleaned up from their procedure they decided I didn’t need the NG tube any longer; I wasn’t going to argue. What a relief to have it removed! All that was left was to wait and make sure that I stayed healed, to ensure that food would flow through my GI tract properly, and test whether or not I could use the restroom and walk around without passing out.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A funny thing happened during rounds Sunday morning. As the doctors huddled up outside my door, my nurse insinuated herself into their conversation and invited Larisa to join them as well. As the night staff presented my case and history to the newly arrived day shift, there was some question as to the nature of my procedure on Friday. Larisa interjected at this point to tell them that the doctor who performed the procedure said he had “used a knife to cut out” the scar tissue in my stricture. This answer was soundly dismissed by the team: lasered out or burned out, sure, but scar tissue isn’t “cut out with knives” during a sigmoidoscopy. They then consulted the medical report from my procedure and were collectively stumped with the notation “performed NKSt”. What is a NKSt they wondered? Nobody knew, so they consulted…wait for it…Google. For real. The sight of five medical doctors clicking away on Google was actually both amusing and refreshing to me; my line of work is at the very fringe of medicine, and I fully appreciate that there is no way for any doctor to know everything there is to know. The fact that they could freely acknowledge this and look it up was reassuring to me. As it turns out, Google failed them initially, coming up with the Universal Reformed Christian Church in Nigeria, much to their chagrin. Finally, one of the residents piped up with “Needle Knife Stricturotomy!” Sure enough, tiny little knives used to cut out a stricture. Just like the patient’s wife had said.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The only hiccup in the rest of my stay was most likely caused by diet. For those of you unfamiliar with hospital diets, they range from Clear Liquids on through Full Liquids, GI Soft, and up to Unrestricted. Sunday morning I was on Clear Liquids and the fellow in charge of my case zoomed me all the way out to an Unrestricted diet. I should have known better than to tackle the chicken fingers, but I hadn’t eaten a decent meal since lunch on Thursday and dug right in. Just as I was getting ready to transfer out of ICU and down to a regular floor, I had a tiny bit of blood in my stool -- the only blood, in fact, all day Sunday or Monday. I could see the disappointment in my nurse’s eyes as she stared into the commode and told me this would almost certainly keep me in the ICU another night. She was right.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">That’s about it. Thank you to our dear friends who drove our car home Sunday night so Larisa wouldn’t have to drive. My wife was such a comfort to me, and I’m grateful for good and Godly friends to watch out for her when I cannot. My nurse on Monday was a true blessing. A “praying man” by his own admission and a real treat to interact with. In fact, the entire nursing staff in the ICU was, by far, the best nursing team I’ve ever experienced. Competent, compassionate, and collaborative. One of them joined our family in prayer, and another compared Bible study notes with me. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">On Monday morning, I had a visit from the ICU physical therapist, who walked me around the unit while holding onto a thick black belt that was buckled around my waist, while my wife followed us with a recliner, just in case. This little exercise proved that I was, in fact, able to move about on my own without fainting, and I was given the all clear to get out of my bed without the assistance of the staff. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Early Monday afternoon I was discharged directly from the ICU, a very uncommon occurrence as I understand it. So uncommon in fact, that my nurse had never done a discharge before. He had just received his RN in December and the only other patients who had left his care had been transferred to somewhere else in the hospital. </span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It’s good to learn from hard experiences, and here are a few of my lessons:</span></div>
<ul style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Don’t have procedures done on Friday. If anything goes wrong, you’re much better off heading back into the hospital on a weekday than a weekend.</span></div>
</li>
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Don’t leave the ER until you’ve stopped bleeding or have at least had a consult with specialists in the parts that are bleeding.</span></div>
</li>
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Doctors would much rather talk about the implications of the color and volume of your stool than actually inspect it for themselves. While understandable, make them look. The penalty for not doing so is to have a small pipe shoved up your nose.</span></div>
</li>
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Don’t skip steps in the diet progression from soft to hard</span></div>
</li>
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Pull the nurse cord in the bathroom! </span></div>
</li>
</ul>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">That concludes my story. Larisa says I can’t post pictures. So sorry to disappoint.</span></div>
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Thank you to everyone who prayed for, cared for, and loved on us during this episode. It is such a blessing to have a family, friends, and church family who can be counted on any time day and night. I’ve been home three days now and am back to work and feeling stronger each day. Other than a cancelled business trip this week and two little boys who are more clingy than usual, life is back to normal. I have so much for which to be grateful.</span>David and Larisahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05945642113180904643noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6320430092911095250.post-72345996086685435212016-02-25T03:38:00.002-08:002016-02-25T04:45:11.563-08:00A MiracleThis post is third in a series of four. Please see the preceding posts for context.<br />
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I vaguely remember three members of the ER team lifting me into the bed. Clarity came back quickly as I laid flat. What had just happened? I remember watching our nurse comfort Larisa, who was pretty shaken. I can remember being thankful that this happened; I knew I was sick, and I was glad the ER staff was able to observe both the bleeding and the fainting. As people scurried about the room, the resident realized that my IV fluids had not been hung yet and had a few choice words for the nursing staff.</span></div>
<b id="docs-internal-guid-36ccf581-1808-ce23-94f9-3c3e935fa012" style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Shortly after the falling incident, the attending physician came in. He ordered more blood work and assured me that he was working to get me admitted to the hospital. In fact, the GI doctor who had performed my procedure was in charge of one of the wards for February; the exact ward I’d be going to. This was great news to me: even given the trouble I was having, I trust this doctor implicitly. Also, it’s just one less variable having the original doctor also be the attending physician of the ward you’re in.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">As we waited, Larisa started to receive texts from people who were praying for us. On the way to the ER, we’d alerted our families and a few close friends to my situation. Also, Thursday night we’d let our Bible study know of my procedure, and as they checked in, we let them know what was going on. The saints were praying.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">About twenty minutes later, I needed potty break #5. There was no way the nurse was letting me down the hall, and she asked if I could wait for a bedside commode. While my need was urgent, I could wait a few minutes, and the commode was quickly placed directly beside the bed. I slowly got out of bed, sat on the commode, and commenced…you get the picture. Almost immediately the room started to swim, my ears started to ring, and I gasped out “Oh no” before passing out completely.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I understand from Larisa that she grabbed the nurse, who was leaving the room, as I slumped on the commode. The nurse asked if Larisa could hold me up while she ran to get help. She was only out of the room a short time, but during that time my eyes rolled back in my head, and I started to have seizure-like behavior. The nurse returned with the attending, resident, medical student, and at least two paramedics.</span></div>
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<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I remember coming to sitting on the commode. It was bizarre: exactly like one of those scenes we’ve probably all seen where the focus is fuzzy, the background is black, and someone is leaning over the camera saying “Can you hear me?” In fact, for a moment, my brain registered that I was watching a medical show…I couldn’t process what was going on. I think I regained vision, but couldn’t really think at all. The staff of six moved me back to my bed and, again, as I lay flat, my mental faculties quickly returned. The room was a beehive of activity as my shaking, terrified wife backed into a corner.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Then my lab results came back and everything went crazy.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The day before in the ER, my hemoglobin had been at 14.7. Roughly 24 hours later, my first draw in the ER had been 11.7: not good, but still well within the normal range. However, only about 90 minutes later my hemoglobin was down around 8, and that was drawn before potty break number #5. The attending asked how much blood was in the commode, and my nurse responded “about a cup and a half." If you chart the hemoglobin over time based on those three points you get a parabolic decay. While not mathematically precise, the picture was clear enough. As I understand it, organs can start shutting down at a level of about 5. Given the time since the blood draw and the content of the commode, it was not unreasonable to think we were getting close. (I’ve put this together after the fact… I wasn’t charting any parabolic decay just moments after fainting… although I did remember my nurse’s name which convinced her I was, in fact, lucid again.)</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Apparently the attending physician was creating this chart in his head, because he barked out “Change everything! Order two units of emergency release blood stat, get his blood type immediately and order two more units of cross-matched blood, and send him down to the -- [[insert proper term for the serious end of the ER]]”. Larisa fielded questions about whether there were any reasons why I would refuse transfusions, was told the risks involved, and signed off on everything.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A paramedic appeared to start a second IV on my other arm, and in very short order, I was whisked down to another area of the ER that was literally buzzing with activity. A new doctor appeared to tell me that she had authorized the emergency release blood, that my blood pressure and heart rate looked better, and that I was to “hang in there”. This was actually consoling. Larisa and I had known for a while that things weren’t right, and now apparently, so did the ER docs. This end of the ER hummed with calm efficiency. There was a comforting reassurance in the measured, rapid pace of the staff. I was simultaneously being prepped for two units of blood and for transfer to the ICU.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">As it turns out, my stress response is to turn into a chatty-Kathy. I was asking everyone their names, about their families, making lame jokes… generally making their job more fulfilling no doubt. Poor Larisa, though, felt like she was watching her husband die. I can’t even imagine how I’d feel if our roles had been reversed. </span></div>
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<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">We only had about half an hour in the busy ER, but it was actually a very precious time. I asked Larisa to come over and read to me the scripture from Acts 13 that I’d read in the morning and as she did, we wept together. She looked down and asked “Are you afraid?” I knew what she meant: Was I afraid of dying? Was I afraid of death? Did all the precepts that we both hold so dear hold up in the busy ER? As I searched my heart, I found God’s Word: He always fulfilled His promises. He always loved His Children. His servant David brought Him pleasure. Unimaginably, inexpressibly, my heavenly Father had prepared my heart only that morning for the answer to this, the only, question in life. I was not afraid. There was no room in my heart for fear because in this moment of crisis, my heart was completely occupied by the love of the Father: Jesus. I held up my fingers, put them together and said “Not even this much”. We wept together at the sheer presence of a God who sees us, loves us, and meets us in our need.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Immediately after our impromptu worship service, the two units of blood arrived. They told me the blood would be cold and that it would be administered as fast as possible. They were right on both counts. They started with my right arm, and within seconds my forearm got that ache you get when you play in the snow without gloves; almost like brain-freeze of the arm. I could follow the sensation up my arm and it died out somewhere around my shoulder as my body warmed the blood. Then they started the IV on my other arm. I remember asking the nursing student -- who had been a civil engineer before deciding to switch jobs -- how much energy it would take to raise two units of blood from freezer temp to body temp. Seriously, these were the silly things pouring out of my mouth as a response to my stress…</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">As the blood flowed into me, hospital transport arrived, and we set out for the ICU. The journey was uneventful, and upon admission a medical resident reviewed my case and ordered a consultation with the GI staff on-call. When the GI fellow arrived, it turned out she remembered me from my call earlier in the day. We agreed that I’d made the proper decision to come into the ER rather than wait this out.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">What happened next was truly bizarre, because the first several hours in the ICU were defined, if you can believe it, by the color of my bowel movements. Was it bright red? Maroon? Black? Some medical terms that I don’t think actually equate to color? If I’d know this was going to happen I’d have had the ER folks just save the mess in the hat and send it up with us.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It turns out that because I claimed my stool was black (sorry folks… you can stop reading now) there was some concern that the bleeding was higher in my GI. My prize for sticking to my story was to get an NG tube inserted to check for blood in my stomach. I should have gone with really dark maroon…</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">If you’re not familiar with an NG tube, the N stand for Nasal and the G stands for Gastro. It’s a tube that runs from your nose to your stomach… but don’t let the “tube” part fool you. Small pipe is more like it. Think of those big, fat straws they give you with a thick milk shake. Now think of them sticking it far enough up your nose to reach your stomach. The best part of the process was they used a lidocaine gel on the tip of the NG tube. This was nominally used to numb the area where the tube went. Whether or not it worked is hard to tell, but when my nose started to bleed some of the lidocaine ran down and numbed a bizarre section of lip. So there is that.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This was actually the most miserable part of the day for me. My parents had arrived and had taken Larisa downstairs to get some supper, because she hadn’t eaten anything all day, and there was no way she was going to watch them shove a pipe up my nose and down my throat. Every breath. Every swallow. Every word elicited a gag reflex that needed to be forced down. Once the tube was in place, my nurse pushed 120 ccs of water down to my stomach and then suctioned it back out. No blood. Woot! This meant that the trouble was all down near the other end, just as we expected. I should have gone with maroon.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">With the NG test complete, the GI fellow started to set up a mobile endoscopy station. As best I can tell, an endoscope is something like a very expensive Wii. The physician uses tiny controls to navigate a machine through a maze, attack bad guys, try not to blow up the sensitive parts… all while watching on a big-screen TV. Knives: check. Flame gun: check. Water gun: check. I could be persuaded that these procedures are actually performed by a cub scout troop in Boise, sitting on beanbags and munching Doritos. </span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Meanwhile, an hour south, my church family was gathered for a Chili supper. Although I didn’t know it at the time, they announced that I was in the ICU and called for prayer. Larisa continued to get texts from friends and family. Keep that in mind as I describe what comes next.</span></div>
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<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Once the mobile endoscopy unit was ready, the GI consult team arrived. Because my blood pressure was fairly low, they were only able to give me two thirds the medication they had administered for the same procedure the day before. As a result, I was able to, more-or-less, watch the big screen as they set out to find what had caused me to lose nearly half my blood in previous 36 hours. </span></div>
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<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">And here’s the miracle: they found nothing. No gaping wound, no seeping incision. No fresh bleeding. Nothing. Only old, dried up blood. Whatever had been causing me to lose about a cup and a half of blood every hour or so had suddenly, inexplicably, stopped.</span></div>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Later, my nurse explained that she’s seen this before: the change in blood pressure and the drop in temperature from the new blood caused the wounds to coagulate as they should have after the procedure. Possibly. But given the blood loss in the ER, it seems a stretch to assume that such a wound would completely, immediately stop. What seems more real to me (and more likely by far) was that our God heard the prayers of His children. Besides, as Nicole C. Mullins says: “I know my Redeemer lives. I spoke with Him this morning!”</span></div>
David and Larisahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05945642113180904643noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6320430092911095250.post-85657727164317468602016-02-24T17:30:00.000-08:002016-02-24T17:30:13.586-08:00Decisions: one bad, one goodThis post is second in a series of four. Please see the preceding post for context.<br />
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Immediately following my procedure, Larisa and I hiked through the hospital (think several city blocks…for real) to visit a friend who was recovering from surgery. My first solid recollection after my procedure is sitting in the room sharing the success stories of our respective experiences. I have no memory of getting to her room. After this visit, Larisa and I headed down for some lunch.</span></div>
<b id="docs-internal-guid-36ccf581-15a8-7f55-0d5c-039d4890be85" style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The doctor who performed my procedure said to expect some bleeding the next couple times I used the restroom, but that things should clear up shortly. Having no colon, I am pretty regular, and I had to use the toilet immediately following my procedure and once again, an hour later, right before lunch. This is when the trouble started.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">As I exited the restroom and headed to the restaurant (still in the hospital), I started to feel weird; similar to the sensation you get sometimes when you’re sitting or lying down and stand up too quickly. As I grabbed a tray and started doling out soup, things got progressively worse: ladling was more complicated than usual. There was a restaurant employee cleaning up beside the soup tureens, and I had a hard time figuring out if I should stop and move. Then I started to feel weak, and I handed my tray to Larisa so I could go take a seat. Unfortunately, I only made it about three steps until I slumped back against a counter as my head swam. The last thing I remember is my vision narrowing, and Larisa standing in front of me asking what she should do.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I came to sitting in a chair in the restaurant, weak, sweating, and totally muzzy headed. After the fact, Larisa told me that she had been forced to put down our tray, put her arms around me, and help me walk from the food area to the seating area; probably over 60 feet. There we sat, panicked as to what to do next. I tried to call my doctor, but through the fuzzy-headed fog was unable to navigate the phone hurdles set in place. Larisa asked a doctor sitting close by what to do and he said to call 911. She did, and was informed that since we were actually in the hospital, they could not respond. Fortunately, the doctor who Larisa spoke with saw my state and called the Hospital’s emergency and cardiac response teams, who were on the scene in about 3 minutes.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">When the response team was able to ascertain that I wasn’t having a cardiac episode, they turned me over to the paramedics who had just arrived. The paramedics got me onto a gurney, wheeled me to an ambulance, started an IV, and drove me several blocks around to the ER.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In the ER, they immediately drew blood work and did an EKG. Not surprisingly, I was very dehydrated as a result of prepping for my procedure and the ER doc order IV fluids. We explained our situation and our concern that my intestine had been perforated as a result of my procedure; pretty quickly, I was sent for X-rays to see if anything was leaking on the inside.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">As we waited for the test results, I continued to need to use the bathroom every 30-90 minutes, all with the same bloody result. As the test results rolled in, the news was all good: blood counts were very healthy, nothing on the X-ray, and as a result of the IV fluid all my vitals were back in line. The ER declared victory, writing the episode off as a result of dehydration and sending me home. We discussed several times doing a GI consult, but I don’t think that ever happened. </span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In retrospect, I should have either demanded a GI consult or refused to leave until the bleeding stopped. Although the ER folks asked if I was still bleeding, they neither checked the results in the bowl or had me go into a container for inspection. I should have forced this issue. Neither Larisa or I was comfortable with the discharge, but home we went. Going home from the ER was a very bad decision.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Friday night was rough. I maintained my bloody pattern with no relief. Larisa and I kept asking what exactly a “couple” bloody movements meant. While I slept OK, Larisa was gripped by fear and had a very hard time sleeping. </span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Saturday morning we resolved to call the GI fellow on-call if things hadn’t improved by noon. About 8, things started to improve a little. During the course of the morning we took a long walk and I noticed that I was more winded than I should be for a leisurely stroll up and down the street. It’s not as if I’m a 26.2 guy, but I do walk/jog 3-5 times per week and push myself fairly hard for 20 minutes. Strolling for half an hour should be no problem.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">During devotions, I took a long time praying and asking for two things: first, that God would speak to me. Chastisement, direction, comfort or encouragement…I just needed to hear from my Father. Second, I prayed that He would help me to make a good decision. Paying another $250 ER visit co-pay wasn’t high on my list, but neither was getting critically ill. I opened the Bible to Acts 13 where Paul is addressing the synagogue in Antioch of Pisidia. As Paul recounted God’s faithfulness to His children and his delight in His servant David, an inexpressible peace flowed through me: it was going to be OK. I was going to be OK. (For the record, I realize that I am not David, king of Israel. However, I suspect that most of us with Biblical names take special note when we pray to God for guidance and then see our names in the passage we read).</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Shortly after 11, I passed a lot of blood once again and called the GI fellow. The doctor responded immediately, was very sweet, was able to access my records, but after about 10 minutes indicated that my only options were to wait it out or go to the ER (she also indicated that the pictures I took wouldn’t be helpful…yeah, yeah I did). Larisa immediately made me pack an overnight bag, but I thought we should still wait. About noon I noticed some dizziness when standing up or using the bathroom, and that was the final straw. We called my parents to watch the boys and, after praying with my boys and playing one last game with them, Larisa and I headed back to the ER.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It turns out that there are two areas in the ER: the “this guy ain’t so bad and we’re gonna send him home” area and the “uh-oh, this is serious” area. On Friday I had been to the former area and after clearing intake on Saturday I was once again channeled to the “give him some IV fluids and send him home” side of the house. While waiting for the doc to see me, a paramedic came in and started an IV. Gentlemen, let me just say that you never want a male to start an IV or draw blood; they always turn it into some sort of macho-pain competition. Guys: pick the female phlebotomist. Every. Single. Time.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I headed off to potty break #1 in the ER, and my nurse had the wherewithal to put a hat down. This keen little device looks like, well, an upside down hat, and it sits inside the lip of the toilet bowl to collect…stuff. Upon completion of my duty, the hat contained ample evidence that I was, in fact, passing a lot of blood. Back in the room, a resident and med student came to see me. Interesting aside for the folks at work -- the resident was a Podiatrist. Anyway, they studiously avoided the full hat in the corner and ordered some IV fluids. </span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Next up: nurse shift change and potty break #2. Larisa and I sat. And sat. While nobody was actually coming into the room, Larisa was shamelessly eavesdropping on the conversation at the nurses’ station. Apparently my hemoglobin had dropped from 14.7 the day before to 11.7 when I was admitted to the ER on Saturday; this, finally, caught the attending physician’s eye.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Things started getting really exciting as I headed off to potty break #3&4 (I was only planning on one as I headed out). The frequency of my potty breaks, as well as the amount of blood that I was losing, had picked up markedly since I got to the ER. #3 was a mess and as I rose to wash my hands, I felt a little woozy and contemplated pulling the nurse string in the bathroom. However, before I could finish washing my hands, #4 announced it’s presence with a great deal of urgency, and I sat back down. You’d think that the 90 second interim would lessen the amount I was passing, but not so (note here, this is not exactly uncommon for folks with no colon and strictures… things don’t always play nice).</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Standing at the door to the bathroom after washing up, definitely feeling light-headed, I had a decision to make: pull the cord for the nurse or walk the 25 feet past the nursing station and back to my room. I did what all self-respecting males would do and staggered down the hall. I even had another chance to make the right choice at the nursing station immediately across from my room. However, rather than just asking for help I bolted toward my bed. </span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I only made it as far as the door. As I slumped against the door-frame, I called Larisa’s name in desperation as the blackness swam up to meet me (this is real folks.) Just like in the restaurant the day before, the last thing I could see was my wife, panicked, coming to my side. However, unlike in the restaurant, my legs didn’t hold out. We made it five steps when I went completely out, slammed against the bed, and hit the floor.</span></div>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In answer to my prayer earlier in the morning, we had made the right choice by going into the ER. Any earlier and we’d probably have been sent home after receiving IV fluids. I shudder to think about what would have happened if we had tried to wait this out. We were in the ER. We even had everyone’s attention. Finally.</span></div>
David and Larisahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05945642113180904643noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6320430092911095250.post-3841476036768787472016-02-24T11:17:00.000-08:002016-02-24T11:17:00.273-08:00Crohn's In Remission<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">Warning: This is David. If you are looking for cute quotes from the boys and don’t want to hear an update on my medical condition, then you may want to skip the next few posts…</span></div>
<b id="docs-internal-guid-b828b99d-1469-1a95-32e9-ef9b77363704" style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">As many of you know, I’ve been battling Crohn’s disease for nearly two decades. This disease manifests itself in the GI tract and varies in severity from causing minor diarrhea to destroying the large and small intestines, leading to death. My particular brand is on the more aggressive side, as it has already destroyed my large intestine which I’ve had to have surgically removed.</span></div>
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<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">As a result of my surgeries, I now have portions of my bowel surgically reconnected, and these areas tend to form scar tissue and become narrower, a condition called a stricture. As part of my ongoing treatment, I need to have these strictures widened periodically, using endoscopic procedures. Last Friday, 2/19/2016, I went in for sigmoidoscopy (lower-end… we’ll leave it there) to dilate my stricture and to see how my Crohn’s was coming along.</span></div>
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<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">During the procedure, I was administered a heavy pain killer and a narcotic and, consequently, I have no recollection of the follow-up consult with the physician -- I only have vague recollections of some nurse aid calling me “Big D” (which is better than dinky diddums… I guess.) However, when I finally “came to,” Larisa shared two things with me: first, there is a new procedure available, and instead of dilating my stricture with a balloon, the doctor had widened it by using “needle knives” to cut out the scar tissue and, second, the beautiful news that there was no sign of active Crohn’s disease. The doctor said we could consider the Crohn’s to be in remission. </span></div>
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<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Praise God for this good news! I would gladly repeat the last several days if doing so would ensure such a good report.</span></div>
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<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">However, as I will share in future posts, we were not able to savor the moment for long, especially since the narcotics didn’t wear off for about an hour after the procedure. Following is an executive summary of the events following my procedure:</span></div>
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<ul style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I experienced heavy bleeding</span></div>
</li>
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I passed out three times</span></div>
</li>
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I went to the ER twice</span></div>
</li>
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I received three units of blood</span></div>
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<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I ended up in the ICU two nights</span></div>
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<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I experienced a miracle</span></div>
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</ul>
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<span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;">To be continued....</span></span></div>
David and Larisahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05945642113180904643noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6320430092911095250.post-70108206291156450562014-12-17T18:01:00.003-08:002014-12-17T18:05:00.150-08:00The Remodel....A Year LaterLast year at this time, the four of us had been crammed into roughly 400 square feet of our basement for over a month, and it was definitely wearing on us....but let me start at the beginning. <br />
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David and I bought our 864 square foot ranch home in 1998, right after I graduated from college. It was our "starter" home, and we thought we'd be there for 5 years or so before buying something larger that was more "us." A couple years after we moved in, we finished the basement, adding a second bathroom and another bedroom, along with a crafting space and our computer room. A year after that, we added central air. By this time, we had decided we liked life with just the two of us, and since we weren't planning to have kids, we started to rethink the idea of buying a bigger house. Didn't it make more sense to stick with our small mortgage and stay put? After all, the house was just fine for two people. <br />
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Then God called us to adoption, and before we knew it, we had added two more people to our little family. Okay, the house seemed a little smaller with two busy boys, but really? We had seen where they came from in Ethiopia, and it just didn't seem fair to think about buying a much bigger house (and going into a lot more debt) when there were so many without. <br />
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At the same time, two rooms in particular were really starting to make me feel claustrophobic. Our tiny galley kitchen felt cramped, and as the boys' main in-and-out-constantly access door swung directly into my refrigerator, I found myself losing my temper a few times too many as they came crashing through the door to the garage right as I tried to move something to or from the fridge. There was very little counter space, a wasted soffit area above the minimal cupboards, and I was really starting to regret the fact that we had no dishwasher. Our pocket-sized bathroom had almost no storage, and all of our towels were stored in the base of our bookshelves in our "library" across the hall. All of it was looking very cluttered and dated as well. <br />
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In the summer of 2013, I began to sketch out some possible additions to our upstairs. As we started to talk to a contractor, we ruled a couple of things our right away. Some plans were too elaborate and too expensive. Others just didn't fit the rest of our house. After a lot of praying, discussing options, and talking to the bank, we eventually settled on a plan that added 125 sq. feet or so onto the kitchen and upstairs bathroom. <br />
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The builders began work on the project in October by digging additional space for our basement in the backyard. They built a temporary wall across what had been my craft space to protect the rest of our finished basement from the mess, and the processes of framing, roofing and pouring cement began. The new kitchen extended about three feet into our garage as well, over what had been a stoop to the old kitchen.<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Our temporary wall across the basement.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Smashing out the exterior cement block wall of the basement.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">The former stoop in the garage was enclosed to become part of the kitchen</span>.</div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">The enclosed addition onto the back of the house.</span></div>
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By mid November, the old kitchen and bath were ready to be torn out, so we moved our living quarters to the basement. The basement bedroom became our makeshift kitchenette, as well as clothing storage and sleeping space. (Our upstairs bedrooms were closed off and taped shut, to try to keep the dust and dirt to a minimum.) Our computer area became our school room, craft area, eating space, and sleeping space for the boys at night. Our downstairs bathroom was shared with a steady stream of construction guys through the day (and I came to realize how blessed I am to share my home with guys who never put the seat up.) ;-) It was a bit of a fun adventure at first, but then we were in the midst of the holidays, with presents and Christmas cards arriving daily, and no place to cook my offerings of food for family gatherings. Thank goodness for microwaves and crock pots! We used paper products as much as possible, and I drove to my mother-in-law's house to do dishes three times a week. Sintayehu melted down even more than usual, and we spent our evenings looking at appliances and tile samples, and sketching designs for our cabinet maker. </div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">The basement dresser/kitchen counter.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Kitchenette, consisting of the microwave, toaster oven, coffee pot, and crock-pots.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Bed/laundry room</span> </div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Crafting, eating, schooling, and sleeping area.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">The light colored rectangle of subfloor in the middle of this photo is where my kitchen sink used to be.</span></div>
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It seemed like forever, but really, it was only about a month and a half until we were completely moved back upstairs to our new space. The addition to the basement meant that the boys had gained a playroom and a closet for toy storage, so moving all toys to the lower level brought a whole lot less clutter upstairs. My new kitchen has cabinets that go to the ceiling for maximum storage, about three times the counter space, and a DISHWASHER!! The extra space also gives us room for entertaining once in awhile. Our bathroom has a small walk-in shower and a lovely amount of storage for linens and bathroom necessities. (It is such a luxury to have plenty of towels in the bathroom, and a whole drawer to store the stuff I use to get ready every day.)</div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Basement craft and play area</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikVC9PpqeWnf7bNAEmY2XJZldt8EjvRiiYIQfc5gpOUFKVZRMiH8F5Uc1rszk6EmAvVULhyTZMiWaO_wW4MfpZGF-ouy9xnevL1220OEJ1og07WNAexhXmG8r6zRW_Cgz7fz3cspIlpoMj/s1600/P1030958.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikVC9PpqeWnf7bNAEmY2XJZldt8EjvRiiYIQfc5gpOUFKVZRMiH8F5Uc1rszk6EmAvVULhyTZMiWaO_wW4MfpZGF-ouy9xnevL1220OEJ1og07WNAexhXmG8r6zRW_Cgz7fz3cspIlpoMj/s1600/P1030958.JPG" height="320" width="240" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Yay! My basement school room, returned to normal!</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">We have our eye on a gorgeous, copper-topped table, but until that fits into our budget, this one opens to comfortable seat 8 people.</span></div>
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After a year, I still love my "new" house. It is the perfect size for the 4 of us, and I marvel that this was accomplished by adding less than a 5 foot width to the back of the house. Sure, my home will never be the show-place that I once dreamed of, but you know what? I'm really okay with that. This is just right for us, and I am so thankful for what I have. </div>
David and Larisahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05945642113180904643noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6320430092911095250.post-4718989951799086472014-11-15T18:43:00.001-08:002014-11-15T18:43:31.875-08:00Bedtime LessonIt's been so long since I've blogged. I've actually started referring to my May/June trip to Ethiopia as "the trip that killed my blog." I still can't adequately process the thoughts and emotions that I experienced, and there's a little part of me that wonders if I'll ever really be able to. If I'm not writing about that, I ask myself, what's the point of writing about anything else? Except that maybe I need to write some things down to remember them later. Things like what happened tonight.<br />
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We've been going through a rough season with Sintay for the last few weeks. I don't know exactly what has set it off this time (although I do have some educated guesses), but suffice it to say he has been difficult. He is testing every single thing we say, and I do not react well to that. Add in the fact that I've been sick with a doozy of a sinus infection this week, and we could just chalk this week up under "disaster." Battling with this little dude day in and day out brings to light some serious ugliness in my own heart. Lack of patience? Check. Lack of mercy and grace? Check. Lack of temperance, meekness, love and joy? Check. I may have called David at work one day sobbing that "I can't do this right now!" I may have lost my temper more often than not with one exceedingly whiny, angry little boy. I finally asked for some extra prayer cover from a couple of people and that has helped significantly. (Why oh WHY is that EVER a "finally" moment for me?) <br />
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Today, I had the privilege of attending a "women's retreat" at a friend's house. The topic was "Controlling Our Thoughts," and oh my, was it EXACTLY what I needed to hear right now. So much good stuff. So much affirmation that I'm not the only one who battles the lies that Satan tries to feed us. So much conviction over areas where I seriously need to do some work....taking every thought (and action) captive to the obedience of Christ. I came away energized and encouraged and thankful.<br />
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Then came bedtime. Ugh. Every night, for the last few weeks, bedtime has been a battleground. Yikealo and Sintayehu share a room, and they fight over....well....pretty much everything. If one of them wants the light off, the other one wants it on. If one of them wants the closet door closed, the other one wants it open. They fight over who gets to pray first, and who gets to fetch the Bible that we're reading together, and who's going to hold the bookmark while we read. (Seriously, guys?) We have made rules out of the most ridiculous things, because we don't feel like taking the time to deal with the underlying issues of selfishness and unloving behavior. (Fine! On the odd days of the month, Yikealo prays first. On the even days, Sintayehu prays first. Whoever prays last gets to choose who they lay beside during snuggle time.) In case you're wondering, that doesn't really work either....because soon they're just fighting about the rules instead of what the rules were intended to cover. <br />
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So tonight, after all of the pre-bed rigamarole, we tucked them into their beds. David left for a meeting at church, and I went to the kitchen to catch up on three days worth of dishes. I heard lots of kicking and arguing from the bedroom, so I went to lay down the law. "Sintayehu, GET BACK IN BED! Stop climbing up the ladder to bug your brother. I DO NOT want to hear another sound out of this room!" <br />
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About 3 minutes later, Yikealo was out in the kitchen. "Mom, he keeps kicking my bed!" I told Yikealo to go lay down in our bed, at which point Sintay started fussing that "It's not fair!" I told him it was his own fault, and he had better not get out of bed again. <br />
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10 minutes later, Sintay was out in the kitchen asking if he could close the closet door. Seriously? Just close the door, for crying out loud! Why do you need to walk all the way out here to ask if you can close your own closet? I closed his door, tucked him back into bed, gave him his "special" kiss....the one that helps him to not be afraid, and went back to the kitchen. <br />
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15 minutes later, my quiet thoughts were interrupted with "MOM!!" (Pause) "MOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM!!!!!!!!" I head back to the bedroom again. "What do you want, Sintayehu? You are seriously pushing your luck, Bud!" S: "Ummmmmmmm.......I think I heard somebody knocking." Me: "No, you didn't. I am out in the kitchen, right by both doors. Nobody knocked. Everything is fine. You are so tired, Mommy is very close by, nothing is going to happen to you. What is wrong?" S: "I don't know." Me: "Okay, why don't we pray together. The Bible says that perfect love makes fear go away. Do you believe that God loves you? (yes) Do you believe that Mommy loves you? (yes) Okay, than let's pray that God will take the fear away." We prayed together and I headed back to the kitchen. <br />
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20 minutes later, Sintayehu nearly made me jump out of my skin when he sneaked up behind me and grabbed my leg. I definitely yelled this time, "WHAT DO YOU WANT???" S: "I'm scared!" (Well so am I now!) I marched him back to bed, moved a soundly sleeping Yikealo from my bed back to his own, and told Sintayehu, "Okay! Your brother is back in your room, he is sleeping, and you had BETTER NOT wake him up! BE QUIET AND GO TO SLEEP!!!" His lip quivered and he squeezed his eyes shut, and I stomped out and closed the door.<br />
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And promptly felt terrible. Larisa Joy, who cares if the dishes wait one more day? Your child may be irritating at times, but he is actively seeking a connection with you right now, and you are repeatedly turning him away. Just go hold him. I walked back to Sintay's bed, and asked if he'd like me to rock him for a little bit. He'd been pretending to be sleeping, but when I said the word "rock," he practically threw himself into my arms. I walked out to the living room, sat down in the rocking chair, and wrapped him in a blanket, cuddling him close. He was sound asleep in 3 minutes. I stayed right there for another 10, praying over him, feeling his exhausted little body twitch into deep sleep, watching his lips make the little sucking motions that I imagine are left-over from when he nursed with his birth mom. Why did I almost miss this? Why didn't I try this first? It would have saved both of us a lot of frustration. <br />
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I am thankful that God's not finished with me yet. I am thankful for do-overs....and it seems like I need many of them every day. And....there's always tomorrow night! <br />
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David and Larisahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05945642113180904643noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6320430092911095250.post-70168261962404495202014-06-30T08:39:00.001-07:002014-06-30T17:38:47.010-07:00MilestonesYesterday was the 5 year anniversary of the day we met and took custody of Yikealo. I am so grateful for the way that God has knit us together over the last five years. We had fun reminiscing yesterday about those early days together. Both of my boys love to hear their stories, and we tend to mark special days by telling them again about how they came to our family.....celebrating the good after the hard.<br />
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Today is my 39th birthday, and also happens to be the day that I've been married as long as I was single. I was 19 and a half when we got married, and it has been 19 and a half years since our wedding. (It's kind of easy to measure time in halves when your birthday is exactly half way through the year and your anniversary is on January 1st!)<br />
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How in the world did we get from here....<br />
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Where in the world has the time gone? It all seems like yesterday in some ways, and yet I can't remember much more about our life before Yikealo than I can remember about my life before David. I'm amazed that two things I didn't think I wanted (marriage and children) have enriched, fulfilled and completed me in such a way that I can no longer imagine what I was thinking before. I am loving my life more than ever, and I'm so thankful that God isn't finished with me or my relationships yet!<br />
<br />David and Larisahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05945642113180904643noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6320430092911095250.post-47814557997247025602014-06-18T07:35:00.001-07:002014-06-18T07:37:46.558-07:00Seeking Normal AgainThe last month and a half has been a little out of control. We rushed to finish school a month early, and managed to get it all completed on May 10th. On the 11th, we attended the baptism of our nephew Jason, and then left immediately for an 11 hour drive down to Isle of Palms, South Carolina. David had business in Charleston that week, and he took two extra days so that we could make it a week-long vacation. We returned home late on the evening of May 18th, and then I had a week to pack, buy little gifts for the boys, repack tubs of donations, get together such necessities as mosquito repellant, anti-bacterial wipes, flashlights and malaria medicine for my nine-day trip to Ethiopia. I left for Ethiopia on May 26th, returned on June 3rd, spent the next three days sleeping, frantically unpacking, doing laundry and repacking, and we left on the afternoon of the 6th for our every-four-years Ocean Isle vacation with David's family. <br />
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We've had a great time, but life has been out-of-order for way too long. Combine that with trauma-versary time, and we have a perfect storm for Mr. Sintay. He is frustrated, and unhappy, and whiny to the extreme. He throws temper tantrums like we haven't seen in awhile. Yesterday when I told him to stop hanging on the fridge door, he went into his bedroom, slammed the door, screamed bloody-murder for about 10 minutes while heaving everything he could get his hands on. He's mouthy, and impertinent, and he hid under the bench on Sunday rather then walk into the Sunday school class that he's been attending for a year and a half. He bursts into tears at the drop of a hat. He kicked the back of my seat for 7.5 hours while yawning hugely but refusing to take a nap in the van on Saturday. This picture that Susan unwittingly snapped on vacation last week just perfectly sums up our relationship at the moment:<br />
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The thing that I can't allow myself to forget in these moments is that trauma has real, lasting effects. Two years ago this week everything changed again for my little guy. He saw his birth mama for the last time and said a final goodbye to her. Five days later, we took custody of him, and nothing was ever the same again. A friend told me awhile back that she learned in college that memory is actually stored in every cell of our body, not just in our brains. Smells, seasons, sights, sounds, etc can trigger physical pain that mimics the pain we felt when we experienced trauma. My children's bodies KNOW when we've hit a painful anniversary....even if their minds have no concept of the time of year. This isn't something that Sintayehu can master on his own, and this is a child that struggles with impulse control at the best of times. I need to constantly remind myself to have a little more patience right now, to be a little more loving and understanding.</div>
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The good news is that we have a long (hopefully uneventful) summer stretching out in front of us. At the moment we have very few plans scheduled. We have stacks of books from the library to read together, puzzles to work on, and games to play. We have extra time for snuggles, and popsicles, eating fresh strawberries, collecting bugs, and playing with Legos on the driveway with the neighbor kids. We remind him that we are a family, that no matter how rough of a day we've had, he is loved beyond measure. We aren't going anywhere, and neither is he. There are constructive ways to handle grief and frustration, and we are modeling what those are. We've been here before. This is not new territory for us. Slowly, slowly, things will come back into focus...and we will hold onto the good moments, which begin to happen more and more often. Peace is coming again....it just takes a little more time....and time is one thing we have. </div>
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David and Larisahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05945642113180904643noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6320430092911095250.post-12004061051818922612014-04-07T16:34:00.000-07:002014-04-07T16:34:03.454-07:00My Little Writer<div class="text_exposed_root text_exposed" id="id_53432e5c4e3f21c82673508">
<span class="highlightNode">Yikealo</span> recently had to write an experience story for the writing composition portion of his Language Arts class. He chose to write about being adopted, and I thought I'd share his finished story....a look back at adoption through the eyes of a 2nd grader!<br />
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My Adoption</div>
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"I was born in Ethiopia to a poor mom in a northern village. My mom could not work because she has leprosy. My brother and I sold sticks for money. When I was around three my mom could not take care of me any mo<span class="text_exposed_hide">re </span><span class="text_exposed_show">because I was too big to be nursed. She took me to the orphanage. I was terrified when she left me with strangers, and I sobbed when she walked away.</span><br />
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Some men from the orphanage moved me to Hannah's Hope, a transition home in Addis Ababa, about 500 miles away from where I had lived. I felt sad and scared, but the people there were nice. Almaz, the director, spoke my language of Tigrinya, which made me feel safer. She also gave me toy cars to play with.<br />
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One day a man and woman came to Hannah's Hope and played with me. They looked bizarre with their glasses and pale skin. Almaz said, "This is your new mom and dad. They are going to take you to America with them on a plane. Wwwweeeeee!"<br />
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I was frightened when I met the odd new people. Then they took me to a hotel. I missed the special mothers at Hannah's Hope, and I was afraid to go to bed in a strange place. Who were these people? Why wouldn't they take me back to my own bed?<br />
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A good night's sleep made all the difference though. The next morning I was happy to see them and kissed them all over their faces. Then a couple days later I got on a plane and went to America.<br />
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When I got there I was fearful of everything, but soon I got used to things. I learned to speak English, and before long I loved my new home and family. Being adopted was hard, but I learned that when things fall apart, God can turn it into something wonderful."<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">This was one of the first looks that he gave us on the day he met us. In so many of those early photos, even the happy, smiley ones, I can see the frightened distrust in his eyes.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">For weeks after we got home with him, we got looks like this.....and let's be honest....I got the glares far more often than David did!</span></div>
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One note, lest any of you think my 7 year old is a budding genius....this bit of writing is the end result of two weeks of writing lessons, which included drafting, proofreading, using a thesaurus, and checking a dictionary for spelling errors. I don't mean to detract in any way from his finished product, however, because the thoughts are entirely his, and I was so pleased with him for taking on such a tough topic. I absolutely loved his conclusion and the way he is showing so much maturity in his thinking.<br />
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Along with that, one of his totally unprompted journal topics last week melted my heart: "My best freind is Jesus. He's the freind that everone needs. He forgives those who do evil and sin. All those who believe enter Heaven. He heals the sick and loves. He also died for our sins. What friend could do more?" <br />
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I'm in awe of how far we've come in the last five years. I really love this kid, and I am so proud of who he is becoming.<br />
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David and Larisahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05945642113180904643noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6320430092911095250.post-31699619026379087822014-03-25T18:56:00.000-07:002014-03-25T18:56:31.922-07:00Nothin' to See Here.....During one college class, I had to write a 10 page paper, and as is fairly typical for me, I procrastinated. The night before it was due, I was humming along around midnight, working on the beginning of page 7, thinking to myself, "I should easily be done by 1:30 or so and will still get a decent night's sleep!" The thought made me gleefully swing my leg back and forth a few times....which caused me to accidentally kick off the power source to the computer. I was using a very old word processing program that didn't automatically save anything, and I hadn't saved my work since page 2. Yeah....it was a sickening feeling....one of those moments where your mind is racing frantically to come up with an alternative to what you KNOW just happened. Needless to say, I did not get any sleep that night, as I finished my paper up about an hour before I needed to leave for school.<br />
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Last night I had a similar situation. I've been cutting my guys' hair for over a year now, with really no mishaps to date. David's style has taken a little longer to perfect than the boys', but we finally have our system in place. He reminded me around 9:30 last night that I had promised to cut his hair. I groaned....I was so tired, and I had a splitting headache....but I headed to the bathroom and got out the clippers and the three attachments that we use. I laid them out on the counter in the order that I would need them. As David sat down, I grabbed the clippers and took the first big swipe up the right side of his head.....and immediately realized that I'd forgotten to put the #6 attachment on. Ugh. I felt exactly the same way that I had 16 years ago when the computer shut off. That instantaneous horror and the fervent wishing that there was some way to get the last few seconds back. <br />
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Maybe it's not so bad. Maybe there is some way out where nobody has to notice that I really made a mistake. Maybe, just maybe, I can change everything else around the problem and nobody will notice what I did.<br />
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Nope. Well... maybe, just maybe I can cover it up so that nobody notices<br />
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This just isn't working. Maybe the only thing I can do is expose the problem for all to see, acknowledge that it was my fault, and trust that things will grow back right.<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">(</span><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Thankfully, I have an awesome husband who really doesn't care what anyone else thinks about him or his hair, and has mostly tried to make me laugh about all of this.)</span></div>
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The last 24 hours have got me thinking about sin. Sometimes we're tired. Sometimes we're doing things we don't want to do at times we don't want to do them. Sometimes the demands others place on our time is more than we can handle. Sometimes losing focus for a second can result in unimaginably difficult consequences. <br />
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Worse yet, some things don't get fixed automatically by time. There are areas in my life where I need to pull back and think hard about the consequences. I am a perfectionist by nature....which can lead me to be overly critical about a good many things. I can usually put on a decent front for people and hide the sarcastic, withering, reproachful side of my personality inside where the public doesn't see it. My family, though, gets the real deal. I'm with my kids all day long, and on the days when school isn't going so well, or the boys aren't focused enough, or their room looks like a toy factory exploded, I can be WAY too harsh. Words can hurt, and time alone isn't going to heal those wounds.<br />
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So after we've messed up.... what now? Are we going to pretend nothing is wrong? Are we going to tidy up the rest of our lives and hope that nobody notices? Are we going to hide the mess so nobody else sees it? The thing is....they DO notice....and so does God. The only way to put things right again is to own what we've done and repent. Sometimes that means rooting out the weeds that have been planted and starting over completely with a blank slate. <br />
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Otherwise, the only one that we're fooling is ourself.<br />
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<em>"If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." I John 1:9</em><br />
<br />David and Larisahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05945642113180904643noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6320430092911095250.post-330588584124788732014-01-29T16:49:00.000-08:002014-01-29T18:49:25.651-08:00Sintay's "Bible" Story<span lang="EN">When David is lying down with the boys at night, and they want a story, he gives them a series of choices: <br />
“Old or New Testament?”<br />
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If Old: “Patriarchs or Prophets?”<br />
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If New: “Jesus or the Apostles?”<br />
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Then finally, “What they said or what they did?”<br />
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Once the boys have selected their formula of choice, David does a fantastic job of bringing a Bible story down to their level. The boys love it, and I do too. I’ve been amazed at how many times he makes me realize something that I’ve never thought of before out of a familiar old story.<br />
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Tonight, Sintayehu was clearly trying to stall after we said it was time to go to sleep and tried his hand at it:<br />
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S: “Kahlo, you want New Tessamint or Possles?”<br />
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Y: “Old Testament”<br />
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S: “K….Jesus or what ‘er writes or what ‘er dids?”<br />
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Y: (giggling) “What he wrote.”<br />
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S: “K. Ummmm…..Peter, James and John….ummmm…..went to da beach. Guess what ‘er sawed?”<br />
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Me: “The Sea of Galilee?”<br />
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David: “Lots of fishes?”<br />
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Y: “Boats?”<br />
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S: “No. A volcano.” (Much hilarity from Yikealo.) “And nen, dey went in and guess what else ‘er sawed? A bear! A big one! Ummmm….and Peter, James, and John cutted him on da neck. And nen, dey couldn’t get out of da volcano. So dey got a umbrella, and dey went up and up and up and up and nen went on da beach again. Den guess what ‘er sawed? Anudder bear! A little one….a cute one. De end.”<br />
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Funny….I don’t remember that story at all! ;-)<br />
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</span>David and Larisahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05945642113180904643noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6320430092911095250.post-55070801755385232132014-01-25T06:28:00.000-08:002014-01-25T06:57:48.621-08:00"They're So Lucky" and Other FallaciesThis post has been on my heart for some time. People say some frustrating things to adoptive families, and while I understand that many times they don't mean exactly what we hear, sometimes they make us pause and think about lecturing on poverty and orphan issues and scripture. Most of the time I am able to give some grace and avoid the harsh words that well up inside of me, but I'm going to take a moment and address a few of my personal trigger points.<br />
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* "They're so lucky!" said with beaming smiles directed at my boys, usually after someone finds out that they were originally from Ethiopia. Right, because now they're part of a middle-class family in the "promised land" of America, rather than living a VERY hard hand-to-mouth existence in a third-world country. I get what they're saying. Yet somehow that statement negates the horror and the pain and the trauma that my children have experienced. Let's say that you know a family where one of the parents dies suddenly while the children are very young. Would you EVER look at the remaining members of the family and comment, "You're so lucky!"?? Probably not....because you can see the hard place that they're walking through, and commenting on the fact that at least they're still living would seem incredibly insensitive. My boys lost EVERYTHING....at a very young age. They lost the only family members they had ever known, their beautiful country, their language and their cultural heritage. Sure we try to keep some of this alive for them, but the losses are real, and heart-wrenching, and painful. Both of my boys fondly remember very loving mothers, and their hearts know that just because they've been provided with another family and all of the trappings of a life in America, the pain of that loss doesn't go away. They've endured hardship that no child should ever have to face, and to call that "lucky" just feels so wrong to me.<br />
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*"You were always God's Plan A for them!" Just. Don't. This is simply not true. Adoption is a beautiful thing, and I'm so incredibly thankful for it, but adoption only exists because we live in a broken world. It was never God's first plan in any sense of the word. God's original plan is that every child would be born to a loving family that could afford to feed them and care for them. God's Plan A was the Garden of Eden, but we messed that up a long time ago. In fact, sin ruined everything, and it is only because of sin that adoption is necessary. Now....is God's mighty hand involved? Absolutely! I see adoption as His redemption of a hard situation. It's similar to salvation in so many ways, and one of those ways is the fact that neither adoption nor salvation would exist in a perfect world. In a perfect world, we wouldn't have disobeyed God in the first place, and salvation wouldn't have happened because God never would've had to sacrifice His only son on our behalf. Adoption wouldn't be necessary either, because no family would be experiencing poverty or disease or the heartache of broken or sinful relationships. God did not make a mistake and accidentally cause my children to be born to women on the other side of the world, all the while intending them for me. They ARE my children today, but they are also the children of beautiful Ethiopian women, and I will not cheapen the pain of the loss of those first mothers by saying that Yikealo and Sintayehu were "always" meant to be with us.<br />
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*"Now, do you have any children of your own?" Yes, we do....two of them....and their names are Yikealo and Sintayehu. I realize that what you meant to ask was if we have "biological" children, but please do not refer to MY children as if they are not MY OWN. Because they are....as much as if I had carried them inside my own body. I am the one who teaches them, who feeds them, who gets up with them in the night when they've had a bad dream, who spends every day loving them and caring for them. I would give my life for them. I am their mother, and the fact that they each have another woman that they also refer to as "Mommy" does not lessen our relationship. You see, adoption counts. If it didn't, then we would have no hope of Heaven. God is our ADOPTIVE Father, and He refers to us as His children. It is because of adoption that we are allowed to call Him "Abba" (Daddy or Papa). If adoption was a lesser relationship, then why in the world would God have sent His ONLY BEGOTTEN SON to rescue the rest of us? How could we refer to Jesus as our Brother? Adoption makes a family....a real, completely valid family. <br />
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*"I just don't think I could ever love an adopted child as much as I love my own kids." Ummmm....yeah. So, you're saying that you're incapable of loving someone that you didn't carry inside your womb? What about your parents? Siblings? Grandparents? Oh, maybe you're saying that you can't really love anyone who is not related to you by blood? So, what exactly does that mean for your spouse? Or what about the close friends with whom you share everything? Are you honestly trying to start a "I love my kids more than you love yours" argument? Why would you say something like that? Granted, I can't really comment on how it feels to love a biological child, but sometimes when I look at my boys I feel like my heart is going to explode from being too full. I can't imagine my life without them, and I will do anything to let them know how much I love them. Since I firmly believe that all true love comes from God anyway, I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that He is able to create the deepest feelings of devotion between a parent and a child, no matter how their family was formed. Remember, adoption counts. <br />
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*"So the women over there must not love their children that much, huh?" SERIOUSLY?? To make things even worse, variations of this question have been asked IN FRONT OF my kids! Are you kidding me? How dare you sit in your ivory-tower-existence and make judgements about how much someone loves her child just because she chooses an adoption plan! She is living a life that you can't even imagine. She grieves her losses every single day, and oh yeah....she's also got a debilitating disease, or she's lost the husband that she dearly loved to a horrific accident, and she's got no education and has very few job prospects. I thank God that we've been able to have contact with both of our boys' birth mothers, and the first thing that they want their children to know is how much they are loved. <br />
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Almost two year ago, when we were in Ethiopia for Sintayehu's court case, we met with a man who had just interviewed Yikealo's birth mom. We had just left Sintayehu at Hannah's Hope earlier that day, and had no idea when we'd be able to return for him. I was grieving at the thought of not seeing my son for several months, and all of a sudden we were looking at photos of Yikealo's first mother, who hadn't seen her son in 3 years. We learned some hard things about how difficult her life is, and that night was probably the most emotionally overwhelming of my life so far. Later on the plane, I remember sobbing....for hours....while paging through photograph after photograph. I started listening to music, and the first song that played summed my feeling up so well.<br />
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"Why this happened I cannot explain,<br />
Why write the script with such heartache and pain?<br />
Could there not have been an easier way?<br />
Watching life through this glass so faded,<br />
I cannot see the bigger picture taking place....<br />
Oh to understand one day!<br />
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And my heart will fly<br />
When I finally see You face to face<br />
And my tears will fly away, away.<br />
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Won't be long 'til we all go home<br />
With all things revealed, <br />
And on that day we'll finally know,<br />
Oh, as we are fully known.<br />
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And what appears as incomplete, <br />
Is still completely Yours,<br />
And one day we'll see as we've been seen, and we'll soar.<br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">(Mercy Me)</span><br />
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I will probably never hear that song again without crying. It's so true. The script of my boys' lives has been written with unimaginable heartache and pain, but also with unimaginable beauty. They are deeply, deeply loved....each of them by two different families in two different countries.<br />
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A few weeks ago, the boys and I were doing some shopping when Sintayehu spotted this figurine. He pointed excitedly and said, "Look! It's me and my Mommy Alem!! Mom, PLEASE get it for me? Please??" How could I resist that? She now sits on our bookcase between the photos of the boys with their beloved first mamas. On the hard days, when Sintay's been fussy and frustrating and acting out, I will often find him sitting down in a chair, clutching her to him and petting her softly with that far-away look in his eyes. We talk about Mommy Alem, and how much she loves him, and how much we love him too. I tell him that I'm so sorry that he lost his first mama, but that I'm so glad that I get the chance to be his mama too. I tell him that it's okay to be sad, it's okay to be angry, and it's okay to cry. Having a new family doesn't erase the pain, but hopefully we are giving him a safe, loving place to express it.<br />
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David and Larisahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05945642113180904643noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6320430092911095250.post-69328915479197551812013-12-31T07:17:00.001-08:002013-12-31T07:20:36.684-08:00Laughing with Little Boys<span lang="EN">This year has absolutely flown by. I can't believe that we are at the end already. I know I've been severely neglecting the blog lately, but here are a few amusing comments by the boys to finish out the year:<br />
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One night in the car, the boys were arguing over which one of them could kiss an imaginary girl. Yikealo was making all kinds of smooching sounds and finally told Sintay, “Okay, now it’s your turn to kiss her.” I asked why in the world they were practicing kissing girls, and Yikealo replied, “Well, we’re planning for the future! You know….like the ant in “The Grasshopper and the Ant” that we read in Language Arts last week. You wouldn’t want me to be like the grasshopper, would you?” Somehow, that is not QUITE how I envisioned that particular moral being utilized.<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">This is the kind of face we get from Mr. Y while trying to take Christmas pictures. Isn't it beautiful? I guess we probably don't have to worry about him kissing girls yet after all. Any self-respecting girl would RUN from this!</span></div>
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Sintay walked up to me one day and proudly announced, “Hey Mom! I put yodent on my pickle!” I had no idea what he meant, and questioned him further. He held up the deodorant bottle and motioned applying it to his underarms. <br />
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Yikealo’s journal entry one day: “Gues what my least favorite lesson is besides writing? Langwige Arts. It’s the werst lesson ever. That lesson I can never ever do. Aspesholy the tests. Those are the night mears.” Just as an aside, he’s doing quite well in Language Arts. On the day in question, he had missed one answer on his Semester test. I think someone is a bit hard on himself. <br />
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When he writes in his journal, he is supposed to write 3-5 clear sentences on one topic. I found this little gem the other day: “Do you love god? I love god. My mom loves buoble shoot. We get to go to Diney World tomorrow!” Would anyone like to explain to me how any of these sentences are on the same theme? And considering that we have no plans to visit “Diney World” anytime soon….<br />
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Or how about this entry: “This is Spider Man. This is not true but I wunt to use it for a sentince. In the Bible it says wich ever way SpiderMans web was faceing would lead to freedom. Mom can I be done?”<br />
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Listening to Sintay talk to himself while playing is always entertaining. One morning I caught this while he was playing JumpStart on the computer: “Mommmmyyyyy?? Please can I come back home now? No! I going to Acrifa! AAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!!! I SINKING INNA WATER!!! HELP!! DERE’S CROTTODILES!! Oh, wait…no, dat’s just a spring water. Digging up flowers, Yee-Hah!” This goes on All. Day. Long. And then I wonder why my head is usually splitting by the end of the day.<br />
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Another day he was playing with Legos. Here’s a small portion of that sound-track: “OOOOOOOO!!! My butt is on fire! I need put dis guy in jail. Oh yeah….where da jail be? Take him to da udder jail….dis one be full. Oooof! Here’s da weapons! HELP!!! You got your dragon? NO! I don’t got da dragon - I got food. WoooHooooo!! Budda ladda lee! Madda ladda lee! SOMEBODY GET HER!! I can’t get her. WHOA! Is dat a ninja?!” Why are little boys always so violent in their play?<br />
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We were doing some Christmas shopping at the mall, and Yikealo had said that he really wanted to buy a gift for me. David said that he’d help him find something while I went off to finish up my shopping for the boys. When I met them a little later, Mr. Y told me in a very disgruntled voice that he had found something for me, but “Dad wouldn’t let me buy it.” David rolled his eyes, and said, “Yeah….they “found” a sparkly red sweater…in size 3X. Yikealo, do you really think that Mama is that big?” Yikealo replied, “Well, I thought she could wear it for a really long time that way, ‘cause she wouldn’t grow out of it as fast.” We had to explain that my hope was that I’d never grow into it in the first place.<br />
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David and I began discussing the possibility of getting away for a day or two over our upcoming anniversary, and Yikealo immediately started arguing that we shouldn’t leave. When I explained that he’d be staying at Aunt Susan’s with his cousins, he relented slightly and compromised by telling us that we were allowed to have a 2-minute date at Eddy’s Bike Shop followed by ice cream cones at the yogurt shop next door. Let me tell you, the romance is alive and kicking in this family. Needless to say, we don’t feel that it’s necessary to follow his rules.<br />
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Y still wants to marry me. One morning he was asking, “So why can’t you be married to me AND Dad?” I told him that it’s illegal to marry two people, and that you certainly can’t marry your own mother. He said, “Well, what if we just don’t tell anyone?” I asked why he wanted to marry me in the first place. His reasons were: “I could kiss you as often as I wanted, you wouldn’t be able to boss me around and make me do school, and I could have all the electronics time that I wanted.” Lovely. Sintay wants to marry Aunt Susan.<br />
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About every other day or so, Sintayehu will refuse to answer to anything but “Yucky Yayko.” Don’t ask me where he came up with that lovely moniker, or why in the world he’s so attached to it.<br />
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On the way home from church one afternoon, Sintay was sitting in the back seat chanting, “Awesome, Behbeh!” over and over. I asked him where in the world he had heard that anyway, to which he replied, “I learned it in Pope-ia! My family say dat!” Ummmm…..pretty sure that’s not true, Dude!<br />
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One day, Sintayehu got in trouble for saying the word "poop" over and over. I told him that if I heard "poop" one more time, he was going to be in the corner for quite some time. Shortly afterwards I overheard him shouting "Winnie-da-POOH!!" repeatedly. Talk about abiding by the letter and not the spirit of the law.<br />
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While snuggling Sintay one morning, I asked him if he was going to be my good boy that day. He responded with a whiny “I can’t!” I asked why, and he said, “I can’t find my brain. I put it inna box, and it falled out, and I can’t find it.” On another day he told me that he couldn’t listen because he didn’t have a brain…“Grammy taked it, ‘cause hers is getting too old.” And here I thought that he was just choosing not to listen. Now that I know about the missing brain, everything’s becoming clearer somehow. ;-)<br />
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On Sunday morning, David showered Sintay in the basement and lotioned him up, I did his hair, and we sent him upstairs to get dressed for church in the clothes that I had carefully laid out on his bed. This happens every Sunday morning, so it’s not like this was a new routine for us. However, ten minutes later when we were ready to leave, we discovered that he was still running around in his underwear. The reason, you ask? Well, rather than getting dressed, he had been spending his time spitting onto his chest and then performing various gyrations in order to try to get the spit to fall into his belly-button. SERIOUSLY?? What is WRONG with boys??<br />
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I was commenting on some rough behavior from Mr. S, and told David, “He has been SO belligerent today!” Yikealo asked, (in a completely serious voice, I might add) “What does belligerent mean? That he has seven nostrils that are invisible?” Huh?<br />
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During our recent remodel, the boys have had all kinds of ideas about how things should be done. One of my favorites was Yikealo's suggestion that we install the water lines for the kitchen sink across the doorway between the kitchen and the garage....so that we have to do the limbo every time we come into the house. It seems like bringing in groceries would get a bit cumbersome, but I guess we would get more exercise that way. <br />
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The boys were eating caramel corn mix and came across an almond. Sintayehu was convinced that it was a ninja turtle shell. <br />
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And on that note, we'll close out our posting for this year! Wishing all of you a blessed and beautiful new year, filled with joy and laughter in the little moments.<br />
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David and Larisahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05945642113180904643noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6320430092911095250.post-58607398362801821262013-12-14T19:10:00.000-08:002013-12-15T03:00:02.260-08:00On Bedroom-Kitchens"Hey! It's a Bedroom-Kitchen!"<br />
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This was Yikealo's succinct assessment of our new living quarters. We are in the process of expanding the kitchen and bathroom on our main floor and, consequently, our family of four is squeezed into about half of our basement (the other half also showing signs of construction).<br />
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The thing is: while the arrangement is inconvenient at times (with "times" being whenever we're home), the thought that nailed me as soon as I heard "Bedroom-Kitchen" was that ours is, by far, the nicest Bedroom-Kitchen I've ever seen.<br />
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The fact is that during this time of thanksgiving and reflection, I could quickly think of loved ones who would gladly trade all they had for the amenities of our Bedroom-Kitchen. These dear ones live with so much less than what we have piled into a 11 x 12 room. They live with no hope of betterment. They can't "hang in there" just a few weeks longer to reap the benefits of a more convenient circumstance.<br />
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Yikealo's brief observation started me thinking. A lot. And I think that what I think about this holiday season goes something like this: there are four ways we can consider our affluence, but only one right way.<br />
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First, there is entitlement. We are in the middle of reading Jen Hatmaker's book "Seven" and it has shone light on new areas of the things we "need" to have. Yowza! The new appliances, the fancy coffee machine, gifts for the boys, new shoes because (gasp), the old ones are starting to develop holes.<br />
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We move from entitlement to complacency. Of course we have food. Of course we have sufficient heat and clothing. Six inches of snow isn't life-and-death, it's a welcome treat secure in the knowledge that it's always warm inside with plenty of hot chocolate. The lights come on when we flip the switch. Clean water is abundantly available.<br />
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As we become aware of the circumstances of those less fortunate, we inevitably embrace guilt. Why us? Why so much? Shouldn't others have more? WHAT ARE WE DOING? Larisa and I recently encountered our budget from 2005 and literally wept over the luxury spending. Who were those people? (and why didn't they have their house paid off?)<br />
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I've pretty much laid bare all of the poor attitudes I bring to the season. While considering this post I had hoped to explain the three bad attitudes and then smugly paint myself into the fourth. However, writing the blog has been a ringing indictment that my heart is not quite so mature as I had hoped.<br />
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Certainly feeling entitled or being complacent are not helpful perspectives on all that God has given us, but neither is it helpful to feel guilty. As cliche as it sounds, the only healthy perspective on our affluence is to have a grateful heart. Maybe our government was onto something when they designated "Thanksgiving Day" rather than "Apathy Day" or "Me Day" or "Woe is me Day". True thankfulness comes from realizing that everything we have is God's, and it is only out of that recognition that true generosity can flow.<br />
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It is, therefore, with a grateful heart that I contemplate my family, reflect on the babe in a manger, "survey the wondrous cross", and retire to my Bedroom-Kitchen.David and Larisahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05945642113180904643noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6320430092911095250.post-34099089825893207002013-09-10T14:00:00.003-07:002013-09-10T14:07:08.895-07:00The RunawaysIt all started with this: <br />
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My parents were visiting for a few minutes yesterday afternoon, and the boys were using their typical "hey-we-have-someone-new-to-show-off-for-so-let's-act-as-crazy-and-out-of-control-as-possible" company manners. They were running frantically through the house, hitting each other with the above toy snake, and shrieking with laughter, and let me tell you, it is next to impossible to try to carry on a conversation under those circumstances! After asking nicely several times for them to stop, I finally resorted to taking the snake away, and asking them to read some books quietly in their room. <br />
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They obediently disappeared into the bedroom, but a few minutes later, Yikealo emerged wearing his stocking hat, his binoculars around his neck, and carrying his backpack and a blanket. He informed us melodramatically that he was running away, since I had taken his pet snake away. Sintay, who copies pretty much everything that his big brother does, said he was going too. They marched over to the door, jerked it open, and stared out at the wet concrete in our driveway. <br />
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S: "Uh-oh! It's waining!"<br />
Y: "Oh blast! Well, I guess I can wait until tomorrow to run away!"<br />
(insert snickering from the grandparents....)<br />
Me: "Yeah...because if some barely-there rain is going to stop you, I certainly wouldn't risk it. Besides, you're not even wearing shoes."<br />
Y: "Well, I guess I'll go get some more supplies while I'm waiting." (grabs his water bottle and a banana that he holds like a pistol). "Now I've got some food fer if I get hungry." (adds the Jesus Storybook Bible to his backpack, and puts his tennis shoes on.)<br />
S: (dressed in a spiderman costume with a pirate hat) "I'm taking 'dis!" (holds up his plastic hammer, a cup half full of water, and a pair of nunchuks from a set of ninja weapons.) "Kahlo, you need put dis inna bag" (holding out a belt to a Batman costume.) <br />
Me: "Excellent. I'm glad you're going to have the Word along with you, so you can keep learning about Jesus. Sintay, what are you going to eat? Yikealo only has one banana."<br />
S: (running to grab the bag of kettle corn from the fair) "Popcorn!"<br />
Me: "Very nutritious. Yikealo, what all do you have in your bag?"<br />
Y: "Don't worry. I have all the clothes I need. I think I'll take my cash register to keep my money in."<br />
Me: "But you don't have any money. You just spent the last of your money at the fair."<br />
Y: "I have one dollar to buy gum, and I'll stop at the bank to take my savings money along."<br />
Me: "You can't. Your account is in Daddy's name, and he wouldn't let you take your money out so you could run away."<br />
Y: "Well then I will sell lemonade, and we can buy food with that money."<br />
Dad: "Yikealo, how will you buy the lemons?"<br />
Y: "I will ride my bike to the fair. They have lemons there. Besides, I will take my bow and arrow, and maybe we can shoot animals, AND I know where there are some apple trees in the forest. Here, Sintay, let's get your sippy cup. We should take our toothbrushes too."<br />
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By the time all of these supplies were gathered, the rain had stopped, so the intrepid adventurers headed outside. First though, they stopped to discard the banana ("Mom, this banana is getting too squishy. I'll just share Sintay's popcorn.") I kissed them goodbye, but told them to be sure to hurry back, because Daddy was going to be home soon. Yikealo said he wasn't coming back, and they walked toward the woods at the end of our little dead-end street. When they reached it, they turned back for home. Yikealo needed to see if there was any mail for him, and they were getting way too hot. It seems that running away is more work than they really wanted to do. They decided instead to explore the new toy catalogs from the day's mail while eating their popcorn in the air-conditioning. Besides, Yikealo informed me, "I forgot to pack any clothes for Sintay, and I didn't even have any swimming trunks for him, in case we discovered a river and needed to bathe." <br />
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David and Larisahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05945642113180904643noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6320430092911095250.post-15097506393368443092013-08-07T11:29:00.001-07:002013-08-07T11:30:18.812-07:00Thoughts From YikealoMr. Y may be growing up quickly, but thankfully the random comments and ideas haven't slowed down yet! Here are some examples from this summer:<br />
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While driving past our church one day, he commented, "That is God's house. He sure has a lot of houses! Hey....do God and Jesus sleep in the same bed?"<br />
Me: "The Bible says that He neither slumbers nor sleeps, so no....they don't even need a bed."<br />
Y: "Well, is He allowed to lay down with His eyes open - like on His side - so He can still see all of us but get some rest?"<br />
Me: "God doesn't need rest like we do."<br />
Y: "He sure must have a lot of energy!"<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">(My pictures this time are from our beach vacation in May. Since I haven't ever gotten around to blogging about it, I may as well use some photos, right?)</span></div>
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While listening to a story that quoted Hebrews 13:2 on entertaining angels unaware, he looked up with a rather shocked expression and asked, "They entertain angel UNDERWEAR? Does that mean they provide underwear for angels?"<br />
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One day, when apparently he needed some extra words of affirmation, he asked, "Mom, which is more beautiful.....me, or a dirty truck?" <br />
Me: "You."<br />
Y: (beaming triumphantly) "I knew you'd say that!" I guess that is one way to get compliments....<br />
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"Mom, when I am really old - like 14 - and if I am still losing teeth, will the tooth fairy still bring me money?"<br />
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Y: "Mom, would you like to eat one of my boogers?"<br />
Me: "Ummmmm.......NO!"<br />
Y: "Well, I eat them sometimes." Excellent....just what I wanted to know.<br />
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"Did you know that when I was jumping on the trampoline, my butt had a heart attack?"<br />
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Y: "Mom, if you were already dead, but you could still open your eyes, would you just have to wink and then God would let you into Heaven?"<br />
Me: "Huh?"<br />
Y: "Well, Dad said one time that it was just a wink of an eye to get into Heaven." Let me do some explaining, son!<br />
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This child is not only color-blind, but completely fashion-challenged. I allow him to choose his own clothes whenever we are home, but when we go out in public, I generally give him a choice between two outfits that I have pre-selected, which drives him crazy. One day, he was arguing with me about my choices, and he asked why I didn't just let him pick. (His choice that day consisted of a gray t-shirt, khaki shorts, and black soccer socks pulled up above his knees....I rest my case.) I said that I didn't want him to look like a child who had no one to take care of him, and he replied, "Maybe you could just always let me pick my own clothes, but you could just carry a big sign with you that has an arrow pointing to me that says, 'He is not an orphan!'" I guess I could do that.....or I could just pick a nice outfit instead! Here's another recent ensemble: <br />
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"Hey, when I am nineteen....I mean, if I'm not married yet....can we do this? Can we race....except that you and Dad can drive the van and I will ride my bike? Who do you think would win?"<br />
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"Mom, you can either agree to marry me instead of Dad, or I will have to cut your legs off." Now THERE'S the proper way to woo a potential spouse!<br />
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And....a few recent excerpts from his journal:<br />
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<em>"If I was a looth tooth I would tell the grone up that is my Dad. I would tell him I felled wigely and loosh. My dad tolled me what would hapin. When I herd that I felt scard cause I didn't want to leve dad."</em><br />
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<em>"When I grow up I will climb lots of trees and hav fun. When I grow up, I will mary Aquinnah. I would say she was lovelly every time I came back from work."</em><br />
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<em>"I'm going to rite about Redwall. A yung mouse named Mithias turns to be a woriar and fights a seur rat named Cloony the skerge. I like it cause it has lots of fighting in it. It is cool how a baby can do a big thing. It makes me think that I can do big things too."</em><br />
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<em>"My family is a big family. My mom is not like dad with her temper. Dad is very callm and mom on the other hand sometimes gets her temper up to a hundered. Sometimes when we did school she got her temper up to a hundered but she yuseuly didn't. Like when we were doing a History lesson but I think it was the lesson." </em>(Nice save, dude!)<br />
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<em>"If I was a lizard I would be a kumillyon and if any sterangers came I would stick my tung in there ear two times. I would use camuflog when I went to my cusuns house to play hide 'n seek for they couldn't see me. My owner would be my brother Sintay."</em><br />
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<em>"If I were a toy I would be a Lego guy. I would ride in stuff that my owner made for me. I would be a ninja. I would have osome cars. I would save the world with my cool powers with help from the guys that have gas and wheels."</em><br />
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And my personal favorite: <em>"The thing I hate about school is my Jernle and reading. Sometimes I wish I could just throw it away. But I get over it and just rite." </em>This bit of whining was accompanied by this picture:<br />
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Just in case you're wondering, that is me to the right, ordering Y to write in his "jernle." He is wearing the saddest face ever at my cruel demands, while a tiny Sintay happily plays with his truck in the foreground, completely free of the oppressive restraints of dictator Mom. Life can be SO hard when you're seven!<br />
<br />David and Larisahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05945642113180904643noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6320430092911095250.post-41234070461971115812013-07-24T15:27:00.000-07:002013-07-24T15:27:23.915-07:00Four Years Old<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Sintayehu turned four on Monday. My little boy is growing up so fast! He has really turned a corner behavior-wise during the last few weeks too....he seems much more focused and settled and loving than he had been in quite a while. We still have a bad day every now and then, but we're no longer having rough spots constantly throughout each day. This kiddo is SO much fun when he's happy! He is learning to use his inside voice (a HUGE relief to our exhausted ears!), he is learning to ask nicely when he wants something instead of throwing things or slamming doors, and he is learning to talk through his feelings instead of throwing temper tantrums. His language skills are coming along, although he is still somewhat difficult to understand if you're not used to deciphering his speech! Some of his mis-pronunciations have made their way into our family lexicon:<br />
<ul>
<li>"fosa" (sofa)</li>
<li>"sicky puck" (sippy cup)</li>
<li>"vay hop-hee" (very happy)</li>
<li>"Look! It's a chunka-munka!" (said about a squirrel that he thought was a chipmunk)</li>
<li>"Kank you!" (Thank you)</li>
<li>"asselpauce" (applesauce)</li>
<li>"jump-a-leen" (trampoline)</li>
<li>"pan-panks" (pancakes) The other night, I had mentioned that I was making "pan-panks" for supper, and he was quick to give me orders, "Don't put bwuebways (blueberries) in it, or I be fwustwated wis you!" :-)</li>
<li>"I 'cared o' sumping." (I'm scared of something. This is the latest excuse to get out of bed, although when pressed, he can never actually come up with anything that he is 'cared of, except maybe a vague-sounding "montuh" (monster.))</li>
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A few other Sintay-isms: <br />
<ul>
<li>"Oh, blasted mushrooms!" He says this whenever things aren't going his way, usually several times a day. When we were on vacation earlier this summer, he and I had just walked down to the beach one morning when he threw his arms up in disgust and said, "Oh, blasted mushrooms!" "What's wrong?" I asked, to which he replied in an exceedingly whiny voice, "Moooooommmmm, I don' have my supah powahs wif me!" (He couldn't actually articulate what his super powers are....)</li>
<li>On our last day at the beach, I asked what his favorite part of vacation had been. He said that he liked swimming in the ocean and the pools. I asked if there was anything he hadn't liked. "Ummmmm......(thinking carefully).....yeah! I don' like tigahs eating me." Okay then! I hadn't realized that we'd had any tigers gnawing on my child while on vacation, but there you have it.</li>
<li>One day I was listening to praise music in my bedroom while folding laundry. Sintay came in and asked, "What dis song?" I told him that it was called <em>Breathe, </em>and he asked why. "Because it's saying that we need God like we need air, sweetie." Sintay: "Like a hump-back whale?" Huh?? But then, that's usually how conversations go with this kiddo.</li>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Then there's the way he insists on walking around our street wearing swim goggles instead of sunglasses....charming, isn't he?</span></div>
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After supper Monday night, we had some cake and ice cream to celebrate his birthday. He was most excited about "blowing fire," but once the candles were extinguished, he immediately dove head-first into the cake. I guess we're just getting to the whole first-birthday-destroy-the-cake thing a few years later than usual!</div>
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The most amazing part of this birthday celebration, though, really had to do with Chris and Erica's trip to Ethiopia last week. They were able to spend a few days in Gambella, the region where Sintayehu lived. While there, they met his birth mom (A) and were able to give her a photo book that we had made of Sintay's first year with us. A was able to communicate to Erica how thankful she is that he is in America, where he has the chance to be safe and happy, how blessed she feels that he is being raised in a Christian family, and how much she loves him. It felt like such a gift on Sunday evening, to hear Erica's description of that meeting. It was even more beautiful, when on Sintayehu's birthday, Erica forwarded many new photos of his beloved first mama. He was overjoyed to see her again, although he wanted Erica to know in no uncertain terms that A was "MY Mommy A, NOT Ehkah's!" I am grateful beyond words to be able to have ways to keep in touch with our boys' first families. <br />
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David and Larisahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05945642113180904643noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6320430092911095250.post-18956431714676591532013-06-23T06:04:00.002-07:002013-06-23T06:04:51.702-07:00One Year HomeOne year ago today, after approximately 33 hours of travel, we arrived in the USA with Sintayehu!<br />
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We've come a long way since then. We still have a long way to go, but we've overcome quite a few obstacles in the last year. So thankful for a God who redeems hard situations and makes something beautiful out of pain!<br />
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David and Larisahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05945642113180904643noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6320430092911095250.post-44818575033303073482013-06-19T11:07:00.000-07:002013-06-19T11:10:11.914-07:00Remembering and ReconnectingOne year ago today, we landed in Ethiopia to bring our Sintay home. We spent 3 days stuck in the Riviera Hotel, waiting on his travel visa and getting acquainted with the A family: Michael, Mindy and their new daughter Alaysia. Mindy and I had connected the year before via e-mail after she had met my father-in-law, who was speaking at her church in Illinois. I had also been with her in Atlanta in March of last year at the Created for Care retreat.....as it turns out, on the very day that they received their referral for Miss Alaysia. Their case was a few weeks behind ours, but since our case was delayed at the Embassy level for a couple of weeks, we ended up in Ethiopia to pick up our kiddos at the same time. Really, it was a God thing all the way! We had some great conversations together, and connected on so many levels. Their sweet Alaysia was struggling with the transition, while Sintayehu was doing great, so we were able to spend some time lifting them up in prayer and walking the courtyard with them as they tried to calm their screaming daughter. Miss A seemed happier when Sintay was helping to entertain her, so we definitely logged some hours in that courtyard! Sometimes, some very strong friendships can be forged in the rough places....God is a master at bringing beauty from hard situations.<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Ready to leave the Riviera for America! June 22, 2012</span></div>
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When I met Mindy again at this year's C4C retreat, she invited us to spend a weekend with them. We chose Father's Day weekend....just days away from our one-year anniversary of being together in Ethiopia. We had a wonderful time getting reacquainted and marveling at how much our little ones have changed over the intervening year. It was nice to meet their two sons as well, and we truly enjoyed being together again! Here are some photos from our weekend:<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Miss Alaysia today....isn't she gorgeous?</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Noah and Levi, Alaysia's big brothers</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">We took the short walk to a beautiful park right around the corner from Michael and Mindy's. It was a cool, cloudy day with a bit of rain every now and then, but that didn't stop my boys from getting soaking wet as soon as they saw the splash pad.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Mindy's children, clearly less crazy than mine, sat quietly (and warmly) on the sidelines, watching Y and S cavorting about in the water.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Saturday evening, we walked uptown to a great ice-cream/coffee shop, where we met another AGCI family, Ryan and Amber. I have known Amber's family since we were both little girls, and today she lives just a couple of miles from Mindy, who happens to be her close friend. It really is a small world sometimes! Alaysia and Sintay held hands all the way there....too cute!</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">The kids all walked around the fountain area in uptown, and of course my boys were the only ones who got completely soaked once again!</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Amber, me and Mindy</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">After church on Sunday, we snapped some Father's Day photos of our men with the little ones.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">I feel so blessed to get to parent our boys with David. He is such an awesome Daddy!</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Sintayehu LOVED Mindy, and insisted on holding her hand whenever possible.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Aren't these two adorable?</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">We all look a lot more relaxed than in the photo taken a year ago!</span></div>
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After we left Michael and Mindy's, we drove to Indiana to stay with Jason and Lori, some more great friends. Lori and I became buddies in Sunday School, when we were four years old, and I still consider her to be one of my very favorite people. We've got lots of memories, good and bad, and I love seeing how God has changed and molded both of us during the last 30-odd years. We enjoyed seeing their new-to-them home, and the boys loved the pool in the backyard. Jason and Lori are expecting a little boy in September of this year, and we can't wait to meet him! Their girls, Lindsey and Elise were awesome with our wild boys....they'll do just great with a little brother!</div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;">Our weekend may not have been very restful, between the 16 or so hours of driving and staying up late talking for several nights in a row, but</span> </span><span style="font-size: small;">it was definitely a blessing!</span></div>
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David and Larisahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05945642113180904643noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6320430092911095250.post-72974040192725785812013-06-14T09:18:00.004-07:002013-06-14T09:18:51.327-07:00Birthday BoyYikealo turned 7 on the 12th, and it's looking like this particular birthday is going to stretch out for some time. We don't buy a lot of "things" as birthday presents around here, because we'd prefer to make memories as a family, and quite frankly, our kiddos don't need more stuff! For Yikealo's birthday celebration, we plan to spend some time at Great Wolf Lodge, but we can't fit it into our crazy schedule until a couple of weeks after his birthday, so that part will have to wait a bit. <br />
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In the meantime, Mr. Y was extremely excited to have his birthday! On Tuesday, I was cuddling with him on the sofa and bemoaning the fact that he was growing up way too fast. I said something like, "This is the very last day that I can snuggle you while you're still 6!" to which he replied, "But I'll still be little....enough with the moping, Mom!" I'm definitely not getting sympathy from that quarter, that's for sure. That night, he was afraid that he wouldn't be able to get to sleep because he was too excited. I told him that the faster he fell asleep, the sooner his birthday would be here, and he was out in no time. He did, however, wake up at 5:20 the next morning...and came out singing, "I'm seven today!!" He was thrilled to open his gift of a puzzle and two coloring books.<br />
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I attempted to get some photos of him on his birthday, and instead ended up with mostly silly pictures of him making faces. <br />
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With much effort, I did eventually manage to get a decent one or two!</div>
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Later that afternoon, David had an appointment with the naturopathic doctor that he sees in Indiana, so the boys and I hung out at Mom and Dad's place for awhile. Yikealo's cousin and good buddy Zavier came over, and we brought him home with us later that night. We're heading to Illinois this weekend, and figured that this would be a good chance to have Zavi stay with us for a couple of days, since we can easily return him to his family on our trip west. Y and Z always have a great time playing and plotting together. They went to work with me yesterday, and on the way home we stopped at a cupcake shop where the boys each got to pick two cupcakes for our little celebration at home. <br />
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Yesterday afternoon, they played with Legos, staged Playmobil battles, painted a model train, and spent quite a bit of time constructing a blanket tent and playing what must be the boy version of "house." Sintay was the Daddy tiger, and Yikealo and Zavi were the baby tigers. Sintay kept telling his charges, "Today, Daddy no sarra!" (Today, Daddy doesn't have to work!) "Now, you say 'Yay!'" Then they'd all wrestle around and growl at each other....lovely!<br />
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Sintay is starting to figure out this thing called a birthday, and is asking over and over, "When my birthday be, Mama?" in an extremely whiny voice. We've had lots of pouting and temper tantrums over the last couple of days, and next month can't come soon enough for him! We did let him blow out "fire" on his cupcake, "Just like Kahlo!"<br />
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To Mr. Y....we are so proud of you, bud! We thank God every day for bringing you into our lives, and we love the person that you are!<br />
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David and Larisahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05945642113180904643noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6320430092911095250.post-22133126496055749322013-06-05T19:09:00.000-07:002013-06-05T19:17:07.888-07:00May Got AwayWe had a busy May, and therefore, a neglected blog, but here's a quick recap of some of our memorable moments!<br />
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The boys and I drove out to see Aunt Erica, and then we visited the Toledo Zoo. Casey and her kiddos joined us, and we had a great day together! <br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">We saw a lot more than birds, but aren't these gorgeous? What an awesome Creator God we serve!</span></div>
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We attended our niece Rachel's testimony and baptism. <br />
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On the same day as the baptism, my youngest brother Seth, our niece Jana, and her new husband Tim all graduated with Doctor of Pharmacy degrees from Ohio Northern University. Seth was chosen to give the address at the school of Pharmacy's hooding ceremony, so we went to Ada to watch that, and then drove madly back to Leo for the baptism. It was a lot of driving for one day, but it was worth it to be able to support so many family members on important occasions! Seth did a great job on his speech, which you can see <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9m2ZtLvEw8U&feature=youtu.be" target="_blank">here</a>. <br />
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As part of our virtual academy enrollment, we are required to attend a minimum of 4 "face-to-face" events each year, where we can interact with OHVA staff. There is a huge variety of events scheduled throughout the year, so there is always plenty to choose from. As part of our last week of school, Yikealo got to take a fun field trip to Bricks4Kidz in Medina, where he learned to make an Empire State building and a very cool paper crinkler. This kiddo LOVES his Legos, and spends lots of time building various things while listening to Adventures in Odyssey. </div>
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Sintayehu rediscovered a Christmas present from last year, and Duckie began to accompany us nearly everywhere. Sintay usually insisted on pushing Duckie in the stroller, and we had an absolute crisis one day when S realized that he had left his beloved at the store where I work. I had a good mom moment and drove back 10 minutes through traffic to get the little piece of fluff and plastic.....can't have my moody, often grieving kiddo thinking that we'll leave one of our own behind.<br />
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On May 17th, we finished up school for the year, so Yikealo is officially a second grader! We celebrated the end of our last lesson by having our first watermelon of the year out on the lawn. Yay for summer! <br />
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On that same night, Yikealo finished up his soccer schedule for the year. This was his first time participating in a sport, and he really loved it, in spite of the cold temperatures for several of his practices/games. <br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Y with his coaches.</span></div>
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We visited some fellow adoptive families in Columbus. First, the B family, whose sweet daughter Kewogo was at HH with Sintayehu. We fell in love with "Giggles" (as she was nicknamed) when we traveled for court last year, and it was so great to see her again and meet more of her family. K's mama had just returned a few days before from Gambella, the region where both Sintay and K are from, and it was fascinating to hear her perspective of the area. <br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">3 little Ethiopians!</span></div>
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Mrs. B was so very thoughtful, and had brought each of our boys a beaded necklace and bracelet from Gambella. I love it that Sintay has something tangible from his region now. She also gave us an amazing gift in the form of the first photo taken of Sintayehu. She had visited the orphanage where he lived for a few months before going to HH, and as she was going to be meeting us, they allowed her to bring us his original intake photo. I can't really explain what it feels like to get another tiny piece of your child's life back. </div>
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That afternoon, we met the R family at Lalibela Ethiopian restaurant. We stayed with this AWESOME family a couple of years ago, and it was so great to see them again. Their son Samuel is from the same region as Yikealo, and they just missed being at HH together by a couple of weeks. Samuel and Y hit it off right away again, and seemed to have a great time together. We definitely need to make sure that we don't have quite so long in between visits, but I will say that we had to work several months in advance just to find time to meet for lunch! It is ridiculous how chaotic life can be at times. <br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Posing with the traditional tops to the mesob tables as hats...we're truly mixing cultures here....a little Vietnamese/Mexican thing going on with the Ethiopian roots!</span></div>
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On the 24th, we headed down to the North Carolina coast where we spent a glorious week on the beach with Seth and Casey's family....but that will have to be another post! We returned home on June 1st, turned the calendar page, and picked life back up. Right now, without our school schedule, that means extra snuggling, lots of blanket tents and stories, coloring pictures, riding our bikes and playing board games. I am determined to spend as much quality time as possible with my little boys this summer!</div>
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David and Larisahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05945642113180904643noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6320430092911095250.post-2721032999767109102013-04-30T10:59:00.001-07:002013-04-30T19:08:10.131-07:00Discussing Future Spouses<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjBVesxXtkhbw-nLxXs5wdLLf3pox8A9iW5dc065bT0Ufjw_FCoIVHQhdvuGodC6BSoKkIChXCN4YAyEYFqIRvVNcaomwNc1Cg8uKkmSJAH7imskh6CUNTjwEeqYOYi58WBka-SZADRBwY/s1600/Y.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" lua="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjBVesxXtkhbw-nLxXs5wdLLf3pox8A9iW5dc065bT0Ufjw_FCoIVHQhdvuGodC6BSoKkIChXCN4YAyEYFqIRvVNcaomwNc1Cg8uKkmSJAH7imskh6CUNTjwEeqYOYi58WBka-SZADRBwY/s320/Y.JPG" width="239" /></a></div>
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As we were driving this morning, I was listening in on the following conversation behind me:<br />
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Y: "Hey Sintay, who are you gonna marry?"<br />
S: "I marry Lightning!"<br />
Y: "You can't, because Lightning is a boy, and you have to marry a girl!" (Interesting that there's no mention of the fact that Lightning is a cartoon car, but hey, at least we've got the gender thing down.)<br />
S: "I am too marry Lightning. I like Lightning! Don't you even fink about it....saying not! I AM marry Lightning!"<br />
Y: "But he's a BOY!! You have to marry a girl!"<br />
S: "I MARRY LIGHTNING!!"<br />
Y: "Well, that's just dumb. I will marry a girl, not a car that's a boy. I already know who it's gonna be too."<br />
S: "Zoe?" (The girl on Y's online class who he thinks has a "nice voice.")<br />
Y: "Nope! It's someone who was a visitor at our church on Sunday!"<br />
Me: "Aquinnah?" <br />
Y: (beaming) "Yep! That's the one!"<br />
Me: "So you're giving up on Zoe?"<br />
Y: "Did you really think I was always going to like Zoe? I've never even seen her for Heaven sake!"<br />
Me: "Why Aquinnah? Because she's cute?"<br />
Y: "No!"<br />
Me: "Because she draws well?" (They sat together in church on Sunday and drew pictures for each other.)<br />
Y: "No! It's because she is P-E-R-I-T-Y!" <br />
Me: "I already asked if it's because she's cute."<br />
Y: "She's pretty, not cute! Cute and pretty are the opposite of each other, don't you know that?"<br />
Me: "I didn't know that...."<br />
Y: "Hey! Maybe I could be married to Zoe AND Aquinnah! Then I could have one wife with a really nice voice and one wife who is pretty!" (Ah....the fickleness of youth...)<br />
Me: "Sorry, but no you can't. That's against the law, and God says it's a really bad idea. Besides, fortunately for everyone, you don't really have to decide who you will marry when you're only 6. We've got a good long time before we need to make these decisions." <br />
Y: "But I just want to get a job and get married, fer I can start inventing things and get famous."<br />
Me: "But why would you need to be married for that? You could have a job without being married."<br />
Y: "But I would want to have someone pretty to look at when I come home from work!"<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEio_4g9oKI0rGChNT9HTbUsw5DuN_ym9ZlJm1q2dcjjvhnRAeLc3XUpy8zZ_G-dW1Aeph_BHr3zL7WO5zFoAlbqlCVFxqvN3_rhtWlSP38_iR9VQDVUFzSbfIGmFWFp6Hxk_miV6koF0P-F/s1600/IMG_0138.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEio_4g9oKI0rGChNT9HTbUsw5DuN_ym9ZlJm1q2dcjjvhnRAeLc3XUpy8zZ_G-dW1Aeph_BHr3zL7WO5zFoAlbqlCVFxqvN3_rhtWlSP38_iR9VQDVUFzSbfIGmFWFp6Hxk_miV6koF0P-F/s320/IMG_0138.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">(Later in the day, after spending some time at my scrapbooking table, he proudly showed me this and informed me that it was him and Aquinnah.)</span></div>
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And....this is the kind of post for which he will completely hate me in a few years! :-) <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkzRO34n8xktE5vz4i_Pu5-x0x7pRpXsnImFrU53TW8IfcPZu9hsLmyjjebyCNyZoa0HhuL5FbNJeB8osiE1om9whZFLV0oeSdhIYIpHmvMthIrX7MbuqZ1aX2C0_NelcnzV1-fmBVFN-q/s1600/S+&+L.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" lua="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkzRO34n8xktE5vz4i_Pu5-x0x7pRpXsnImFrU53TW8IfcPZu9hsLmyjjebyCNyZoa0HhuL5FbNJeB8osiE1om9whZFLV0oeSdhIYIpHmvMthIrX7MbuqZ1aX2C0_NelcnzV1-fmBVFN-q/s320/S+&+L.JPG" width="232" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoRCpfQrYR0KGL6nAbrzaq-_gMH4Ir1wb4Hx0YCyMKGzczwTcQkAtnhnJhJnZdEqtSkZT6t0B2yj5vx3Hy8nsT7BEbIb9sEUW9JalS-vIu-c75cbjvDl6wGv25KOw5NCfOUiUlQZQYajVL/s1600/giggling.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" lua="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoRCpfQrYR0KGL6nAbrzaq-_gMH4Ir1wb4Hx0YCyMKGzczwTcQkAtnhnJhJnZdEqtSkZT6t0B2yj5vx3Hy8nsT7BEbIb9sEUW9JalS-vIu-c75cbjvDl6wGv25KOw5NCfOUiUlQZQYajVL/s320/giggling.JPG" width="216" /></a></div>
David and Larisahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05945642113180904643noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6320430092911095250.post-36988359743544417682013-04-18T17:24:00.000-07:002013-04-18T17:32:04.285-07:00A Year Ago...One year ago today, we met our Sintay for the first time! I already posted about our experience that day <a href="http://www.walkingwhereheleads.blogspot.com/2012/04/meeting-mr-smiley-day-3-of-trip-1.html" target="_blank">here,</a> but at that time I wasn't allowed to share photos of his cute little face. Here are a few more photos from that first day together.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtyHtsz3_RdQT0FXnjKvIAwaltfqEEJ6_9F_aYqzv1xC8N4qdGXDtN_5kFxaDp-_9PjC6Z6msjWLVem5BXkuURYgKpWl10Hr82D1FQ9MufGMLfE7lLVMivJRE_KOBTAgcWcMY4v_F2lndy/s1600/here+he+comes!.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtyHtsz3_RdQT0FXnjKvIAwaltfqEEJ6_9F_aYqzv1xC8N4qdGXDtN_5kFxaDp-_9PjC6Z6msjWLVem5BXkuURYgKpWl10Hr82D1FQ9MufGMLfE7lLVMivJRE_KOBTAgcWcMY4v_F2lndy/s320/here+he+comes!.JPG" width="208" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Here he comes!</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoywiimWF9HhPs2VhD06kgBE7zlZKaR7p_jgjLPSiJIjvfGGWyLeZZq_rXyn5zb0UjAVtnqWFvpmAADe8EsN8f6fOk6DZYxrc-krnbbbxOQpshlAX9W3fbwZAkDzT9TKAHpY2CPJF5UQXE/s1600/first+hug.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoywiimWF9HhPs2VhD06kgBE7zlZKaR7p_jgjLPSiJIjvfGGWyLeZZq_rXyn5zb0UjAVtnqWFvpmAADe8EsN8f6fOk6DZYxrc-krnbbbxOQpshlAX9W3fbwZAkDzT9TKAHpY2CPJF5UQXE/s320/first+hug.JPG" width="270" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">First "hug" (sort of!) from brother. S was not about to get "his" book too close to another little person!</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfXARyL_sDqOUWHi_WJ0LyILTX4qcKtBWFMXaWLiFHRDKe0k2OvR3ZLnBFNbdFhVSWMtMLz3G0vEqxTQw-N6gcgrzDlw3tL6TOvofnWb_n9s2HQ5mjt93n4tfDkALxCz5Y0eR6I9G0adSN/s1600/not+too+sure.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfXARyL_sDqOUWHi_WJ0LyILTX4qcKtBWFMXaWLiFHRDKe0k2OvR3ZLnBFNbdFhVSWMtMLz3G0vEqxTQw-N6gcgrzDlw3tL6TOvofnWb_n9s2HQ5mjt93n4tfDkALxCz5Y0eR6I9G0adSN/s320/not+too+sure.JPG" width="287" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Not too sure about this guy...</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnw90kS3ei2jpoNsQiW7qOexTthpqwfC1EpTyNVuBTmQEpbG1ULoc0A1S2kStbj4MlWZBaOCuZdTD_6xPHVSQLIjzK0wVDP54Q97XtLyouTOBFZLN7wniTwT6VKwUPGt6MMCBXXUhg6Eds/s1600/mommy+time.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnw90kS3ei2jpoNsQiW7qOexTthpqwfC1EpTyNVuBTmQEpbG1ULoc0A1S2kStbj4MlWZBaOCuZdTD_6xPHVSQLIjzK0wVDP54Q97XtLyouTOBFZLN7wniTwT6VKwUPGt6MMCBXXUhg6Eds/s320/mommy+time.JPG" width="241" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Once Yikealo handed him a sucker, he let me pick him up.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgusi8GYwVX_n3vD16TQnotSD4LfGIdtfEeSQrTvquJhdouQrt2IF99nl1SG5g1aAsqVU7RjHOfqqYQeOqzjbY3bsIaEUEUgtS6ReNogRoZ5bACYLLCt41BW1OBIPftN3rBrblXyzQ-OMgM/s1600/my+boys+and+me.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgusi8GYwVX_n3vD16TQnotSD4LfGIdtfEeSQrTvquJhdouQrt2IF99nl1SG5g1aAsqVU7RjHOfqqYQeOqzjbY3bsIaEUEUgtS6ReNogRoZ5bACYLLCt41BW1OBIPftN3rBrblXyzQ-OMgM/s320/my+boys+and+me.JPG" width="233" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Me and my boys....together at last!</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijH41XQDkVUmSRboL7enYTw81_6oRhwNFNJhYAV_fSc4vtbAJes1i4LieDOxAtM7DOJjaWQZjupbEz3vTlpatGvlP0zBEC54leXNW4TEl_zihXIjUB85XB7Gt-be7HrVqXb9QZsjOfxgS5/s1600/books.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijH41XQDkVUmSRboL7enYTw81_6oRhwNFNJhYAV_fSc4vtbAJes1i4LieDOxAtM7DOJjaWQZjupbEz3vTlpatGvlP0zBEC54leXNW4TEl_zihXIjUB85XB7Gt-be7HrVqXb9QZsjOfxgS5/s320/books.JPG" width="203" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">He liked it when I held him, so I did it quite a lot!</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi399iqlq_7BXriGRppZA2YttG6xtIaFrRdyFfFfB61Ny7BHw4pLlRMPHlZvPWFPWE1FCnw5pYZ3dcW2_L_vlsZF11vGY5Knxw6p2AT5qciRs3DBXcHiC9jUgm-r06qa18REk_sVZGzgcJt/s1600/swinging.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi399iqlq_7BXriGRppZA2YttG6xtIaFrRdyFfFfB61Ny7BHw4pLlRMPHlZvPWFPWE1FCnw5pYZ3dcW2_L_vlsZF11vGY5Knxw6p2AT5qciRs3DBXcHiC9jUgm-r06qa18REk_sVZGzgcJt/s320/swinging.JPG" width="213" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">He wasn't so sure about David holding him....he would put up with it for a very short time before whimpering.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj048Bw4POEYuvFKKv3hpzvLwMxwKTid-jkvhh0bHYnbtfuRXrtbjCgX89Fn3saz3NQxU7F14ndjNtoU3Ino8v_2u2uKPqz0sSIO5CxLw8f107BZa2CgnU5PtV2jkBgMucKysDFnjrVqcpz/s1600/waving.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj048Bw4POEYuvFKKv3hpzvLwMxwKTid-jkvhh0bHYnbtfuRXrtbjCgX89Fn3saz3NQxU7F14ndjNtoU3Ino8v_2u2uKPqz0sSIO5CxLw8f107BZa2CgnU5PtV2jkBgMucKysDFnjrVqcpz/s320/waving.JPG" width="218" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">He was so happy most of the time, although he did not speak any words that week....now that we know him, that was SERIOUSLY unusual behavior! This kiddo talks constantly!</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1g2n3gQ-vrZuKEo5mhIGr7XXz1m9e40N39pdN4ybAMVokeKt8cKiJdxVDvpJpSnRHE29xgIzG91Uj9jl-IMn8S7nzEYwNlzYm00XHh8E0M2L0Ar_1HxvnNI-O6ixCMlKS6OZeZIxnancQ/s1600/balloons.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1g2n3gQ-vrZuKEo5mhIGr7XXz1m9e40N39pdN4ybAMVokeKt8cKiJdxVDvpJpSnRHE29xgIzG91Uj9jl-IMn8S7nzEYwNlzYm00XHh8E0M2L0Ar_1HxvnNI-O6ixCMlKS6OZeZIxnancQ/s320/balloons.JPG" width="231" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Lunchtime!</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1jHXHSu82SaPFC9MC9mXXXFtHt6vofU9YOaZC4y3Au9wnSUMCht4YBT3SDv4u4wGiOHTYqxSyxQHxlKgI2L6E659SEpHOv0E1I47b2xGwsmtSaEq7o5Osghh66LSQIOSvQhTO82Ba6QoM/s1600/digging+in.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1jHXHSu82SaPFC9MC9mXXXFtHt6vofU9YOaZC4y3Au9wnSUMCht4YBT3SDv4u4wGiOHTYqxSyxQHxlKgI2L6E659SEpHOv0E1I47b2xGwsmtSaEq7o5Osghh66LSQIOSvQhTO82Ba6QoM/s320/digging+in.JPG" width="220" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-9pOvaTPpLm4OKQhiA2fLGycDHC-aZpYdEWlaBlbHeppNGp746OTYDcdu5WhWVZZrx5VCE8LEyByAWmsQBw9iptEahOlyz5icQ4HpzouBmgfoimMtfqcftJLjuJnU4lGeF6c5kNydQ2Lo/s1600/playing.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="291" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-9pOvaTPpLm4OKQhiA2fLGycDHC-aZpYdEWlaBlbHeppNGp746OTYDcdu5WhWVZZrx5VCE8LEyByAWmsQBw9iptEahOlyz5icQ4HpzouBmgfoimMtfqcftJLjuJnU4lGeF6c5kNydQ2Lo/s320/playing.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Playing in the courtyard of Hannah's Hope</span>.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEge5Gb0Qwi1cKytPzHrG1xuD8s79O-horW7jaYVJw5lUWuBRIM2S8AfSpEJvpUqBElRoppa2CQVJTnNRlimPr5pTOFzS6kCZEwQjMNJTdR1vj1-i8NrqFLsFEduxp_iP8PLpMg4iLYKlDQi/s1600/brothers.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEge5Gb0Qwi1cKytPzHrG1xuD8s79O-horW7jaYVJw5lUWuBRIM2S8AfSpEJvpUqBElRoppa2CQVJTnNRlimPr5pTOFzS6kCZEwQjMNJTdR1vj1-i8NrqFLsFEduxp_iP8PLpMg4iLYKlDQi/s320/brothers.JPG" width="188" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">My cute little boys.</span></div>
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It's hard to believe that it's only been a year. I can barely remember what life was like without our crazy, loud, smiley, full-of-life Sintayehu. It's so much fun to look back at these memories and realize just how far God has brought our family in the last 12 months! Almost every day he'll beam up at us and say, "I love Mommy, I love Daddy, I love Kahlo! I like my famwee!" We love you too, little guy!</div>
David and Larisahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05945642113180904643noreply@blogger.com0