May 24 - Yet another bump in the long road

Greetings from Lexington, KY, where we are sheltered in a fine hotelery awaitin' the impending nuptials of our progeny. However, we almost didn't make it. You won't believe what happened.

Some of you got the prayer request, so you may have an inkling of what I'm about to tell you. On the way to Miller's to pick up Barbara this morning, I got a call from a nurse saying that they had called 911 and Barbara was en route to St. Mary's Hospital in Hobart. It seems that while an aide was transferring Barbara from the, uh, er, "potty" to her wheelchair, she experienced multiple pops and cracks in her left knee. She began screaming like a banshee on a xanthine alkaloid compound. When we (her mother and I) arrived at the hospital, she was distraught with pain and anxiety. She was equally upset over the prospect of not going to the wedding as she was with the pain. After several x-rays and many, many prayers, we found out that she had a severe knee sprain, but no broken bones. The good news was that the doctor cleared her to go to Lexington! The bad news is that she was in such severe pain, all transfers would have to be done by lifting her. Every move brought more of those banshee-esque screams. The doctor did prescribe her some pretty good dope, though, and we set off for the long, tedious 6 hour cruise.

Once the pain meds settled in, she began to do better. By about an hour into the trip, she was calm and actually quite pleasant. Jackie, Peter, and his brother met us at the hotel to help carry her out of the Honda, and into a chair, then into bed. As of now she's sleeping rather soundly.

It seems like something has just been pushing against us! In fact, all the way down to Lafayette, we experienced head-on winds that were very hard to accelerate against, and as a result, we got terrible gas mileage out of a normally good-mileage vehicle. On top of everything else, it seems only appropriate for this trip to continually exact an exorbitant price from us.

Thanks for your ongoing prayers. We will need some powerful help in the days ahead, so please remember us.

May 22

Two days in a row. Woo hoo!

A quick update to let you know it was a wonderful day here at the ranch. After a quick flurry of last minute shopping in Merrillville (had to get an ivory dress shirt for the wedding - praise God it actually ended up being free - I had a credit at Men's Wearhouse that I didn't know about), we proceeded on to Miller's and picked up my sweetie (we being myself and Barb's mom, Mabel).

Once at home, our dog Max went goofy loopy crazy getting to see Barb for the first time in almost 7 months (which I think is a millennium in dog years). We had wienie wraps and baked beans for lunch and all enjoyed it (albeit, the company was better).

Barbara did quite well, and we had a great day. It was sad to return her to Miller's, but this is yet another milestone week.

It looks like we have wi-fi in our hotel room at Lexington for the wedding, so I will try to give you updates and maybe even a picture or two! Woo hoo indeed.

May 21 - Happy Days, Hoo-hahs, and Hope

The big week is here. The week that Barbara has literally been living for. It's been the goal before us and the culmination of years of prayer. This is the week of Jackie's marriage to Peter. This is both a wonderful and gut wrenching week. There are feelings of pride and trepidation. Feelings of fear of the unknown (how will Barbara do with all of this?), and feelings of immense happiness. It's interesting how you raise your children to one day fly, and when they do, it's both sad and satisfying. I've also been praying for Peter; I've prayed for him for as long as I can remember, despite the fact that I only knew his name in recent years.

Today the therapist trained me to transfer Barbara into our Honda SUV, and it went extremely well. So well, in fact, that we plan to bring her home tomorrow for lunch! That was a spur of the moment idea, but we are all tremendously excited. This will be her first time home and first time seeing Max (our dog) in almost 7 months. This is big stuff! This is the big stuff we've been praying!

Thank you for your on-going prayers and kind words.

This week, please pray for safety in travel,

Pray that Barbara will grow stronger every day, and that her endurance will increase with each day,

Pray that I will stay healthy through this,

And pray that all will go as smoothly as possible.