10 posts tagged “health”

I don't really know what to say, it's been so long.  I've just only now read all of the well wishes and prayers that all of you have sent me through some of my cousin Netta's posts and my daughter Danielle.  The pm's were amazing and I wish I had the energy to respond to everyone the way that I should. 

Here's the story in a nutshell.  I was released from the hospital after my 3rd surgery (where they took out more of my stomach and now it's the size of a walnut).  It was on my birthday, April 10.  On April 10 my stomach perforated at home.  I'm not sure what happened.  I'm so used to pain that I didn't know it was really any different than my regular pain so I waited almost too long to get to the hospital.  I waited hours.  By the time I got back there, my body was racked with poison and I was dying.  The surgeon knew I wouldn't live without surgery but he also didn't think I'd live with it.  It had only been 10 days since my last surgery and my insides were like the consistency of gum.  He didn't think I could be closed back up successfully.  There wasn't a lot of hope for me, from what I understand.  Everyone was trying to get used to the idea that I would die.

I don't know why God chose me to live.  I don't know why I'm so blessed.  All of your prayers and all of my family and friends prayers were answered.  I'm really not supposed to be here.  I'm humbled by the outpouring of love from all of you.  Thank you just isn't enough but I don't have any other words. 

I've been out of the hospital for a week now.  Today is the first day I've felt like being on the computer.  I promise to keep up with everyone as much as I can now.  I've missed all of you so much and I just can't wait to see what's going on with you.  I trust that it's been good (or at least I'm praying it's been a good life for all of you).  I love you all, and again, THANK YOU and HUGE ((HUGS))

So I'm in the emergency room, which is where I spend most of my life these days.  I was sent directly here because I'm losing so much blood again today.  The next step will be to admit me but I still need to go through the process.  There's at least a 3 hour wait but they'll get me in sooner because of the critical nature of my reason to be here, or so they say.

I've done this so much I could do it with my eyes closed.  I know what's about to happen.  There's nothing for me to do except to watch the people around me.  They're getting on my nerves, btw...  The things that people consider an emergency amazes me.  Because of them, this emergency room stays packed.  There's a grandma who just rushed in with her 2 year old grandbaby.  The mother was already here waiting for the Grandma to get here with her child.  She needed a nebulizer treatment (the mother) because of her asthma.  This could be serious, I know so I don't begrudge her much.  The thing that gets on my nerves is that this 2 year old baby stopped eating and drinking a couple of hours ago.  THIS, my friends, is the emergency with this family.  I don't know about any of you but my kids, quite frequently, stop eating and drinking for a few hours at a time.  The Grandma is shouting at the intake nurse that her baby needs to be seen now.  I'm hearing the intake nurse ask about this baby's medical history.  I'm SURE there must be a medical history for all this drama.  There is not.  They didn't even call the pediatician before they came here because they just knew there's something terribly wrong.  Meanwhile the baby is running around acting like a normal 2 year old.  She' yelling and playing and running.  She doesn't want to be held by the grandma.  The mom of the baby looks like she's about 15!  She has nothing much to do with the situation except to yell at the triage nurse that her nebulizer treatment isn't working.  She YELLED this so I'm guessing that the nebulizer did indeed work.

The next thing on this family's agenda is to start shouting back and forth to each other, "Mom, did you call Matthew?".  I'm assuming Matthew is the dad.  Matthew has indeed been called and he's taking off work to come into the emergency for the big family drama.  The Grandfather and the great aunt have been called too.  Everyone will be here soon.  Now the Grandma hass decided that her knee is in terrible pain because she had to walk across the parking lot holding the 2 year old.  She may need to be seen too, she tells the intake nurse.  Before she, too, can be triaged, she called her son to bring her som Naproxen.  She's very loud and sitting across from me so I can hear her conversation.  "You may need to take off work to go home and get my Naproxen.  My GD knee is KILLING me because I had to carry Autumn across the GD parking lot and I'm about to die now son".  Now she tells him there's no hurry but she's in so much pain that she doesn't know how much longer she can take it.  Nobody is watching the baby. 

All this because a 2 year old hasn't eaten or drank anything for a couple of hours?  I'm hoping that I'm missing something!  These things keep me occupied while I'm in here for my own 3 hour or so wait.  Maybe I'm getting bitter in my old age but these people stink AND they get on my nerves.  I'm wondering when they've had a bath last?  I can guarentee you it hasn't been within the past few days much less the pst few hours.  Blech.

First of all, I really just want to take a second to shout out to some of the wonderful people in my "hood.  One of the most special young women that I've been blessed to know, Adah, has gone out of her way to ask people to pray for me.  She must really have some pull around Vox and people have been coming out of the woodwork to say hello and to send prayers my way.  Adah, I want to thank you, from the bottom of my heart.  If you were here, I'd give you the biggest bear hug of your life!  To everyone of you who have been giving your time to pray for me, OMG!  Your prayers are working and I want to thank you all so much.  SO...   BIG virtual group hug to all of you.  I wish there was something more I could do to express my thankfulness.  I just hope you know that I really mean what I'm saying.  Your prayers aren't falling on deaf ears and they're NOT going unappreciated by me!  I love you guys.  I really feel like the most blessed and lucky person in the world.  I am certainly rich in the area of good friends:-)

Here's where we're at:  I was released from the hospital on Easter day because they could find no more veins to give me the two units of blood that I needed at that time.  They also needed to give me 3 consecutive units of iron because I was losing iron just as fast as they could put it in.  There was nobody in the hospital to put in a central line or a pic line like I needed.  I'd been asking for these more permanent lines since I was admitted but the nurses would not even ask the doctors because there was always a possibility that I would be released the next day.  Several days later, I was still being tortured with these idiots blowing up every good vein that I had.  I was finally told by a supervisor that I could yell and scream and threaten these bastards with the hospital administrator.  This is what I'll do from now on.  So, I got to go home because, either they discharged me or I was walking.  I'm getting mean now.  They let me go if I promissed to come back and get my blood the next day.

I came back on Monday.  My mom took off work to bring me back to the hospital.  I had to go to the "infusion center", where I was told that they couldn't even draw blood from me because my veins were so bad.  They work with a lot of cancer patience and people who are notorious for not having veins, and they are generally AT LEAST able to draw blood.  They couldn't on me so they tried to get me into the radiologist to do a pic line.  Because I was ONLY bleeding to death and nothing more, they wouldn't consider it an emergency and I had to go home and come back on Tuesday, which is today.  8:30 is when they told me to go to admitting to get this party started.  I showed up at admitting, Ben taking off work this time (because I'm too weak to drive), and they told me I was supposed to be here at 8:00.  It wasn't the hospital's problem that Mom and I were told wrong.  NOW I would have to be worked into their schedule and that meant that I might not be seen until 3:00 this afternoon.  I was more than a little pissed.  It takes more than the loss of blood to make me forget that I have a "temper".  At this point, I don't really know what to do because if I show them that I'm as mad as I really am, they could treat me worse and make me wait longer.  You just don't know how it will work out with these people.  I kept most of my cool.  I got my pic line within the hour.  It could have been SO MUCH WORSE!!!!!  Prayer answered.

It was explained to me that because blood takes 4 hours for each unit to process (that would be 8 hours for me), and iron takes 1 hour for 3 consecutive days, that I would be admitted so that they could moniter me and it would just be that much more simple.  I'm packed to stay.  Once I got down to the infusion center, they took my blood to see where I'm at today.  I DON'T NEED BLOOD!  My blood went up a whole point since Easter!  Prayer answered again!  I can just go home now and come back and get my iron for an hour every day.  Not bad eh?  God will only give us as much as we can take and I think he probably knew that I was getting redy to kill the nurses up on the "floors".  My doctors are such good doctors now and I feel so blessed to have them but they only work out of this hospital.  If it gets to the point where I'm feeling postal, I may have to switch doctors again just because I absolutely despise some of the floors they put me on in the hospital.  This last stay made me feel like I was in the nursing home.  One lesson I've learned is that if you ever have to go into the hospital for any reason, TRY to bring someone with you.  I watched some of these people who didn't have family their to back them up not ever get waited on by some nurses.  I wouldn't have gotten 1 single glass of water if it weren't for Ben or Amber or my mom.  The lady next to me wouldn't have gotten 1 single glass of water.  A volunteer changed my bed only 1 day.  I changed my bed the rest of the days.  The lady next to me laid in her own mess for about an hour before anyone would help her.  When they did help, the nurse gave the patient all the stuff to clean herself.  She was a 73 year old lady who was weak from loss of blood too.  They would NOT help her.  I called the nursing supervisor to complain for this lady.  We were given semi better nurses after that.

Where I'm at with the doctors:  I'm being told that because of almost 100% paralysis in my stomach, maybe the best way to permanently fix me is to completely remove my stomach.  I know I've said this before so I'm sorry if I'm boring anybody:-)  My ulcers are being caused from the food laying in my stomach, causing acid and eating holes.  If I had no stomach, this wouldn't happen.  They want to attatch my intestines to my esophagas.  Very little of your digestion happens in your stomach (even for normal people) anyway.  Your stomach just squishes up your food and technically, you can live without a stomach.  The quality of life wouldn't be as good but mine isn't great anyway.  I'm in the hospital every other week and my last major surgery that I wasn't supposed to live through just happened in August.  They think this might just fix me as best as I can be fixed.  The surgeon is going to a conference and will be presenting my case to other surgeons in order to get their input.

There is another option that I think I'm going to choose.  They can make another tube (for a total of 2 tubes) coming off the other side of my stomach.  They can cut away the damaged ulcerated tissure that won't heal with medication.  There is a POSSIBILITY that this might work.  They don't think so.  This is the general consensus of all of the doctors combined.  I think I'm going with this option because it leaves the possibility that I might be able to live a somewhat normal life.  They can always take out more stomach if this doesn't work but if they take out everything now, I'll never know if this could have worked.  To take out everything just seems so drastic.  Besides I want to give this new nutrition stuff that is supposed to rebuild cells, a chance to work.  Just maybe, with prayer, faith and a positive attitude it might work on me.  I'll never know if I let them take everything out right now.

The other positive thing that happened yesterday was that I signed up for disability.  There's almost no way that I won't get it (or so they say) with the amount of hospital records that they have on me.  I'll be getting back pay to 2006!  AND my kids will also get a little amount of money.  Hey!  Anything that we weren't expecting is better than nothing, right?  I never wanted to file because I couldn't get it through my head that I was REALLY disabled.  I think I'm accepting that, for at least a little while, I will be.  The good news is that I don't always have to claim disability.  I mean that if I ever feel good again, I can go back to work.  I guess I thought that once disabled, always disabled.  I just hate that label.  I'm just too proud for my own good.  So proud I'm actually stupid sometimes!  lol  I'll get my first check anywhere from June to August.  Great, huh?

AND another thing is that I took Savannah to get her permit yesterday and she passed!  She only missed one question.  She has a photographic memory so I was pretty sure that she would.  I also took her to open her first checking and savings account that she has control of.  I set up overdraft fee protection that won't come out of MY account too!  Yay me!  I guess I just feel like I need to get things in order in case something really does happen to me.  I know it's negative to actually think that way but to me, it's being realistic.  Even if nothing happens to me, I don't really have too many good days where I'm out of the hospital for very long, so I need to get as much done as I can while I can do it.

So there it is peeps!  Thank you all again and I love you all!!!!!!!!

Since yesterday, after all the big happenings with Savannah, I've been throwing up more blood than I've EVER seen.  Today, I had to be scoped again.  The good doc caurterized the bleeding again but was VERY firn about me NOT leaving the hospital until I have corrective surgery.  I won't be able to live without this surgery to remove more of my intestines and my stomach.  The feeding tube is seriously being discussed.  I may not have a lot of options because my surgeon who's perfomed all of my previous surgeries says that he won't be doing it this time,.  I'm too high risk.  My hope is that he and the gastro doc get together and figure out something that they can compromise on.  It's hard for us (Amber and Mom are here too) to hear that I'm basically supposed to die like this because there are no more options.  I'm calling the social worker, here at the hospital tomorrow, in order to find out other hospital options and help.  I want to go to the MAYO clinic to talk to a surgeon if my own, very good, trauma surgeon won't do it.  I can't believe they say I'm a fatality risk.  I guess I'm just supposed to wait til this kills me?  NOT!!!

Everyone here is pretty scared.  The amount of blood loss that I've sustained is significant.  I think they're going to try to keep me here until someone does the surgery (according to the gastro doc),  It's too risky for me to leave here either.  Soooo...  I don't know when I'll be home.  I don't have a private room this time.

I don't mind admitting that this is scaring the crap out of me.  This time I've been the sickest that I've been since this has started 2 years ago.  IF they agree to do the surgery, it will be a complicated surgery (and that's understating it).  I only know that I can't keep coming here to stay at my hospital hotel every other week.     

Please pray for me and my kids and my family.  They kind of like me a lot and the kids are terrified.  We just need to get something done and quickly.

Serious Doctor

2 comments

This is a very little update to let all of you know that I've been in the hospital since yesterday.  I haven't felt "wonderful" for a while now so the doctor did some tests and found more GI bleeding.  Today I had a scope done to reveal a new ulcer that wasn't detected before.  The location of this one is where the surgeon cut me and reconnected the tissue.  They tell me this is fairly normal.  Ulcers like to develope in places that have been "tampered" with.  There is a lot of scar tissue.  That's the bad news.  In 6 weeks, the GI doctor will be rescoping to decide if I'll have to have even more surgery to remove more of my stomach and/or intestines.  In the meantime, he caurterized it to stop the bleeding.

I'm not cherishing the idea of being here but I'm SO pleased with my GI doctor for disrupting his schedule today in order to get to the bottom of this new problem.  He could have put me off and performed the scope on Monday, all the while keeping me in the hospital.  As it is, I'll get to go home tomorrow if all remains well.

Even if I have to have surgery, I'm so much more healthy now that I've been receiving iron infusions.  I'm thinking that I won't get the news that there is a high probability that surgery will kill me this time.  I haven't had to have a blood transfusion in almost 6 months, I think.

Other than this, I can NOT begin to relay to you the boredom that I'm having now!  lol  There's just not that much entertainment in the hospital, you know?  At least I have a private room AND my internet air card is working so I can still talk to all of my cool peeps!  lol

Hope all is well with you and you're having a very happy Friday!

I need to say that I am as bored writing about this as you must be reading about it.  I feel like I need to  though because some of my good vox buddies have been concerned that I haven't been around lately... much.

Friday, out of nowhere, I started vomiting more blood.  How's that for TMI?  lol  Anyway, I called the doctor instead of waiting like I usually do.  She immediately had me admitted into the hospital and by 9:30 a.m. Saturday morning they went in and found, yet, another bleeding ulcer.  It was cauterized on the spot and I was able to leave the hospital on Monday morning.  No big deal this time.  My blood counts have started to rise and it seems like they were able to stop all of the bleeding this time.  The good news is that I caught it in time this time instead of trying to pretend that nothing was wrong.

Today is another iron treatment.  Assuming they can find a vein because I'm fairly sure the nurses at the hospital blew up every good vein I had left in my body.  All that means is that I may have to get a permanent catheter inserted under my skin where they won't ever have to worry about getting a vein again.  They'll just use the little port thing.  I guess that would be good, although I'm not cherishing the idea of having some little box like thing sticking out of my skin.  Maybe it won't be forever.

Thanks for hanging in her with me and just know that I've been thinking about all of you and wondering what's been going on in your lives:-)

(*For your listening pleasure while I tell you my latest saga*)

So...  I went to the hematologist Tuesday.  I was prepared to ONLY talk about what my options were.  Apparently there were no options for me.  I wasn't given the choice.  I was TOLD that I needed to start intravenous iron treatments immediately.  I'm told that these treatments only take 1 hour (usually).  Mine took 5 hours, for many reasons.  The most important being that the doctor had to make sure I wouldn't be allergic to the iron because I've had such bad reactions to iron in the past.  They had to do 1/2 hour IV drip of Benadryl and another 1/2 hour of compazine which decreases the chance of me being sick.  Compazine did not work, btw...   The other problem they had was that I didn't have good veins so several nurses had to give it a run at starting the IV.  Of COURSE nobody listened to me.  NOBODY believed that my veins wouldn't hold a needle that was as wide as a pencil!  ARGH!  Apparently the pencil sized needles were good for drawing blood and receiving chemo and/or iron.  It hurt and I'm not one to complain about the pain of starting an IV because I'm so used to it.  Eventually, the nurses finally believed me (only because they had to find out on thier own) and I got the itsy bitsy needle that my veins will support.  Anyway, these iron treatments are supposed to go on once a week for the next eight weeks and possibly for the rest of my life.  If my blood counts don't get any better, they'll start checking my bone marrow to find out why I can't produce healthy red blood cells.

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This is what the iron looked like after they took it off my pole.  An interesting mess, eh?  lol

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I wasn't ready for this.  I never realized that I would have to go to the chemotherapy room to get transfused with iron!  In fact,

 I didn't even really know that people went to little rooms instead of the hospital in order to receive their chemo treatment.  The chemo patients came and went but I was still sitting.  They've made such advances in chemotherapy now.  I was able to talk to most of these patients and surprisingly, they were happy to answer my questions.  It took me a couple of hours to warm up to the idea of being there in the first place.  It was so sad.  I'd thought these people would look at their disease as hopeless or that they had a death sentence.  I was pleasantly surprised that NOBODY felt like their cancer meant death.  They also (most of them) had hair!  Totally shocking to me.  Some chemo treatments allow you to keep your hair.  I'm just used to thinking of cancer patients as having no hair.  Only SOMETIMES does that happen!  I did feel terrible for them after they stood up to leave though.  Apparently, no matter how good chemo is now, the patients still feel so shaky that they could barely walk.

No matter what I have to go through now, being in that chemo room has certainly put things in good perspective for me.  Maybe it's going to do my attitude some good, who knows!  lol  I'm told that I'll notice a difference after taking the iron by the 3rd treatment.  My blood and iron are so low that it's probably going to take a few treatments to see a big difference.  It's already easier to breath and I've been up and working around the house for longer periods of time.  They're still investigating the reasons why I might be developing these bleeding ulcers.  They're still considering it "terminal" if they can't "fix" the ulcer development problem.  "Terminal" is such a silly word if you think about it.  We are ALL terminal!  From the day a baby is born, he/she begins to die.  Not one single person gets out of here alive.  And that's ALL I have to say:-)

give blood stamp 1969

I'm going to make this quick and painless:)  I feel like I need to let everyone know what's been going on since my post last week so here goes...  As I mentioned before, I had to have my hemogloban levels checked last week and I was kind of hoping that it would be down to an 8 (normal would be a 15) so that I could have a transfusion and in a sense, have new life breathed back into me.  I just feel so much more alive once I get a transfusion.  No such luck.  My blood was low and down to a 9 but not considered critical enough by Red Cross and the hospital to share that precious "liquid red gold" that we call blood.  Although it's too bad I don't get to get a transfusion, I decided to make the best of this and pretend that there's nothing wrong with me:)  I've been telling myself that I'm "normal" (ok, stop laughing and shut up - especially you Kristine) and can do anything that anyone else can do.  It's amazing how far a good frame of mind can get you.  I've been feeling better since I've started doing this!  We'll see.  Yesterday, Ben had to take me to have my blood checked again.  I guess they'll keep doing this until I get critical or I get "normal".  I'll find out tomorrow what the level is this week.  I suspect it will be good:)

Incidently, Ben just received his Red Cross Donor card in the mail today and I thought now would be a good time to pass along these little Red Cross "fun facts":)  Did you know that every 2 SECONDS is how often someone in America needs blood?  Did you know that one blood donation can save 3 lives?  Did you know that LESS than 30% is how many first time blood donors will EVER give blood again?  Did you know that you can give blood 6 times a year which equals 18 lives that just YOU can save?

These are some pretty cool statistics.  I worked a blood drive that Red Cross was holding at our church, a few months back.  I wasn't able to GIVE blood, obviously, but I was able to give my time so that the people who COULD give blood would be more comfortable.  It felt good.  Anyway, out of all the people that we registered to give blood, Red Cross only turned away 3 people.  One was a young guy who was apparently too big to lay on their stretcher, another person was a woman who's iron counts were too low and the other was Savannah, Ben's daughter.  She lost her school ID and didn't have another form of identification.  The cool thing is that there were a lot of teenagers who showed up.  There were a lot of elderly men also.  Most of these men had served in the military and many of them in Korea or Viet Nam so they were VERY concious of how much blood was needed even in non war times.  I loved and appreciated them all.  If it weren't for these men and women, people like me might not even get to receive blood as much as we do.  There are times that the blood banks are so low that the hospital has to make a decision only to give blood to severe accident patients.  Someone like me might just have to go on a waiting list until the blood banks are replinished again. 

Ok, I'm done:)  You may all return to your regularly scheduled programs:)  lol

Armoured Medical Vehicle

As many of you know, I've been gone for a pretty long time.  Some of my good Vox buddies have asked me to post something soon to let everyone know what's going on.  This one is a tough one and I really didn't want to do it because, well, I don't like whiners and to post this kind of feels like I've become what I dislike most...  A whiner.  I have a problem admitting that something may be getting the best of me.  I've been so strong all my life and I've even defeated death (with Gods help and blessing) quite a few times.  That being said, I don't like having to talk about things like this because to talk about them is to make them real.

I spent much of the Christmas season sick.  I was very lucky to be allowed to leave the hospital in order to spend Christmas with my family.  For those of you who know me, you know I was having a nervous breakdown over this.  I didn't have my Christmas shopping done or my baking done (there are a lot of my friends who count on getting Christmas cookies and breads frome me! lol).  Julia's last year to believe in Santa was probably this year and I was racing against the clock to make this one a special year.  So...  I feel blessed that my doctors let me leave the hospital less than a week before Christmas.  But I digress... 

My digestive system is indeed shutting down.  For the first time ever I had to have a feeding/drain tube inserted through my nose and down my throat.  That was very painful but thankfully the process was quick.  My new doctors are trying to prepare me for getting a feeding tube inserted, at least temporarily.  I have yet another bleeding ulcer on the side of my stomach.  I'm losing blood almost as fast as they can give it to me.  My hemogloban level was a 6 (normal women should be a 15).  The good news was that this ulcer looked to be very curable.  They did what they could to make it stop bleeding but it's still bleeding.  So, there are many problems this team of professionals have to solve with my body.

Yesterday, I went to the doctor.  She says she's not giving up on me yet and she'll research new specialists personally until she's satisfied that they really can't do anything more for me.  She says she won't except the answers from the doctors who say that there's nothing more that can be done.  She told me that she sees me as a person who is so full of life.  And  I am, mentally.  I just want to feel like doing something more than sleep, you know?  I do push myself as much as humanly possible.  The problem is that when you have so little blood, you can't even breath right which makes it hard to do even the simplest of chores.  

The long and the short of my story as I heard from the horses mouth (the doctor) yesterday is this:  If they can't figure out why I'm developing all of these bleeding ulcers, they can't fix me.  Everything they've been doing is only a temporary fix, at best.  I have family members who've offered to give me their blood but even if I could afford to have the blood processed and stored with Red Cross, they still wouldn't approve me for a transfusion until my blood is below an 8.  The reason is that once you get so many transfusions, it's more than likely that your body will develope antibodies to the foreign blood.  What that means is that my body will go into shock trying to fight the foreign blood and I will then not ever get another transfusion again.  Which will kill me.  I am seeing a new hemotologist just to see if there's some way to get my blood healthy enough to receive iron through a slow IV drip.  Or if there's ANYTHING else he can suggest.  Apparently, iron would help my situation but being "chronically ill" for 2 years has made my blood very unhealthy and even if it was healthy, I'm just losing it too quickly.  If they gave me iron now, it would make me very, very sick becuase my blood would reject it.  It's all a catch 22.

Ok, so here's what I believe.  Situations that have seemed impossible for me to overcome in my lifetime, have turned around and gotten better in a days time.  That's God's handywork.  I'll give him the credit.  This is really no different.  Once they get rid of this ulcer, I believe it's entirely possible that another one will never develope.  They don't even know why they keep developing so it just seems logical to me that these ulcers could disappear just like they came.  My life just happens like that.  While there's a breath left in my body, there's hope.  I really believe that.

Sorry for this depressing kind of post.  I really hated to do it but I feel like I owe it to all of you who've cared about me to tell you what's going on.  Thanks for all of your prayers and happy thoughts:)  I really do feel them, I want you all to know that.  Thank you Kelly for offering your home to me if I decide to take a trip to Johns Hopkins too.  I still can't tell you how that touched me.  I'm crying now thinking that there really are such caring people in my life.  I am truly blessed.  Thanks for listening:) 

Mari trout lodge

Mari & Godchildren

I know I've talked a little about my best friend Mari.  She's more like my sister, really.  Mari and I have been together since 5th grade, it feels like a lifetime.  We've had our differences and been through some times where we haven't talked at all but I always knew she was there and would always be.  I started working for Mari's family in 1993, I think.  They have a farm and we provide herbs, mushrooms and specialty food items to the better restrurants in St. Louis.  Through the course of the years I became pretty close to her family.  They were my second family.  I've been there with them through sicknesses and through the births of their babies. 

Today, I need to ask for your prayers.  I know it seems like all I've been doing lately and BELIEVE me all your prayers have been so appreciated.  Today Mari's Mom will have her leg amputated.  The family just found out that this was necessary.  She's not a diabetic so she's not had the chance to get used to this.  Her leg has no circulation and it's from smoking too much for too long.  She's had a very stress filled life.  Helen came over to America with her family when she was small.  Thy lived in the Ukraine and were refugees in WWII.  She's seen things that she's never talked about, her family doesn't even know.  We don't judge her for behaving in ways we don't understand because we all know there's so much more hiding in her life.  Maybe we'll all never know what she's seen.  Anyway, she smokes several packs of ciggarettes a day.  This along with some other unhealthy lifestyle choices have lead to this day when her leg has to be cut off in order to save her life.

I know many people have lived with an amputated limb and even learned to live very productive and successful lives.  This is not the case with Helen.  She doesn't even have the will to live WITH her leg.  We know, or I should say that we're pretty sure, that Helen won't survive this.  It all boils down to her will to live.  I know if someone doesn't have the will power to want to live themselves, that my prayers might not help her at all.  I pray for her family.  I pray for God to do something good with Helen's life so that her life will have some kind of meaning other than being the mother and grandmother of some pretty terrific people.  Her husband is beside her now and doesn't know what to do with his own life without Helen.  My heart is breaking for them.  Please, if you have some time and WILL say a prayer, remember Helen, Joe, Mari, Tina and Maddy.  This is all I can do for them.  Thank you:)