Ok, I know it’s been a minute since my last regular update. Last update, we were inpatient in Houston, and now we are in Nashville, admitted at Vanderbilt. I’ve been too busy to make updates. When I pulled my Mac out last night in the hotel, I wasn’t feeling it and fell asleep with Amanda on the couch. I’m going to backtrack a bit to get you caught up, which I’ll probably do over a couple of posts. Before I forget, lose the Houston address, we’re not going back to that apartment. I’ll update when we have an address here. I may get a P.O. Box, but haven’t decided yet.
So, here we go. After we were discharged, we stopped by the apartment to pack a few things, then promptly hit the road. When we got to the apartment, Sybil had already been by and taken out the trash and gotten our mail. She came by to let Tank out one more time and see us off. It was a tearful goodbye. We’re going to need a Sybil in Tennessee; she’s been such a blessing! As I was loading up, I saw my neighbor and told him the news of us leaving. He has a battle of his own, as his wife his ill as well. He seemed to be a great caretaker, one who would do what it takes, and sympathized with our situation. Sybil came back from their walk with Tank leading the charge toward my voice. My neighbor was telling her how there weren’t very many Godly men like us, that we were a special kind, willing to do whatever was needed for our wives. When we first met, I shared with him how God helped me make it through our hard times, and he grabbed my hand and shook it hard. He came over, laid hands, and prayed for me the other day when he saw me out front of our sweeping our sidewalk off. He was a good example and lifted me up on a day I was down and out, despite his own trials. I guess my mad sweeping told him I needed prayer!
It was a double-Starbucks kinda day on the drive home. I needed it with the holiday traffic. The Memorial Day weekend had started early on Friday, with everyone getting out of the city. It was some of the worst traffic for heading west that I’d had. The bad traffic and some let’s say ‘special’ drivers had me in a bad mood for most of the drive home. Once clear of Katy, it was time for Amanda’s Bumex. She forgot to put the pigtails on her PICC line back at the apartment, and they were packed away in the back. So, since she couldn’t reach the line, I had to hook the syringes up for the flushes, Bumex, and Helprin. We swapped, Amanda steered while I hooked each syringe up! No way I was going to stop and lose my stop ahead of all the crazies I’d passed!
Once home, Amanda was ready to get into bed, but I rarely want to hop in bed after a long drive. I need to decompress. So, I hollered at some friends, David and Renee, to have a beer with and chill while Amanda got to bed early. Amanda called an hour or so after I left and mentioned the bedroom wing AC wasn’t cooling well. There was nothing I could do in the dark; I had a good idea what it was, and I wasn’t going to be able to fix that anyway. I stayed over a while longer and we three talked late into the night before I went home. It was great to spend time with friends and just chat.
Saturday, Amanda had a little bestie time lined up. Brittany was coming over early to help her clean out one of our bedrooms. It had been set up as a photo shooting area for Amanda’s closet cleanup for Poshmark after the transplant. The room had become a catch-all for clothes and junk. I had been hounding her that I was going to throw everything out if she didn’t do something about it. I needed it cleared to finish the remodel. I did my duty to annoy both of them while they sorted through things! I did have a few things in the room to sort through myself. Once I realized I had more in my hands than I wanted to carry off, I took David up on his offer from the night before about helping. I was also sorting through things to prepare for a garage sale, to earn us a little extra cash. It turned out we had a good bit of stuff, and I didn’t even make it to the shop area to sort through as I’d planned. Amanda and Britt went to Del Rio. Amanda’s stylist got her in early for an appointment since this would be the last one she’d have for a while. She wanted to have something done differently than usual, so it would look better as it grew out. She and Britt got a little shopping in, too. I had also called the AC guy, who showed up early afternoon to fix the AC. It turned out to be a cheaper fix, but one I could have done myself for even less, like I had the time anyway. So, Amanda told me to shut up about it!
I had to get the oil changed in the Yukon, poor thing is going to be ready for a break in Nashville! We were trying to get together with all our friends in the short weekend, so we met Nathan, Kim, and the kids for dinner while we were all in Del Rio. It was good to hang out with them for a while. We were able to catch them a couple of weeks back when they moved their oldest out of their travel trailer and into his first home. We went up to see his house, about an hour north of our apartment.
On Sunday, we had church in the morning. It was good to see everyone and say our goodbyes. We had lunch with a core group of friends afterwards. Once back home, Amanda needed to work on some things at the church, and I needed to take care of some things at the house. I needed to review the details for the remodel and develop a solid plan that I could transfer to paper while I was cooped up in the hospital. Amanda’s mother was going to be house and dog-sitting both while we were gone. So we needed to meet with her to show her around and let her know the Tank’s particulars. Brittany came over later and hung out for a while, too. We had to pack up and organize a few things before going to bed, as we were leaving early Monday morning. This packing would be different with things in two places, and we’d never moved into the hospital like this before. It would be on a nonstop trip home.
That’s all I have for you now. I’m tired and ready for bed, not as tired as I was after our nonstop weekend at home, but tired nevertheless. I’ll catch you all the way up tomorrow. Before I close this post, I want to share something that I heard the other day that stuck with me. “The devil wants you to think the worst of your story is your story.” When I heard that, it was profound to me. God doesn’t want us to be stuck in our bad times; he wants those times to be something that builds us up. Sometimes, we can get stuck in the worst of times, though our minds in the gutter, so to speak. We can’t let our worst define us; we need to let it refine us. Amanda and I have had plenty of refining in our lives; we are more experienced than most. Just as gold is heated to remove the impurities, we need to let the tough spots in life refine us. Trials are biblical; nowhere in the Bible does it say that life will be easy. We may have had more trials than most, but it’s only made us stronger in the end.
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