Thursday, January 26, 2006
HOME A WEEK…
Karon has been home a week today. It has been a week of a different life style than what we have been used to living! So far we are “hanging in there”! We are grateful that Karon doesn’t have to go out to a physical therapy place. She just does exercises at home. She went to church last Sunday and to a Medical Lab last Tuesday to have blood drawn. That will be a weekly occurrence for awhile.
She can get around with assistance. By assistance I mean, help to get in and out of bed. She is sometimes able to get out of bed but still needs assistance to get back in bed. She uses the wheelchair and a walker some. A lady from our old church, Traders Point, comes each morning to get her up, showered and dressed. Then she gets her breakfast, helps her with her physical therapy and puts things where Karon can reach them for her lunch. This allows me to keep working. Sometimes I can come home for a bit during the day but not always.
Karon has a lot of pain in the leg between the knee and the hip, but not much in the hip area. This is because the cancer and subsequent radiation have killed off the nerves in that area. But the doctor’s office said today that the pain she is having is probably just due to the amount of surgery they had to do on the hip and leg.
Nights are the worst. For whatever reason, Karon isn’t able to sleep at night—at least not very well for very long. She doesn’t sleep that much during the day, either. We try to stay up as long as we can. But we just get her situated in bed and I get laid down, and we’re up again. It is a bit better than it was the first 3 or 4 nights. It was up about every 20 to 30 minutes. It is hard for her because she can only lie on her back. That’s a tough position for someone to try to sleep who has always been a “stomach sleeper”.
I’m able to catch a “wink or two” (or so it seems) before needing to get up to help her out-and-in-of-bed, get a drink, take pain medication, or whatever else is needed.
About 3:30 a. m. (this morning it was 4:30 a. m.) she is usually able to get to sleep and is usually able to sleep until 6:00 or 6:30 a. m. when I have to get up. So we help her get settled again and I get ready to go to work.
After a week of this I am a “tired puppy”. (Oh for a good night’s sleep straight through!) But the good news is that God is faithful and I’m still able to function—sort of--at most levels. It is hard to get everything done that I need to for church and I’m falling behind in that area. That provides its own kind of stress. We have a lot of things going on and some major things coming up in the future that need my attention.
People from both Countryside and Traders Point are furnishing food for us. That is a big help but it is still the matter of getting it ready, serving, eating and then the clean up. I’m getting pretty good at dish washing! The dishwasher is a help, but there’s still the items that can’t go in it.
We appreciate all the prayers for healing and strength. We are giving thanks and praise to God for all He has done and is doing. I hope I’m not complaining TOO MUCH! But this Journal provides a place to put some thoughts that otherwise should be deleted.
I’ll try to have a better post soon.
Jim
posted by jim 11:12 PM 1 comments
Comments:
Wow... Jim, please know that I'm thinking about you and Karon. I hope and pray that you both can get some good rest as she recovers.
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