REHAB

I am writing this on Father’s Day. The first time I haven’t had my pop to call and tell him what an amazing dad he was. It was always, “Now, no presents, only cards.” We never listened to him. Tears have come several times today. Losing both parents in 8 months will require a lot of grief work I think. It still hurts. I miss them both so much.

Dick has me on a rigorous (as defined by how weak I am) rehab treatment plan to regain muscle strength and mass from the steroids, which totally depleted me. The progress is painfully slow. After 2 weeks, I am only up to 11 pounds on ankle weights and am up to 4 walks up our little hill…trying to add one climb per day.

I thought the reversal of steroid use would be faster. It is very slow. I am nauseous every day which has decreased my appetite to near nothing. I eat less than a 3 year old. My belly is slowly receding and my “disconnected” feelings between my head and body are very slowly starting to wane. The extreme fatigue from radiation lingers. I am a woman who normally naps maybe 6 times a year. I hate napping. I feel groggy and sluggish afterwards. But I have no choice this time. My body needs 1-2 hours of napping every afternoon. It will be a summer of working hard to try to find normal again.

We took a boat ride around the lake tonight…..first one…..and found that our 2 bald eagles are back in their nest in a very high pine with their babies. Such a majestic sight.

It is a 3 week period of time now since Mom died, Sam got married, and we had a funeral for Mom. It seems like we couldn’t possibly have walked through all of that emotion and come out the other side, but I guess we did. God wraps us in His grace and mercy when we need it. I am so grateful that we had a weekend of such pure joy at the wedding between two very hard weekends.

We have no internet this summer, so we are tech-free. If any of you have facebook-messaged us, or emailed us, and we have not responded, that is why. Most of our texts get through. It feels very freeing, actually.

We continue to have faith in healing. You may wonder why we still believe after all these years. We do, because God’s Word cannot lie and we stand on it. I don’t understand His methods or His timing. But we understand His faithfulness in what He says.