Hi Everyone, Most of you have probably given up on me ever updating this blog...ever again!! SURPRISE! An update!! I just couldn´t let this time of year go by without expressing gratitude for our many blessings. Truly, under the most difficult of circumstances, the most incredible blessings continue to be ours. We enjoyed a very special Thanksgiving together as a family. Michael flew home and we were blessed to be together and even have some new family pictures taken...after about 8 years! So grateful to be together!!
Larry has been doing quite well lately. His cognition has improved again the last 5-6 weeks after a couple of months of `not so great`cognition. It has been so wonderful to see him doing better in this most important way. Physically, he is also doing quite well. His feeding tube is out (Yay!) and he is eating normally and has gained a lot of his weight back. He really looks great! He still doesn´t have the strength and energy that he would like and is not able to work as yet, but we are so grateful to have him continuing to make progress. He will have a malignant cancer on his ear surgically removed this week and then we hope to be past serious medical issues for awhile. We are looking forward to a much more healthy 2016!!
I thought I´d share a few pictures with you that were a little hard to share earlier. What a journey Larry has had this year. Next year our pictures will be of `fishing`and `travelling`, etc! I promise!

 

So grateful for our awesome kids, grandkids, family, friends, Bishop, and ward families, and all of you for your love, prayers and fasting, service, and everything you have done for us. We couldn´t have made it through this year without you!!:

 

        We love and appreciate all of you. Have a beautiful and joyful holiday season! Can´t wait to share our new family pictures with you in the next couple of weeks. We are thrilled to be together and Larry looks great!! Please check by again.

 

August 16 - quick update

This past week Larry has once again spent several days in the hospital (argh!) with another bout of pneumonia. He also has a resistance strain of bactéria in his blood so he has come home with IV antibiotics which we hope will take care of the problem...once and for all!! He continues to do well with the soft food diet and we are just using the feeding tube in his stomach for his medicines and ocasional supplemental feedings. Mealtime has become a much happier time! We really enjoy those times together. Our goal is NO more hospital stays and NO more infections.

August 5th - Get news!!

Yesterday was a milesone day for us. Larry was given a swallow study at the hospital and the results were very good. He can now eat soft foods in small amounts! YAY!!! What an awesome change for him...and me! Never eating or drinking is a very difficult way to live and we have sure learned the value of enjoying a meal together. It has made us so much more aware of how much our lives revolve around eating...food is everywhere!! Sometimes I would find Larry concentrating on the TV and look to see that it was a comercial about food...they have them constantly!!! He´s even been found watching a food channel...which he would NEVER have done before. He just couldn´t seem to help himself and I couldn´t blame him one bit!!! Somehow just getting formula through a feeding tube just didn´t `cut it`!
I´ve even missed cooking (sometimes!) which has surprised me because I used to complain that after over 40 years of cooking meals I was getting pretty tired of it. Who knows what you wll miss when it is taken away from you. The smell of a cooking meal can bring a great feeling of comfort to a home. I`m grateful for the things we have learned through this experience and for the awareness and empathy we have now for those who go through similar difficult situations.
I know that the Lord has helped us through this difficulty as he has through other difficult times in the past months. We are receiving remarkable blessings that we have been told would be very improbable and unlikely in Larry´s circumstances. We continue to proclaim that we know.....
 `With God, all things are possible`!!

July 26, 2015

Larry was released from the hospital after just a few days. He hated being there and begged to be released to come home. He still had pneumonia when he came home but was able to continue with the antibiotics from here. He has continued to recuperate and is trying to regain some strength once again. He weakens very quickly, which is very frustrating to him, but we are continually told that his recovery will be slow. The doctors at the hospital told us that for every day you are hospitalized, that it will take 2 to 3 days to recovery the strength lost. I guess that means that it could take up to nine months for him to feel more recovered! Having said that, we ventured out to our grandson Bridger´s soccer game, went to a movie, and rode up to Larry´s family´s cabin for a few hours during the past four days. It felt good to get out a little bit and feel some normalization to our new life routine. We are very hopeful that Larry will be able to have another swallow study done sometime in the next couple of weeks and that it will show that he has made changes that will allow him to be able to start eating and drinking again. We both feel that this would be a HUGE step forward and we are praying for this change every day. Hope you all had a great 24th of July weekend.

Back to the hospital

Monday, July 15- In the middle of the night last night, Larry became sick with a high fever and fast pulse rate and Jon and I had to take him to the hospital this morning. He has pneumonia again and will be in the hospital for at least a few days for IV antibiotics. He is in LDS hospital.

Wednesday, July 17 - Larry is responding to meds at the hospital and is doing some better. We still don´t have any information on when he will be able to return home but are still hoping for the end of the week. Larry´s lungs are fragile and that keeps him at high risk for pneumonia. Rats!! He is anxious, once again, to come home. I´ll keep you posted.

Finally - a new post!

Larry left the hospital 2 weeks ago today. Here are a few highlights:

No one could have been happier to go home!! While we were waiting for the last checks, meds, etc. He told me he just knew they would come up with something that would keep him from leaving! He only believed it when we finally walked out the door.
He has loved being home and he has made good strides physically and cognitively. Certainly life isn´t exactly what he wants yet but we hope for continued improvements. He has a g-tube in his stomach for feedings and meds as he still cannot have anything to eat or drink by mouth. If you are thinking...how awful...you are right!! It is extremely difficult for him. He also deals with cognitive issues each day. He has therapists who come to help him with physical, occupational, and speech needs and , of course, our kids have been there every step of the way to help me with this new adjustment. We continue to have more challenges to face but are so grateful for this opportunity to share this peaceful time here at home. Truly `there is no place like home`!!
  

 

 

July 1st-- Larry´s coming home!

July 1st: Today is the BIG day...after 99 days in the hospital, Larry is coming home!! I am up early getting the final things ready here at home and getting ready to head to the hospital. It has been a whirlwind trying to get ready...and I sure hope I am!! Larry is SO ready to come home. Every day for the last couple of weeks when I´ve arrived at the hospital he has thought that he was coming home that day and he has been so disappointed to find out that it´s not that day. Won´t he be thrilled to find out that this is actually THE day and that he can leave the hospital and get into the car to come home.
I am so glad to have home health care come, starting today, to help out and am extremely grateful to our children for their willingness to come and take shifts to be here, almost totally day and night, for the first couple of weeks during our transition. They are amazing and wonderful and I love them and appreciate them so much! Mike has been able to be home for a visit and has been such a help to me and it will be so great to have him here to see his dad come home before heading back to Calif. in a few more days. Our ward is awesome and has helped me continually these past three months and I´ll be forever indebted to them for their loving service in our behalf.
I am also extremely grateful for the wonderful doctors and nurses who have cared for Larry with such skill and concern. They are like angels to me in so many ways and I have become friends with many of them. Although we are glad to be coming home, I will miss them greatly and the knowledge that they were always taking such good care of Larry when I wasn´t there. I have often told them that I can see that their work is not just a job to them, it is so much more...and I have felt that every day! We have shared laughter and tears as Larry and I have moved through this difficult journey. I´ll never forget them.
Well, its time to get running...on to the next stage of this journey...ready or not, here it comes!! I´ll try to update again with a pic of Larry as he makes this exciting change. We love and appreciate all of you for your continued prayers in our behalf. I couldn´t do this without them. The blessings of the Lord continue to flow to us because of our petitions to him. He is, and always has been, in charge and I know he measures every minute of our lives and blesses us accordingly. Love to you all.