Dear Family and Friends,
Today has been a better day for me. Last night after tossing and turning for about 4 hours with a headache I finally got up and took a Tylenol PM and was able to fall asleep for about 7 hours. I just tried to do too many things yesterday like laundry, vacuum the furniture, and all the upstairs floors, and the stairs, and dust, and prepare food, and clean up from food we ate, and I worked on making signs for my mobile cart at work for about 4 hours, and a few other things. I just wanted to push through and get a lot done so we could enjoy our day today at Josh and Laura’s. After church today we had dinner at their home, and played games, that was a good relaxing time. I just came back form a little walk to the park with Phil. The last time we went on that walk I was pushing him in a wheelchair. This time we were able to walk and hold hands. I liked that much better. Phil is really doing well it has been 22 days now that he has been able to eat and keep his food down. He has had several days last week without taking naps. He even told me tonight after we came back from the walk that he was hungry and wanted to eat some pot roast yellow squash and potatoes. So I heated some up for him, Laura fed us all so well that no one else was hungry. It is great to see his appetite come back. He was able to sleep with the cpap machine for about 4 hours the past 2 nights that has been a big improvement. The Dr. prescribed some Ambien to help him fall asleep. That seems to help, the only problem is that the goofy things cost $4.50 a pill and our insurance doesn’t cover them so we hope he can learn to sleep with out them soon. That adds up by the end of the month! But it is good for now.
The sleep study showed that Phil needed his machine to go up to a 19 power and they have had it programmed at 14 then down to 9 so hopefully in the next few days he will get a new cap machine that has a variable setting on it, that makes the pressure reduce and increase to that point. I really don’t quite understand it but am hopeful that it will help him.
Phil has been enjoying walking around without his cane. He does pretty well but it makes me a little nervous. There is something about being married 28 years he can tell when I am nervous and tells me to clam down that he is OK. I really try to keep my nerves to myself but he sees right through me. He is a little (determined).
Matt called and is all set up in his room. He got it all painted and built himself a loft bed. He had to tell Phil that he liked Phil’s design that he made for him. It is real sturdy and the little couch from Jeryl fits perfectly under it, so he has a comfortable quiet place to read study and watch TV in the privacy of his small room. He is still waiting on a job. He will go back to several places this week. He hopes to have one by Friday. We know God has a plan for him, that helps a lot having that assurance. He was happy to get back to his church. He goes to the First Baptist down there in Eugene. He says the college pastor is good but he really likes the regular pastor best. He can apply what he has to say from scripture easier. The college guy speaks more in stories and illustrations. So he will probably attend his sermon time more. I guess they have more than one pastor speak on the same scripture during the different services. They have Traditional service for the early birds for the first service, and a more contemporary service for the second service, and for the 3rd service it is for the college and younger folks so they have a REAL contemporary service for them. Sounds like you could go to church all day and have a great time for hours. We are thankful Matt found that church 2 years ago when he went to school there, it’s nice to not have that concern at this time.
Friday Phil and his parents visited the office where Phil works. It was so good for him to see all the people there. He is eager to get back to work. I am eager for him to get better so I told him he has to wait still. He needs to get some strength back and he knows that but he has never been one to not work. I think I can come up with some “work” around hereJ to get him back into practice.
Well my kitchen is a mess again I don’t know how that happens J but I think it has something to do with me. So I better take care of it before I go off to bed. It feels so much better to not be soooooo tired tonight. Please continue to pray for us. We need it!
Pray that we can figure out the speech thing for Phil. Tomorrow we go see Zoe. Hope she has some answers that we can work on so he can get better. It’s hard to see him struggle with that.
Love Donna and Phil and Family
