Third Time

It's so hard to believe

that the kids and I

just spent 

our 

third

Halloween

without 

Rob. 

October 29th

October 29th was a day Rob and I always observed.

It was Rob's middle brother's birthday.

His name was Eric Douglas and he was 5 years younger than Rob.

He died 3 weeks before he would have turned 21.

Way too soon.

Rob always remembered his brother on this day.

And, even though I never got the chance to know Eric, I always remembered too.

I still do.

And then in 1993, my good friends' baby boy died on October 29th.

Way too soon.

His name was Aaron Ross and he was the son of Cindy and Harold.

And, although I did get the chance to know Aaron Ross, it wasn't long enough.

Aaron was 18 days old.

Two lives...ended too soon.

I will never forget.

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I have updated the October 11, 2013 blog post I wrote about Aaron Ross on his birthday by adding some photos I got today from Aaron's grandmother.  Click here to go to that post. 

Sunday With My Daddy

Psalm 122:1

"I was glad when they said unto me, Let us go into the house of the Lord."

Yesterday, I spent the day driving my daddy around to all of the places he needed to go.

He was asked to preach Homecoming at a church he served for 12 years.

So we started the day there.

On the way there, he was still looking over his notes, preparing for his sermon while the boys played UNO.

Once there and throughout the day, he was heartily welcomed and loved.

And he loved being where he spent so much of his life belonging...

...in the pulpit.

My brother and his family were there.  Our kids enjoyed being together and roaming around the church.

My mother did not go with us but Mama would have loved hearing Wesley do what she's teaching him on this piano.  She spent so much time making great music at this piano. 

Their next door neighbor (who is not a member at this church) even came over to visit right as we were leaving. They were great neighbors.

We all had a great time - especially my daddy.  

And I did not cry - but I could not stop the memories that came when I sat down and first looked at this empty pulpit.

You see, when I first met my Rob, he wasn't a preacher yet.  He just wanted to be.  He started his candidacy process at this church.  This church is the church that officially sent him into the ministry - the church who officially sent him to the Board of Ordained Ministry.  And this church is the first place I ever heard him preach.  He worked for weeks on that sermon but spent the last 2 days before preaching it locked up and closed away from everybody, even having me bring his food to him in that room.
He was so nervous AND so excited - wanting it to be just right - for, as he told me then, this was the beginning of his dream - the beginning of being where he felt he belonged - in the pulpit.

As I said, I did not cry - but I sure did remember.

And, as I remembered, I just tried to have fun watching the one man left in my life fill that very same pulpit (the one he occupied for 12 years) and do so well what he does best - invite people to taste and enjoy the waters of salvation offered through our Lord Jesus Christ.
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And then last night was Charge Conference for the church we belong to now.

It was held jointly with other churches in another town.
And Daddy was, once again, "happy to go into the house of the Lord." 

Even for Charge Conference.

At the end of the day, I looked back in the car as we were driving into our shared driveway and my daddy was smiling.  I was bringing home one tired but very happy and fulfilled preacher who had gotten to spend his entire day in ministry.

I am blessed to be his daughter.

Another Update - This Time On Me

 First of all, Luke is doing better today.  The highest his temperature has gotten today is 100.1!!!  Wesley took such good care of him while I was gone all day long and Anna was gone to class.  Wesley is such a good son and brother!  Thank you for all of your prayers for Luke!

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My favorite college team color will always be Duke Blue.

However, I bled State Red blood today as they tried to get my IV started

(there are always multiple attempts due to my lovely, hard to access veins).

And I was under the Carolina Blue umbrella of UNC’s Chapel Hill Hospitals when I heard some good news today.

Today was my appointment to review whether or not I have Multiple Sclerosis.

For 3 years now, we’ve been monitoring my brain.  Rob died 10 months into the 1^st year.  During the 1^st and 2^nd years, there were SO MANY tests.  I’ve had at least 10 MRI’s of my brain, my cervical spine, my thoracic spine, and my lumbar spine.  I’ve had a spinal tap.  I’ve had eye tests to see if there were vision changes at the brain level.  And plenty of neurological work-ups by a general neurologist and then the neurologist at UNC who specializes in MS.  I really like her.

After the 2^nd year, the doctor said I did not need to come back for an entire year.

That appointment was today.

Following the MRI of my brain this morning, the doctor delivered the news that everything is the same – the same 2 to 3 lesions are still there but have not changed at all and there are no new ones – and nothing else in my brain has changed since 2010.

So we stay the same for another year…

Not enough to completely rule out MS.

But not enough to diagnose me with it either.

That is good news!  No, that is GREAT NEWS!

So, as I said before, Duke Blue will always be my favorite college team color but I was smiling as I walked out of Chapel Hill's UNC Hospital and as I watched on the drive home and for the rest of the day as the sun and the clouds played around to color the skies a lovely Carolina Blue!

Photos from today…from sun-up to sun-down. 

This photo is so appropriate for the way I feel today after finding out my good news today that nothing has changed.  It reminded me of a Scripture that I love.  If you look closely at this photo or at the next photo where I zoomed in on it, you'll see why!

But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint. 

Isaiah 40:31 

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For those of you who are new to my life or new to my blog, I’m copying into this post a letter I wrote to family and friends in November 2010 to explain why MS was suspected to begin with...

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Sunday, November 28, 2010

Hi All,

I had thought I would wait until I found out more information, but since I asked for and received so many prayers for Rob during this trying time for him and it has been such a blessing to us, I have decided that I covet your prayers as well.  So I am asking that you do the same for me.  I have been told that there is a high likelihood that I have Multiple Sclerosis.  And, of course, I’m hoping and praying that I don’t. 

As I got out of bed on Sunday, November 14^th, I discovered that my left side would not support me.  As I tried to walk, I basically staggered through the house to go get Rob (he had fallen asleep w/ Luke after Luke had a bad dream in the night).  Even though I was very cognizant of my surroundings and (according to my eyes) I was walking through doorways, I really was stumbling and falling to the left and hitting every threshold on the way from our room to Luke’s.  My equilibrium was so “off.”  After waking Rob and standing there for a couple of moments, it started to subside but never went away.  Thinking I was just not really awake yet and/or thinking it could be a back related thing (nerve damage from my lower back issues), I didn’t even mention it to Rob (after all, it was a Sunday morning and I certainly try not to add any drama to life BEFORE church).  I went back to bed and Rob left for church during this time.  After getting back up, the weakness was still there but not as intense.  From my experience with Daddy’s mini-stroke, I knew the quick assessment tests about a stroke.  My smile looked even, I was having no problems with slurred speech, I was not having visual problems, and I could hold out my arms evenly (even though I did notice my left arm felt heavier).  And since it was getting better, I continued on with my normal morning routine but continued to have weakness on my left side.  As I started my make-up, I realized that the numbness extended all the way up to my face.  It was feeling heavier, like I’d had dental work and the shots had not worn off yet – like the top half of my face (left side only) was sagging over the bottom half.  But even so, I went on to church and for the most part, was okay – except I couldn’t hold the hymnbook with my left hand and I had to steady myself each time I stood up.  After church and a short visit to someone, I came home and took a nap.  After I slept through Urgent Care’s Sunday hours, I decided to go to the doctor the next morning.  I am a very fast typist and I noticed later on that day that I was having a hard time typing – my left fingers were & are sluggish and my left pinky finger keeps “flying away” on me and not staying on the keys.  When I went to the doctor on Monday, the office sent me straight to the ER.     

I was admitted to the hospital on Monday, November 15 and discharged on Tuesday, November 16, 2010.  I so did not want to spend the night there – facing the unknown with God alone.  Psalm 46:1 has always been a favorite verse of mine and it was thought of that night often – “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.”  God was ENOUGH that night and He will always be ENOUGH, but having Rob there would have been comforting as well.  However, since we didn’t want to alarm the children, Rob had gone ahead and taught Bible Study that evening, he had come to see me after that, and then had gone back home to the children. Our children are so familiar with Rob being in the hospital for pneumonia but ending up okay that it really wasn’t a big deal to them for us to tell them I had to stay in the hospital for some tests the next morning.  And I was released in time to get Wesley to his basketball try-outs the next night so it was pretty much business as usual as far as the kids were concerned.  So here I was, in the hospital alone with God, thinking about what all could possibly be wrong with me and thinking about what all I needed to do.  It’s so hard to just stop and be still with so much going on in our lives at that moment.  The last stanza from Robert Frost’s poem, STOPPING BY WOODS ON A SNOWY EVENING, came to mind ---“The woods are lovely, dark, and deep, But I have promises to keep, And miles to go before I sleep, And miles to go before I sleep.”  

          

Through MANY tests during those 2 days (CT scan, blood work, EKG, etc.), it was finally determined from an MRI of my brain that I have “subcortical and deep white matter changes that are noted to be consistent with chronic ischemia.”   In the doctor’s words, there is significant deterioration of the myelin sheathing of the white matter. 

They ruled out a major stroke.  They ruled out lots of other things.  And based on my symptoms – the most significant one being the weakness on my left side from head to toe that has not gone away – and based on the MRI they are concerned that I have Multiple Sclerosis.

The only other neurological symptom I’ve had is that for the last couple of months, I’ve been saying opposite words.  I will think and absolutely KNOW that I’m saying “hot” and what comes out is “cold.”  One day, I told my kids to “Come here right now and DON’T listen.” (They thought it was funny).  I told my dad “No” to a very serious question one day when I just knew I had said “yes.”  Just on Thanksgiving Day, I asked someone if he was going to cook another ham “recently” instead of “soon.”  And the examples just go on and on.  But since we have been extremely stressed in this house for the last couple of months (thinking my husband might have lung cancer is just a bit stressful), I just attributed this weird symptom to stress.  The hospital doctors said this may or may not be related. 

I will have my first appointment with a neurologist on Tuesday, Nov. 30^th to begin the process of determining what definitely has caused / is causing the damage to the white matter in my brain.  From what the hospital doctors have told me, I may have a spinal tap to help confirm MS.  (I’m going to pretend that I’m in labor, it’s an epidural, and I’m looking forward to it)!    

The damage could end up being non-specific – which means they may never find out what caused the damage or why the damage occurred.

The damage could be some other disease.

But both the ER doctor and the hospital doctor have told me very bluntly (but nicely) that they think there is a high likelihood that it is MS. 

I am trying to not let this one break me.  There has been a lot of pain in my life – Osgood Schlatter’s disease in 8^th grade (a tendon/muscle disease in my left knee that I outgrew), arthritis and bulging & hemorrhaged discs in my back diagnosed 22 years ago that causes 24/7 chronic pain, finding out in Feb. 2009 why I couldn’t sing anymore (nodules on my vocal chords), and even going way back to childhood when I was around 3 years old and I distinctly remember standing on the porch with my Grandma Caviness as we watched my father drive away.  I know from being told later that Grandma was keeping me b/c my mother was sick at the time but I completely remember (without having been told) looking up at Grandma and seeing her looking so sad.  I think it was then that I decided in my 3 year old mind that pain was really bad but I could choose to not suffer and maybe help those around me not suffer either.  I don’t remember what I said to my grandmother but I remember trying so hard to come up with something to make Grandma smile and I remember it working.  She smiled, picked me up, and hugged me tightly as we walked into the house.  That’s my first memory of my Grandma Caviness.      

I’m trying to do the same with this situation.  I’m trying once again to deal with the pain but choose not to suffer.  For the most part, I’ve been successful but there are moments that raw emotion finds its way into my thoughts.  Although MS is not a death sentence (usually), it is a life sentence – for there is no cure – and there are varying degrees of severity that could certainly be life-changing.  I know people with MS and they lead perfectly normal lives between flare-ups and some who haven’t really had many flare-ups at all.  I’m just trying not to worry about whether or not I have it for sure.  I’m trying not to worry about where the next $40 copay for doctor visits will come from (together, we have 4 of them just this week) or where money for more monthly prescription medicine will come from if I need them (we already spend between $400-600 out of pocket, after insurance on RX for the 3 asthmatics in our family).  I’m trying not to worry about any of it.  I’m trying not to worry about the fact that my concern for my children has gone from trying to provide for their needs to wondering whether or not I’ll even be around and physically able to finish raising them all to adulthood.  I’m trying not to worry about how Mama and Daddy will be taken care of if I’m the one that ends up in the wheelchair. And for the most part, I’ve not worried – I’m just a little weary.  And these are just a few of the plethora of raw emotions that have surged through my “bad brain matter” over the last 12 days.  

During this season of Thanksgiving, I have worked really hard to be “INTENTIONALLY” thankful and I AM so very thankful!  I have been using the phrase “It is what it is” for years.  In fact, that’s exactly what I said to the wonderful nurse who discharged me from the hospital right after the news was delivered.  But that day, in that moment, I added what my dad is always saying – with new understanding of what it means.  I said and felt – “It is what it is and I’m thankful it’s as good as it is.”  And then I started crying again. 

Because there was nothing acute that had to be dealt with as an inpatient right away, the doctors let me go home the second day.  They knew I wanted to go to Robert Vinson’s funeral and they even okayed the trip to Ohio for Rob’s mother’s 70^th b-day.  I asked about driving specifically b/c I wanted to make sure that there was nothing that would happen “suddenly” while driving my precious family on such a long trip.  Since leaving the hospital on November 16^th (just 12 days ago), I have physically been in or have driven through 5 different states (including driving to Ft. Wayne, IN to get Crystol’s old car) - driving over 38 hours (not including stops).  I have attended 8 family get-togethers (dinners, b-day parties, & Thanksgiving gatherings) and, although I am truly exhausted, I have enjoyed each one of them in a brand new way.  I have attended 2 funerals at our church and was thankful that I was blessed to know these 2 individuals and I was thankful for what their presence in my life has meant to Rob and me.  I have attended church in 2 different states.  I have done a lot of research on MS and other diseases of the brain that causes demyelination.  I have done a lot of crying, a lot of praying, a lot of laughing at “bad brain matter” jokes with the very few people who knew my situation (“bad brain matter” - my handy excuse from now on b/c that’s a fact no matter what the cause), a lot of clinging to my husband, a lot of hugging my children, and a lot of thanking God for my life.  And most of all, I have been thanking God that He is in control, whatever may come.

And we are enveloped in the arms of God – as always – in good times and bad.

Janna Shelton

Updates

Today was a doctor day.

First, I took Luke to the doctor to see what going on with him.

His fever was only 100.7 at the doctor office but it got as high as 103 during the night.

Doctor said maybe beginning stages of walking pneumonia.

Started Luke on a different antibiotic.

He's feeling better right now and he's playing video games with Wesley.

Next, my dad had 2 scheduled appointments today. 

He went to the oral surgeon first for a final post op. check.

Daddy's gum is healing up very well.  The oral surgeon was very pleased.

Then we headed to the cardiologist to get the results of the stress test I took Daddy to a couple of weeks ago.

The cardiologist's P.A. delivered the good news that Daddy's heart is doing well.

All in all, a good day.

Now we'll just see if it's a good night.  It will be unless Luke's fever spikes again (it's already creeping up a little and it's not time for fever reducing medicine yet).  

And a sad thought about how much time flies when you're not even looking happened to me today.

This is the first illness when Luke wanted his medicine in non-chewable pill form instead of liquid form and he is officially on adult dosages of fever reducing medicines.  

Kinda happy I don't have to fool with those liquids anymore.  

Kinda sad I don't have to fool with those liquids anymore.  

My last baby is growing up.

But not completely - he lost a tooth this morning and is still excited about putting it under his pillow!