Sunday-Funday

I drove down to Karen and Mark's yesterday morning, to ride down to the baptism with them.  All my grand kids were home for the event.  My grand girl from Oregon was to be the God Mother.

We went to Mass first, at St. John the Baptist Catholic Church.  They claim it as an historic church, but I noticed it's date was 1932, and, personally?  I don't call that historic.  Maybe it was historic for something else?

There we all sat--taking up one whole pew.  Karen, Me, Grand daughter Helene and baby Della, Mark, Maddie, Marcus and his GF Morgan, Steven and his GF Caroline.  The pew thinned out when they went up for communion--leaving Morgan, Caroline and me.

Back to Helene's for breakfast.  

Her hubs Mike was home preparing the meal.  Then Maddie's boyfriend arrived, Stefan Von Bulow.  German!!  YAY!! and Catholic.  He and Maddie were in the same home school group when they were tiny tots and somehow have found each other again, in their 20th year.  

I got a tiny bit of time with Della.  She cries every time I hold her face-to-face, so I hold her looking out, and we get along quite well.

Back to the church for the baptism.   

The Jewish grandma was there, as well as the Jewish grandpa and his wife.  Son-in-law Mark's parents were also there.  They had driven down from way up north, and his mother kept telling everyone and complaining about the long ride for a "thirty minute deal".  She is a piece of work and I would like to kindly tell her that 77 year old women don't look good in ink-black hair dye, but I keep those thoughts to myself.

We all went up, behind the altar, to the baptismal font.  I thought the priest did an excellent inter-denominational baptism.

He invoked Jewish scripture and blessed the Daddy.  Then blessed Della with oil on her forehead, eyes, ears and heart.  Blessed the Momma, invoked the responsibilities on the God Parents, Aunt Susanna and Uncle Marcus and then took Della over to the font and used the little spoon to pour water over her head.  Not a peep out of her, so I guess she liked it.  Then the Lord's Prayer, which in the Catholic church ends a few words short of the Protestant version and I forgot and mumbled three extra words before I remembered to stop.

I noticed that the baptismal area was a quite large marble enclosed pool with steps.  So after wards, I asked the priest if they do full immersions.  I supposed for adult conversions/baptisms?

He replied, "Yep.  We dunk 'em here.  Children and adults."
I said, "Ah.  Like the name of your church--John the Baptist.  He dunked 'em too."
"Yes he did.  He dunked a lot of them"
"One in particular, that was most important." I replied.
"Yes.  The very best!"
"Amen, Father.  Amen."  I said.

 Grandson Stephen and GF Caroline had to get back up to Michigan State to study for a big exam today.  The study of the liver.  Stephen was impressed when I mentioned, "Ah.  You're studying Hepatology now?"

Everyone else went back to Helene and Mike's place for a light supper, so I rode back to Karen and Mark's with Stephen and Caroline.  We had a great conversation on health care, sports, and medical specialities.  

I thanked them for the ride, hugged and kissed and jumped into my car and was home by 4:30--exhausted!!

It was a lovely day in that I got to see all of my older grand kids, meet their new love interests and observe the Darling Della.  

I'm Fine!!!

The worst part of that prep was 3:00am this morning when I had to drink the other bottle of the Suprep.  I mixed it with ice cold Crystal Light Lemonade--which I will never be able to drink again.  I held my breath, and breathed through my mouth for several minutes--followed by water.  But--I was "running clear" as they call it by 6:00 and did get a nap in before Pammie arrived.

We had to drive down the traffic laden expressway in a continual downpour, but found the place and the correct entrance before 9:00.  The worst part of the next phase was the needle in my hand, but I had to have it so I could get the Michael Jackson Special--the Milk of Dreams--Propofol!  I love that stuff!!!

I don't remember it, but the recovery room nurse said I was singing, Jesus Loves Me, while I was waking up.  Pammie was soon sitting right there beside.

The doc removed an internal hemorrhoid I got when Jennifer was born, I wanted the doc to put it in some formaldehyde so I could give it to Jen for her 46th birthday, but he said he had to send it in.   Then he stated, "Considering you have never had a colon-oscopy before, you are in great health for someone your age."  Why do they have to put those last three words on every report I get?  I guess he expected to find polyps?

So, I go back in five years.  As if that is ever going to happen.  LOL.  I'm glad I got it done though.  Along with the lung CT scan, now I know another hidden area in my body is healthy and happy.

We got there at 9:00, my procedure was at 10:00 and Pammie and I were on our way home at 11:09.

MIsh Mash of emotions..........

My little sister's 65th birthday--- 

I never thought I'd live long enough to see her this old!

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My best friend's 5th year sadiversary.

68 years we held each other up--

Bethie and I visited her in the hospital hospice

our last time--4 days before she died.

I never thought I'd outlive her.  She fought that evil demon ovarian cancer, for four years, with grace and positiveness, even through her husband's illness and death.  She put all of us in awe with her happy spirit.

Toward the end, she told her family, "Take care of Jude.  This is going to hit her hard."

and it did--------

I still miss her--more than anyone.

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Today, I am to eat light as I prepare for the dreaded COLONOSCOPY PREP day tomorrow.  I fear tomorrow evening/night more than I have feared anything in a very long time!!!

Be still my heart...................

5 months old

Questions and Answers

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Someone, I think Deb, asked how far along I was with the cross stitched baby quilt.

What with the basketball tournament continuing until April and then baseball games starting--I should have it finished by the 1st of May.
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PT went very well today.  I have been asking, the last couple of weeks, if my therapist could do the traction machine on my neck.

Finally today, because I still have numbness in my arms and hands, she relented.  She got me adjusted in the head contraption and started it.  OMGosh!  It felt soooooooo good to have my neck stretched up, held for a few minutes, then released and repeat, and repeat, and repeat.  I could almost feel the vertebrae opening up and letting the nerves flow.

My therapist doesn't like to use the kind of "tools" I have had other therapists use with good results.  She prefers manipulations, with her hands which are extremely painful.

She said that we will do the traction each visit from now on.  YAY!!! Anytime I have had PT on my neck, traction is the only thing that gave me really good results!

She had an intern there who is 19 years old.  We had a great conservation about woman's lib, and politics and religion.  My therapist is almost 30, so her mother would be in her 50's.  I told her we needed her mother to join us next time to get a perspective on how it was when she was growing up.  Then we'd have an old woman, one my daughter's age, the therapist my grand daughter's age and the intern, a younger grand daughter.

We agreed on most of the religion and woman's lib stuff.  They are both Liberals, but calm, moderate Liberals, so we all agreed in most part on politics.    I sure got my money's worth today and stirred up my brain.  I loved it.

I would truly enjoy being in a conversation/discussion group---with people younger than me.  When I tried the Senior Citizen group, those people are way too old for me--as are my School chums luncheon group.

They don't want to explore philosophies, or anything interesting.  They mostly just complain about their husbands, and moan about their illnesses.

I do like interacting with younger's and I need the stimulation to keep my brain from dying out.  LOL
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This little Princess is 13 years old today.

 and nearly as tall as Gramma.  My New Jersey girl, Elise Ann.

<sigh>

A Truly Lovely Day

I woke up to a bit of haze that turned into nice, warm sunshine and 58 degrees.

I was even inspired to do a bit of vacuuming and dusting and straightening up.  Not in the mood to run up to Walmart, but I needed to take in two bags of pop bottles to return, the cats needed wet food and I needed one last batch of squirrel food and bird seed.

After I got underway, I kind of enjoyed myself.  The Walmart was pretty quiet and calm.  No little kids running around and screaming, just a lot of old people like me, strolling along and looking at everything.

After I left there, I stopped at the Tractor Supply store and got a couple of bags of peanuts, a larger bag of shelled corn, sunflowers seeds and a medium size bag of bird seed.  It was all pretty heavy, but I got it all unloaded, filled up the feeders and put away the groceries.

I got a lot of liquid stuff to drink, some orange Popsicles, and orange jello, chicken broth, some Gatorade and lots of water--in preparation for my two day preparation for the colonoscopy next week.

Then Karen called and wanted to know if I wanted to go out for supper!  We haven't done that in quite a long time so I was excited.  We went to an authentic, hole-in-the-wall Chinese restaurant.  She had General Taos (?) chicken and I had my usual beef and Chinese veggies.  Of course we had the obligatory hot Oolong tea, white rice, soup and egg roll.  We both brought more home than we ate.

We had a wonderful catch-up conservation.  Of course, we talked a lot about her grandbaby, Della.  Della will be baptized April 2.  The other grandma may not come as, come to find out, she is a bit miffed about the whole thing.  Luckily, her son, the husband/Daddy doesn't mind at all.  He doesn't care if the baby is raised Jewish or Catholic.  

Now we all went to the Jewish naming and blessing event the other grandma had and although none of us understood the Hebrew words or the whole ceremony, we found it very interesting and lots of fun.  I like the Jewish grandma and I hope the she comes.  I told Karen, she could sit with me because I won't be going through all the "rigmarole" of kneeling and crossing and getting Holy water sprinkled on me.

Personally, I think it is wonderful that Della will enjoy all the traditions of the Jewish faith and also all the traditions of the Christian faith.  She will learn all the prophecies of the Old Testament and see them come to fruition in the New Testament.
and probably disappoint both grandmas when she grows up, discards both religions and becomes a Methodist.  HAH!

I felt so good today, both emotionally and physically.  I can tell I am standing straighter from the PT and walked all over Walmart, tall and with a firm stride.

I felt alive!!!!!!!!

Whew!

Friday afternoon--late, I got a phone call from my doctor's office.  I did not pick it up and let it go to voice mail.  I was going to wait until Sunday, go into my Patient Portal and read the results myself.

So all day Saturday I reasoned, they wouldn't have called me so late on a Friday if they had bad news and wanted me to come right in.  Then I reasoned that perhaps they had called to set up an early morning appointment on Monday.  Then I just quit reasoning and cross stitched and watched the basketball tournament.

Up early Sunday morning and clicked into my Patient Portal--still the report was not visible.  So I reasoned that they weren't going to allow me to access the report until my doctor cleared it and since I hadn't answered his call on Friday..............................must be something bad showing on that CT scan.

Then, I just quit reasoning, said a prayer of 'whatever will be, will be" and cross stitched and watched the basketball tournament.  I am real good at denial.  If I don't know about it, it doesn't exist.

Then around 2:00, I got real brave.  My anxiety was gone and so I dialed into my voice mail.  

"Hello Miss Judy, this is Michelle from Doc Vassallo's office.  I just wanted to call and let you know your CT scan is normal.  There are no lesions, inflammation or COPD in your lungs.  One teeny nodule, in the lower right lobe, which is nothing and most people have...kind of like a small scar from a bout of the flu or a bad cold you once had. I know when you and I talked, you were expecting something to show up, but.........you're still as healthy as a horse. (laugh).  Have a great weekend, my friend.  Oh, it says here, you can have another one in six months, if you want to.  Byeeeeee."
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Now to prepare my mind for my first colonoscopy on the 30th.  I will think about that next Monday.  This week I have two sessions of PT and nothing else--so far.

Happy Spring!!