No Whining Allowed

Hi Guys! So glad you stopped by. Thanks to our hostess Joyce for rounding us all up together for the last Hodgepodge of May!

1. What news story are you following right now?
I can’t say that I am following anything at the moment. I was watching closely when Flight 370 first went missing. All those experts fascinated me, especially that Mary Schiavo, she really seems to know her stuff. I also found it so interesting how much they can learn from a crash. From gathering all the pieces to combing through the data. Seriously, I had no idea!

On another note, if you fly at all, it is alarming to think a plane can just get lost. Sympathy is felt for the families left behind with no explanations, or clues for the whereabouts of their loved ones. It’s hard to believe that there was even a feature to allow the pilots to turn off their transponders. Why would you ever need to do that?

2. What’s the last thing you wanted but didn’t get?

When The Boy told us a few weeks ago that he had symptoms of his in remission, chronic ITP, I prayed that it was a blip on the radar. His platelets, on occasion in the last 9 years, have dipped due to viral activity. Never this low, but he has dropped and then gone back up on his own without treatment. The University of Chicago admitted him shortly after and he received three doses of IVIG in hopes of suppressing his body from destroying his platelets. He had his blood drawn a few days later and his platelet count did not get the expected bounce we were looking for. He is now on a burst of steroids in hopes that will shock his immune system and allow him to return to remission.

He has dealt with this auto immune disorder on and off since he was 19 months old. A splenectomy when he was 4 solved the problem for 9 years. It reared it’s ugly head with a vengeance causing him to miss about half of the 8th grade. The IVIG treatment that worked pre-splenectomy, didn’t work this time around. Steroids didn’t do much. Some of the treatments that had been developed since his last go round didn’t work at all. Years earlier, one of his first doctors called him refractory. I asked her what that word meant, she said  “resistant to treatment”.

In March of his 8th grade year his doctors at University of Michigan Hospital pulled out the big guns. Affectionately dubbed “Boxer’s Brew, named after his doctor who pioneered it. It was a cocktail of methylprednisolone, cyclosporine (a potent immunosuppressant), and chemotherapy. It was rough. Probably the roughest thing he has ever endured. I asked Dr. Boxer at that time what would happen if he ever came out of remission, he said we could do the Brew again.

Another 9 years have gone by, what is with the NINES! It is too soon to tell if he is completely relapsed. The Boy is no longer my 19 month old, my 4 year old, my 13 year old, he is almost 23, a college student in another state, he is married. We don’t know what the outcome of this trial is.

I wanted those counts to go back up, and they haven’t. Yet.

3. Random! Way Back When-sday

Here’s our Boy, from way back in 1999! He had lost his one front tooth, and grew it’s replacement months before, yet that other front baby tooth kept hanging on! Little did he know that the second tooth would not grow in for some time, leaving him with a decidedly snaggle toothed smile and the nickname of Cletus the Redneck! But look how proud he was!

4. How have your priorities changed over time?

Back in the day I wore some pretty uncomfortable things in the name of fashion that would not be my priority now! Comfort is My Precious in this stage of my life. 
5. What’s a favorite memory with your grandparents?
Here are both of my Grandmothers. My Mother’s mother Georgia on the left and my Father’s mother Esther on the right. The side of the photo says March 1957. This is before I was born and before my family moved back to Michigan from California. Maybe my parents were home for Easter.

My Mother had a very small family, just her parents and her younger brother, my Uncle Bob. All the rest of their people lived down south in Tennessee. When she married my Father, she married into a big TRIBE of a family. I think there were at least 7 of the brothers and sisters of my Grandfather’s in the Detroit area. They all got together for holidays and picnics and were just generally all up in each others lives.

One of the things that I loved the most about this big family was they just absorbed my Mother’s family into their own and loved them. I know it meant so much to them to be graciously included in such a big, fun group of people who shared their lives and holiday meals. Even after my parents divorced, the love between some members of the family endured until death.

Both great gals in their own ways. Hard workers, fun loving, God fearing and devoted to their families.

6. On a scale of 1-10 (with 10 being fantastic!), how good are you at multitasking? Share an example.

I think this is an area that I am highly skilled in, as most mothers are! Who hasn’t had a day when you were going in 10 different directions within a very small window of time? Just last week in Virginia I juggled shopping, eating, texting, praying and talking on the phone to children, Honey and health care professionals, all within an hours time!
7. How would you summarize your highs and lows for the month of May?

It was a month of very good highs and then some not so good lows. The year end of our Bible study, BSF, was the 8th, and that always goes out on a high with Sharing Day. The women in the class have the opportunity to share what God has taught them throughout the year in our study. Some women are so good at sharing that there is hardly a dry eye in the house! Always a good time for reflection and remembering the ways God has spoken truth, and shown Himself faithful in our lives.

There was also my annual trip to Virginia to see Mrs. Schmenkman, always a celebration of fun, food, fashion and friendship!!! Honey’s birthday was the 21st and he is the highlight of my life!

The low can be summed up in question 2. That was kind of unexpected.

8.  Insert your own random3. May 28th is National Hamburger Day…when did you last have a hamburger? Other than your own kitchen or BBQ grill, where is your favorite place to go for a hamburger? And for all you non-meat eaters out there…when you’re invited to a cookout what is the one side dish you hope is on the menu? thought here.

Lately, I have been more of a patty melt kind of girl, with no onions please, thousand island on the side. I last had one with Mrs. Schmenkman, at Red Robin, in Hagerstown, Maryland. It was yummy, but we really went for the onion ring tower!

Thanks for stopping by, enjoy the last few days of May!