♥ 31 Years! ♥

I just wanted to pop in here real quick for a couple of things.......

First of all, Joy has been in the hospital since Monday with a flare-up of the pancreatitis.  However, we caught this early on, so it looks like we're getting out of the hospital today!  And her pain level this time  is nothing compared to last time.  For that, we are thankful!  We're still praying for complete healing though!  We would appreciate your continued prayers!

Secondly,  today is Jason's and my anniversary....our 31st anniversary actually.  :)  I am so blessed to have him by my side in this life.  I trusted God for sending me the man he had for me all through my teen years, and He was faithful to send him to me.  I never would have thought it possible on our wedding day that I could love him more, but I do today.  Our love has grown in so many ways.  God has blessed us with our precious children and in so many more ways.  I am truly thankful for 31 years with him!  I can only imagine how love grows in the older years and I look forward to many more with this man God gave me!  :)

Thanks for stopping by!  Have a great day!  :)

♥ Tammy ♥  

♥ Finally Home ♥

There's no place like home.  I've said it many times before, but I mean it all the more today!  We've been away from home for almost 2 weeks.  It felt so good to pull up into our drive and walk into our home!  It was like receiving a great big hug!  :)

Joy was released from the hospital on Saturday around noonish.  We had planned a mini trip to Alabama that was supposed to be from Friday until Tuesday.  Well, we figured that was just out of the question.  But......when Joy's doctor knew what we had planned, she told us we should go.....to just go straight from the hospital, if we could.  She said it would do Joy good and keep her mind off every noticeable "twinge" or "hint" of pain that she would still be having even after she was released. She said it would be a great distraction.  So, we did just that.  Jason made a trip to the house the night before and got a few things that we would need for Joy.  We already had a few changes of clothes there from living in the hospital for 9 days.  So, when they signed her released papers Saturday morning, we left the hospital, stopped and got a pain medicine prescription filled and were then on our way to Alabama (to my brother's house)!  It did turn out to be a good distraction for her and for all of us.  We had a good time just relaxing.  We just made it home late this afternoon.

The night before we got out of the hospital, long time friend, Katie Beth, came by the hospital to see Joy.  They have been friends since they were 2 years old.  Joy says she looks like a little kid here....actually she's sitting on the bed and Katie Beth is standing beside her.  :)

As good as it was and a nice distraction, it is just plain ole good to be HOME.  :)

Thank you for the prayers for Joy.  We are continuing to pray that she never has another "episode" of the pancreatitis.....complete healing is what we're praying for.  But we do thank the Lord for bringing her through this!

I also wanted to invite you all to join me tomorrow morning on the sunporch for a visit with another blogging friend.  She's been blogging quite awhile and I know you'll enjoy the visit!  I hope you'll stop by and join us in the morning!

Have a great evening!  :)

♥ Tammy ♥

♥ A Joy Update ♥

Good morning!  I thought I would pop in here for a quick post to update you on Joy.  We are still in the hospital.  It has been a week today.  Yesterday I saw her true smile back for the first time in awhile, and it sure was good!  While she is definitely not pain free, she was able to be up and about more.....says she can manage this pain better than what she had before.

Her pancreatic enzymes are almost back to normal.....we're about 100 points away from normal.  There is some concern here with the doctors now because her billirubin count has gone up.  They are watching it closely because pancreatitis can affect the liver, which is what the billirubin is related to.  They are repeating labs again this morning.  If that number doesn't go down, they are looking at doing an out-patient ERCP at another hospital (because they don't do it here) which would tell them if she has an ostructed pancreatic duct.  If she does, they would put in a stint.

That's really as much as we know now.  Joy is hungry, but still can't eat.  She has had basically ice and water since last Thursday.  She did try to eat  a little on Saturday (they probably let her try because she just wasn't complaining much in hopes of getting out to dance) and had severe pain and it has been constant since then.

I'll update you more when I know more.  Thank you for the prayers......we appreciate them so much!  We're just trusting God to restore her completely!  :)

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Yesterday we had a celebrity sighting here at the hospital.........Joy went out in the hall and had her picture taken with him.   Hee hee!  He even had security!  I asked him did he remember singing at our wedding.....  :)  Evidently, this was Elvis in his later years.  :)

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Also on another note..... Jane (the mom that took the Chinese dance photos of Joy), was again very nice and sent the link to the performance on Saturday night that she videoed.  Joy's teacher, who  danced in her place, is the one on her knees in the front at the beginning.  She looked so cute!  All the girls (ages 11-14) looked cute and did a great job!  This dance is called the Fan Dance.





And last of all, I'd like to wish you all a Happy Valentines Day!  Thanks for stopping by today!  :) 

♥ Tammy ♥

♥ Chinese Dance Memories Anyway ♥

Well our Joy didn't get to dance in the actual Chinese New Year Festival this past Saturday, but she did get to practice on the stage with the rest of the girls a couple of weeks before.  And as you know my camera lens is broken (still), so I didn't have my camera along with me on that day.  But we did get pictures, thanks to Jane, mom to Maggie, one of the girls in the dance class.   Jane also happens to be a photographer and was taking random pictures that day. She is very talented as you can see from her website, JA Photography.   I'm so thankful for the photos she got of Joy, and especially thankful for her passing them along to me.  Wasn't that so sweet?  (Thank you again, Jane).  :)

And I forgot to say that Joy's dance teacher was able to wear her costume and dance in her place at the Chinese New Year Festival Saturday night, so it worked out fine.  And Joy realized during that time, while here at the hospital, that there was no way she could have danced with her pain level what it was.

So today I'm sharing the pictures Jane captured: (The makeup is only for the stage....she does NOT wear that makeup normally....lol!)  But she does love red lip stick, and says when she does wear makeup....she is all about the red.....said this one wasn't red enough.  :)



Update on Joy:  We're still in the hospital.  We have a couple of tests being done today.  We still can't leave until her pain level has come down considerably and stays down and she begins to eat/drink.  We think she may have tried too early to eat (which was only a little) in an attempt to get out on Saturday and caused an intense flare up.  She has been so afraid to try eating/drinking again because her pain has been constant.  She watches the clock for her pain medicine.  However, one of her enzymes is down to normal range, and the other one was still up as of last night, but not nearly as much as before.  Hopefully, when we get the lab results back today, this one will be closer to normal.  When these get down to normal, she has to be headed in the direction of getting over this episode!  We choose to believe she will be her bubbly self again soon!  Again, we thank you for the prayers! 

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I hope you'll stop by tomorrow and join me for a Sunporch Chat with a sweet friend.  You're in for another treat!  :)

Thanks for stopping by!  :) 

♥ Tammy ♥

Another Night in the Hospital

Thank you so much for the prayers for Joy.  It looks like we'll be spending another night here in the hospital.  The doctor was trying hard to get her out of the hospital and able to dance tonight for the Chinese New Year Festival, but it depended on her pain levels.   Even though her mind is there wanting to dance, her body just isn't cooperating.  None of us are comfortable with them letting her go home while she's still in pain like this. 

Once Joy came to the realization that she knew she just couldn't dance, she's been okay. 

She is trying to be an encouragement to others here too.  While playing the game show that they do for entertainment for the kids here on the TV, she called in and donated her winning answer to a little two year old girl named Leah who ended up winning one of the prizes.  We just got back from actually meeting Leah and her family.   Boy did it put things in prospective for me (for us).   They lost an almost 3 year old son here almost a year ago.  Missing a dance performance is nothing compared to that kind of loss.

I just wanted to update my friends and family that are praying and thank you.  Joy thanks you!

♥ Tammy ♥

Getting Back to Normal.......

We’re back at home!  Things are pretty much back to normal around here except for all the “stuff” accumulated in our house from cleaning out Pawpaw’s house getting it ready to sell. 

Last week, right before the hospital adventure, we had just finished moving everything out of Jason’s dad’s home.  We pretty much came in and left it in our house with the intention of getting it all organized over the weekend.  We had to go from Plan A to Plan B, which was to camp out in the hospital from Friday evening to Monday evening (which wasn’t so bad by the way).  The hospital was wonderful.  Luke and I slept on the futon bed and Jason on the recliner chair that stretched out to a bed.   

We have a "coffee table of goodies" from the hospital.  She received the dog from Grandmama nad Pop for all the guests, nurses, doctors, and staff to sign, flowers from a friend, and the teddy bear and a balloon from a friend.  She also received a book and cards!  We had so many calls and texts and knew so many were praying!

But Praise the Lord, Joy is much better and by looking at her now, you’d never know how sick she was this weekend and how much pain she was experiencing.  After the pancreatic enzyme they were watching came down to 296 (from the original 1346) and she was able to eat without hurting so bad, they let her go, which was Monday afternoon.

We still don’t know the cause, as I said in the previous post, but we are to call the pediatric gastroenterologist if she has any other kind of “stomach episode” like this and get her to the ER so they can check her pancreatic enzymes again.  Documenting any further episodes (which we hope and pray she doesn’t have) may help with figuring it all out.  Besides sending us home on Protonix and a low fat diet, we have no restrictions.  That sounds pretty easy but for a picky eater like her, it’s not really so easy.  They told us to just take it slow and make small dietary changes, which is what we’re working towards.

Joy’s post today goes into more detail, if you’d like to read more.  I just wanted to update you on the fact that we’re back home and Joy is doing well and that we thank you all so much for lifting her up and covering her in prayer.  I can see God bringing good from this already, if nothing else but to help her overcome some deep rooted fears.  Now, it’s time to get all this “stuff” organized and finish up our school year!  Then…..we’re looking forward to a trip to see our friends, Kim and Chuck, whom we were in China with (and that also came to see us last September) the end of this month.  We’re so excited!  I think we all need this! 

Thank you for stopping by today! 

A Night in the ER

Last night didn't really go exactly as I planned. I planned on coming home after a long stage rehearsal of dance for Joy and climbing into my comfortable bed. I was thinking that I would try to get plenty of rest to be ready for the three show dance recital on Saturday that will have us there from 9:30 a.m. until at least 9:30 p.m., but things didn't turn out that way! Of course if anything happens, it's going to be when there's something else "big" planned, or a vacation, or event! That's the way it goes with us it seems! :)



When our son, Colt, came home from church and from playing music with his girlfriend and friends, he came home saying he was itching. I thought nothing of it because we all seem to be dealing with allergies these past few days in one way or another. He sat down, played a few songs for us and talked with us, ate his supper and went on to bed. I was just about to get into bed for the night....it was almost midnight, and I heard Colt talking to Jason telling him he thought he needed to go to the hospital. Jason turned on the light and Colt was covered in hives on the upper part of his body. His neck, chin, hairline, back and hips and wrists were big blobs of red hives.

He took shots for three years for general allergies as well as for insect stings such as wasps, yellowjackets, etc... A wasp sting landed him in the ER a few years ago which made us aware of all of these allergies. He had to get IVs at that time and his blood pressure had dropped significantly and he was having problems with breathing as well as hives, including facial ones that even distorted his face. He had stayed the night next door with my mom and dad, so my mom was the one to get him to the ER that time and she said he looked like a monster by the time she got him there, although he was already looking some better before we got there (and that was still pretty bad). So...we didn't wait around last night to get him to the ER! Jason stayed home with Joy since she was already asleep and I drove Colt on to the ER.

We waited....and waited...and waited after an initial visit with the nurse to determine that his breathing was okay, and it was. He was just itching...itching...itching. She gave him a cold towel to wrap around his neck. That's the only relief he had during the long wait. He had already had three benadryls and they weren't doing anything for him, or so it seemed. Finally, we were seen and he was given a steroid shot of decadron and an epinephrine shot. We had to wait twenty minutes to see how he was looking after that. He then had another epinephrine shot....another twenty minutes....and yet another epinephrine shot before we were allowed to leave. So finally at 4:00 a.m., we both crawled into our beds and Colt finally had some relief. And then the little booger got up and went to work today to open the restaurant (where he is a manager) at 9:00 a.m. He felt like he HAD to be there....stubborn!

We may never know what caused this reaction, and to me that is the most aggrevating and scariest part. At least he could avoid whatever caused it if we only knew! I just talked to him awhile ago and he was beginning to itch again and to break out a little again. I sent him off to the Dr. and there he sits in the waiting room now...his girlfriend, Amber, with him this time. I'm waiting on a call from him.

I would appreciate your prayers for Colt! Thank you! :)