Positive Post Tuesday

After yesterday's celebration of life for our friend, Gerry, who passed away last Wednesday night from an unknown cause, I needed some real positive news. Almost forgot it was Tuesday. We did see a lot of friends we haven't seen in a while at the funeral yesterday. It was great to reconnect. It just wasn't the right way to see them. Good stories & good times. There was even a BBQ last night. It's what Gerry wanted!
My positive news is about our other friend, Robert. With a not-so-good prognosis, Robert's condition seemed somewhat hopeless. Didn't get to the hospital yesterday with the funeral. Ted came home & said they were talking about taking Robert off the vent today. They had tried that last week, but Robert couldn't tolerate it. Got to the hospital about 12:30 this afternoon & they had extubated Robert! He was breathing on his own! PTL. Prayers from so many have been so helpful.
He still has a badly damaged heart. He still has wires & tubes everywhere. He still has a balloon pump helping his heart pump, but it too is being backed off, to see if his heart can do it's thing. He responded well to commands. Nodding his head yes & shaking it for no. (duh). He can't move too much because of the balloon pump, but he is over a big hump.
Another positive is that I picked Amanda up at the airport on Friday. She flew home to be a D-now leader for her home church. She had the 6th grade girls. They had 130 kids total (middle thru high school); the most ever. She has such a heart for this kind of work. She will be bored if she can't find the right church after graduation! We picked her up after church Sunday & Ted cooked a great Sunday dinner before we headed back to the airport. And we see her again this weekend. We're going to Dallas to cash in her Christmas present. A hockey game between our Pittsburgh Penguins & the Dallas Stars. Pittsburgh was last in Dallas 2 years ago. They won. We even had seat around some other Pens fans.
My last positive thing. Warm & no wind outside today. It's February, not May. But, I'll take it. This is the day the Lord has made and it is good.

Stats Suck Sunday

Last week when I tried to do the "cool" thing & pull the guidelines for SSS from this guy's blog, it didn't look right, so this week if you have any questions, go here. This has been a tough week, so I apologize if any of seems sucky.

• A great friend, Gerry, died this week. 56 years old. Younger than my husband. Pneumonia. It's just wrong. Funeral is tomorrow.
  
• My husband's other good friend, Robert, is still in CCU. In critical. 56 years old. Prognosis not so good.
• I should have better prepared Amanda before I took her to see Robert on Friday. He is hooked up to about 10 IV's, a ventilator, a balloon pump, just to mention a few. She did better today.
• My brother's mother-in-law went home after 2 weeks. She begins chemo in a couple of weeks.
• On a brighter side. Amanda was home for the weekend to be a leader of 6th grade girls for her home church's D-now weekend. I think in 10 years she has forgotten what it's like to be 12!
  
• No SSS next week for me. Driving to Dallas Saturday to meet Amanda for a hockey game on Sunday. The Pittsburgh Penguins come to play the Dallas Stars. It was all she asked for at Christmas. She is her daddy's little girl!

Thank-you to those who have been prayer warriors these past couple of weeks. You have given me a calm I couldn't haven't gotten anywhere else.

Positive Post Tuesday

After reading a friend's post today I got to thinking about the testimony I used to give as a 20-something. In the past 19 months God has been working one minor miracle after another. The greatest thing has been learning NOT to worry and not to be paranoid. I'm still working on the latter, although it has improved.
In college I gave my testimony a lot in conjunction with Campus Crusade for Christ activities. I started out with talking about my worry beads (my grandmother gave me that visual). How many beads long it used to be! God took those beads away, one at a time. I learned a lesson each time a bead left the necklace. What a positive experience I gained from sharing my testimony! It's hard to believe it's been 30 years ago. I must be getting older. Ha!
Somewhere along the way in those 30 years, I become lost. Getting married, having a child, working, traveling with child for volleyball. So many distractions. I eventually filled that spiritual void with drugs. But, they were prescribed! I did NOT have a problem; it was everyone else in the world. When faced with losing my license, I chose treatment. I discovered that God had always been there. Waiting, waiting, waiting. Waiting for me to remember what I had been missing. Even through all the adversity, God remained with me. I have learned so much about myself. I found my faith again. I found my God again. I found that I could refill that spiritual void!
Another friend who loves tweet inspiring quotes all day, had a great quote that works with PPT. Today is a quote from him: "What good is success unless you're enjoying life and positively impacting others?"- Jason Mitchener
I am now enjoying my life again! And I am positively impacting others through the way I am living life again. Especially other addicts. I take my 12 step program seriously. It charges me with giving back. God charges me with giving back. For my spirit to be full again, I must give back unconditionally. It's not an ego thing. It's a heartfelt thing. It's being a positive thing.
I can't go back and change anything. I wouldn't want to change anything. Everything that has happened has helped me to grow. I found myself again. Not that numbed person I was for so long. Moving through life day-to-day, mechanically. I want to leave a positive footprint that others might find comforting.

Stats Suck Sunday

You know, Sunday's seem to just jump out quicker each week. Do I have random thoughts? It's been a rough week. So, as Sir Brody says:

"Welcome to sunday. You all know how this works, and if you don’t this is the day where random things floating around in my head end up on here because really, who’s reading blogs on Sunday? Feel free to join in on your own Stats Suck Sunday by writing something random on your blog and filling out the box below. The point is, there’s no point. So here we go."

• My husband's best bud, Robert, had a massive coronary Friday morning at work. Good thing is he over maintenance in the rehab hospital/nursing home my husband runs the hospital part at.
  
• There are some awesome nurses in that facility. The cardiologist said he wouldn't have made it to the regular hospital without the care he received there!
• As it was he still coded twice. Once in the cath lab. He had 3 or 4 major arteries completely blocked. Due to his critical state, they only took the time to open 1 vessel. He is on a vent & in CCU hooked up to so much stuff.
• Saturday his kidneys started shutting down & he started running a temp & he needed insulin. All of these things are an unfortunate part of a heart attack's rage inside the body. He was in critical, but stable condition.
• I sent out a tweet for pray starting on Friday. God is soooo good. Today his kidneys are slowing starting to remember they need to get fluid OUT of his body. The fluid on his lungs has cleared. The CT scan shows no brain bleeds or stroke. He is squeezing his wife's hand.
• He is still sedated as to not fight the vent.
• Another very good friend of ours is down the hall in ICU, also on a vent, with pneumonia. All 3 of these guys (my husband, Robert, & Gerry) worked at this hospital many moons ago. They are all similar in age. It has been very humbling and a jolt of reality that life gives us hurdles that seem unjumpable. (just made that word up). Guys this young (mid- to late-50's) shouldn't get this ill.
  
• I am so grateful for everyone who has been keeping these great guys in your prayers. I'm getting teary eyed again, so I need to move on.
• Valentine's Day consisted of checking on said friends. Also went to the stockyard to eat lunch. It is a real, live stockyard. With the best chicken-fried steak, best hamburger steak, and great mashed potatoes. We hadn't been in a long time, so I thought it a great Valentine dinner. I have a beautiful bouquet of flowers, too. All things spring. Tulips, roses, well you know.
• Listening to Francesca Battiselli and it is lifting my spirits a little.
• Daughter home next weekend, but not to visit mom & dad. For the 4th year in a row, she is coming home to be a facilitator for her old church's D-now weekend. Guess who gets to pick her up from airport? Hmmm. Then after church Sunday for a while til it's time to zip back to Dallas & drive back to Waco.
• Two weeks from today, I will be watching the Pittsburgh Penguins take on the Dallas Stars in hockey. In Dallas. Amanda driving up to join us; it was, after all, her only request at Christmas. Can hardly wait. Haven't been this season. Hope Crosby is back in the line-up.
  
• And how can I forget? The Rock & Worship Roadshow starts soon. The closet it comes to Amarillo is Oklahoma City (4 hours east) or Dallas (6 hours SE). Dallas may win out because it is a central location to 3 woman I have met through blogging & twittering since Mercyme's tour last fall. Here's the funny thing. The Roadshow & the hockey game are in the same venue. A month apart. Hockey one Sunday, The Roadshow on a Friday.
  

Have a great week and please keep Robert (and his family & my husband) in your prayers, that he continue to heal so they can go back & repair the other blocked arteries. Thanks, guys. Your strength sustains me.

Positive Post Tuesday

Today is supposed to be a positive post according to the rules. Sometimes it's hard to pick out the glimpses of positiveness from the day. I'm going to try, because I know that when I write about it or talk about, I will feel better.
As the 2 or 3 of you that keep up with my blog, you know I'm an addict in recovery & unemployed. Unemployed because of the "rules" that have to be followed if I'm to work as a pharmacist for you. I only mention the unemployed part because I'm whiny. And because I have a lot of free time on my hands. Means more meetings, more service work, and more time with my sponsee.
My phone rang last night at 9:59. It was my sponsee. She had originally called at 7:20 & I missed her call. She left a voice mail & I called her right back. No answer. Tried again at 9:00, no answer. Then a call at 9:59. She was in tears. She had been to the liquor store & bought, not only a 1/2 gallon of vodka, but a smaller bottle, too. She is in a half-way house & has a 10:00 curfew, let alone no alcohol or drugs on the premises. She left the 1/2 gallon in her car & once the door is locked at the house, you are in for the night.
There was very little I could do last night. I called my sponsor for advice. She reminded me that if my sponsee was going to relapse & was set for relapse, that I could not stop her. That is a hard pill (forgive the pun) to swallow. I want to help everybody! I know I can't work her program of recovery for her. She has to make choices based on her recovery. I can only offer advice and what I see as safe choices.
Thankfully she dumped the small bottle down the drain and had a very sleepless night, as did I. I made a specific time to meet this morning. It turned into an all day event. But that's ok, if I helped her make a better choice.
We went to the local donut shop & visited for 2 hours. We discussed the possibility of her leaving the Amarillo area. Sometimes recovering addicts need to change people, places, and things. We went to the noon NA meeting. Oddly enough, it was about Step 2. How to develop a relationship with a "higher power". Soooo many addicts have such a negative view of religon & God. And it's hard as a Christian to not get all "religious" with newcomers. It's more about learning to trust again. Trust yourself, trust God. We parted ways just before her 3:00 appointment with her counselor.
Sometimes I feel so human & inadequate! Oh, wait, I am! The positive spin is that my sponsee didn't relapse last night or this morning. I dumped the 1/2 gallon of vodka this afternoon. Had to break the seal. She didn't. Hopefully something I said or did encouraged her today. I still feel inadequate, but I know God had me say some things to her that I'm sure I wouldn't have probably said otherwise. I don't like the role of sponsor. I KNOW I have experience, strength, & hope to share. The more I pray, the more confident I am that the right words will come out of my mouth. I also know that I grow, not only in my own recovery, but also my walk with God.
I am so glad that my "higher power" is God. And I'm glad to share that with anyone. I know what He's done in my life, even when I wouldn't admit it. God has taken away my obsession with my drugs of choice. My sponsee is confused as to why He hasn't for her. I don't have the answer, but I know that He did it for me. I don't even remember asking Him. It just happened. I like sharing that. It is NOT just a coincidence. Since I work with my drugs of choice (when I'm working, that is) every day I am thrilled not to be scared to work around these drugs. I think God has done this for me so I can give back to others in recovery. I don't know how, but I know if I need that information, God would deliver.
I hope & pray that the choices I make today will reflect in my work ethic again. That people will trust me and not judge me. That is not anyone else's job. I know I am a different person than I was 2 years ago (thank goodness). and that I can help others with my story.

Stats Suck Sunday

Well, here we are at another Sunday. But, no real football on today. Only the Pro-Bowl. What a let-down after last weeks tremendous Super Bowl. Another last minute finish. Lucky for me!

• Still no job. Lots of paperwork to keep up with unemployment. Yuck.
• My friend, Lisa, sent out a tweet earlier with the following Bible verses: 2 Cor. 4:7-9. Reminding me that no matter what is thrown at me, that I am a child of God, and I will persevere and not be crushed. Thanks, Lisa. Good choice for me today.
• Going to a baby shower for a 20 year old that I went thru treatment with. She has had her ups & downs over the 18 months I've known her. She has relapsed several times, but has stayed clean while pregnant. Please keep her in your prayers. She is a lost child.
• What is up with winter in the Texas Panhandle? We have had two brief 1 inch snow & ice storms. That's it. No 6-8 inch storm here this winter. Lucky? Yes, but we need moisture terribly. Husband actually mowed the yard yesterday! Today, rain, hail, etc. Tuesday, snow is forecast! Crazy weather.
  
• Listening to Jason Mraz makes me happy!
• Met up with some friends on MMTV the other night. It was so fun to catch up & exchange twitter info. We talked for an hour after the concert was over! Thanks, Brody, for the twitter!
• The economy really stinks right now. It makes me sad.

Guess that's it. Like I said, with no football, my afternoon has no purpose! Not! Always time for meditation and working my steps. I am such a procrastinator!

Positive Post Tuesday

I guess the most positive thing I can think of today is that the Pittsburgh Steelers won the Super Bowl on Sunday. What a game!
I made pepperoni pizza and some awesome queso. It was just my husband & I, so I didn't want to make too much. It was just right! And the pizza was great. Didn't make any dessert. Would have loved a brownie, but with just the 2 of us, they get dried out before we can finish them.
Had a great time twittering during the game. Three months ago the word twitter didn't exist in my vocabulary. Now? At almost the same time yesterday two of my twitter friends sent out different articles on where twittering is in the scheme of things. Mainstream or not and when will it become mainstream. Just because a bunch of celebs have @ addresses doesn't mean I'm going to follow them. Doesn't interest me. I want to stay connected with other Christian women (and men). It's great to hear what Christian bands are doing, too. I have made some fast friends through twitter. It is a part of my day. A way to stay connected and encouraged. I may even meet 3 of them at the Rock & Worship Road Show in Dallas on April 3rd. From Little Rock to Amarillo to San Antonio. We met through MM Slob roll and continue to stay connected pretty much every day.
The first time I was on the MM site to watch the concerts streaming live. This guy was telling us to twitter everyone we knew & tell them to join us in the chat room. What is twitter I asked? The rest is history. It's not about the numbers to me, it's about the connection. It's about being lifted up in prayer when needed. It's about every day struggles and encouragement from people I've never met. It's about our kids, our families, our jobs (or lack thereof). It's one of the positive forces in my life.
The funny thing about twitter? My husband thinks I've lost my mind. He has finally accepted my twittering. Kind of like he's accepted my recovery! My daughter just thinks I've lost my mind. I think her concern is that I will twitter someone she knows and embarrass her. She doesn't twitter (as far as I know) but she has a few friends that do (because they're in the dc*b). I promised her I wouldn't follow their twitters. I can respect that. Our worlds overlapping is just too much for her, I guess!
Keeping my spirit up while job hunting is hard some days. I would much rather be working than working to find a job! It doesn't pay much! I know so much is my own doing. I broke that trust that employers put in me and it's hard for them to accept that I am a recovering addict. I have to prove it, but they still don't understand. I know God has the perfect place for me, but I'm so impatient! I must stay vigilant in my recovery and my walk with God. His hands are always there, whether I can feel them or not. Keep me in your prayers. Thanks.

Stats Suck Sunday

Today is not just another Sunday. It's Super Bowl Sunday! The Steeler Nation is alive & revived. The terrible towels will be waving all across the stadium in Tampa.

• Steeler football is mighty.
• You can never have too many terrible towels.
• There is never enough queso for my chips.
• I make a mean pizza.
  
• I have my lucky Steeler socks on. But, not my #43 Polamalu jersey.
• My husband is already a nervous wreck (but would NEVER admit such an emotion).
• My step-daughter found some really fun you-tube videos this week about the Steeler anthems. And even how to say Polamalu!
• Still no job.

That's all, at least until the game is over. Short & sweet. Besides, I gotta go do some stuff before the game. :)