bags and bowling

Hi, Kristen, love your blog with pics! Love the potato heads…I still have those, as well:O Did you see in the news this week that they are coming out with a ‘slim’ version of the fav spud?! Who thinks of such things anyway?

Has been good to get reacquainted, so to speak, with you and Joanne, as it has been many years since I’ve seen either of you. Still fondly remember many Rockrimmon adventures with your family, Nyquists, Fishers and ours—and now what beautiful families you each have!

Keeping Joanne and all of your family in prayer daily and so blessed by yours and Toben’s updates…sometimes with tears, sometimes grins and giggles! You’re right laughter is the best medicine.

God is good. In all ways, always!

I don’t have a sister… God gave me two older brothers instead. But if I did have a sister, I would be so lucky to have one as precious as you! I have been following Joanne’s story and praying for her though I have never met her, and I just want you to know that I will lift you up in prayer as well! I have dealt with my mother’s chronic illness, and I know that most people pray for the patient and the patient’s spouse, but sometimes the other family members get lost in the shuffle. Hope God’s blessings and strength are poured out on your soul!!!

Sounds like you need to invest in one of those little shopping carts on wheels, the kind you pull along. They are small fold up and great for rolling around the hospital, been there, done that.

I have not commented before but had to this time, I found your sister’s blog shortly before her stroke. I have been following her progess and praying for her and your family and recognizing many of the things that y’all are currently going through at this time. My mother battled breast cancer for two and a half years before going home. She was bed bound for the entire time and it happened almost as quick as a stroke. She went to the doctor on a Friday and was put in the hospital that day.

That was the beginning of my bag lady days. It is a common malady for those of us who are/were caregivers. You never know what the day might bring and what you might need at any given moment. When I walked into MD Anderson Cancer Ctr. that Friday morning I never expected to be spending the rest of the week there on a chair in my mother’s hospital room. Or that my mother would spend five and a half months in one hospital after another. I am constantly made fun of because the bag addiction doesn’t go away when your days of hospital visits are over. I still go out into the world everyday armed for all contingencies and I don’t even have any children. My sister of the heart, who also lost her mother to cancer years before we lost my mom, suffers from the same bag affliction. She warned me about it when my mom got sick. So, this long story is all to say don’t be surprised when you continue to look at, buy, store and use more bags then you ever thought possible even when Joanne is back up running again. Welcome to the world of bag ladies, you are not alone!