Saturday's Hospital Happenings

We hit the ground running on Saturday AM around 5:30 AM. Mom had a great night through her ATG treatment and was feeling rested in the morning. Stasi and I weren't quite as rested. So right after the medical team came through 9:45 AM, we jetted out the door to get a Jamba Juice, fill up the car with gas and to try and get a bit of sleep before our dad arrived with things for the apartment.

Dad showed up early in his eagerness to bless Mom with a furnished apartment. This quickly changed our plans and we were off and running again. We met Dad and our Uncle Ray at the Sharon Green apartment complex. Uncle Ray is Aunt Christine's husband. He is a good friend to Dad and makes himself available to help out whenever possible. I especially appreciate Uncle Ray's gentle spirit and great sense of humor. In about two hours, Mom and Dad had furniture moved in and supplies in place to call the apartment "home."

In the meantime, Mom enjoyed phone calls from dear friends and was visited again by the hospital art therapist. Her art time was cut short due to her oxygen testing. Soon after, Stasi & I returned in time to check on Mom and meet up Lynda Carswell . Lynda is another one of our Storybook quilter friends that we had the good fortune to meet quite a few years back while at Asilomar. Lynda lives very close to Stanford Hospital and has logged her share of time while Mom has gone through ATG treatments over the last three years. Lynda always comes bearing gifts and this time she brought fun coke cups with lids filled with our favorite beverages. How thoughtful!

After visiting with Mom for a while, Lynda, Stasi and I ran out to Chili's for a late lunch/early dinner. It was delightful to catch up Lynda while drinking great mango tea! We then ran through Target which resulted in some fun swords ("to fight off disease"), tiaras ("to pamper the sick") and unusual sodas ("to be willing to embrace new adventures ahead")...all fabulous ideas of Lynda's. (Later we amused ourselves with taking photos with our swords and soda and have shared a few photos below...although not very flattering.) We returned back to the hospital just in time for the changing of the guards with Dad. We made plans with Dad for Sunday and a sword fight ensued with Blake who totally got the concept of "fighting of disease". A great guy!

Mom was blessed to share an early dinner with Dad. Fine dining of hospital tator tots and french fries followed by a brownie for dessert. It is cute to see them together. After 50 years of marriage they are still very much in love. A blessing to my heart.

The rest of the day was filled with ATG treatment. A busy, successful day...all due to God's mercy and grace.