. . . the journey . .

We have come to view each day now as a special gift! Orin continues to weaken physically and there are signs that his disease is progressing. We refuse to allow it to possess us. It seems likely that Orin will have more days when he chooses to remain in bed, so I have moved at least some of the flowers that he loves to the front yard so he can see them out the window! We have had some good weeks since he chose to discontinue treatment. With the absence of the negative effects of the chemo he has felt better. Until this week he has been outside almost every day. He is having numbness and weakness in his left arm and hand now ( in addition to his leg) He has frequent pain at the back of his neck and upper shoulders, sometimes severe, other times not. He continues also to have what he calls "fullness" in his head above his temples, especially on the right. We can only speculate that a tumor somewhere is pressing on something. We are able to control the pain successfully...

Taken at Ray Church's Graduation Party. We were blessed with a great day!

Orin asked to go to church yesterday. It was Father's day and it was my Birthday! It took a bit of effort but Praise God for His never failing Grace. I told Mike that I believed that he and Orin were just about ready for Arthur Murray! They have gotten so good at transfering Orin from one place to the other that it looks like a fine tuned "dance"! I think often about Psalm 37:23 that says "The steps of a good man are ordered by the LORD " over and over I see how he has prepared each of us for the role we were to play in Orin's care. I had never noticed how stout and muscular Mike had become in the last year or two......then it dawned on me that since they built their new house, which they heat entirely with an outside woodburning furnace, that he has spent many hours getting physically fit!! just what God needed him to do so that he could help his dad who would spend months without the use of his legs. I stand in awe at how he orchestrates our lives an...

The boys worked Friday night and Saturday and we now have a new front deck and ramp! NO MORE LIFTING up the steps! The rascal will go from lift chair to front yard and back! What a blessing! Most days Orin and I are still able to manage that transfer so we feel like a bird let out of a cage! We had the added blessing of two evenings of watching all three little girls play while the guys worked. We have river rock around the back deck and they had a little wheel barrow and some buckets. I think they moved every rock back there... sooooo busy..!!!! Orin is doing fairly well. We have increased the decadron to deal with the pain in his neck. After several weeks of trial and error we have decided that is what helps it the most. It may make his legs a little weaker but it keeps him from having to take so much morphine. Otherwise I think the decision to stop the chemo was the right one. His quality of life, though not good, is really better than it was when we were trying to do treatmen...

I have not posted for a while. Sometimes it seems like things just seem to stand still and I do too!. It seemed like we did that for a while. Hospice helped us get Orin a lift chair which helps him stand to transfer to the wheel chair. This has been a tremendous help. I dont think he would have been able to get out of his regular recliner any longer. We were able also to purchase a used "rascal" scooter for him to use out side and it has been wonderful as he can get around the yard and be out with us. We even took a day trip to Debbie's for Ray's graduation party a couple weeks ago... the boys loaded us here and of course there were lots of guys there to unload us. We had a great time. Orin was tired when we got home but made the trip ok. The kids decided to camp at Roaring River this weekend and we decided to go down Friday night (we got a room ) but unfortunately this didnt go as well. Orin had a bad night, we came home Saturday morning. I realized we ...