Praise Report about the Wrist!!!!

So, I've had an appointment to see the surgeon on October 17 for a while now. I'm on my back-to-work program until then. Then surgery could be months away, then 4-6 weeks recovery, etc. So, I'm painting a long, drawn-out picture here before things with this wrist may be finished.

So, I've been hounding my WCB worker in the last few weeks. Never getting calls back. I happened to run into my doctor in Walmart on Monday, who suggested I hound her again that day. I went home and made another call and lo and behold, she answered the phone! She said that she had just sent a letter off that day asking the surgeon to expedite the appointment.

That was positive news! Though I thought something had been done weeks ago...whatever!

So, I'm having God time in the living room yesterday afternoon when the phone rings. It was the surgeon's office! I was really happy to hear from them! Now instead of seeing him October 17, I get to go in August 16! 2 MONTHS EARLIER!!!! The receptionist said it usually takes 4-6 months between your appointment and your surgery, so at least this earlier appointment knocks off 2 months of the process! Only God know the twists and turns of the rest of this unfolding wrist story!

Hey all,

It has been a while since I posted! Summer has been fun and full so far!

Shane and I just got back from spending the night at Rock Lake, a family camp that I've gone to for most years since I was 8 years old. We enjoyed seeing friends, hanging out all day at the beach, having a bonfire, etc. Our friends, Beau and Heather are out from Florida for the week, which was our biggest incentive to get out to the lake this weekend.





Last weekend was full of fun times and sad goodbyes with our friends, Jason and Yvonne, who are moving to Ottawa at the end of this month. We had a nice night out on Friday which included Montana's, lots of conversation, a walk and gelati to end the evening. Then we had a day at the Guse's on Saturday with the Sanctuary crew, which is always enjoyable! Mmmm.....potlucks, people and pools! Fun! Sunday fit well as we prayed off the Parks and exchanged hugs, words and blessings. What a nice way to finish off the weekend!




And, the weekend before last, a few of us went camping at Grand Beach. Shane, Steph, Camilia, Stefan and I piled ourselves and all our gear into the Uplander and headed for the beach. We had yummy food, great bonfires and lots of fun and serious conversation. There has to be some serious conversation when you get 5 SHOPers together for that many consecutive hours! Especially with Stefan, who loves to ask the deep questions randomly!







It has been a month of exciting weekends! We've enjoyed summer so far and still have more to come. I'm craving some quiet time at home after all this activity! Off I go!

Shaun's Graduation!

This past Thursday my little bro, who is not so little, graduated from high school! Now all the biological children in our family are officially finished all necessary public education! Yippee!! Congrats Shaun!

Here are some pics of our grad celebrations at the ceremony!







Shane and I were then going to head out to do some camping but those plans fell through. So instead we spend Friday at Birds Hill, enjoying the beach. We both got a burn, though Shane's is mostly on his chest and mine is only on the side and back of my legs! Silly places!


Then Saturday started with a birthday party for Grandpa, who is turning 87 on Monday!!! We love Grandpa!


And we finished the evening off with a nice barbeque/bonfire at St.Vital Park with Steph, Roman and Stefan. It was lots of fun eating, chatting and playing bacchi ball! I've really enjoyed the outdoors this weekend! The weekend turned out great!

GRADUATION CELEBRATION!!!

Today my mom, Shane, Steph, Shaun and Stephanie (my bro's awesome girlfriend) and I went out to Olive Garden to celebrate his graduation from high school! My mom and I are really outnumbered by the "S" names! Yikes!

It was a great time! We laughed so hard we cried. The food was awesome! The company was great! The service made it a party! Ahhh.......family rocks! I always seem to laugh the hardest when we are together!

Here's some pics of the evening to enjoy!

Date #5 (Friday evening)

It was time for a yummy meal at home. So, we had Two to Tango! So good! Feta, shrimp, tomatoes, etc. I had a quick nap on the couch.

Then we walked to Starbuck's and sat on the patio with frappucinos. So yummy! We walked back home and had visitors at 10:30pm. We got to see my bro and a very special lady that was with him! It was really nice!





This officially ends the anniversary week long celebration! It was so great! I feel loved and blessed!

Date #4!!!

Originally, I was supposed to have today and tomorrow off for my holidays, but with being on the back-to-work program still I thought it would be silly to take my holidays. Instead I'm going to wait until I'm back at work regularly. So, I worked the day shift today and enjoyed another day at work. Oh how I like it on L & D!!! That is the place for me!

As for our date night tonight. According to the itinerary, we were supposed to go for supper at Moxie's to use up the rest of our gift certificate and then come home and play Sequence (a board game that I like)! But yesterday we decided that we were sick of going out to eat!

So, we went for a walk tonight to one of our favorite places to go! 7-11! We got ourselves a whole bunch of sugar.....slurpees and 5 cent candies! A whole bunch of them! Then we came home and had supper....a strange one. Candies and pork chops. That's it. Candy and meat. Too funny!!!

Then we spent some time playing games on the living room floor. Sequence AND Mad Gab! I usually don't get 2 games in with Shane! It was fun! We were laughing at the Mad Gab phrases! It has been a really fun week! It is great!

Date #3 - Mmmmmmm.....seafood!

Today was also a nice day! I tend to love Wednesdays, especially when I have the day off! Today I saw the doc and got an appointment date for my referral to a surgeon. Hopefully we can get it sped up, but as of today I have an appointment in October. 4 months is a better wait than 16 months! The doc physio suggested has a waiting time frame of 16 months!

I got some good study and reading time in this afternoon. I love the topic of the Second Coming of Jesus and those topics related to the End of the Age! It is so fascinating! He really is coming soon! I'm pumped!

Then we went for our date #3 of the week! I absolutely love seafood.....and yummy drinks! I don't like the alcohol taste so I always get my drinks virgin, but I love anything that resembles a slurpee! Today we went to Red Lobster, the restaurant that has been an important part of our romantic dates throughout our relationship. We go there for Valentine's Day, some birthdays and even went there the night we got engaged!

I had a blast with my meal! I was having a rough time cracking open those crab legs so our sweet waitress came over with some gloves and helped me out! She ended up doing pretty much all of it! I kinda felt like a 3 year old getting my food cut up for me again! I must say I do prefer the lobster over the crab!

It was SOOOO yummy! The virgin Bahama Mamas are so good! My favorite! They are very mango!

As you can see in the pictures, we polished off a lot of shells and my lovely hubbie was really stuffed by the end! I had to put in a picture of his partially-alive steak...still bleeding!! Yuck!

Tomorrow is off to work again...but of course, another date in the evening! I think we are going to just do dessert or something tomorrow as we are both tired of eating out! I must say I sure prefer the simple life of cooking and eating supper at home and going for walks around the neighborhood. I'm more content that way! And I'm happy about that!

Official Anniversary Day!!!!!!! (Date #2)

What a fabulous anniversary day we've had! It started at 12:01am as we both lay awake and had to say "Happy Anniversary" as soon as we looked at the clock and saw that it was officially the 12th! We've been saying happy anniversary to each other all day!

Then we had a fabulous blueberry pancake lunch, topped with fresh raspberries when I got home from our last day of our internship. I was very romantic and picked up a flower for Shane when I was picking up the berries before heading home for lunch. I picked a gerber daisy, as our wedding was full of different shades of pink gerber daisies! It was fun to buy the boy the flower!

This evening's date consisted of heading to the big theater to see Shrek 3 (3 for 3 years of marriage!) and a nice, but small meal of salad at Moxie's, as we were both full from the popcorn. Did you know that if you go to the movies on Tuesdays you get a free popcorn and drink? I didn't. But I'm never too full for a yummy drink, which seems to be the theme of our pictures this week!

As for Shrek 3, I wouldn't really recommend it. Most would probably like it, but there is a lot of adult and inappropriate humor. I find that I have no taste for movies anymore, even though we really only see cartoons. The more time we spend praying, reading the Word and studying, the more distasteful I find almost all movies and so have no desire to waste my time on them. We both could have gotten up and left, but didn't know that each other was thinking that!

I am just so stinkin' blessed. I probably could cry if I think about it too much. I feel so blessed today. I have an awesome husband. God has blessed me with a very enjoyable and fabulous marriage that seems to be getting better every year. I'm blessed.

Anniversary Celebration Week - Day #1!

I have a fabulous husband. He is such a sweetheart.

Our 3rd anniversary is tomorrow and Shane came up with a very creative plan to celebrate. He has an itinerary for date nights all week long! I get to go on a date Monday through Friday this week! Today was the beginning of the week of celebration!

Today, Shane took me out for a lovely steak dinner at The Keg. He was a wonderful gentleman, who opened and closed doors for me and gave me sweet compliments. I even wore a skirt for the occasion! We ate such good food and enjoyed each other's company.

Then we headed to St. Vital Park to enjoy the canker worms (just kidding), walk off some of the food, see the new baby ducks and play a round of bacchi ball (a thoughtful and fun anniversary gift from Steph!). We had a lot of fun!

The awaited wrist update....

It's official. I have a problem.

Hee! Hee! I like saying it like that...

I got my MRI results last Friday when I saw the doc. I have a ganglion (like a cyst of fluid) and a partial tear to a ligament in my wrist. The doc and physio think that these are extras on top of a tendinitis that is definitely there and some funny anatomy!

I was relieved to have a problem to validate the pain I have been having that didn't seem to be getting better as I hope tendinitis would. So, at least I get validation that I'm not making up the pain! And I have a goal of recovery!

Unfortunately this means a longer process that supposedly will include surgery to my wrist. I'm waiting on an appointment with the surgeon at this point and staying on a back-to-work program.

Really rough week with pain since Friday. I didn't go to work today and having been wearing my big claw (my nighttime splint) around the house for the past 3 days. I'm having trouble drying my hands, holding a plate and pulling up my pants for goodness sake! Feeling a little anxious about not knowing what to do with work tomorrow!

So, it's good news and bad news all in one. Now if I can just kick this pain in the meantime, I'd like that!

How does my husband do it?

Between the strange inability to sleep, the loud crashes of thunder and brightness of the lightening, I could not sleep last night! Though, I did have a late evening slurpee which I didn't take into account. I had to be up early for physio and acupuncture this morning and got about 3 - 3 and a half hours of sleep. This body of mine generally functions on 8-9 hours per night!

How does my husband do it every day? And he stays so positive! I'm more concerned about his lack of sleep than he seems to be.

Shane, you've got a great attitude about the insomnia thing! I'm proud of you! I sure wouldn't like it!

Tests, tests, tests.....

I had my MRI for my wrist yesterday evening. It went well and I'm seeing the doc on Friday to hopefully get some results. It very well may come back that nothing is wrong! That is good but also doesn't explain the reason for having pain for 9 months! God has begun a healing process in my wrist and I need to focus on that and be thankful!

I went to see the GI doctor today for my "angry stomach". When I saw him for the first time 2 years ago he gave me that diagnosis. He is super nice and remembered me from 2 years ago. So, now there's a plan for another test....a gastroscopy. Yucky! That is what I have to look forward to later this summer! I'd love to get rid of this heartburn and nausea that I have most every day!

Then I went for coffee with a fabulous friend of mine. We had so much fun talking during our coffee that we carried on the coffee date for a few more hours then expected! I loved it! Girlfriends are so meaningful!

I love date nights!

Especially when they involve eating a yummy meal that we cooked together (pork chops, mashed potatoes and cream corn tonight!), playing games together (which Shane does only very seldom so it's a treat!) and snuggles!

Top that off with some exercises, stretches and God-time, it makes for a pretty great evening!

Happy Mother's Day!!!!!

We had a great Mother's Day celebration yesterday with my mom and siblings! We enjoyed the outdoors at mom's house along with the new trampoline, the ticks and the sunflower seeds. We brought the pizza, chips and drinks and partied the night away, finishing the night off with a great game of Phase 10 and moments of hysterical laughter! Family is wonderful!

Quotes from the family gathering:

1. "If you can't dodge it, ram it!"
2. "Run, run, run! Poop is fun!"
3. "It would be completely impossible to fertilize all your eggs!"
4. "I'm afraid the ball is going to hit me in the glove!" (playing baseball)
5. "I didn't even smell it, I tasted it!"
6. "The color and stench of bitterness is greeny and smells like puke, or its like an owl that died in your mouth!"
7. "Do you rememeber the smell of your Prosobee?" "Oh yeah"

Happy Mother's Day to my mom and my mother-in-law! We love you guys! Have a special day in honor of you gals!

A bit of wrist encouragement!

Last evening was a very good wrist evening!

I haven't been able to bend or stretch my left wrist as far as my right wrist for a number of month already. It gets to a certain point and refuses to go any further and hurts to go any further. This has bugged me....as it seemed to physically tell me that things weren't quite right!

Yesterday night I did a bending experiment.....and lo and behold.......my wrists bent the same amount!!!! I haven't been able to do that for months, whether it was a painful day or not! Again this morning, I could still bend them the same distance!

Now that has encouraged me and that is progress!!! So, let's see what a few more acupuncture session with do for this lovely wrist of mine!

7 pokes today!

Tuesday was my first time trying acupuncture! Tuesday gave me 4 needle pokes....well today's appointment gave me 7. It is quite funny to sit there and look at needles sticking out of your skin, which you allowed to be put there voluntarily! I tried to take a picture with the cell phone but it didn't save....

My arm/wrist is feeling quite nice this evening! I hope that feeling stays! If it helps take the pain away, poke me as much as you want to!

On a side note, I got to be apart of a delivery again at work this week! My first one since I worked back in February! Boy, that was nice to be doing one of the things I love to do again!

A year ago yesterday.....

I had the privilege and honor of being present when little Eli Heinrichs came into this world! And now he's one year old already!!!

Happy Birthday Eli!

HAPPY 1ST BIRTHDAY SANCTUARY!!!!!!

We are officially one year old today! Yippeeeeee!!!

We had a great celebration weekend with a feast at the Guses' on Saturday and then our many hours on Sunday with special twists to celebrate His faithfulness over the past year. So, the celebration is coming to a close....with anticipation for year 2 of Sanctuary's history!

So, again, happy birthday!!!!

Random Thoughts...

- Joyska comes today!
- A doctor or physio appointment every day this week! That's a little overwhelming...but looking on the thankful side, thanks God for providing these people and services!

I thought I had more thoughts, but that is all that wants to come to mind at this time!

OK......Fess up......

Who was praying for me last evening? I felt it...and now I'm curious who it was.....=)