6-28-06

Adversity certainly does introduce a man to himself.

The trache is out!! It was removed yesterday and so far Mojo seems to be doing well. She was a little quiet on Monday but did see her eyes during Yahtzee and some of the other therapy session. The left eye looks better but is still a little pink. They have switched her drops again. Hopefully between the trache removal and some improvement with the eye situation we will see some progress in the near future. I will visit her again on Saturday.

Lots of good tunes over the upcoming weekend. Charlie Daniels in Coralville, The Iowa City Jazz Festival and the Mississippi Blues Festival in Davenport offer some great oppurtunities to get out and see some live music, which I believe is one of the great gifts and pleasures of life. Obviously it will be bittersweet for very obvious reasons.. It was one of our favorite times of the year. Hope all of you have a safe and enjoyable holiday weekend. And don't forget to pause and give some thanks and thoughts to those who made this the Greatest Country in the World. Burdened and blessed but also very fortunate for what I have been given.

Out of the shadows
Into the light
Everything gonna be alright?
Out of the shadows
Into your love
You're all I'm thinkin of
I was blind
But now I see
Standin in sorrow
You rescued me
Out of the shadows
Into the light of your love

Jimmie Vaughan Out of the Shadows from the album
DO YOU GET THE BLUES??

For every man shall bear his own burden
Galatians 6 v5

God Bless
Please pray for a brighter day around the corner.
Peace
Dale

6*22*06

Another short update

Moriah seems to be doing well with the battle of the trache. She has been capped overnight the last couple of nights and did fine. If that continues the trache will be removed next week. Her eye looks better and the eye doctor will be looking at it again on Friday. She was quiet again and didn't really see her eyes too much. We're hoping for more reaction after the trache is removed and the eye feels better. I will see her again on Monday after visiting the Ozarks over the weekend. Keep prayin.
Peace
God Bless
Dale

6-20-06

Just a quick update before I head out for the day.

Spent Father's day in Ankeny with Moriah and Danielle. What a mixed bag of emotions!!
Moriah is doing well with the trache and has been capped during the day for about the last week. If that continues they will start capping her overnight with the goal of removing it after a few weeks. Her left eye is still a concern and they have started giving her drops with antibiotics in and seemed to help a little as we did get to see her eyes a couple of times. She continues to be quite a fighter.

I will see her again on Wednesday and will update everyone after that.

I was listening to a tribute to Paul McCartney on his 64th birthday. Never have been a huge Beatle's fan(too establishment) but the words to his song Yesterday really touched me. Funny how things mean something different after something happens to you. Check them out if you get a chance and continue to Hope and Pray for all of us as I will for you.

YOU ARE THE BEST!!!!!
God Bless
Dale

6-15-06

Spent most of the day on Wednesday in Ankeny with Moriah. I was joined by Mary's Mom and Dad, and Mary's sister Bette and her kids Alexander and Marcus. Her lip looked a million percent better but she did bite it a little bit while I was there. Her review was about what I expected. Some improvement in responses and the trache capping is going well. She was capped the entire time I was there. Hopefully that will continue and then they will try to cap her for the entire day for a week or so and then proceed to overnight. If that goes well they can remove it. The eyes have not been open a lot lately and is attributed to the pressure in her left eye. It's probably a little painful for her so she chooses to keep them shut.
They will try some different drops, however drops will not be a permanent solution if the pressure continues. If it does they will have to do a procedure to put a hole in her eye to relieve the pressure. Her digestion and all that good stuff that goes with it is going well. No issues with constipation or diahrhea. She hasn't had a skin break down yet which is quite amazing. she seems to have loosened up her jaw some lately which is need for her oral care. Response wise she has shown some signs that are good but they remain iconsistent. Some good news and bad news but at this point it is obvious how serious her brain injury is. We continue to pray and hope that something good will happen.


All I need is a miracle, all I need is you!!!!!!!!

God Bless all of you.
Peace
Dale

The quickest way for anyone to reach the sun and the light of day is not to run west,
chasing after the setting sun,
but to head east, plunging into darkness until one comes to the sunrise.

Visited Mojo on Sunday. Have had a little progress with the trache as she was being capped up to four hours until Sunday when she seemed to resist it a little so they took the day off from capping. She has an issue now with biting her lip occasionally as she moves her jaw. She caught it a couple of times pretty good in the past week and it looks pretty nasty and swollen. They are trying to use a tape and some bandages to keep her lower lip out of the way and have also put her on some more antibiotics to keep if from becoming infected. Other than that she rested comfortably while I was there and she gave me a couple pretty good yawns. I will visit her again on Wednesday and will attend her monthly case conference that afternoon. Frankly we haven't seen the progress and reactions that we were hoping for. Keep your hopes high and keep praying for us. We're gonna need it.

God Bless ya Gunner!!!!!!!!!!

This was in the Press Citizen, I will let you know as we will probably have some kind of gathering to dedicate the plaque.

Galway Hills wil receive
$450 for the Mary Reiman
commerative Plaque, to
honor Mary Reiman who was
killed in a car accident on Dec.
26, 2005. Reiman was instru-
mental in starting the Galway
Hills Neighborhood
Association and advocated for
many years for a safe, pedestri-
an-friendly path from Galway
Hills to West High. The plaque
will be located next to the
Dublin Steet sidewalk leading
to West High.

I am amazed as to how she keeps teaching me things!!

God Bless,
Keep in touch,
Dale

6-8-06

Friendship can move even the heaviest hearts to sing.
hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm!!!

I would like to extend a belated thanks to Max for helping me get through the song the night of the benefit at The Mill. For those of you who were not there, I decided to sing the song that I sang to Mary at our wedding. It's probably one of the most intense feelings of a strength from the somewhere else that I have ever felt. Not sure how I did it or how it sounded but it sure felt good, even though the tears flowed freely afterword. Again I didn't do it on my own I did it with God's help and the strength that I have received from all of you. Burdened and Blessed all at the same time.


My apologies to being a little bit of a procrastinator in regards to the blog this week.

I visited Mo on Tuesday and frankly it was kind of a rough day. She was fighting the trache and coughing quite a bit. They did a nebulizer treatment and that seemed to calm her down and when I left she was resting comfortably. The Doc there felt it would be ok to start over on the trache capping since there really didn't seem to be much junk and mucus. So she's up to phase 3 so far which is about a 15 minute cap. The next step is a 30 minute cap which they did tonight and according to the nurse went well. The doctor is really wanting to beat this trache thing and hopefully that will happen soon and then we'll see what else happens. Please keep Mojo in your prayers. It's in her and God's hands now as I guess it's always been, but seems even more so now. It's tough to watch, but she is one hell of a fighter.

I will visit her again on Sunday with Gunner. I'm really looking forward to the weekend with him and I'm sure there will be lot's of laughs and tears. We've got some pretty good stories, even some that can be repeated. John broke his back in a car accident in 1976 and has battled health issues ever since. We've kept in touch over the years but in a strange twist this has really brought us back together. His insight and stories of his personal journey have been an inspiration to me. We'll be hanging around town on Saturday evening so if you see us stop and say hello.

Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words. And God who searches the heart, knows what is in the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.
Romans 8 v26 27

Have a great weekend
God Bless all of you
Dale