Thursday, December 31, 2009

Please Pray For My Dad



A few months ago my dad, Kent Wallin, went to set up his doctor at the VA hospital. It's customary for them to run tests. Upon running tests they found that he has a mass in his lung the size of a soft ball, signs of a stroke on his brain, and high blood pressure. They now know that he's diabetic, also.


They've been trying to get his blood pressure down, but nothing seems to be working for very long. He's been hospitalized several times because they don't know what is causing the high blood pressure and it won't stay down. My dad has always been pretty healthy. He doesn't usually have high blood pressure.

The last I heard they are going to do a biopsy on the mass in his lung to see if it's cancerous. Because it's not growing they don't believe it is.

The stroke that he had has affected him greatly. He's not able to do a lot of simple tasks, or it takes him longer than normal to do them. He'll be driving and forget how to get where he's going. He's lived in Houston for most of his life. He'll forget how to do things that he's been doing for years. He's having migrains and pain on left side of his head. He looses strength in his left side and drops things and he's not able to hold things or grasp them tight They are going to continue to run tests for further damage from the stroke..

Because of all this he is not able to work. The doctor has asked that he not drive until his next appointment on the 14th.

My dad has always been a hard worker. He's always sacrificed to provide for his family. He's the one that has always been there when everyone else has left my siblings and I. He's only 56 years old! I'm very thankful that we were able to see him for so long and he was able to meet our children. This has been very hard for him. Understandably, he's depressed. The doctor has prescribed antideppresents. He doesn't want to talk about what's going on, because he doesn't want his family to worry. Please pray for him. And, for his family. It's rough seeing my dad like this. Thank you very much.

Tuesday, December 29, 2009

Cameras!

A little before Simeon was born Jarrod's wonderful sister (one of the three wonderful sisters he has) gave us a digital camera.  She wanted a new one and was so wonderful and gracious to give us her old one.  Up until then we had been using a Polaroid and disposable cameras.  Well about a year ago (I probably have that wrong) it broke.  So Jarrod went online (Ebay, I think) and bought another one exactly the same.  A month ago I lost it somewhere in our house.  So my wonderful husband bought me a new camera off of craigslist.  It was a Kodak Easy Share.  Two weeks after enjoying it's wonderfulness it broke.  Yep, two weeks!  So, my wonderful husband bought me a new camera for Christmas.  This one was from the store!  I don't like it.  The pictures are delayed.  You can't do that when you have kids.  Your camera needs to be quick.  Real quick.  Because, those kids won't smile forever.  Then I found our other camera.  I was so happy!  But, then I broke it.  It won't turn on.  I have our Christmas pictures on that thing!  And guess what?  I lost the second one Jarrod got me for Christmas.  I am not a happy camper right now! 

Saturday, December 12, 2009

Humility?

I think God is trying to teach me humility.

Last night Jarrod invited some friends over to our house. I wasn't at home and did not know that he was planning on doing this. So our house was what I would consider a mess.

Today we had errands to run. Which means several different stores to go to. Starting with Wal-mart. There we are shopping and Crimson keeps kicking her shoes off. I finally get tired of continually putting them back on so I put them in the basket, right beside her. When we are paying for all of our stuff I notice that her shoes are no longer in the basket. I rushed through the store, going down every aisle we had been down to no avail. Her shoes are gone. We were not going to go home to get her some more, nor were we going to buy her some more. (I try not to pay more than $10 for a pair of shoes.) So she had to go about the rest of her day without shoes.

Then we were at Safeway. I went outside to get a coupon out of the car. When I came back in the store I see Jarrod taking a big, opened, and partly eaten candy bar away from Crimson. The cashier had seen her do it. Of course Simeon shared in the spoils.

Yep, it must be that I need to learn humility.