Mom is out of ICU and was put into a regular room late last night.

Currently her blood pressure is stabilized!

Heartburn/reflux resolved! (They think it was from the morphine and she is off it now.)

HOWEVER,

She needs your prayers a LOT today! When the surgeon changed her dressings this morning she had an "episode" that was pretty scary. Mom was unable to talk for a moment or move her arm. Shortly after she had another one of these "episodes" while talking on the phone with my brother. They are unclear at the moment as to what is going on but are thinking it could be anxiety related. They are keeping a close eye on her and taking her down off of some of the medications that could be contributing -ie. steriod that tends to make people jittery.

Another huge aspect that she needs prayer for today is emotionally. Today was the first time she saw herself in a full length mirror. No mirrors in ICU but now she is in a regular room. This may seem petty to some after what she went through but Mom finally recognizing that half her head is shaved hasn't gone over so well. I think this is especially hard for a lady to accept! Please pray as she comes down off the meds that God will comfort her and guide her as she experiences the roller coaster of emotions. Coming down off the high of adrenaline, pain medications and the euphoria side effects of the brain swelling medication has not been easy. Pray that Mom will remain strong in her faith in Jesus through it all!

If you have any suggestions on what I can bring for her to wear that won't affect the incision site but will make her feel pretty again please leave a comment. I would greatly appreciate any advice as I have never experienced what she is feeling right now. My only thinking is a pretty scarf of some sort. I don't know if that would make her feel more awkward or not?! I joked with her (when she was in a better mood) that I was going to bring her a big red hat society hat! You know the purple hats with the big red bows? lol She quickly informed me, "I have one of those!" Unfortunately, right now I don't think hats would fit well over the incision and swelling. Otherwise, she would probably would have some fun with it! Hmm... If only I could find some sort of purple and red scarf!

Lastly, as always she needs continued prayer for her actual physical recovery. The swelling has gone over her right eye and down into her nose as the surgeon expected it to. It's uncomfortable because this swelling makes it hard to breathe. ( I would imagine having her eye and nose swollen adds to the anxiety!)

Thank you again for your prayers and encouragement. I will update again when possible.

Swelling has gone down. Although, the surgeon did say not to be surprised if she woke up tomorrow with a closed eye on the side of the tumor. She seems to be in less pain than yesterday from the actual swelling and can now wear her glasses to see.

She is unhooked from everything under the sun that was attached to her.

She ate a great breakfast and lunch with no problems. Yay! No more liquid diet.

She is able to get up and walk around some.

They are moving her tonight out of ICU to a regular room. She would have been moved earlier in the day but there were no rooms available. Her quick recovery has been incredible!

Prayer Requests:

1) Blood pressure has gone up high today. Pray for this to stabilize!

2) Swelling will continue to go down.

3) She needs some sleep! She was unable to sleep all of last night.

4) For her heartburn/reflux to be resolved. (this is some of what is keeping her up at night)

5) Pray for her overall healing of the skull, membrane etc...

Thank you again for your prayers! I am unable to get to each one of you at the moment and personally thank but do know our family really appreciates all who are lifting Mom up to the Lord. She knows that God is definitely with her and guiding her through this journey right now! I have appreciated your comments that you have left letting me know you are praying too! I love how the body of Christ is all over the world standing before the Lord for each other. Very encouraging!!

Whew! What a physically and emotionally exhausting day... I'm sorry I was unable to update you all sooner. Because of the dynamics of ICU it's hard to be in touch with the rest of the world!

My Mom came through the surgery with flying colors!!! It was amazing!! God definitely heard your prayers! First they told us her surgery would be between 2-4 hours with a possibility of up to 8 hours being worse possible case. The surgery was about only 45 minutes!!!! I don't have an exact time yet as that is our guess from the time the doctor informed our family while in the waiting room that surgery had started to when it was time for someone to see her in the recovery room. Regardless it was no where near the 2-4 hours!!

The Neurosurgeon told us that when he removed the piece of skull for entry the tumor literally fell out along with it. The tumor was fairly round with nice even edges. This is good news! First, the fact that it was not irregular in shape means that it wasn't attaching itself yet to the brain and was quickly removed. Second, because of the perfectly round shape it is assumed at this point that it is completely benign. We will know for sure when pathology comes back on Tuesday. There was no need for the neurosurgeon to directly touch the brain at all because of the way the tumor released itself!! Praise the Lord!!! This one fact made her surgery less invasive and less chances of permanent consequences like paralysis or affecting the functions of her left side. When I was with her she could not stop wiggling her toes and saying, "I'm so happy! God gave me a miracle!" Mom's smile and giddy voice was so healing for my heart!

Mom is in ICU tonight and will remain there until they feel she is stable enough to be moved to a regular room. The way things look right now she may be moved tomorrow. Her blood pressure was high when she went into surgery but seemed fine the rest of the day. That is one aspect that must stay stable before she is released from ICU.  I prayed while in the waiting area that God would take control of her blood pressure. So far so good!

Here are the current prayer requests...

1) She is having severe swelling from the top of her head all the way down to  about where her ear lobe ends on the side of the tumor. It was much worse from when I left her to get some dinner and then came back. This is normal and to be expected after putting the skull through such trauma. However, it is causing Mom a considerable amount of pain tonight.

2) If you are still up please pray Mom will get some sleep tonight. She has been unable to sleep since they woke her up from surgery. The reason being is that they are giving her a constant, strong dose of a specific medication (forgot the name of  it with my foggy head right now) to  keep the actual brain from swelling. This particular medication has a side effect of extreme euphoria. Well, let me tell you she has had that side effect in full force all day!!! If one can find humor in such a hard time this was it for our family. She was hilarious in the things she spoke. She had even the nurses laughing.

3) Pray that the Lord will keep sending her peace and that nurses will take good care of her. While in ICU no one is allowed to sleep with her in her room. This is hard on her to not have someone she recognizes.  It was hard for me to leave her tonight. As I was in the room I prayed the Lord would bring sleep to her and as I left tonight she was finally closing her eyes.

Clearly God has had His hand in this journey with my Mom! Thank you to all of you who took the time to pray. One thing she repeated to me often was that she felt the prayers of all the people praying for her.

I will try to update again tomorrow once we hear again from the surgeon and I see her. I will bring my laptop along as we can get wireless in the waiting room.

Please pray for my Mom! Her name is Diane. She will be in surgery at 9:30 am today to remove a tumor from her right, frontal lobe. They expect the surgery to be between 2-4 hours and then she will be in recovery for 2-3 hours afterwards. From recovery she will be moved to ICU for at least 24 hours. Because she has high blood pressure issues they may have to keep her in ICU a bit longer for proper meds. Pray that the doctor's hands and wisdom will be guided by the Lord. Also pray that Mom will heal quickly and have no complications.

Mom believes this is a miracle that the docs caught it when they did. The tumor is currently only 1/4 of an inch from doing any damage to the left side of her body. Our family is grateful that Mom is less likely to have any permanent damage because they found it early!

Pictured above is my Mom at work. She is the fourth person in her
office to have a brain tumor!! The second picture is her at home during
a great visit with her grandkids.  Tonight when I called her you could still hear in her voice the joy you see here in her smiles. Mom knows she is in Jesus' hands!

Caleb got his chance to be in the "Brain Drain" question time during Kidzturn tonight. I didn't get a picture of him doing that part but I did get a picture of him in the "Foamilator!" When you win in the Brain Drain you are allowed to chose if you want to go in the Foamilator or to send your opponent in. Caleb won the Bible questions and didn't even give it a second thought as to who was going in the Foamilator!!

Here is the foam coming down on him! His hands are up in the air just because he was holding his safety helmet on.

The foam has entirely covered my boy!

Pastor Lussier takes out some foam to throw over all the other boys and girls. Is my Caleb still in there?!

Peek a boo! There he is still smiling!

Time to come out!

Caleb stalled coming out to collect some of the foam.

Here Caleb stops to is pose for Mama with his arm full of foam.

Pastor Lussier then lets him choose a door for a prize. He got silly putty. Notice the arm full of foam still? Pastor Lussier asked him if he was taking it home for a souvenir.  Caleb actually carried the foam all the way to his brother! Caleb said he wanted Jared to get to feel the foam too. My heart was touched. In this picture you can see on the left where he stood for the "brain drain."

Here are a couple of photos I have wanted to share for awhile.

Caleb decided he wanted to make a cave with stalactites and stalagmites. Supposedly, this cave is in Siberia.

Jared has been playing dentist lately. Here Jared is getting Caleb to cooperate along with him as a patient while Caleb gets Chloe to play Chess while Chloe also plays "house" in the baby jogger with Phoebe. Did you get all that?!

Phoebe enjoys mowing the grass with Papa!

I am so sorry my updates lately have been sparse and short. We are just incredibly busy! Schooling four kiddos takes much longer for me during the day, Chi Alpha is in full swing and we also are enjoying Kidzturn at church all week. We spent until 1am with the Lussier family after the service last night. The kids were in heaven visiting with the Lussiers in their 5th wheel camper! (Kimmy it made our pop ups look like the size of mice! )

Mrs. Lussier shows Jared how to hold "Adrian" their parrot and feed him an apple for a treat.

Jared got daring enough to let Adrian perch on his shoulder. See the button there on Jared's shirt? He won that as an award during one of the songs in the kids' service for jumping and being the most excited. Go figure! Does that surprise you?! *lol* The pin says "Transformed" which is the theme for this year based on Romans 12:2-

"Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be
transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test
and approve what God's will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will."

Rachel Lussier reads a great story book (see above) to Caleb while he holds Adrian. See their kitty too? What's wrong with this picture?! Their kitty did occassionally look at the parrot as if it was a midnight snack.

Chloe holds Adrian all by herself! Look at that sweet look on her face!

Phoebe's turn with Adrian. Mrs. Lussier gave Adrian a peanut to chew on since Phoebe was more tenative to hold him. She did it though!!

Jared's lego version of the Lussier's camper and truck! The Lussiers loved this. That is Debbie Lussier sitting with the children. Debbie, Rachel and Mrs. Lussier played all kinds of games with the kids while we visited. I have no pictures of Papa because he was hiding off to the left where there is an office for Pastor Lussier. The guys had a great visit with each other as well. Great night for sure!!! The Lussiers have promised the kids that they will take them back stage on the last night to show them the secrets of how the set up is made as they were so curious. Jared even told Mrs. Lussier that he would really like to travel along with them and do the children's ministry. Too sweet!

Life has suddenly become crazy!!!! This past weekend was our first time back onto campus after a year of traveling to raise our Missionary budget. Labor Day does NOT count for Ministers. Regardless, we are enjoying the excitement of hearing all the students back in town.

After a busy Sunday with reconnecting with our home church and all the move in excitement we went to my cousins home for their first annual turkey fry.  I under estimated our commitments for move-in-day and didn't end up making it for the turkey going in or out of the frier but it was a great time none the less! Go on over to Kimmy's site to see pics of the day! You have to since she has all the cute pics of my kids!

The one pic I did get was of the pleasant surprise that the gnomes showed up again for a good time!

What great helpers they were to make this sign to welcome us to the turkey fry and let us know the best spot for Beep! You know I never even gave it a thought that I probably should have given them a tip after standing there all day making sure Beep was kept out of trouble!!! Hopefully they will show up again after we were so rude.

At least Beep was kind enough to stay parked where he was told and stayed out of trouble.

 

Then we arrived back home to Eric's busy schedule of on campus life! Eric
spent a day handing out Spring water with our Chi Alpha logo and
website on them to students during a college wide BBQ. I was not at the event this year due to the following awesome responsibilities...

Our NEW school books had been waiting for us to open them since our last week away at camp. (Btw, that is our new loveseat too! Sorry I haven't gotten a pic of our living room up yet. Don't pay any attention to the curtains in the background... those are coming down as they no longer match! The silly blanket on the back usually isn't there either. I think the kids were playing with it in the morning and it just found itself a neat home quickly amongst the chaos.)

The kids tore through the boxes as well as glanced through every book and then they all started to pick apart this treasure of math games, supplies etc. FUN! Jared was most thrilled about the thermomotor he is holding and a large scale we got.

Here is a typical picture of our transition from summer to home schooling at home. There are books scattered every where in the living room as each kid just cannot keep their hands off the new treasures! Literally as I am teaching one child a lesson the others have the books spread every where looking through them. Usually I cannot (and wouldn't want to) get the books all up on the shelves until the kids have had their free time with them. Who could resist boxes full of new books?!

The easel is always for spelling words. The kids, especially Caleb, just do better on spelling right now when they have the ability to write them with their larger motor skills and they seem to like having the audience of the others(especially Jared!). What you can't see is the other kids looking on from all over the living area. Here Caleb is learning about compound words. Papa shot this pic, on his way out the door to work, while Caleb was on his first word.  The word on the board is "inside."  Oh, the train track I am sitting in the middle of is from the morning free play but we worked around that.

Here is Caleb in the kitchen matching up his words to make a bunch of compound words.

Phoebe was so eager to start on her preschool curriculum!! I caught her this morning still in her pj's with a hat on backwards reading a school book. You can see in the background the girls' school books on my dining chair. I brought them out before I went to bed to be ready for me in the morning. The funny thing is that Phoebe sat there ignoring me the entire time I took about ten pictures of her sitting there like that!

I will try to get more pics of the other kids doing their school work as we go along this week. I am extremely busy though now that I am schooling all four children! I have to say as busy and hectic life is with a large family I couldn't be happier!!!!