The Love of My Life is Gone to be with Her Maker

On October 18, 2011, Janice passed away with her family present.

Janice entered the hospital in September. She was very short of breath and was having trouble with her heart valves.  Janice was transferred to another hospital, which is where she was scheduled for her heart valve surgery on September 14th.

It seemed like forever till she came out of surgery, but finally the doctor came out and said she had come through the surgery but she would be critical for a long time.  Well, she was, for a long time (21 days) then she finally came off the breathing machine and was breathing on her own.  She could be transferred back to the cardiac ward.

Well, she was there for 1 day and had to be sent back to the cardiac intensive care unit.  They had found her in cardiac arrest in the morning and had to revive her.  She had been out for too long and the tests on her showed no response.

After several days of no response, we let her go to be with her maker who she loved with all her heart and soul.

Ken Grove

My Life as a Teenager part 2

I am 14 now and if I wanted anything I had to pay for it. Snacks, clothes, my school lunches, shoes and my way into Teen town. So it didn’t take me long to realize I needed to have a job so I started baby sitting. At one time I had 28 different families I baby sat for. I baby sat any night of the week except Saturdays and that was saved for Teen Town. but if my mom found out I could baby sit on that night then I would have to miss Teen Town and baby sit. Those were terrible, terrible Saturday nights. But if I didn’t go nether did my Wonderful Husband-to-be. While I was baby sitting we would talk on the phone for hours. When I was at home and he would call me we could only talk for 5 min. I lived for those times waiting for him to call.

My mom sent me to town every Saturday to pay bills. My WH-to-be and I had it set up the time I would leave and he would meet me at the bus stop and get on the same bus I was on. So we got to spend all day together down town. I remember this restaurant we went to every week called the Ideal Hot Dogs. they had booths with the little juke boxes on the table. This is where we met our friends and exchange gifts for the different holidays. I remember one year for Valentines he got me a musical jewelry box and I got him a yellow v-neck sweater. To keep my mother happy I would always buy her something from town and take it home to her. This made it easier to ask if I could go to Teen Town that night.

I was freshman in high school and I was walking down the hall changing classes when a cousin of mine smacked me in the back with a book.. It hurt bad. The next day I could not walk I hurt so bad. I would lay on the floor and cry because it hurt. Like I said before my parents didn’t take us to the doctor. But after three days I got my mom to look at my back. I had a big lump on my tail bone as large as a baseball. She had a neighbor take us to the hospital and in the emergency room they lanced it. Infection shot out everywhere. Two weeks later I was in the hospital to have a poly cyst removed. I was in the hospital for a week. My younger sister, LMG, was in the hospital too. We were put in the same room. She was having her tonsils out. But do you know what?  Neither my mom or dad were there when we went into surgery.

to be continued.

Some News You Need To Know

To all our family and friends, from the Grove family in Ohio.

I just wanted to drop you a line and let you know what is going on in our family.

First of all, we have 5 great-grandchildren now. Two from Second Daughter’s daughter and three from her son. First Daughter’s first daughter got married in July. Wonderful Husband and I have been very busy remodeling our kitchen.

My sister Margie passed away last Friday, September 2, 2011. She went into the hospital to have hip replacement surgery. After some progress, they took her to rehab, then found her dead the next morning.

I am in the hospital now and have been for a week. My blood pressure dropped down to 30 over 17. I was bleeding again and when they went down in my stomach, it was filled with blood. They had to drain it and then they found two of my vessels dripping blood. They cauterized them and gave me six pints of blood.

I was one sick chick for a week! It is all caused from my heart. So, I have made the choice to have open-heart surgery.

I know it is very risky and I may not live through the surgery. But I can't go on living like this either. If I don't have it done, I won't be here this time next year, or less. My surgery will be later this week.

I pray God is with me and I ask for your prayers also. If I don't make it I want all of you to know that I love you very much. And if you haven't accepted Jesus into your heart, then please do.

MY YEARS AS A TEENAGER

I just graduated from the 8th grade and would be going to high school in the fall. I will admit that I had two reasons for going to high school:  

1.  I went to socialize and
2.  I went knowing I would graduate and education is the only thing that cannot be taken from you. 

I graduated mainly because everyone said I would not do it. There were four siblings before me and I was the first and only to graduate from high school. I would have gone on to college but my parents could not afford it. I dreamed to be a designer of clothes or a dental assistant. But instead got married and raised a family. And that is the thing I am most proud of.

I started off the high school with my very best friend NS and we are still friends. We dressed alike that first day and shared a locker. The seniors came around selling tickets for the elevator.  Our school was four stories high and of course I bought one. It was only $.25 and a lot of my friends bought tickets, too. It wasn’t until I had to change classes, I was on the first floor and had to go to the 4^th, that I find out there were no elevators in the building. I was mad but it was my own fault.

My freshman year I met my wonderful husband. I went to Teen Town, a well-chaperoned dance. We would have a DJ or a band. And it was from 7-10 pm on Saturday nights. But I could not go unless I had my chores done and I had to have a ride to get there and get home. My dad took me a couple of times. It was for high school kids only. I finally learned to get my chores done and find a ride before I would even ask to go. I don’t think I sat out any dances. The guys would ask the girls to dance. Then once a night the girls had to ask a guy to dance. By that time I had my eye on this one guy. He was very skinny, not good looking, but I liked the way he danced. He never asked me to dance the rest of the night.

So the next week I could hardly wait for Saturday to come I got there and kept looking for him.  No, I didn’t even know his name. He got there and when it was the girls asking the guys to dance I went up and ask him to dance again. We did and then he asked me to dance a couple of more times that night. But after every dance he would go over to the side with the boys and I went back and sat with my friends. That’s when I fell in love. And it grew. You know how it is.  You get chills when you look into each other’s eyes, chills when he holds your hand, and that first kiss is out of this world. There is a lot more as I went through my years as a teenager.

To be continued

MY YEARS AS A CHILD 3

My next older sibling is my sister MLC.  She and I were four years apart and we were best of friends. We had a funeral one time with our dolls. The dolls were left out in the sun and got cracked and the rubber on them melted. We felt sorry for them and had a little funeral over them. We buried them in our back yard.  MLC was the preacher and I was the mourning parent.

We continued to be close over the years. I would go baby sitting with her and play with the little kids she watched. Then she got a boy friend and I watched the kids while she talked on the phone all night. And you know what? She got the money! But I loved her and kept doing it.

We were so close that she would lie to our mother and I would swear she was telling the truth. My parents were very strict. We could not spend the night with any of our friends nor could our friends spend the night at our house. We were not allowed to go any place with out them knowing, and one day we got caught. I was with MLC and her friend MD and we were just walking down the highway when MD’s aunt came by and saw us, but we didn't see her.  When we got home mommy asked why we were on the high way and not the street we were supposed to be on. I knew by the way mommy reacted that this time I could not lie. So I told her before my sister could start with the lie. Mommy just said next time walk on the street and because we told her the truth we were not in trouble.

You know that is a lot like God. You have to be honest with Him, telling Him the truth, because you cannot lie to God. He sees and hears everything.

I was next and then there was my baby sister LMG. As you know in the beginning she was a thorn in my side when we were little. Then we became very close and still are. I loved my baby sister. I thought she was a doll. I was 4 years old when she was born. But we played together all the time and when she had friends over we all played together and the same with my friends. My sisters MLC, LMG and myself did lots of things together.

MLC would be our waitress in the morning for breakfast and serve us what we ordered. Then when we were done she asked to be paid, knowing we didn't have any money. So we had to clean the kitchen and wash the dishes. Next time she wanted to play waitress we said no way. We never got candy, only on Halloween and at Christmas.  I don't remember any of my birthdays. We never got cake either. So on our birthday, MLC would put a slice of bread on a plate then cover it with chocolate syrup and another slice of bread and cover it. She would put a candle on it then we would eat it just the 3 of us. It was so good.

Wondering where my mom was during these times. She was sleeping she always slept late.

LMG and I would make pies out of clover. Play with cars in the dirt. The three of us would be outside all day. We did get to walk to the city pool in the summer but we’d better be back when mommy told us to or we would be punished.

As I said my mother was a late sleeper and when we went to grade school we got an hour and 1/2 for lunch break to come home to eat. Many times we had to fend for our selves because she was still sleeping and this was from 11:00 am-12:30 pm. My dad was working at a factory now and worked from 11:00pm till 7:00am.  So when he came home he would go to bed and sleep until around 3 or 4 in the afternoon. So all summer we were out side all day and in the winter we had to be very quite so we would not wake him up. I don't know how many times we got told to quit down.

That is about all I can remember about my life as a child. I will continue with my life as a teenager.

To be continued

MY YEARS AS A CHILD 2

As I said before, I had four sisters and one brother.

My oldest sister, MJB, was born in 1933. I remember very little of her when we were all home. She worked at Franklin's Ice Cream store. When us kids went to the city pool to go swimming, we had to go right past the store. On the way home we would stop in and she would give us an ice cream cone. I remember one time we stopped in and we sat up at the counter and she ask us" What'll you have" and our baby sister LMG said loud and clear "Paps Blue Ribbon." Pabst was a popular beer at the time.

MJB had a boy friend and he would always bring her candy when he picked her up for a date. They would take me with them when they went out on a date. I really liked him. And I remember her wedding day she got married in our living room. Everyone was happy and full of food and drinks.

My next sister EMW was born in 1936 and I remember very little of her, too. I know she had 2 boy friends at one time. She did marry one of them. And her and her friend, a neighbor, would dress up in different clothes and take each others picture. When we were younger, there is 8 years between us, and when it would rain in the summer her and I would go outside and run throw the puddles. She went off to Indiana to get married. that is about all I remember of her.

Now for my brother WEM who was born in 1938. I would clean his room for him for 10 cents a week. It was mostly his socks he left on the floor. But I adored my big brother because he would play games with us girls. He would have us all lined up in a row beside the neighbor's barn and throw a tennis ball at us and we had to try to keep from getting hurt. He would always play ball with us. But we better do as he said or we were in big trouble.

We had a ditch in our back yard and daddy had built a bridge over it. It was where our toilet was. I would always look around for my brother before crossing the bridge because if he caught me on the bridge he would pretend he was going to push me in. I would hang onto the edge of the bridge with my toes.

I have always been afraid of the water. I remember one time my oldest sister slipped on the bridge and fell into the ditch. She smoked and no one knew it until then because her cigarette  floated on the top of the water. When the ditch would dry out we would play billy goat gruff under the bridge. When my brother was young and still played with cars, I would take his cars outside in the dirt and play with them. He never got mad at me and some times we would play on our kitchen table. It was that old white porcelain and WEM would draw streets on the table and we played cars on it. Other then that I didn't remember seeing my brother much as he was always out running around with his friend. But never got into any trouble that I know of.

To be continued

MY YEARS AS A CHILD

I was born on June 18, 1944, on Father's Day. I weighed 11 lbs. 4 ozs. Yes I was a big baby. I had coal black hair and my mommy said the nurses put bows in my hair in the nursery. When I was born my daddy wasn't at the hospital he was at a bar somewhere. No I don't remember that.

I will start back as far as I can remember. I was only three at the time and mommy, daddy and I were over at one of their friends houses, and I got sick I remember when I threw up it was brown. The next thing I knew I was in the hospital in a white cast iron crib, and in isolation. I remember my daddy coming to see me and he had to talk to me through a window. He could not come into my room. When I got older and my heart started giving me problems. The doctors started asking me if I had rheumatic fever when I was younger. I didn't know other then the time when I was in the hospital. My mom had passed away by then and no one else could tell me.

I have no idea how long I was in the hospital. When I got home my oldest sister MJB had gotten me a dollhouse and all the little furniture and babies to put in it. I loved that and played with it for all the time. Then a little sister came along. and I was getting older and LMG gave me lots of problems. She stabbed me in the back of the head with a pair of scissors because I wouldn't let her play with my paper dolls. Then one time she hit me over the head with a hammer when I wouldn't give her the swing I was on. But I will get even with her when we get older.

I am in kindergarten now and I remember the teacher giving us an assignment, we were to color a picture and when it was my turn I could go up and paint that same picture on an easel. I was so excited about this that when I got up to the easel I painted a completely different picture. The teacher was very upset with me for not following directions.

My mother came to my class one day for open house. I was so proud of her she was a beautiful woman. I went to greet her with the teacher. I remember the teacher asking me to do some thing and I said "Way do you always make me be the one that does everything, why can't someone else do it don't you see my mommy is here" and she said, “Because I know you will do it right.” Boy did I get in trouble when I got home for sassing the teacher. Back then if you got in trouble at school you were in more trouble at home.

My daddy built the house we lived in and I remember handing him the nails. We moved in and I celebrated my 4th birthday there. I lived in that house until I got married at the age of 18. We didn't have much, we were a poor family. My dad worked at the railroad, and mommy was a stay at home mom. There were 5 of us kids, 1 boy and 4 girls. The 3 older girls slept in one bed together, my brother slept on the couch and I slept with mommy and daddy. My daddy built on to the house when mommy was expecting her 6th child.

Every once in a while he would add onto the house, but by then the oldest sister got married. It had 2 bedrooms, a kitchen and a living room, and our bathroom was out back behind the house. There was a pump in our back yard that we got our water. When my mother was expecting another baby, daddy built on. Two rooms in the back of the house and moved the kitchen to one of the new rooms and hooked our pump up inside the kitchen.

The only problem we had was that we lived on the other side of the tracks. Well it wasn't tracks just a street – Westwood. Everyone living on the west side of the street were considered white trash, everyone on the east side was in the city that made us living in the country. The roads were dirt, no streetlights and no sidewalks.
My dad drank a lot and I remember at dinnertime every Friday one of us kids would have to go down to the beer joint and get daddy. None of us liked doing it. I remember when it was my turn to go I went down opened the door and yelled in and ask if my daddy was there, and we would walk home together. It got to the point where daddy had to get another job. He worked in a factory, also, and used his money from the railroad for his drinking.

But we had love and we had to have an imagination. We played Tag, Kick the Can, Easy Easy Over, Lemonade, Red Rover, One a Cat, Money, and lots more games we made up. We played outside from morning till night.

Like I said we were a poor family. We wore hand me down clothes and took anything that was given to us. At the beginning of each school year we all went together down to the Board of Education and they gave us some new clothes for school. Us girls all got 2 dresses, a slip, 3 pairs of panties, 3 pairs of socks. a coat and a pair of shoes. Back in the 50's you could not wear jeans or slacks to school it had to be a dress. All of us kids went to the same school at one time.

We ate a lot of soups. Now when I say soup I really mean soup. Chili watered down, spaghetti watered down, all mixed together, potato soup also watered down. We had very little meat and daddy cooked Sunday dinners. He would go out and kill a chicken clean it and boil it. To this day I will not eat boiled chicken. That is the only way we ever had it, so he could make watered down noodle soup.

One day I ask daddy when we were havimg for dinner and he said stuffed round roast. I was so excited we were going to have a roast. When we set down to eat daddy brought his round roast out to the table and to my surprise it was a chunk of bologna about 12 inches long and stuffed with dressing. I was disappointed but it did taste good.

Every winter I would get strep throat at least once, some time 2-3 time. I am telling you this now because the doctors think it should be connected to the Hodgkin's. I also had the mumps, chicken pox and measles. I was given sulfa drugs, until I became allergic to it.

to be continued

MIRACLE BABY - Part 5

We are home now, along with our girls. I had missed them so much. Everyday we went for my treatments. Once a week I had to go to my cancer doctor. And once a week we had to take the baby to have blood work. They were checking his thyroid, which was abnormal and was causing his reflex problem.

The first Sunday after the baby and I came home, we all went to church as a family and we had KGGJ dedicated to the church. Just in case you may not know what this means, it is a dedication by us to God and the church that we would raise KGGJ up to be a Christian. Everyone at the church was so glad to see us.

My radiation and his thyroid checks went on week after week for 8 weeks. KGGJ turned out to be all right. We enjoyed him so much and so did the girls. One day he turned a bluish color and I hurried and called the doctor. He said it would be OK some times this happens. After the radiation treatments, I was in the bathroom combing my hair and a bunch of it fell out on my shoulder. I started crying because no one told me this would happen. A week or two after that my skin started turning dark every place it had radiation done and then started peeling like snake skin. This I was not told would happen either. I said, “OK I can handle this if that was all that was going to happen.”

But it wasn't. More came out of that Hodgkin’s and the treatment years later. That’s another miracle story.

Because WH worked in the hospital he would come across the different doctors. One day my cancer doctor took him into an office and gave him some bad news. Doctor told my WH that chances are I would not likely live much over a year. He said that during surgery I was on a fence and could have gone either way at that time. That day he came home and told me he was getting out of the service and we were moving back to Ohio. When I ask him why he just said, “So we can be with family.” My WH is a man of little words. At this point I did not know that the doctor had talked to him.

Well, we packed up and went to Ohio. Now KGGJ is 8 months old. My dad got my WH a job where he worked. And we stayed with mommy and daddy until we could find a place of our own.

During this time someone let it slip that I only had a year to live. I prayed and prayed to God to let me live long enough raise my 3 children. Well, I now have 3 children, 11 grand children and 5 great-grand children. KGGJ is 42 years old and he is still my pride and joy. We are very close.

I have always felt that he saved my life (because if I was not pregnant at the time they would have never found the cancer until it was to late.) and he has always felt I had saved his life (because they wanted me to have an abortion and I wouldn't.)

This is the end of my Miracle Baby Story. I hope you enjoyed it and that it has helped some to understand me better.

It is the end of Miracle Baby, but not the end of my story of miracles. I will continue to write about the other miracles God has performed in my life.

MIRACLE BABY - Part 4

We got our baby boy and we named him after his dad, a junior. From now on he will be known here as KGGJ. He was OK, the doctor said. Another prayer had been answered, but then they rushed him to the nursery. They took me to a room on the maternity floor, gave me a shot and I went to sleep. How long I slept I do not know. But when I woke up I wanted to see my baby.

They said they would go get him but didn't come back. I asked and asked to hold my baby. They finally brought him to me and he was perfect or so I thought. He was a little blue in color. They wanted me to give him a bottle. I tried and I tried and when the nurse came in I told her I could not get him to suck on his bottle. That’s when they told me there was something wrong with his reflexes. I cried. I was so afraid there was something wrong with our baby boy.

Do you remember that I told you they did another surgery on my neck 3 days before I had the baby? Well it got infected and swelled up and was as big as an orange. The doctor came in and took me to surgery and had to lance the incision to drain all the infection out of it. I can remember so plain even today that he told me I would have to move off the maternity ward to the surgical ward, because of the mommy's and baby's.

Then he dropped the big one. He said, “You know this means you have to have radiation". I was numb. I could not talk. Then they packed me up and WH was there and we walked to the elevator. Just as we got in a nurse came in carrying a baby wrapped in a blue blanket.

I said “That’s my baby, WH that is our baby, where are you taking him?” The nurse knew it was our baby so she told me she was taking him to have a spinal tap. “I don't understand. Why?” I asked. “So the doctors can make sure he is OK.” I started crying and praying. You know they say to pray continually. I didn't think it was possible, until then.

There was a woman in the room visiting her husband, and she said very nastily "Why are you crying you have nothing to cry about. My husband has cancer of the tongue." I didn't say anything, just asked God to forgive her because she didn't know. Then I was praying for her and her husband, my baby, WH, and our girls.

Not one time as I went through all of this did I ask God why. God always has a purpose. I was just grateful that I was alive and my baby boy was alive. I could go up to the nursery and see KGGJ from outside the window but could not hold him.

Then a strange thing happened. I was lying in bed and a nurse brought me a package. I wondered who would have sent me a package? So I told the nurse it wasn't mine and she said that there was no one else in the whole hospital with my name. No return address or who it came from. So I opened it and of all things, a silver tray. To this day I still do not know who sent it. But I thought it was a strange gift to give to a woman who just had a baby. I got gifts from so many people nurses, doctors, friends and family.

I am not sure how long I stayed in the hospital that time. But before I went home the doctor wanted to talk to us about the radiation treatments. Here are the choices I had:

1. Go to Cleveland Clinic in Ohio

2. Go to Wilford Hall at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas

Both of these would be for 2 months and away from the girls and baby. WH could take KGGJ home with him to watch along with the girls. Or we could leave KGGJ in the hospital nursery until I got back. Which had never happen before.

3. Take my chances and not have it. But if I didn't have radiation, it would most likely come back again. I had already had three surgeries for it and was pregnant at the time.

WH and I went to the pastor again and talked about it. He said I could be the only one to make that decision. And he prayed together with us asking God to help me make the decision. Whether it was right or wrong, I had to make it. I didn't want to leave my babies for 2 months but if I didn't I would not be here to raise them.

My doctor called and told us to come to his office. He wanted my decision. He told us that I could have the radiation right there in Fort Worth starting next week. I would have to go every Monday- Friday for 2 months so God answered another prayer.

God is good. When I asked the doctor, who was paying for this he just said “I can't tell you but it is not yours to worry about.” So every morning for two months we got up at 6:00 am to get the kids ready and WH took all of us in the car for me to go in and get a treatment while he waited in the car with the kids, took us home and went to work. I will always be grateful for WH to have been in the Air Force and to work in the hospital.

I want to go back a couple of weeks and let you know that I am in a medical book out there somewhere. The hospital asked if they could take a picture of my incision. When I ask why, he said you are the first woman on record that has had surgery for Hodgkin’s while pregnant. That is why they took the picture when I was 9 months along.

to be continued

MIRACLE BABY - Part 3

The months went on and I kept getting bigger with the baby. Because I was getting bigger it hurt my incision. I will always remember how I could not have the girls set on my lap because the incision hurt when they did. I still wonder if the girls held that against me.

KAGH had long pretty blond hair and it was just curly enough, but because I could not comb it we had to cut it short. I know she remembers that because every once in awhile she will bring it up.

My WH took the girls to Sunday school and church every Sunday. I was at home one day and WH had gone to work and I got sick thinking it was the flu. I still think it was the flu, but I could hardly move. I told the girls to watch cartoons on TV and to stay in the living room and I lay on the couch. I tried to stay awake but could not. WH came home and back to the hospital I went, he was not taking any chances. Finally March came and I went home until the baby would come.

Then I got another lump in my neck and I didn't want to tell the doctor because I knew what was going to happen. WH told the doctor and he said it had to come out right away. So on Friday April 4, I had it removed and it was Hodgkins also.

Went home because Easter that year was Sunday April 6, 1969. That night I was sleeping and my water broke. We had already had it set up for the neighbor to some over when we called her. WH was rushing around the house trying to remember everything then he got me in the car and to the hospital I went again.

We got up in the front of the hospital and WH jumped out to come help me out? No he ran into the hospital. Here I am thinking, “What is he doing? He forgot what we were here for? He forgot me?” He came back out, pushing a wheel chair. That’s what he went after. I just wished he would have told me when he jumped out of the car. Now I can laugh about this. But it sure wasn't funny at the time.

Also, I had black suede shoes on and when my water broke it went into my shoes. When my feet went up in the stirrups I saw my feet. Oh my goodness, my feet were black! I kept asking some one to wash them for me. I was so embarrassed. But no one cared about my feet. This, too, is now funny. They were too busy taking care of me and the baby. After about 3 hours and I had dilated more, I still was not having any pains.

I was put in a labor room and they checked me, but I wasn't having any pains. My WH was by my side the whole time. By now we were not praying for a boy just a healthy baby. The doctors had told us that chances are some thing would be wrong with the baby. It could be deformed or a Downs baby. So we prayed about that too. I think I was on every prayer list in the USA. I had people and churches praying for me in OH, TX CA, WA, NY, FL, MI, and AK.

I was taken into the delivery room and was having pains by then, both my girl were born natural no shots nothing. They gave me a local for this baby but I could not push. My muscles were not strong enough. So the nurse had to push on the top of my stomach to help me push the baby out. At 9:00 am the baby was born it was a boy. I got to see him for a second. He was all gray like he had been dropped into a bucket of ashes.

To be continued

MIRACLE BABY - Part 2

When I came to, my WH was right by my side. I started to cry and he asked me why I was crying?

Here I am in a hospital bed with both my arms up on pillows. The doctor had accidentally cut an artery and wanted me to keep it up on a pillow until it was better. My right arm had blood going in it along with an IV. I had oxygen on. I also had 2 tubes coming out my side, and I had a catheter in. That alone would make a person cry.

But I was not crying about all that. I was crying because I lost our baby. He said no honey we still have the baby. Then why did you tell me they took it out, I asked. So he explained to me about the surgery. I was in the operating room a long time. They removed my spleen, a rib, and the mass from my chest. By the way, that mass had grown as large as the doctor’s fist. I was in a 4-bed ward and was to stay there for a long time. I was in the hospital off and on until March going home on holidays and on a weekend once in awhile. That all depended on how I was doing at the time.

I was moved from the 4-bed ward to a 12-bed ward. Remember my WH was in the Air Force. When I was able to get up and walk. I was still hurting so bad that I sat on the edge of the bed and put a pillow on my eating tray and slept like that.

There are a few things that really stand out in my mind:

1. When the doctor told me that I could never get pregnant again because it would bring the Hodgkins back.

2. Back then you were allowed to smoke in the rooms. Being a non-smoker, I can smell a cigarette a mile away. There was a woman in the ward that smoked menthol cigarettes. Today I can tell if some one is smoking menthol and it bring back memories.

3. Palmolive soap that is what we had to use while in the hospital and to this day I will not have any form of Palmolive soap in my home.

4. When my pastor from our church White Settlement Baptist Church in Texas came to see me, he went back and told the congregation that he had been up to the hospital that he hoped to cheer my up, but instead I cheered him up.

5. Last one, my mother came up to see me and wanted to see what they had done to her baby.

So when I opened my robe there was a scar at the top of my chest bone about 5" long across where they had repaired the artery they cut into. And the other scar came from that scar down to my belly button. She cried and I cried with her and told her God would take care of me.

I was on morphine and it made me hallucinate. I asked them to take me off it and they said it was the only thing they could give me because of the baby. So I said I didn't want anything then and that I would pray about it. Although I hurt I managed it.

WH told me my sister was at the house. So I got permission to go home for the weekend. From now on my sister Linda will be known as LMMBG. I was so happy to see her. The sad thing is my mother told me she had to go home and she would be flying back with LMMBG.

OK, now what do I do? I had 2 little girls. The oldest was Tina and will be known by TMGC who was 4. And Kathie will be known as KAGH who was 3. I was sick to know she would leave me now. But I also understood she had to leave and go home to daddy.

We went to church on Sunday and WH and I let pastor know what was going to happen. The women from the church and a neighbor started calling me to let me know not to worry, that they would take care of WH and the girls. They did, but I think they spoiled them some. So another prayer was answered and on Sunday night it was back to the hospital. Every night when WH came up to see me he told me who took care of them and things that they said and brought me pictures they colored and who would have them tomorrow.

It took the doctor two days for about one hour each to remove my stitches. There were 150 of them. He said it was the most he had ever put in one person. Then they let me go home for more than a weekend.

I had to go into the hospital to see my cancer doctor and my OB doctor. Whenever I went to the doctor my WH was always with me. I remember seeing people there at the office complaining about having a cold and I said at that time I will never complain about a cold again. I was so weak that I would lie down on the seats and put my head on WH’s shoulder or lap.

Though this whole time WH would not talk about what I went through and to this day he would most likely say he doesn't remember. We just don't discuss it. Why? Because so many other things came from that.

To be continued.

MIRACLE BABY

As promised I will begin my blog with the miracle baby. I was only 25 at the time and away from home with my wonderful husband, who was in the Air Force at the time. I got pregnant in July of 1968 and we were so happy. The baby would be due in April, a nice cool month. Both my girls were born in August and I had to go through the hot summer being pregnant. Back then they didn't have the ultrasound to tell if it was a boy or a girl, so we were praying for a boy.

Since my wonderful husband was in the AF they do a chest x-ray at three months when you go in for your first appointment. I was called to come back to the doctor so they could tell me about the x-ray. They told me I had a mass in my chest and it was as big as a fifty cent piece. But they did not know what it was and I had to be admitted into the base hospital for 2 weeks while they were running every test on me and still could not find out what it was.

I was released from the hospital and went home to my girls. Then a lump come up on my neck and after I played with it (it rolled around like a marble under the skin) I went back to the hospital for my next OB appointment. I told the doctor about it and they said they would have to remove it. After talking to my mother who was in Ohio, us in Texas, she said she would come down and take care of the girls. Another answered prayer. This was November and I had the lump removed and the doctor called me into his office and at first he told me they thought it was leukemia.. Good, I thought at least it was not cancer. But then he told me it was Hodgkin, which was fine too. I didn't know what Hodgkin was, but the word "cancer" was not said and me only being 25 I didn't know that leukemia and Hodgkin were both cancer.

My wonderful husband worked in the hospital so the doctor went to him and told him what I had and that it was cancer and because I was pregnant I would have to stay in the hospital to have the mass removed.. Or I could have an induced abortion. Wonderful husband (from now on will be WH) and I talked to the pastor and to the doctors. I would not have an abortion.  I felt this baby I was carrying had save my life because without the chest x-ray I never would have known I had stage 3 Hodgkin.

When we told the doctor what was decided he said he would treat me as if I were his wife and be very careful and if God meant for me to keep this baby I would, if not I would loose it on the operating table. This I could handle because I believed in God. I believe He answers prayers and I expect him to answer my prayers.

In the mean time we celebrated Thanksgiving. My mother took care of everything. But I was so disappointed she had a roast for Thanksgiving dinner. Yes a roast who ever heard of have roast for Thanksgiving dinner.

On Dec. 3, 1968 I went in for a 11 hours surgery. WH and my mom was there when I came out of surgery. My mother would not came in to see me and WH took her home. But  my WH was by my bedside all the time.

Well that has got me started and I will continue the Miracle Baby tomorrow.

Miracles do Happen

I am writing this blog to let people know about my life and how God has blessed me throughout my life. I have been blessed in so many ways that I want to share these blessing. It is mostly about my illness and my miracle baby.