A New Week with New Fun Stuff

Is stuff spelled with 2 F’s??? I’m losing it.

October 25th

Mark was able to not take pain meds Saturday and Sunday but it caught up with him Sunday night and by Monday morning he was in alot of pain. He had to take them so he could sit through dialysis. Weirdly enough…he was actually up 3x in the night to urinate. He hasn’t done that since like Wyoming….when he unzipped the tent 3x a night and I work every. single. time. And now I feel bad for being irritated. So change is good or bad and we are not sure which it is. He sees Dr. Banga Thursday and we can discuss that.

We started dialysis early…because Mark was already up. I pre-hung the bags but it stinking takes alot of time to get going in the morning. Its depressing to spend your whole morning recieving and giving dialysis. The dumb machine alarmed at me during Snap-n-Tap which is fine because its not hooked up to Mark but weird because we hadn’t done anything yet. All was smooth til we had 27 mins left and his warmer shut off. I had forgotten to snap open the last bag of dialysate and so the bag on th warmer was about empty and the warmer shuts off. This means 2 things…the last bag will be cold in Mark (literally) and there were air bubbles in the lines. So we fixed the air issue but then basically ran out of dialysate with 6 mins left. I forced the treatment to end and a huge alarm beeped at us. The whole machine like stopped. I couldn’t mute, I couldn’t stop and start. I could do nothing. I made 4 phone calls to nurses and finally on call 4 I got ahold of someone that walked me through a manula rinseback which I found out later that they no longer teach because its super dangerous. Awesome. So don’t do that one again. It’s the rushes of adrenaline I can barely handle and poor Mark was freezing. I had to throw towels and a blanket in the dryer to wrap around him. But we made it one more day.

We met Mark’s cousin at the Newaygo house because he was running a Hidden Fence for Bucky. We both got out of the car to greet him and Bucky stepped on the lock button. Yep. So I had to get the car unlocked by a towing company. Meanwhile I put some tile up and ran a few beads of caulk. The tow truck showed up, unlocked my car, let the dog free just in time for his first training run. He accidently got a bit close. We ended there.

Our Davita nurse told us we could use our Pureflow and that is good news because all the bags take up a ton of room and a pain to not only hang but as we all know now….you can forget to snap some of them open. Hers teh issue though. Takes 7 hours to make a Sak. 7 hours. Can’t really just be like “oh hey, lets make a Sak and get some dialysis done”. And if you know me at all…thinking ahead of time…being organzed and a good stuart of my time..aren’t actually my strengths. So the Sak is batching or whatever you call it. It should be done at 1am. And then I can get up when it beeps loud. Pause it and close the clamps.

We had an excellent dinner but I missed the dinner fairy because Hatcher was home and Mark was sleeping so I thought Icould scoot to alpine, run into Menards and Aldi and get back in a short amount of time. I thought I could like just relax and get a few things and feel somewhat normal but all I felt was hot and rushed.

To lighten the mood we are watching The Fosters. Good laughs.

Tomorrow we do it all over again. Hopefully without the alarms and without the tow truck.

October 26th.

20 years ago on a chilly sleety Friday night….I walked down the isle and said “I do” to Mark Linsley. We went to high school together and knew each other but did not date. It wasn’t until he came home from Alaska (in 2000) to get some more pilot ratings and certifications that we started hanging out. I started going to church again as a single mom, invited by my best friend. Mark’s sister Amy and her family went there too and Mark was staying next door to her at his grandparents. We started hanging out and he started training with me for my marathon. Our best friends were getting married so we spent alot of time together and even were able to talk about marriage and expectations of it without ay referral to ourselves. I loved his commitment to the gospel, his love of Christ, his ability to quote scripture and his love for coffee and conversation. We had alot of fun and I knew I needed to find a guy like him because there is no way someone like Mark woud marry a tainted person like me. A single mom with a huge list of mistakes and could only quote a few pieces of scripture I may have remembered from Awanas.

Well either God demanded he marry me or something caught his eye and heart because 6 months after we started dating…he asked me to marry him. I was thrilled and we married 10 weeks later.

We were talking about Karson last night. I often feel regret for any time not spent with him. As a single mom, I had to not only share time but I was young and would let him stay with grandparents while I did things for myself. I regret every single moment I did not have to be away from him. Mark feels like he could have done better as a step dad and I can only imagine what went on in his little brain when he went back and forth and to and fro and then another man came into his life. I know I can’t go back and I need to leave it alone but my heart aches sometimes. Mark told me last night that the night before our wedding Karson was crying and so he brought him back to my moms. Either I don’t remember this or I forgot….but where was I? Why didn’t he get brought back to me? It just makes me cry.

But to bring it back. Mark did do a good job…and even though I may never be able to convince him of this totally…God brought a Godly man into Karson’s life. A constant. A rock.

Marriage is hard. I think people sometimes believe we have a very fun cushy life all the time. Merging two families together is hard, adopting can tear you life apart and sickness can take its toll. Yes, we have lasted. We continue to stand strong. We have fabulous memories and lists of should-haves as well. But its not over yet. As I fill syringes this morning I tell myself that in a few years I’ll be telling this great story of how we got through. But I don’t know God’s plans. I really don’t.

I thought we would hiking in and around the Grand Canyon this week. This morning, for whatever reason, Mark could barely walk. These are the plans He has for us. And I don’t know why.

Getting the machine going this morning was a nightmare. Took two tries. Mark slept through it all and I made a frittata. Its just fun to say.