I feel like I only post now days when I'm in over my head. Well I'm drowning.

Thank you for the prayers of my Grandpaw. In the end, we all realized that his quality of life was so poor that it was almost easy to let go. He was a Godly man who very obviously put God first in all he did. I was in the middle of my off site at a hospital and at home health and so every day I spent time around the elderly. After spending day after day with these little people who had lost the ability to talk, swallow, think.... I find it a blessing that Grandpaw was teaching a Bible class the night before he entered the hospital. He did what he loved. No one could take that away from him. Every day that I was surrounded with people in the hospital with no immediate discharge date, I found myself thanking God for saving Grandpaw from that pain. It honestly made it easy to let go.

But that's just one difficulty of the summer. Yesterday I got an awful, awful text message and later a call about a dear classmate of mine. She gave birth to her daughter in May and yesterday found out that the baby had been left in the car all day. By the time the father realized what had happened around 3, the baby had already passed. My heart literally aches for this family. This morning at 15 to 8:00, I sat straight up in bed and immediately asked myself "Was that a dream? Is it over?" Sadly, no. It's only getting worse. Not only are they having to deal with the grief of losing a child, they are having to deal with awful comments from the general public judging them for what has happened. People attacked my friend for being an awful mother and saying things such as she doesn't deserve to be a mother, when she wasn't even there. It doesn't matter who left her at this point. It matters that the family can pull through this. Please, pray fervently that the Lord can heal their wounds and help their marriage survive.

Two deaths... One sad but joyful, the other tragic. Just at the point that despair might set in, God gives us hope.

He allowed life. Sweet Gabi is now 14 months old and she. is. home. The baby who wasn't supposed to live... the baby who coded... the baby who was pronounced dead... went HOME. Even more, she wasn't sent home to die... she was sent home to THRIVE. Praise God for his goodness and mercy.

Psalm 27:13 I would have despaired unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of the LORD In the land of the living.




This song is stuck in my head through all this. May I always have this attitude.

I can count a million times
People asking me how I
Can praise You with all that I've gone through
The question just amazes me
Can circumstances possibly
Change who I forever am in You
Maybe since my life was changed
Long before these rainy days
It's never really ever crossed my mind
To turn my back on you, oh Lord
My only shelter from the storm
But instead I draw closer through these times
So I pray

Bring me joy, bring me peace
Bring the chance to be free
Bring me anything that brings You glory
And I know there'll be days
When this life brings me pain
But if that's what it takes to praise You
Jesus, bring the rain

I am Yours regardless of
The dark clouds that may loom above
Because You are much greater than my pain
You who made a way for me
By suffering Your destiny
So tell me what's a little rain
So I pray

Holy, holy, holy
Is the Lord God Almighty

I had started a blog about how lucky I am. I still believe that's true with all my heart but I decided not to post that right now. Instead I'm going to post a blog asking for your prayers.

I'm asking your prayers for a man that would take my brother and I to Dunkin' Donuts right before dinner to spoil our appetites.

I'm asking your prayers for a man who who would have water fights with us and chase us into the tree house (then stop the fight long enough to get me down because I couldn't climb down the ladder).

I'm asking for your prayers for a man who just laughed when I unsuccessfully tried to walk his dog (that was 3 times my size, and 12 times my strength).

I'm asking for your prayers for my Grandpaw who is in ICU and now on a ventilator in an effort to stabilize his numbers.

I'm asking for your prayers for his Doctors and Nurses, who can help him recover.

And I'm asking that you pray for us, so that God may help us trust in him.


On a different note, thank you. Thank you for praying for our dear friends that have a baby in Texas Children's PICU. Gabrielle is now 1 year old. Although she has never left the hospital, she is loved beyond measure. This baby who was brought to Texas from Baton Rouge for a lung transplant is now growing new, healthy lung tissue and will no longer need a transplant.

Happy Birthday sweet Gabby.

I just thought you'd like to see one more picture from my walk ON Lake Louise. Yes, ON. Technically speaking, I walked on water. Frozen water covered with snow but water, none-the-less.

Moving on to more exciting things, even though that was pretty exciting... Things have been going RIGHT. Yes, some things have been wrong but I have been having some AMAZING times lately. In the class that I was having so many problems with, I've started getting grades back. 95.5 on the midterm. 100 on the major project. 100 on the lab. I'm definitely on the right track. I'm mastering goals in therapy. No, no... my CLIENTS are mastering goals in therapy. I'm just teaching them how. I've got one baby that's an absolute mystery. He can NOT get antonyms. They are completely over his head, I fear. I think there might be more going on underneath but we've got to figure out what it is. Until then, we keep plugging away.

There are many times that I sit back and wish that I had gone straight through from undergrad to grad. Then, there are days like last weekend that I completely understand God's plan. The majority of the grad students went to Fort Worth for the Annual Texas Speech and Hearing Association conference. I was slightly intimidated by some of it because I know that many of the second years know every bar in town, if you get my drift. I knew I'd be able to stay in the room like I did last year but that's not often much fun. Friday night, we had plans to go to a comedy club with the second years and the professors. I've been to several in Houston and Fort Worth that were great so I didn't think too much of it. We walk in a little late, sit down and it is NOTHING like I expected. It was more of a smoky lounge with a stage, many at tables, us in the back. I sat for all of 5 minutes max, listening to jokes that made me uncomfortable before I decided to leave. Right as we were getting ready to leave, a waitress snottily informed us of a "two item minimum." I stood up to tell the girls at the other end of our row that I was leaving and found out that they wanted to leave as well. Long story short, when I thought I'd be the only one leaving, it ended up being 4 of us and 3 more that stayed at the place in the lobby to talk. We may not have the same exact values, but strength in numbers REALLY help. I wouldn't have gotten that if I had gone any time within the last two years. Not just that, educationally these girls push me to go farther and work harder than I ever have. This next year and few months will be one of the greatest (and most stressful) of my life.

So moving on to more interesting moments... We have a summer school course that we are taking that supposedly messed up our opportunities for off sites. Off sites are our opportunities to work in other settings. We are required to work in a school, hospital, and the one extra location of our choice. I really wanted to work in a hospital setting in Houston seeing as I want to work in Houston. Summer school entered and I kissed my idea of working Houston offsites goodbye. That is, until yesterday my prof asked if I still wanted to. Further more, would I be interested in working at TIRR? TIRR... Texas Institute for Rehabilitation and Research. They are THE place you go for TBI and other injuries and brain involved diseases such as Parkinson's and MS. On one hand, I'm psyched. On the other hand I'm staying back and praying that God does what he knows is best. I do admit that when she told me about it, I got goose bumps. I'm so wicked excited. It's everything I can do to not go out and start buying my new wardrobe right now.

So that's the quick run of my life. It's crazy, It's busy, It's blessed. Maybe soon I can find you all more pictures :)




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One more sad, quick note that I would like to add seeing as it's my blog and I can do it. I'm not quite sure how I feel about the way people react about the healthcare junk. I have some friends that tend to "rub it in the other side's faces" because they're glad it passed. I have other friends that are falling in to melodramatic rants about how it's the end of the world as we know it. I really can't say how I feel. While this Healthcare plan is not the one I'd choose, I will choose to see the good. I prayed often and I prayed hard about this plan. I prayed that God's will would be done. Who am I to say that God is now wrong? If you've read my blog for any length of time then you know that I AM one of those crazy high risk clients that no one wants to insure. I have a tumor in my skull, for crying out loud. Under the previous plan, I'd never be able to get insurance through anything but a large business for the rest of my life. Say what you want about "insurance is a privilege, not a right," but I'm glad I've always been able to have it. Even if this IS the end of the Unites States (which I don't think it is), there is one thing that I can say with confidence: God's people will prevail. They always have, they always will. Whether I now have health insurance or whether I die because a waiting list for an operation is too long, I put my confidence in God and his omnipotence. I. Will. Be. Fine.

Well, that's about all I've got to say about that. Time to get ready to save the world from Antonym Crisis. Perhaps next time, I'll tell you all about meeting the true Patch Adams.

**Just thought you'd like to know that when I presented the words "empty" and "full" to my baby today and asked him what they were, he said they were m&m's. That's close enough to antonyms, right?

I'm not in Nacogdoches anymore... I'd have you guess where I am, but anyone that is friends with me on Facebook knows I'm in Canada :)

And in other news, I realized I have an eidetic memory. The end. Enjoy your spring break!

Okay so that new years resolution junk? I've failed. Ha! Specifically, I've already failed with the "I will roll with the punches" one or whatever I said. Well.... I failed. This week SERIOUSLY tried my patience and all that goes with it. It ended up making me quite disgruntled with the program and the week. By the end, thankful I had reached the laughing point. It all started this week with my washer stopping with a full basin of water and my sheets in that water. From there, it just kind of went down. BUT I had an amazing week as far as bonding with friends. I'm back on track, but I felt like I needed to own up to my fail.

And now, enjoy one of the things that made me start laughing quite a bit.

I introduce you to: Auto-Tune the News.