Things have been fairly quiet at our house. Our flights are now booked for Susan's trip to Edmonton. We will be leaving on August 1st. It is nice to finally be able to get these arrangements made and finalized. There are a lot of logistics to organize for a trip like this and things are falling into place now.
As we are approaching Susan's surgery date we are slowly checking things off of the "To Do" list. Flights are booked, accommodations are arranged, and we are getting some of our life's events out of the way. Each small item that we can complete is one less thing to stress over. School is now done, which is a huge relief. We had an "early" birthday party for Russell on Saturday. We will be in Edmonton for Russell's birth date so we had his party early so he could have a special day when we are all together. I find it completely amusing how much work this has been to organize all of this over the past few weeks. When Russell was airlifted to Edmonton in 2008, I had about 6 hours to do all of this, and I did it by myself as Susan was at the hospital. Still have no idea how that all happened. I'm pretty sure there were numerous things that didn't get done.
Susan is doing "OK." At this point in time if we were to have any date change it would be a huge challenge to undo our plans so we hope that we are able to just quietly wait for August to roll around. The strategy right now is to be as stress-free as possible. We are still trying to do some normal family things but it is all built around a very "relaxed" schedule. Managing stress is a huge issue for Susan now. As is usually the case with any illness you have good days and bad. We just learn and adapt. I wish I could describe how she is feeling but i really can't. She is having more frequent bouts of chest pain and she tires really quickly. She can still do things but she has to be really careful to take things at a really slow pace. Anything that requires any exertion has to be planned with a fairly lengthy recovery period. Load the dishwasher...then sit for an hour to recover. Lots of fluid to keep well hydrated and keep blood pressure up. Salty snacks are also a good thing to keep the blood pressure up.
I will be taking time off of work to help out at home. My last day at work will be this Friday. Then I can concentrate on getting things ready for our trip. We are trying very hard to do some normal summer time activities. In essence, when we learned of our date in August we knew we had lost our entire summer but we are trying to do at least a few things to keep spirits up and moving forward. One of the most difficult things about waiting is the psychological effect it has. It really helps to keep the mind busy.
We have a lot to be thankful for. We have received a lot of support from family and friends. Our freezer has a lot of goodies in it and we have also had some help with some things around the house. Every little bit helps.
We hope the next few weeks goes by quickly and without any significant events. Our hope is that things stays very quiet. Hoping I have nothing of any significance to report.
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