Update, finally

It's been a while... Between all the life-crazies plus our computer's hard drive circling the drain, writing the blog has been hard. BUT, now with a new, awesomely fancy lap top, I should be in blog-heaven (yes, punny, and proud of it!). Sooo, what's new with Clan Douglas?? Me--work is going well. My patient's are varied and interesting, there is rarely a dull moment, and I am learning lot. Additionally, I have reason to cling to the hope I am making a difference in the world...in a positive way, that is, not a Pinky and the Brain 'the same thing we do every night, Pinky' kind of a way...but I digress. We enjoyed a beautiful, nearly rain-free summer here in Western WA. Apparently, it was rain free for over 40 days which set a record. So far this fall it has actually been sunny sometimes, even if it's been cold some days like today (sunny all day, around 45 degrees...yes, I know that it isn't that cold, but for over here it was cool). We travelled only a little, up to Bellingham, down to Everett (the 'big cities') and only to THE city (Seattle) a couple of times. It was a fun and enjoyable summer with a high of 90 twice, but mostly 78 degrees and blue skies--seriously, I think it's what keeps people coming back for more here, since it is rainy a lot of the time. In September, our family marks two important occasions: our anniversary and E's birthday. This year was 7 years of marriage for us, and 4 years on planet Earth for E. Both went well, but I think E's birthday was the true success. She had fun, had 4 'school' friends come to her party, and all and in all had a blast. I love birthday's and love celebrating hers in grand fashion. Considering all that is going on, Alex's making her cake, which is our tradition, was a fantastic effort on his part and we were all proud (Tinkerbelle themed, for those so curious). October brought with it Halloween, of course, and E was Tinkerbelle (of course) and was a)way too cute and b)so excited it was just like we were getting to trick or treat ourselves all over again. Also, it was 60 degrees that night, the warmest weather I have EVER trick or treated in, and we hit the hour of the evening with no rain...doubly awesome. November has of course brought us to Thanksgiving, including the Thanksgiving Feast at E's school. What a great few weeks it has been, but I do always get thrown off when Turkey Day is so early in the month. I am officially ready now for the Christmas season and can stop pretending I don't see all the in-store decorations that appeared seemingly by magic on Nov. 1. I can actually enjoy them. Yay! The docket for this month includes a trip for Santa Pictures, tree lighting and tree festivals, and hopefully a live Nativity Story like we used to enjoy in Spokane. So, as to how Alex is doing, listing, etc. I would first like to say that in this blog I don't always just jump into that because while it's a huge part of our lives, it's not our whole lives. Keeping and enjoying even a sliver of normalcy is such a great blessing. So I like to talk about our fun and maybe mundane things on here, and if you look at them through the lens of living with a serious chronic illness, they are much more impressive when they are accomplished. Okay, so---Alex has been feeling pretty bad lately, with a lot of nausea, vomiting, fevers from small internal infections, etc. It has been a rough couple of weeks. Not bad, because being alive is not 'bad', but I couldn't ever imagine calling these last few 'good', either. I genuinely hope that we don't have to find out how much more 'bad' can come with this yucky stuff before he gets better. We now have all the required stuff for listing. We are waiting to hear when they do the next meeting of all the people involved to see where we are. Right now we really don't much know, we are just waiting. I think there will be a great deal of that for a little bit at least. Some days life is okay, some it is really hard. It is very hard to see Alex suffering with all the gross maladies that accompany his illness. When we talked about this time years ago, we had no concept of what it would really look like. Thanks be to God. If we did I don't know how we would have had joy. This illness crap is a real joy stealer in a lot of ways. Of course, we try to focus on the blessings and be thankful, but it's still tough as hell sometimes. For all of us. Of course, E has the best outlook and a child like faith that makes her presence in our lives all the more blessed. I am learning, by force, to be totally dependent upon God. I don't like it or want it that way, initially, and resist it with great gusto. But once I am able to allow His Will to envelope mine, life is so much better. It's tough to describe if you haven't experienced it, especially since we are so independent and driven in our society. To surrender means defeat to us. We hear the Devil telling us that we are defeated when we give it up to the Lord, and unfortunately we are too often likely to listen. Especially me, since my independent streak runs far and wide. However, allowing His perfect Will to supersede ours and to become completely dependent upon Him is our calling. No matter where you are in the Christian life, laity, clergy, consecrated or religious, that is the equalizer. God wants us to GIVE IT UP. Yikes. That is so scary to me. Needless to say, I am working on it. The second thing I am learning is the value of service. If you have ever hear the of the Joy Approach, it states priority is Jesus, Others, and then Yourself. There is no choice in our life now but for me to serve. I thought I was a pretty good server, but I must say, I had a lot to learn. To be thankful, to be gracious, to resist resentment when it all feels to hard. To sacrifice. On the one had, I feel privileged--what better way to be Christ than to sacrifice oneself for another? It is a great opportunity to grow in faith. Notice I did not say it was a joy. It is hard. It is difficult to keep Satan out when he reminds me that this is not really what I wanted life to look like (neither did Alex, of course!). One of my greatest struggles has been remembering that life will one day be different. It feels like we have been in the same jag for so long that there is no other way to live. So I remind myself often that one day it will be different--pretty much daily. I was unpacking some boxes that had hung over as 'non-essentials' from the move and found all our pictures. It was fun to see how we looked a few years ago. Really awesome to see Alex happy and laughing and healthy. Multiple reminders that it can happen again. They are all going up on the wall tomorrow....many are already put up as knick knacks. Okay, so there is a really long post to catch everyone up. I am sorry to those who thought we dropped off the face of the Earth. We didn't, but our computer is trying to kick it and writing on the 48" TV was to nauseating for me...an we can only have so much puking in this house at once;) Hugs to all--enjoy the Christmas season and remember Jesus!