Heading Home!

Wahoo!  We are heading home today--busiest travel day of the year.  Jon has a final check up in the clinic with the surgeon in the morning and our flight from Indy leaves out at 4:25PM.  Pray the weather will not delay or more importantly cancel our flight.  We are READY to be home with our kiddos.  We have been away from them for 8 days!

Jon is doing great.  He is still a little sore (cut in 8 places)!!  He had 2 chest tubes (those incisions even look pretty big).  He is also still very tired, but is anxious to get home and get back to "normal."  It will take about 6-8 weeks for him to have NO limitations but for 2 weeks cannot lift more than 15 pounds.  And then a gradual increase from there.  But he will go back to work pretty quickly so for all of you co-workers, like it or not, he is coming back for good:o).  He canNOT wait to live his normal life which includes P90X, teaching everyday, Athletic Director duties, and refereeing.  Oh, and did I mention that he has 3 small kids and a wife.  This man is on the go and this past year has cramped his style.

A delivery came during his hospital stay!  It was his GODSTRONG blanket that went all over the country!  He was super excited.  Here is a video and a picture.  My phone ran out of memory so the video shut off but at least you can see a clip of when he saw the blanket.  How awesome that many, many people were praying for Jon on the day of his surgery and praying for continual healing in his body.  GOD ANSWERS PRAYER!  It's amazing!  I'm sure Jon will write a thank you soon!

So many people have reached out to us during this time and one thing Jon and I have made a commitment to is giving back!  Jon got out of the hospital on Sunday and Monday he went to the BMT unit to encourage and minister to 3 of the 4 testicular patients that IU has currently getting the same treatment Jon got (by the way that is a lot at one time).  This is a picture of Mark and his girlfriend Candice.  They are 23 and fresh out of college and dealing with some pretty heavy stuff.  I am asking you to pray for Mark (and Candice and his parents).  Also, please pray for Rob and Josh.  We got to meet all 3 of them and they are all great guys!  Please pray for them as they are all in the middle of getting high dose with stem cell transplant. We enjoyed telling our story of our journey and encouraging them. 

I'll leave you with a funny story.  When Jon went in to surgery he had to take his wedding ring off.  I was worried it would fall off my finger, so I took my wedding rings off, put his band on and then mine on top so his would stay on my finger.  I forgot it was even there by the end of the stressful day.  I stayed at the hospital the first night after Jon's surgery.  I woke up in the morning and my finger was very swollen.  I could not for the life of me get my rings off.  So i began doing all the tricks to get it off, lotion, ice to get the swelling down, vasoline, etc.  The situation was getting worse.  The finger was swelling even more.  There was no hope.  But the funny part was all the nurses were getting involved in the action.  They were coming in and out of the room, not to help Jon but to help me.  They were trying every trick they had heard about from the ER.  NO Luck.   They were even going to extremes to call down to the ER to get me a ring cutter.  We were all wondering who the patient was.  At this point, Jon is completely rolling his eyes wondering how I always get myself into these messes.  He calls me his beautiful disaster.  The ER sent the ring cutter up to the room.  I held it in my hand but just couldn't bring myself to use it.  So with the urging of Jon's mom, we decided to give it the rest of the day to see if the swelling would go down and sure enough that night I somehow worked and worked and got it off!!  Always some sort of drama to tell about.  

Happy Thanksgiving to all and 

We are thankful to be…

GODSTRONG!!