Smiling through the bumpy ride

Good morning Dear Ones

It is the early hours of Monday morning... another week starts with so many questions swirling around us. I have spent the last two nights in my own bed - or maybe in Winston's bed - hard to know which! It has been both wonderful and tough to be home... being in my own space and on my own is so unfamiliar and yet good. Being so far away from the kids while this journey remains so uncertain has increased my sense of helplessness. But as usual no upset is in isolation from many blessings

The dogs greeted me with much attention... and Tara make a wonderful welcome home dinner... everyone should have friends that express their love in that old fashioned way - a splendid dinner...

Sunday morning Cynthia and I took a relaxing walk before Sunday School and it was so good just to move, even in the rather chilly air... Winston thoroughly enjoyed chasing for his found ball on Skidmore fields.

The kids in my classes on Sundays all asked wonderful questions, inspiring me to think wider and deeper, and supporting me on my own journey towards balance. I am so lucky to have the chance to engage with them, learn with them and from them. We explored profiling and its merits and challenges. They are a fine assortment of decent people. What a blessing to work in community.

I got to see my mother, visit for a while with Helaini's friend Jeff.... take the dogs to the dog park... Winston was well behaved with all the dogs... but enthusiastically jumped on every human... several times. (our next focus for appropriate behavior!!!)

I got to putter around the house, do laundry, get healing and loving hugs from dear friends, visit and giggle with my mother. Chat through my anguish with wise friends without restraint because I didn't need to keep it together in a public setting.... all this said, I also got to miss my kids... and grieve over the pain of watching them both struggle with this challenge our little family has been facing for what feels like so long now.

Toren remains in good spirits most of the time. It is harder for him at the hospital because he is sharing a room, and while the young man is a fine person... Toren is very vulnerable to distractions and stimuli these days... therefore it adds to his stress. He was so thrilled to be with Helaini and to hang out with Jeff on Friday night and Saturday morning. Friday was another determined attempt by several folk to get an IV into Toren's reluctant veins. The veins won... no IV - and Toren was so compassionate to the nurses. He never got cross not after multiple - over 8 attempts (I stopped counting then) to get access. The access is important because if Toren ends up having a major seizure this is part of the way we need to stabilize him. The doctors have left his medicines alone this weekend... because on Saturday he had a seizure that looked like all the others clinically but actually manifested differently in that his brainwaves were clearly disrupted. This complicates the picture on so many levels. What we do next will be discussed this morning once I et back to the hospital and we all meet with his doctors. While this journey remains full of unexpected challenges and turns. I remain confident that we are in the right place and supported by warm and wise medical personnel. My father would say you might not know the right thing to do, but you certainly know what the wrong thing is - so don't do that. It is good advice that serves me well in these troubling times.

I found myself writing this blog with deep quiet sorrow. It is hard for me to share less than encouraging and positive news. I know that you are all pulling for Toren's highest and best interests... it is so hard to know what those are. Thank you all for holding us in your hearts and prayers. We all feel very loved and blessed, and that helps balance the confusing whirlwind of emotions that rush through us... it might indeed be one of the reasons these emotions keep moving... you are sending a tide of love and hope in our direction keeping universal energy flowing through us, therefore we are not stuck in a pool of hollow depression... but travel through those places.

May your days be blessed, and may you each know how much your caring and communicating sheds light into the darkest of places.

with love

Martina