Saturday, August 4, 2007

Where do we start?

This is a summer for the record books. Don't feel bad if you can't keep track of us we can hardly keep track of ourselves. We had a great trip to SD for 3 weeks visiting family and arrived home in AK on July 11. Four days later Fred's sister, Sandy and family of 8 started arriving. We spent 2 weeks playing tourist with them, driving up to Hatcher Pass, salmon fishing on the Keani River with the Smiths and on the Deshka with Bruce plus lots of meals filled with good food and lots of laughter. Before we knew it the kids started heading for the airport to go home with lots of fish and stories to go with them. July 29 we left Sandy and Rodney with instructions on how to run the B&B and flew to Washington DC.
Now we have been here for a week and this is the first day we have had no Doctor related appointments. Fred spent the day hanging out in our room, sleeping, reading and watching TV. I fixed us some food and cleaned up our tiny kitchentte, then made a list of things we needed. Yesterday I bought groceries expecting our unit to have the basics; silverware, plates and a few kettles. We have a small frig, micro wave and coffee maker that is all.... I am now on an mission to keep things as simple as possible and yet be able to make meals for us. It is amazing what you can find in cheap plastic. I even found ceramic mugs for 79 cents apiece.

Cancer. Yes, that is the real reason we are on this adventure. Fred has a tumor on his spine that is pinching the siatic nerve and causing him a lot of pain and affecting his ability to walk. He was sceduled to start a new drug trial at the National Health Institute on Monday, but his Doctors there wanted him to have radiation treatments to shrink that tumor and make him more comfortable before he started the trial. He will finish the treatments a week from Monday, August 11. As I understand it, the Dr's want him to wait another couple of weeks to recover before they start the drug trial.

God has been going ahead and preparing the way for us so may times on this trip. After 3 days of tests and doctors, Tuesday afternoon Fred started radiation treatments at the National Navy Medical Center accross the street from the NIH campus. I needed to find us some long term housing that was near the hospital and not so expensive. Normally that would not be so hard, but because of the war there are a lot of families needing housing near their wounded soldiers. I had to go outside to make the calls on my cell phone, it was a small quiet garden surrounded by tall hospital buildings. Finally, I found some housing on base near the hospital starting in 3 or 4 days. I was praying and asking God what He wanted me to do next...because whatever it was, I wasn't getting it. A few minutes later I went back inside and was standing at the counter in the radiology oncology office asking the clerk about other military bases in the area. He didn't know much. A woman from accross the waiting room asked what exactly I was looking for. I told her that my husband was having radiation treatments and that I needed housing and turned back to ask the clerk another question. She said, "Excuse me, but you can come home with us we come here every day for treatments." I was stunned.....are you sure? I said, "I have a B&B in Alaska and you can have a free stay any time." I walked over and introduced myself and they introduced themselves.

Sandy and Skip Meet our new best friends.

To be continued...

1 comment:

SKKD Lambing said...

God is truly amazing and he keeps showing us that he covers our needs before we even know what they are. You both are in our continued prayer and that of our sunday school class. May God continue to Bless you on this journey.

Love, SKKDD