Heads at Ease pillowcase project - our motto is: ALL OR NONE

from Terry:

They say no news is good news and I will have to agree.  No new changes on Mom since my last report.  She continues to hold her own.  We are this evening 48 hrs. after surgery, which they told us was a crucial milestone.  So thankful to still have her with us, and appreciate all your prayers as her body tries to recover.  I will write again when we have any significant progress to report.

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Terry

thanks T.  Here is another request from Maryellen:

Sue,

  We just got a call from Teddy’s mom, his Dad passed away at 2am this morning. He went peacefully and was not in pain. He is in the arms of Jesus.

Please will you let everyone at HAE know, right now all we know is the Viewing will be Tuesday night and funeral on Wednesday.  Well we be leaving Tuesday after we get the keys for the new Apt and will be back on Thursday . I will let you know more as I know more.

ME

Mary Ellen, my thoughts and prayers are with you all at this sad time.

thanks T.  She will appreciate that and your prayer is like a HUG!

here's another message:

We will be leaving Tuesday morning to GA, The viewing is Tuesday night at 6pm and the Funeral is Wednesday at 11:30 am.  I have gotten a hold of American red cross and they are sending everything to command to get Dani on the road.  If anyone wants to send cards they can send them to me at the new address. 

ME

I have her new address.  If you'd like, shoot me an email.

Please continue to pray for her body to heal.  Thanks for the support and concern.

Thank You everyone for your prayers, it has been a rough day. We knew this was coming but still the hurt is there. Iwill keep it touch through Sue for now, but once we get back we will move into our new Apartment and get settled. God Bless You All and thank you for your thoughts a prayers

My family appreciates all your prayers and support and would ask that continue to uphold my Mom in your prayers as she continues to recover.

Please pray for my grandbaby on the way!  That he will arrive safe and healthy!

Any day now!  I am on pins and needles.

New numbers!

Thanks again for the prayers and support.

from Terry.  And if you would like to send her a card, I have the address:

 No clue yet as to how long the next phase of her ordeal will be, but so thankful to be able to share this good news with you.

Maryellen, you up and running yet?

from Nancy B, who had the brain tumor.  Actually, she had 2 and 1 was removed:

Hi Sue, Just wanted to check in. I am doing well, recovering at home although vision in right eye is still not good so an eye patch has become my new best friend. Wanted to let you know that our church ladies have been busy and have 100 pillowcases done. Hope you are doing well. Nancy

We are beginning to gear up.  We finished 2013 with a bang, so have a slow start this year.  I have changed the numbers though.

Still waiting on Baby Lamb!  Sure hope he gets here soon-please Lord!

today is our 33rd wedding anniversary.  We  had lunch at Culvers

Congratulations on 33 years!  Will keep checking about news of Baby Lamb. How exciting.

Congratulations on your anniversary Sue and Husband!!  Awesome!!!

thank you both!  It has been an adventure!

Happy, Happy Anniversary Sue! 

thank you for the balloon bouquet Jodi!  I love it!

Hi

Wow we are half way through February already.

My Son, My Sailor is part of the USS Dunham at Virginia family now.

I am still trying to understand how this whole project works. In between all my other projects and my spring house cleaning I do have a couple pillowcases done. After I have a small package packed, and hopefully will have my Son's mailing address can I start mailing them there? Or is there a certain procedure to follow? I don't want to step on anybody's toes.

Thank you so much.

Have a good day

S.

Hi momofc,

Good to hear from you and thanks for asking those important questions.  HAE's mission is to mail pcs to deployed troops.  It is rare that we would mail to an entire ship while they are stateside.  We did do that for the USS New York in Dec 2009 because of the significance of that ship.

Is the USS Dunham deployed or going out soon?  We would love to blanket the ship in pcs, but would have to the permission of the command first.

You, as a mom, can always send 1 to your sailor, but to do the whole unit, we go thru the command.

Do I have your personal email address?  If not, please pm that to me and we can chat further about protocols.  OPSEC doesn't allow us to say too much on site.

Have a great day!

welcome to eljac913!  Happy to have you join us.

Again, thank you all for the prayers and support during the past 3 weeks.  God has blessed us so much.

On Saturday, I went to a lunch for WW2 vets.  I got to speak at the lunch about HAE.  We gave 20 pcs to veterans of WW2. Korea and Viet Nam wars.

The pcs were all patriotic.  I am holding one in my left hand.   Ray is to my left and he handed them out.  Both of the gray haired  women in front of Ray at that table are both WW2 vets, WACS.  One is  94 and the other in pink is 95.  What an honor to meet them!

And talk about a small world,.  A couple sitted to my arm has a son who serves on the Nimitz.  She thanked us for doing pcs for that ship.  And it turns out that I have an email from their son!

Hi momofc,  sometimes I have to say DUH!!??!!

email me your questions, I do know who you are haha.   and  I have your email address.

My grandbaby is due any day and  I am pre-occupied.  haha

Sue, how awesome is that, that you got to meet those fine ladies!  What an honor!

yes, it sure was.  plus there were many men there as well.  1 fellow who is in his 90's came up to me afterwards and said "you're a real spitfire".  haha

I said "yes I am."

Ladies, I have a prayer request. Yesterday my best friend Linda's Sister passed away. She was a very healthy lady. They do not know what happened, she just collasped. Please keep this family in your prayers and that they find out what took her at a young age of 40. She has 2 daughters and a husband and they and Linda are in shock.

I am so sorry to hear this Maryellen!   That is young.   Will pray for them.  Do they live in the same state?

on another note, I do have to announce that my sailor and his wife had their baby yesterday, 2-21.  I am thanking Jesus for this precious gift!

Alexander Daniel weighed in at 8 lbs 3 oz, 20.5" long.  Here's a photo of proud grandma and baby!

They live in Colorado, Denver I think. We are going to see Linda in the morning and spend some time with her. Not sure when the funeral is, they are doing a autopsy on Monday to find out the cause of death. Linda and her Husband Steve live about 30 min from me, she is a mess and as my bestie Im going to spend some time with her and try and help her through this.

G-Ma Sue you look so proud, and he is sooo cute.  God Takes one Angel and gives us another Angel. God Bless them all.

Sue, what a beautiful baby and you look so happy!!! Congrats to the whole family.

Maryellen, so sorry to hear the sad news of your friends sister. It is good that there will be an autopsy to find the cause. My neighbor had that happen to his brother and they found out that he had an enlarged heart and that it was possible that he could have the same problem. To my knowledge he never took the test and about 6 months later the same thing happened to him. His wife, grief stricken at the time, did not have an autopsy done so we do not know if that was the cause of death but it was highly likely it was. If the tests comes back something like that please encourage your friend to have any necessary tests to rule out anything hereditary.

I/we are very happy!  they came home today.

what a sad story Jodi!  good advice.

teaching him to  pray already!

does everyone see a different format on the page?   Am I crazy?  haha

new numbers posted.  We are mailing to the USS Mason this week.

Change it back, I hate it, it reminds me of Facebook

I don't like it either.  You have to tell the admin.  

I don't like it either!  Way too much white!

yes, too much white!

new numbers as we finished mailing to the USS Mason last week.  Here is my baby "peeking" at you.  Actually, I was burping him.  As I chattered away to him, I stopped suddenly because it dawned on me that I sounded just like my mom.  She passed in 2007 and OH, she would have just loved little Alex!

I just opened this from Terry.  It came this morning:

Try to tell you what's going on without boring you with details:
Friday morning my mom was taken the ER at Newman in Emporia.   I went down right away.  They first diagnosed her with pancreatitis and admitted her.  I came home around 3:30.  Got a call at 5:30 that she was quickly deteriorating and was in ICU so I drove back down there.  She had developed an infection in her blood stream and appeared to have internal bleeding.  After several tests in Emporia Saturday morning, she was transported by helicopter back to Topeka.  The surgeon that did her aorta surgery found leakage at the graft spot where the new synthetic aorta attaches to the original human aorta.  Only fix was more surgery.  She went in at 6 pm Saturday evening for what was to be a 4 hr. surgery.  That turned into 7 hrs. as another graft section tore and bled while they were in there.  We finally saw the surgeon at 1:30 am Sunday.   He feels like he got the repairs done but is very concerned about the amount of time the surgery took.  The shock to her already weakened system may be too much for her to pull through.  Stayed at the hospital all night.  Just waiting now to see if her organs can start working on their own.  Will keep you updated as I can.

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Terry, so sorry your mom is going through all this. I'm sure she will be in all of our prayers that she will pull through this. Please remember to take care of yourself too.

Jodi, that is a great reminder!  caregivers often forget themselves.

ust wanted to let you know how things are going here.  Mom has "woken up" according to the doctor's definition.  She will open her eyes on command, although she doesn't keep them open.  She can now squeeze fingers, lift her arms and wiggle her toes.  Her grip has gotten a bit stronger each day.  They are still concerned about her kidneys, but they seem to have leveled off a bit in the deterioration.  The kidney dr. thinks there may be some sign of improvement.  Also they are concerned about how long she has been on the ventilator.  We haven't gotten a good read on what they plan to do about that.  Still just a lot of wait and see.  The doctors are being "cautiously optimistic" at this point.  Thank you for continuing to pray.

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I posted some new numbers.  I mailed 26 out the other day to 2 small units.

HAPPY SPRING!

I hope everyone in the colder parts of the country are getting some warmer weather now.

When I lived in Milwaukee many years ago, I remember getting hit with a big snow storm in around April 22 because it was my mom's birthday.  YIKES!   That's my cheerful news for today haha. 

New numbers posted.

We are still waiting for Spring to arrive. It looks like its going back down into the 30's this weekend. March can be a tough month. But we are all hoping for some warm weather soon. At least its good weather to sew pillowcases.

Ladies, Look at the new thread at the top of the List. Please make sure you email both Sue and I .

Exciting!

some new numbers posted.

Sad news from one of our crew:

For those who have been my constant prayer warriors, I want you to know my Mom went home to Jesus Sunday morning. Thanks for your support. Continued prayers for my Dad as he adjusts to life without his partner of 63 years, and for the rest the family as we mourn her loss but celebrate her Heavenly homecoming.  Thank you.

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