A Long Walk

A few weeks ago my mom had a brilliant idea, let's go for a walk at Serenbe. At first I wasn't sure if I wanted to go. I was a little grumpy but I knew a walk would be good for me so I went.

My mom specifically wanted to find the ruins at Serenbe so we decided to head in that direction. We walked for a while. and a longer while, and a VERY long time. After about an hour of endless walking my legs were beginning to ache.......ok they were long past beginning to ache, they wouldn't even move right!

After about an hour and a half hike we reached the ruins. Ok they were pretty cool, but I'm not sure they were worth aching muscles and chiggers. :)

By the end of our two hour walk I seriously felt like I was about to collapse from exaustion. Being the shutterbug that I am I was still stopping to snap a picture whenever my batteries would cooperate, which is how I got this picture. From what I can gather it is a hummingbird moth. Very interesting creatures. :)

How creative our God is!

Emergency!

Wow, last night was a hectic, exciting, scary night!
It all began with Micah!!! Well, actually I guess it goes farther back, to baseball!! Anyway...
I was sitting quietly in my chair watching Micah's team play (without Micah). All of the sudden I felt a weird sensation in the center of my chest right below my neck. Like someone grabbed a muscle and squeezed it, gently. It didn't exactly hurt but it was uncomfortable. As it continued to spasm I finally told my Mom. We walked away from the stands, thinking someone had some perfume that was triggering a weird asthmatic reaction. I used my inhaler; didn't help.
Now my Mom is scared. I was just kind of weirded out. It was a really strange feeling.
Holly got someone to grab Micah from the end of the game excercises. (He was really upset. Not!) I felt a little too funny to drive (we had some in two cars) so we all squeezed into Caleb's car.
At one point Mom started heading for the Fayetteville ER, but I told her it wasn't that serious. I didn't want Micah, Holly and Autumn to have to sit in the waiting room forever. Really the only reason I wanted to go to the ER was because I wanted to know what was happening. It wasn't that painful or anything.
We had just passed the White Oak entrance when Uncle Bob called. He thought I was Mom.
"Sue, Dad wanted me to call 911 because he has severe abdominal pain and he's throwing up."
" Umm...umm, this is Jenna, hold on."
I thrust the phone into Mom's hand. SCARY!!! Granddaddy is sooo frail.
We headed home expecting to be passed by an ambulance, until Mom remembered how much time they spend sitting in the driveway doing, I don't know what! Granddaddy in the hospital is not an uncommon experience unfortunately.
So what are the odds that my grandfather calls 911 at the same exact time I'm heading to the ER for the 2nd time in my life? ( not counting when I was born)
By this time my spasms were almost gone but I prefer sitting in the waiting room to sitting at home waiting for a phone call; plus the spasms could come back and I felt really weak.
We got there a while before the ambulance arrived. I felt bad but no spasms so we didn't check me in. We waited.
At last the ambulance arrived, my uncle came in.... my memory is a little sketchy so I'll sum some of it up here. They thought it was his gall bladder. That would require surgery which he is not in the best shape for! He was in a tremendous amount of pain and still throwing up.
After a little while my spasms started coming back. Little ones at first, then they got bigger. So Mom checked me in. They put me in a room, not particularly fast, but then they have a reputation to keep! I was attached to all these different things which mostly told I was extremely healthy. Ugh, the little finger attachment squeezed my finger, cutting off my circulation. It hurt more than my spasms did! I took it off. (Shh, don't tell them!)
"Mom, let's pray for a woman doctor."
The board said my doctor was B. Nichols.
"Let it be Barbara!" We prayed.
First I got a woman lad technichian. She took an EKG. Then the dr. came in. Barb. Nichols!! A woman! Thank you Lord!!!
My EKG was perfect, she said. She ordered a anti-inflammatory shot and a chest x-ray. The shot was painful, it felt as big as one of those ink inserts that go into cheap pens!
The x-ray was better. I got wheeled through the hospital in a wheel chair. That was fun! :)
During all of this Granddaddy is really worried about me!!! Goodness, he was in tremendous pain, Morphine didn't even help! Why was he worried about me? Silly man. :) I love him!
He was supposed t0 have a CAT scan but he couldn't sit up enough to drink the stuff because it hurt too bad. They didn't think it was his gall bladder anymore though.
Poor Mom was running back and forth between Granddaddy's room and mine! The security guard was giving her some funny looks. :)
So the doctor came back and said everything looked great. No problems. They gave me two prescriptions and sent me home. Which is what I expected anyway. I told the doctor she was an aswer to prayer because she was a woman. I;m not sure she was real immpressed.
Oh, by now it was 2 AM. I was sooo tired. I stopped to say hi to Granddaddy. He was still hurting bad and didn't look good.
Dad and I left. And that was the end of my exciting trip to the ER. whoohoo.
Granddaddy still had a ways to go. Right now he's been through surgery. He had some twisted intestines. I was really scared he wouldn't make it through surgery. They said in eight hours he would have been dead if they didn't operate though. SCARY!!!
We have a lot to praise God for!
~ My uncle was with Granddaddy so he could call 911
~We were already on our way to the hospital and not still at the baseball field.
~My "emergency" was nothing serious.
~Granddaddy has made it so far, and has another opportunity to accept Jesus as his Savior!!!!!!!!
~ My woman doctor! :)

Please continue to pray...
~For Granddaddy's healing and most of all his salvation.
~My mom
~My dad is still hurting
~Summer and Caleb as they are overseas right now.

THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Another Burdett Adventure

Hope your Mother's Day was crazy fun! Mine was. Here's how mine went.
Everything was going smoothly, until we found out the van's battery was dead. Not a big problem. We took two cars to church and Dad charged the battery.
After church we rushed home so we could change clothes (I didn't) and get the van. Then we drove up to Decatur to the best pizza place I've ever been to, Athen's Pizza. We met Granddaddy and Uncle Harold ( my great uncle) there. I haven't been to Athen's for about five or six years. It was just as good as I remembered.
After lunch we went to see my great-Aunt Teenie. It was her 96th birthday!
"I didn't think I'd make it." She said. She was pretty fuzzy, but she seemed to recognize me. She kept telling me how much I had grown. That was a nice change. :)
We stayed awhile but eventually we had to go. We went by my grandmother's grave. She's buried up there. That was hard because it was the first time I'd been there since the funeral I think. I didn't really want to go because I like remembering Grandmother alive and thinking of her as alive. I know she is alive so what's the point of honoring a dead body? That's not her. She's not there. I know it's important to my grandfather though, so we went.
Then we went home. Everything was pretty normal. Mom and dad went out on there Sunday night date. I had some lasagna. Mmm.
It was getting kind of late. I thought Mom and Dad should have been back since they only went for a coffee ( I think). But, I didn't give it much thought...until Mom called.
"Hi, we need you to come rescue us. We're stuck in the mud."
Oh great. Mom gave me directions to somewhere out in the middle of I don't know where. Micah got the things Dad needed and we left in the BIG purple truck. It was about 9:00 when we left. Very dark. We went down the bypass to Smokey road. Smokey Road was long and VERY dark. I nearly squashed and armadillo. I drove through a cloud (with my brights on, how dumb is that?). I prayed hard.
Then we turned on Corinth, then on Hwy 54, then on another Hwy (27?).
"We're supposed to call Mom now, Micah. They're going to start walking out to show us where the dirt road is."
Micah called.
"Oh great, we have no service."
Oh boy! I prayed really hard. God please help!
I drove very slowly. How in the world would we find them? The dirt road was on the left.
"There they are!" I never would have seen them. They weren't supposed to be out there yet so I wasn't looking for them.
Thanks God!!!
Dad came and drove the truck down the road. He and Micah hooked the van to the truck.
Please let this work. I think we were all praying that.
Dad pulled. Nothing. We tried again. Nothing. Dad tried a few idfferent things. Nothing.
We were down to our last hope, the shovels. Dad shoveled the back wheel out and filled up a large rut. I climbed back into the back of the truck to help with traction. I'm not sure I made much of a difference. :) Dad pulled again.
PLEASE God!!!
The van rolled right out.
"Thank you Lord!"
The ride home was uneventful. I was exausted. Adventures do that to you.