Miracles

Psalms 136:1 O give thanks unto the Lord; for he is good: for his mercy endureth for ever.
Psalms 92:1 We should give thanks to the Lord for all things. It is a good thing to give thanks unto the Lord

Ephesians 5: 20 Giving thanks always for all things unto God.

I watched with the rest of the world and witnessed the miracles, Amazing!

Snuggies for Seniors

Kristina is doing a great fundraiser!

Check out her blog and see if you can help too.

You can also click on the above picture

to take you right to the donation page!

Remember this snuggie?

I never made it.

When Boo Dog is cold he just uses his daddy's, the Sweetheart's Snuggie.

And as much as he loves his Snuggie,

and she loves her Snuggie!

Don't you know how much Seniors would love to have their own.

So if there is any way you could help Kristina with her fundraiser

then PLEASE Do!

March 1st, 2004

Six years ago today we were at UAB,

University of Alabama Birmingham Health System.

A male nurse stood between the Sweetheart and I and told this joke:

"If a man and a woman are married in Alabama,

move to California and get divorced,

are they still brother and sister?"

The sweetheart laughed.

He's never forgotten that joke,

he tells it to me at least twice a year.

He still chuckles.

The nurse also told us about the big breakfast he had just eaten, knowing that we hadn't had any.

It sounded so good.

I also remember asking him if I could please get up and go to the potty,

he was sweet enough to let me.

When I came back, I remember giving my Sweetheart a kiss

before I got back on my operating room table.

We held hands and answered all the usual questions.

It wasn't long before we went our separate ways.

Him to one operating room, me to another.

For a girl who has always been afraid of going to the doctors and scared of pain,

I was surprisingly calm.

I wasn't scared at all.

I was actually excited!

Excited to get it over with and to get on with living.

The Sweetheart had been going to kidney dialysis 3 days a week for 18 months.

I would drop him off at 6 a.m. and go to the church and teach early morning seminary to the high school youth.

Then I would leave and go home and study for the next days lesson.

Then at 11:30 I would go back and pick the Sweetheart up and take him to work.

He only missed a few days of work while he was on dialysis.

I really don't know how he did it.

So on March 1st, 2004

I gave him one of my healthy kidneys.

The surgery was a success and the minute they attached my kidney to his bladder it started working and has been working normal and wonderful ever since.

Not one bad report in all these six years.
What a miracle!
He has been blessed with many.

Our family has been blessed.

And yes, we've gotten on with living!

(I wrote about the first part of this story last year in this post. I'm finally getting around to writing the next part of the story)

We are celebrating our 6 years tonight

with our children and GRAND~girls.

I'm cooking a special dinner.
Shelby picked the menu :

Ham,

Gigi's best mashed potatoes ever,

and chocolate fudge cake.

I think I had better throw in a few vegetables.

So celebrate with us and make yourself some chocolate fudge cake too.

(I don't know that I've ever made one before so I had better find a recipe quick. Do you have a good recipe for one, please share it with me.)

16 Patients, 8 Kidneys

I'm a Kidney Donor.

My sweetheart was the recipient.

This is the most exciting thing I've heard in a long time.

I was just thrilled that this could even happen.

I heard this this morning on NPR, All Things Considered Then looked it up at the John Hopkins web page and a few others.

Johns Hopkins experts have successfully completed the first 16-patient, multicenter "domino donor" kidney transplant.

Surgical teams at The Johns Hopkins Hospital carried out the eight-way, multihospital, domino kidney transplant in collaboration with colleagues at Barnes-Jewish Hospital in St. Louis, INTEGRIS Baptist Medical Center in Oklahoma City and Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit.


The 16 surgeries were performed on four different dates, June 15, June 16, June 22 and July 6.

They involved eight donors - 3 men and 5 women along with eight organ recipients - 3 men and 5 women.

"All Johns Hopkins patients are in good condition and are recovering as anticipated," according to Dr. Robert A. Montgomery, the director of the Johns Hopkins Comprehensive Transplant Center.

The procedure, kidney paired donation (KPD), takes a group of incompatible donor-recipient pairs, and matches them with other pairs in a similar predicament.

By exchanging kidneys between the pairs, it is possible to give each recipient a compatible kidney.

This way, each recipient receives a kidney from a stranger, and transplants are enabled that otherwise would not have taken place.

The experts involved in the transplant say that involving multiple hospitals created even more possibilities for matches, but it also made the procedure more complex.

"We performed a similar six-way domino procedure involving three hospitals earlier this year. We managed to perform all those surgeries on the same day. However, adding two more recipients, two more donors and another hospital meant that we needed a multi-hospital team of eight anesthesiologists, 16 nurses and nine surgeons. The logistics being that much more complicated, we decided it was best to spread the surgeries over several days, the first on June 15 and the last, July 6," says Montgomery.

What makes the new model interesting is the fact that apart from sheer logistics, performing large numbers of transplants on one day puts a lot of strain on the doctors, nurses and staff at each hospital, and also ties up too many operating rooms.

Montgomery believes that it will serve as a blueprint for a national KPD program in which kidneys will be transported around the country, resulting in an estimated 1,500 additional transplants each year. Source-ANI John Hopkins Hospital

It's Out!

The DIL, you know the one who gave me the beautiful GRAND~girls, had her gallbladder removed this morning and every thing went well! She will come home in a few hours. Isn't it amazing how modern medicine and technology has improved our lives! Thanks for your prayers. Just letting the family know in case you can't catch me home today. I'm off and running again.

Busy, busy.

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And an update on Officer Josh Bain. No more crutches, yea!! He's graduated to a cane and I bet he won't have that for very long either. Healing quicker than ever expected! God does work in mysterious ways!

Thank you, Heavenly Father!

Update on Officer Josh Bain

From this on May 4th

to this,
(pictured with sister Brittney)

~~~~

~~

~

to...

HE CAME

HOME TODAY!

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~

He will be staying with my Travis and Jordan

until he can stay at home on his own.

What a witness of modern day Miracles

this whole thing has been.

Thank you all for your prayers

and thank You Heavenly Father

for your love and tender mercies!

Happy Easter

For God So Loved The World

Remembering

A wise friend once told me that "there are worse things in this life than death."

I believe that to be true.

But knowing this still doesn't make death easy.

Vivian Padgett

passed away Sunday March 22, 2009

As some of you know, we just attended my mothers brother and my Uncle Wayne's funeral in Memphis the end of January. He passed on Ja. 27th. I found out this morning that his wife, my aunt Vivian died on Sunday. They had a hard time and were unable to get a hold of us until last night. She was sick and when you talked to her, all she wanted was to go on and be with her beloved Wayne. They were separated less than two months.

James E. Hill

passed away Monday, March 23, 2009

Uncle James is the husband of my Grandma Padgett's sister, Betty Valentine Turner Hill. She's always been Aunt Betty to me but she is my Great Aunt Betty.

He was a righteous man and an active lifetime member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He served in many church positions during his life time, including president of the Atlanta Georgia temple. He was very beloved of his family and will truly be missed.

Laura Leigh Kirkland

passed away March 24, 2008

It's been a long and sad year for her family and all those of us who love her. We miss her bubbly personality so much.

Only praying that time will help to heal our broken hearts.

Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted.

(Matt. 5:4.)

Of all the Beatitudes, this one appears at first glance to be the most unusual and contradictory. How can it be a blessing to be in mourning? To mourn is to show grief or pain at the death of a loved one. This intense feeling cannot be hidden from the world or from God; it cannot be eased or pacified except with comfort and consolation from God through the Holy Ghost.

So why would the Savior say that it is a blessing to mourn? It may be that pain and suffering at the death of loved ones is an essential part of our mortal experience that obliges us to face the question of the reality of the spirit world and the hope of the Resurrection. It is through suffering that we discover what is eternally important.

It might be that it is a blessing for us to become more fully aware that God’s ways are not always our ways, and that we must trust him when things don’t go as we believe they should. When we can see the Lord’s purposes fulfilled in our sorrowful moments, the Holy Ghost can console us and the Atonement and Resurrection can become the cornerstones of our faith.

(Robert E. Wells)

Celebrating 5 Years

It pains me to look at this picture.

This is Harry my Sweetheart.

This picture was taken at our oldest

son, Harrison and Christon's

wedding. October 2003.

Harry had been on Kidney

dialysis for one year.

Two months later, Dec. 13, he went to

University of Alabama Birmingham

Health System, or UAB for short,

to be tested to see if he was eligible

to receive a kidney transplant.

The goal was to get his name on the

waiting list. We found out that he

was fit for transplant but because

he had already had heart bypass

surgery he wasn't eligible for the

waiting list. The only way to get

a kidney was from a living donor.

He thought about his family

and who could or would do it.

He has 2 brothers and two

sisters, and 2 sons. Our sons

were young and had their

whole life's ahead of them.

His siblings had very busy lives

and jobs and families.

There was no way Harry would ever

ask anyone to give him a kidney, never.

As we were leaving UAB, and I mean

leaving as in Harry was already

in the wheel chair in the hallway,

It dawned on me that I had the

same blood type as Harry had

and asked if they would just go

ahead and take my blood and give

it a check. We went home and

didn't really know what to do.

Lots of people said they'd give

him a kidney and that was nice

and easy to say but when it really

came down to it, would they or

even could they, give an organ.

We just didn't know

what to do. We just got through the

Christmas holidays, prayed and waited.

New Years Eve afternoon the phone

rang and it was UAB. My blood

sample had met 3 out of 5 of the

necessary criteria to be a donor.

The Transplant Coordinator made

an appointment for me to come

to Birmingham and have further

tests. I made all the arrangements

right then and there to go.

I was so excited to tell Harry and

waited until he came home from

work. To my surprise he wasn't

excited and didn't say much.

I couldn't understand why.

I finally got it out of him that

I had never asked him how he felt

about me giving him a kidney.

He didn't want me to have to go

through surgery. I hadn't even

thought about his feelings. I was just

so anxious to get on with living

and get him off of kidney dialysis.

Honestly, I had never ever thought

about being an Organ Donor.

I didn't like the thoughts of signing

my organs away on my driver's

license. It's not something that

I ever thought I could do.

Feb. 14, 2004 Valentine's Day

I checked in UAB for 3 days of testing.

Things went really well and I was

a perfect match for him.

The best part of the testing found

that I could have Laparoscopic

surgery to remove my kidney!

Minimally Invasive Surgery

Whoo hoo!! I was so excited.

I called Harry and to tell him the

good news. He couldn't speak he

was so emotional. They had already

set the date for April 6. I couldn't

believe we had to wait that long.

That was nearly 6 weeks longer.

As I was packing to leave

the hospital the next morning

our Transplant Coordinator came in

with good news! Someone had

cancelled and there was an opening

for us to have it done March 1st.

That was 10 days away!

We had 10 days to get ready!

To Be Continued...

This was probably TMI (to much information)

But I've never written this all down.

I don't know why I am doing it now

other than to say, we are

Celebrating 5 years since

Donor/Transplant surgery!

We had plans to go to Florida

last weekend for 4 or 5 days but

with the passing of our dear Willard

it wasn't a time for our celebrating.

We needed and wanted to be with

our loved ones and friends.

So we will go and celebrate our 5 years

this weekend. Compared to the

picture at the top, Harry looks

100% improved. Only God knew

that when we married 31 years ago

that we really were a

perfect match.

And oh, how blessed we both are

to have each other and to have

God's greatest blessings and miracles!

Think about it!