Productive Day

Today was a productive day with lots going on. Larry didn't make it in to the office today. He was sick today. Yesterday was very rough on him with being back at church. After service he started getting really sick feeling. After he preached, he had to sit down and take his suit jacket off and rest before leaving. He's just not back to normal yet.

It was just Dustin and I going in to work today. When we got there we found that Pastor Aaron was at the hospital having an emergency appendectomy!!! Talk about craziness!! I am so ready for the devil to stop physically attacking us. I hate the devil. I hate him, I hate him, I hate him. Thankfully Aaron came through the surgery well and is recooperating. I thought he just had the flu last night when he was here at the house at Newcomers - he had to leave because he got sick and threw up. But it was more serious than the flu...obviously. Poor Aaron. I'm just glad they found out what was wrong and quickly fixed it.

This morning I had my annual GYN appointment. Always a joy. (ha ha) Actually my doctor is wonderful and although I definitely don't like going, he and his staff make it as comfortable as it can possibly be. I have referred a lot of women there because I think they are pretty amazing in the way they handle their patients. You aren't just a "number" - you are a person that they spend real time on. My doctor (Eliot Cazes) is in practice alone, has no associates with him, so it's him you see and that's it. I don't know how he keeps up with it especially delivering all the babies himself with no help. He's very up on technology and is always looking to find ways to make life easier on us women. If it wasn't for him I would have never known about the endomentrial ablatian procedure that changed my life four years ago! What a God-send. Dr. Cazes is always advertising some new procedure he wants you to ask him about that promises to make your life better. I like that ~ he doesn't just want to go with the status quo but he wants to use whatever medical advances available to improve women's lives. Today he gave me the good news that I don't need another mammo for another year. :-) I don't mind it so much like others do who say it's so painful - I just get unnerved waiting for the results, mainly...sitting there waiting for them to tell me to get dressed again. Okay, sermonette coming here...

Many women don't keep up with their regular checkups. It's hard to take time out of our busy schedules to go. It's uncomfortable. It costs money. (I understand - even with insurance I still pay $30 to go). But it's like this - we need to do it!! First we need to do it for ourselves, but second because if we don't take care of ourselves we're not going to there for those who need us. I have pastored so many women who put their appointments off, sometimes for years. Then they find out something is wrong and it's so much worse than it would have been, had it been caught early. This past year and the year before we buried two such women. It broke my heart. One lived in fear and embarrassment of what might be wrong. So they put off going. The second one was too busy taking care of everybody else in her world and put off her checkups. Both are dead today.

It's like this - even if I didn't have insurance I'd be having my annual check up each year. So much depends on it. I've gotten used to making a yearly regular physical check up with Rosemay in August of each year (she encourages her patients to just remember on their birthday month to call and schedule a yearly physical.) Then each year I also schedule my GYN. Each year when I get the call that everything's okay, I breathe a sigh of relief and enjoy another year and thank God for it. Dr. Cazes also has a great sense of humor. Today he walks in and says the same thing he said last year... "you're back ALREADY?! My, time flies when we're talkin' about pap smears!" Then when I was laying there actually getting the test, the nurse says, "Breathe, Deanna!" I said, "oh gosh, I was holding my breath! How did you know that?" She says, "cause everybody does it for some reason and last week we had a patient turn BLUE!" She said for some reason everybody lays down, puts their feet in the stirrups and holds their breath. It's just nerves. None of us go to school to learn this, we just instinctively do it. Even after having three kids, and having a zillion appointments you just never totally get used to it.

After getting back from my appointment and working for a while I took Dustin to lunch. He asked today since Larry wasn't in, that we just do lunch by ourselves instead of inviting everyone. He said, "let's do our own thing like that one time when you let me skip school and we went out!" (Surprising what kids remember as good memories...) I took him for a little mother/son date to Mariposa. He really seemed to like it there. He got the skirt steak tacos. We had a nice talk while there about Africa, and about his dreams and plans for life. He told me at lunch, he's worried about me going on my trip. I never spoke to him about the dangers but he knows. He said, "Mom, if you die on that trip, I'll kill you." I said, "okay Dust, it's a deal If I die on the trip you can kill me..." :-) LOL After going back to work for a few hours, we stopped at the thrift store on the way home. I was looking for a few shirts to wear on my Africa trip and Dustin picked up a back pack that matched Stephen's.

I got 14 of my initiatives done today. That's pretty good for a Monday. I just started attacking them. I have to get another Africa message done this week and I'm trying to clear a lot away so that tomorrow I can focus on it.