Seeing Mom dragging forward through Barnes Jewish Hospital to the same South hospital parking garage some nights last Spring, just steps ahead of me, made me think that I would lose her before I would lose my Dad.
Dad having survived a successful liver and kidney transplant in September of 2017, had a much more harrowing journey to follow that none of us had anticipated.
His body and new kidney were learning to work together and in the process his blood pressure dropping and sky rocketing unexpectedly left him with two areas of bleeding in his brain including a bleeding aneurysm located at his brain stem.
Being blessed by the best surgeons from the start, his three brain surgeries were successful and he is alive today because of these amazing physicians, surgeons, nurses, hospital staff, physical/speech/occupational therapists & home health aides(Mr. Simon Cordero).
Mom was on this journey as well and exhibited the signs of caretaker fatigue.
Unable to leave Dad's side for even a few minutes, her world became Dad which meant no sleep and unexpected side effects from surgery as well as his many antirejection medications.
I can see now why I our family went through this.
After his successful liver and kidney transplant, I sat one morning at our baby grand piano and sang a song and shared it on my Facebook page to tell the world, how Great our God is. The song was "Holy, Holy, Holy" from our Baptist Hymnal. As I sang and played this on our baby grand piano, I discovered that I was able to sing and I was not able to sing that well in the past.
My parents heard it and Mom immediately asked me to take singing lessons and found online singing lessons through TakeLessons.com and my teacher was Sammy Huh. Dad would find comfort when he had terrible headaches hearing me play the piano and singing to him over the telephone.
I see now. For now, a year later, I have been able to teach Zumba Gold on a regular basis at nursing homes and my class ends with the residents singing along with me.... One of the residents, Oma has early dementia and loves the song "In the Garden". I was able to connect with her because of this song...it is a song that Dad and Mom sang this entire past year, so I knew the words and I would have not known the words if he hadn't been through this journey.
I see now.
I see now.
I reached out to Yoga after seeing an ad on Facebook at our local Anytime Fitness Club and was hooked immediately. It taught me to breathe. It regulated my irregular heart beat which had developed over the years from stress.
Now a year later, our Capital Ritz Dance & Banquet Center hosted a McRaven Ballroom Kundalini Yoga/Sound Bath session during Spring's First Moon last month. It has fulfilled a dream of Mom and Dad's to have our Dance Center be a Wellness Center as well. And it has. Not only Yoga classes, but also Tai Chi, & Qi Gong.
I see now.
In the fall of 2018, my husband was fortunate to have found prostate cancer at an early stage of a Gleason 7. Because of this, my husband had a successful Total Prostatectomy for prostate cancer in November of 2018.
During his long homebound recovery, he had time on his hands and started researching about cash-based medical practices. He has a long-history of understanding healthcare trends and healthcare needs being both a physician and health-care administrator.
Upon his research findings and advice, my husband and I developed our office into a cash-based medical practice, offering health care at reasonable cost thus freeing patients from insurance/government regulations dictating their healthcare.
Patients are going to be healthier.
I see now.
In 10/2018, I reached out to a young beautiful vivacious blogger in Utah, Bri Jackson (blogger: "A Little Piece of Bri Elise") because she was offering consultation appointments through Instagram to learn how to develop a Blog.
So I sat there talking with her at the age of 47 not knowing why I was, but I said: "I don't know why I am supposed to do a blog, but I just feel like I need to. I don't know what it should be about either." So she went on to guide me through what a "Platform" was, what a "Blog" was, what an "Audience" was, what a "SEO" is. So she designed this website for me and we started this Blog as "Tiny Twinkly Lights" and it has been fun ever since.
From there, I renamed this Blog "From Jen with Hope" because my mother and husband could never find it on Google; they complained that "Tiny Twinkly Lights" always took them to Lowe's or Amazon to buy tiny twinkling lights. LOL.
I see now. My mother won a creative writing award in high school. I never knew. And now I know why I love writing.
In December of 2018, I decided to start a YouTube Channel so that I could share my love for luxury designer handbags. So I painstakingly learned how to edit my videos. At first while I was learning, it would would take me 12 - 14 hours to edit a short 15 minute video.
I uploaded all these videos weekly and it was at the same time that my husband and I were studying and preparing for our final exam in Integrative Medicine so that we could graduate in 2/2019.
My husband didn't know why I was spending so much time doing this when I needed to be studying. Now we see... fast forward 2 months and we started our Integrative Medicine Health Channel "J&J House Call".
as well as our website: www.wholehealthjc.com
I see now.
So I see now that painful journeys are blessings. They are gifts that cannot be seen until sometime in the future or maybe never at all.
But there is always something good that comes out of pain and suffering.
I see now.
I am thankful for this past year, Barnes Jewish Hospital, and the many long months that we thought we would lose Dad and that I thought I would lose Mom. For now, I sing and connect with Oma at the nursing home, my heart beats regularly because of Yoga, I can edit our YouTube videos in just a few hours now and thus my husband and I have an additional way of helping people through our training in Integrative Medicine.
So now I see.
As always, Look with Intention
XO, Jen