Sunday Dinner, May 17, 2009, Mother's Day pics & Other Ramblings

See the little serving pot with the chicken on it, in the graphic to the left? Just imagine that the pot is filled with chicken and brown rice, 'cause that's our main dish for Sunday Dinner at Diane's Place this week if you're dining with us.

I'm going to cook some frozen green lima beans tonight and cook some corn on the cob when I get home from church tomorrow afternoon. If there are several more than usual here for lunch I'll open a few cans of green beans to round out the meal.

That's the menu for Sunday dinner: Chicken and brown rice, green lima beans, corn on the cob, and if I have a crowd I'll open some green beans to add to the meal.

What's on tap for your Sunday Dinner? Share your plans/menu in the comments if you've got the notion.This past week was a whirlwind of activity, some good, some not so good.

Mother's Day was good. JESSICA and Emmy were at church with me Sunday morning. For Mother's Day, Jessica gave me a lovely card that she and Emmy both wrote in, 4 really pretty roses with baby's breath and Jessica gave me a pedicure Saturday night, all much appreciated. Pictures taken at church Sunday morning are at the bottom of this post.

For my Sunday Dinner (lunch to most of you) I went with Jessica, Emmy, Cecil, Ducky and several friends from our church to a local restaurant. We enjoyed everything, including chicken strips, steaks, barbecue ribs and burgers and more. I had the steak, and it was really good.Monday was spent with Cecil and Sue. We went to eat at O'Charley's for lunch and then I sat in the car at Kohl's while Sue and Cecil shopped. We went to the mall for a while and I sat and sipped coffee and read a book while the sisters shopped in there.

We ended up back here at my place and just sat around watching TV and gabbing until time for them to go home.Tuesday Cecil had a hair appointment at 11:45 am. I stayed home and cooked lunch for us. Remember that ham I said we might have for Mother's Day dinner, if I cooked? Well, that's what we had for Tuesday dinner. I sliced off some of the ham and fried it for sandwiches. I still have some left on the bone to slice off, and the bone will go into the bean soup pot sometime soon.

The week goes downhill from there.Wednesday morning Lamar woke up with a bloodshot eye, his left one. It looked a little irritated, but nothing more. As the day wore though, his eye began swelling and he was having pains behind it. By late Wednesday night we knew it was something out of the ordinary, so Lamar called our opthalmologist and they saw him early Thursday morning.

Our eye doctor knew immediately that there was something seriously wrong with Lamar's eye and sent him down the street to an eye specialist. We've lost count of the tests they've done on Lamar's eye, and some of them were done multiple times on Thursday and Friday. We even sat in the ER of our local hospital on Thursday evening so they could do an emergency CT scan of Lamar's head to rule out a stroke or clot that might have been putting pressure on his eye, but praise the Lord, it was negative.

Incidentally, the CT was done in the same hospital where Jessica works and she was able to be with us during the test and while we waited on the results. We went home for the night with 3 different kinds of eye drops, some of which have to be given every 2 hours during his waking times. At least he doesn't have to wake up every 2 hours during the night for them.

At 10 am Friday morning we headed back to the eye specialist for another long day of tests and to see a retina specialist from Memphis, who was very concerned and sent us to the other local hospital for an emergency MRI. There was some confusion about reading the MRI as it was Friday night and most of the staff and doctors are gone for the weekend.

The retina specialist from Memphis gave us his personal cell phone number and told us to call if we had any concerns whatsoever, so we called him to make sure it was okay for us to go home. He had told us Lamar might have to be admitted to the hospital on the spot so he could receive clot busting drugs for a thrombosis in the back of his eye, but the radiologist who read the report didn't think it was severe enough at the time to need the clot busting drugs.

We were reassured after talking to the retina specialist and finally headed to Wal*mart for another prescription and a refill on one of the drops, and to finally be able to eat. Other than some snack cakes and coffee put out at lunch time, we didn't eat all day long Friday, until 8 pm that night. Lamar couldn't eat because of the tests and the possibility of being admitted to the hospital, and his Mom and I wouldn't leave him to go out for a meal.

Mc*Donald's chicken nuggets and lukewarm fries never tasted so good.

So now we go back Monday morning to have Lamar's eye checked again, then back Friday morning to see the retina specialist from Memphis again, barring any complications in the meantime.

There's still some uncertainty as to exactly what's wrong with Lamar's eye, but they think it's something called "acute angle closure glaucoma". The doctors say it's a "most unusual case" and it's the worst case they've ever seen, especially in someone so young (46). Apparently this type of glaucoma is uncommon, and the particular type they think Lamar has is even more rare.

Figures. I told Lamar, trust him to have something odd and unusual, lol.

Those are not reassuring words when they're speaking about your health. They're not entirely certain this is what they're dealing with and they told us we'll have to deal with it day by day. I foresee many more tests and procedures for Lamar, and many more days spent in the doctor's office.

The doctor's haven't offered us any predictions whether Lamar's sight in that eye will improve or worsen or if, heaven forbid, he'll go blind in that eye. At this point, nobody really knows what will happen from here, including his doctors.

Up until now Lamar's had perfect vision other than needing reading glasses in the last few years, so this was a bolt out of the blue for him. Since he's handicapped with his cerebral palsy he really values his sight and hearing. He told me the other night that given a choice, he'd choose losing his hearing over his sight.

But this is not in our hands, it's all in God's hands. If you're a praying person we'd appreciate your prayers for Lamar, that the doctors will correctly diagnose and treat his eye, and that he wouldn't lose quality of vision in his eye.

We appreciate the skill of the doctors and surgeons, but ultimately, we realize that the Great Physician is in control.

Thank you in advance for your prayers. :-)I don't want to end my post on such a somber note, so I'm going to leave y'all with some pictures from Mother's Day at church. I won't caption them because I think you know who's who by now, but if you have questions about them just leave them in the comments or email me.

Y'all have a wonderful Sunday. May God meet all your needs, and may you have enough to share, dear family and friends.