Loss

Early this morning at around 2:30 am I lost one of the greatest men I have or will ever know. My Dad passed away early today. He was my father, mentor, friend, confidante and my rock. I can't think of anything more profound to say right now. My heart is broken in two.

Friday September 5,2014

I am still in Thunder Bay. My Mom and Dad celebrated their 48 wedding anniversary two days ago on the 2nd. My Mom had a feeling that my Dad would pass on their anniversary. She was wrong. He is still hanging on.

He is sleeping most of the time and is medicated. He is in a lot of pain. Even his skin hurts when you touch it. My sister, mom and I are averaging about 4 hours of sleep each night. It is starting to catch up with us. We are exhausted yet not hungry thanks to all the food that people keep dropping off.

We have a excellent crew of people that come in to help us. My Dad has an RN who visits the house twice a day and a home care worker who is also here twice a day. Their help is much appreciated. There are also a lot of people who work behind the scenes to ensure that we have all that we need.

Jim and the girls are doing OK. We have some very good friends who are helping out with picking up the kids, feeding everyone and helping Jim to look after all the little details. I missed Ainsley's first day of school. That made me very sad.

I know what I am doing here is very important. My Mom could not do all of this at home without my sister and myself. My Dad would have to go to Hospice Care.

Please pray for strength for me and my family........and sleep.......need sleep!!!!

Not much new

I made it home to Thunder Bay OK. You know you have travelled the same stretch of highway too much lately when you start to recognize the highway workers who hold the stop/slow signs at each construction job!

My Dad is slowly getting worse. Not much new to report. He is tired, confused at times and has basically slept all day. He is no longer able to to eat or drink anything. This is hard :(

Sofie and the rest of my family

Update on Sofie first.
Her hearing has improved. Her left ear is back to her previous level of hearing loss and her right ear, the mid range is back to her prior level, the upper and lower levels are slightly better that her worse test and worse than her previous normal level of hearing loss. Make sense??? We do know that this will be her last set of ear tubes and that when her ear wax builds up, it really affects her hearing and needs to be dealt with ASAP! We have no idea why or how or what! It is what it is. It is Sofie :)

Family notes.

My Dad has been battling some type of cancer since Ainsley was minus one month of age. When I was eight months pregnant with Ainsley, my Dad was diagnosed with colon cancer. He beat it. Later on, he was diagnosed with Prostate Cancer. No biggy, we figured it was caught early. Turns out it was the more aggressive type. He continued to battle on and never complained or whined.

This summer was tough. He is losing his battle. I just got back with the girls from Thunder Bay tonight.  Tomorrow I head back to Thunder Bay by myself. After I left today, my Dad's lab work came back and it had changed a lot. His hemoglobin is no better despite many transfusions and his platelets are super low. His oncologist gave him 2-3 days.

I will try to keep everyone updated on my blog. My Mom and Dad are very private and are not comfortable with their battle being posted on Facebook. I request that any comments that you wish to make are made on my blog and not on Facebook. I hope to respect my parents privacy and still be able to update our friends and family.

Thank you so much

All of us :)

PS if anyone feels the need to help out Jim, please just step in and volunteer. The beginning of the school year is not a great time for Mama to be MIA :)

Updates

It has been a while hasn't it. I keep meaning to update everyone and then something else comes up and I forget and then I am too tired to think about what to write so I go on Facebook :)

Lots has been going on. I will update about Sofie first. Today she had a minor surgery done. She had her ear tubes replaced as they had worked they way half out of the canal. The other reason that new tubes were put in is that her hearing has gotten worse symmetrically across a wide range of frequencies. The hope was that new tubes would help remove any fluid or inflammation that could be a cause of her hearing loss. No such luck. No fluid, no infection and no inflammation at all. In fact, if it weren't for her abnormal hearing test he wouldn't have even bothered to put them back in at all. Sofie is an enigma. She has stumped her ENT surgeon.

The next step is to repeat her hearing tests, make new ear molds and make any adjustments and then go from there. If her hearing returns to it's previous state, we scratch our heads and keep moving in the same direction. If the tests show the same abnormal changes then we take a breath and depart down an unknown road. There is no way to know if her hearing will continue to deteriorate or it will stay at this level. One day at a time.

....and everyone breath in and breath out :)

Sofie's language has just exploded over that last year. There are even days when I have to stop and stare at her in amazement over the stuff and the words that come out of her mouth. It is truly phenomenal. Don't get me wrong though, this little girl is stubborn, strong willed and fierce. She takes life on head first and doesn't stop. I love her, she is exhausting. She needs to be fierce.

So I might try to change things up a bit on the blog. Make it more about our life and living in general and less about just our adoption of Sofie. If I ever get the chance.

I have also started a photography journey. I have been taking classes on photography and photo editing and I am thoroughly enjoying it. I hope to one day be able to actually get paid to take photos of people and places and things. If you never take the leap and try, you will never get there.

Here are a few photos that I have taken. Take care and we will talk again soon :)

2 years

It has been two years since we first laid eyes on a scared little girl in China. So much has happened in those two years. Our family has changed and grown as we struggled to find a new normal. Ainsley has learned how to be a big sister and she is doing a marvelous job with it. Jim and I have learned new parenting and family skills to help nurture our family and get through the difficult times.

Sofie! Sofie has done amazing. In two short years she has undergone a lip revision, palate repair, hernia repair, ear tubes, two teeth pulled and 4 filings under anesthesia, CT Scan, ABR exam under sedation, tonsils removed and a palatopharyngoplasty of her palate to help correct her speech not to mention countless hearing exams, ear mold fittings and speech therapy sessions. She is one tough little cookie.

I could go on and on about the last two years. There has been joy, heartache, stress and happiness. It has been a privilege to watch Ainsley and Sofie become sisters. Sisterhood truly has nothing to do with genetics. It transcends everything. It is a beautiful thing to watch grow and develop.

恭禧發財 Gong Xi Fa Cai

Happy Chinese New Year!!!!!!  "Wishing you to be prosperous in the new year." 

2014 is the year of the horse in the Chinese zodiac calendar. The horse symbolizes kindness, strength and gregariousness. In the large Chinese astrological calendar, this year is also associated with wood making this the year of the wooden horse. This represents 12 months of patience and cooperation. I need some of that :)

Lunar New Year is a very important holiday in the Chinese culture. It is a time to honor ones ancestors and to spend time with family and loved ones. More than any other holiday, I think of Sofie's China Mom, her birth Mom, during this wonderful time of celebration. I hope the holiday is not to hard for her wondering where and how her daughter is. I hope that somewhere in her heart she feels that Sofie, Lu Jing Jing and the first name that her birth mom ever whispered in her ear, is doing well and is loved and cared for. I hope she feels in her heart how much we love her precious daughter and how much she has added to our family. "Wishing her to be prosperous in the new year."

Sofie has been asking lots of questions about her adoption lately. She knows that she lived in China before Mommy, Daddy and Ainsley came to get her. She somehow managed to find adoption gotcha day videos on You Tube and was watching them the other day. Wow did that ever fuel a ton of questions which I tried to answer as best I could. A few weeks ago out of the blue she asked me "where Mommy Daddy when I baby?" When you have a child who, for almost and year and a half, could not verbalize a question so that the listener can understand suddenly starts asking about her adoption, it kinda floors you. You become somewhat complacent in your day to day routine and the adoption subject never comes up until one day.....wham it does. It is like you almost forgot she was adopted as you fumble through life. Then it hits you! I am supposed to answer these questions and do a good job answering them. You spend so much time and effort into helping her learn to talk that you forget about all the adoption and birth family stuff that is going to come up when she can talk until it smacks you in the forehead. I hope I did a good job explaining things to her. I have definitely decided that I NEED to put an adoption video together for her so she can watch her own story. I have procrastinated about doing that.

I promise that I will try not to let 2 months go by without a post. I can't believe it has been two months. I will post about Christmas and all our goings on since then, soon. Until then,

GONG XI FA CAI