Karwoski Life

Well, our trip to Iowa City went well yesterday. Matt had an MRI in the morning, then we met with the neuro doctors in the afternoon to discuss. Basically, the MRI looks ‘good’. And by good, they say that it looks better than the angiogram did last winter. Apparently, the small vessels which still have blow flowing through them now appear smaller than they did in the angiogram. Because the flow is less, the likelihood of a rebleed is less…so we all agreed to follow it a little longer, rather than try and treat it just yet. We had the opportunity to explain just how awful our experience was to the doctor, and it felt really good to lay it out there and just spew about how bad it was. He was pretty wide eyed after that, I think we surprised him with our honesty!! We all decided to repeat another MRI in another 6 months, and see how things look then. If there are changes, we’ll have to discuss treatment…if it appears stable, we may just follow it with repeat MRIs for a while. I t...

Happy Memorial Day Weekend!! We are enjoying a cool evening, watching the race and lounging comfortably in our family room. It has been a busy weekend, but a good one, none the less and we are SO looking forward to having another day around home tomorrow! Matt’s sister Lissa came home for a visit this weekend, and we’ve enjoyed catching up with her. She’s been working for a traveling therapy service and this has been her first trip back home since she left in January. We planned a cookout on Saturday with Matt’s parents, Uncle Rich and Aunt Bev. The weather was pretty rainy off and on, so we ended up cooking barbequed beef brisket inside instead. It was still nice enough to make ice cream though! We had a really good time, just being together. For me, it felt as close to a normal family get together as we have had in a long time. It was good to have Lissa home, and to just be together. I think we are slowly moving into another phase of this journey together…moving slowly back to normal...

Here are some pictures of the TA with the new wheels!

After a long day of hard work yesterday, Matt and I did something we haven’t done in over a year and a half…we sat outside on our front porch together!!! It was a beautiful evening, and when I asked Matt if he was up for it, he said ‘why not’…so we walked out and sat on the two chairs on our front porch. To me, this was a big deal…a moment to be remembered. It was just another example of how much more ‘us’ we are these days. Sitting together at the end of the day, talking on the front porch…it was priceless. We had spent the day working hard, doing projects around the house and garage with Hope and Chad. Even Miss Meghan ‘helped’ wash windows! Matt’s dad came by in the morning and helped us take the wheels off of the TA and FINALLY get the new wheels put on. We ordered new tires for the wheels and had them all put on on Saturday. They look SWEET! (I’ll post a picture later.) Chad was nice enough to wash up the car and it looks awesome! Matt even talked to Chad about taking t...

Matt and I have made a big decision recently…we are going to officially join our church, and Matt is going to be baptized. We have been talking about it and thinking about it for a while now, and last week were able to sit down and meet with our new pastor to discuss things. It was so nice to have him over and just get to know him better, as well as tell him about ourselves, our faith stories, and Matt’s rehab journey. Sometimes I can’t believe that our lives have taken all these twists and turns…it is incredible when I stop and think about it. We talked a lot about going through this experience and coming through it with faith. While we often times struggle with the whys, it is through faith that we can keep moving forward and trusting that things will work themselves out. It has been proven to us (undeniably) time and time again. So Matt has decided to take a big step forward in his own faith and I couldn’t be more proud of him. Sunday we went forward at church and were greeted...

Well, I survived my girls’ trip to Vegas…and Matt survived a few days at home with his dad! The trip was just what I needed…fun, sun, relaxation, shopping etc. I had the best time just being goofy and hanging out with my friends Jami and Gina. We all share the same offbeat sense of humor, and there were just so many ‘you had to be there’ moments; I tried telling Matt about them, but he just smiled at me and nodded his head in that ‘uh-huh, whatever’ sort of way that men do when they don’t really get what you’re talking about, and they don’t really care to get it. I can’t blame him! But we sure did have a gooooood time! Things are going well at home too. We met with our builder on Saturday afternoon and looked at lots. We looked at one development in particular and found a couple of lots which should work. One stood out to us and the builder, so he is going to meet with an engineer to make sure that we can fit the house there properly. Hopefully we’ll have that figured out in the next f...