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Monday Update: 03/17/08

PHEW!!! What a week! I’m really not sure where to start…I know I haven’t posted much since returning from China and I’m sorry…but holy cow have things been crazy around here! Just nuts! I’ll try and remember all the things I wanted to write…

Matt is doing pretty well. Treatments are going pretty much the same, with Professor Shi performing several of his acupuncture treatments last week. Apparently, the wound on his knuckle is finally healing up, but now he has some sort of scrape on his foot that they’re watching. Last week I think I wrote that they had a little party for the patients…well, apparently it was hosted by the nurses and doctors. They brought in KFC and McDonald’s and served Coke for them! It was a nice time to relax and just enjoy visiting with everyone in a casual setting. Matt sent me a couple pictures which Mary took. Looks like they had fun!
This is Matt and Tim, with one of the nurses:


Matt has also met a nice Polish couple there who have agreed to teach him some Polish words…which should make his grandparents proud! He’s spent time visiting with several of the other patients there, which I think is great. Bob has been very attentive, staying over each night at the hospital. I think that the days are long and he doesn’t want to have to go home that late in the evening. I’m curious about his homelife…but don’t know much about him. Matt thinks he flirts with the nurses a lot! But, he seems to be taking good care of our Matt.

Last Monday Mom came up to help me prepare for the move. Apparently, I had no idea how much stuff I had left to do and pack. Mom was a maniac…I could not have done it without her. Having been gone the week before, I really couldn’t afford to take much time off work, although I feel like I could easily have taken the week before and the week after off! There is just so much to do. Tuesday Mom’s dear, old friend Mary drove out from the Quad cities to help pack and clean up at the new house. After several pots of coffee, the two of them whizzed their way up and down and all around the old house packing stuff up. That evening my Aunt Barb met us over at the new house, were we slopped through the muck and guck to the back door…and went in to try and clean the house. The builders were trying frantically to finish things up and were warming the front driveway in an attempt to reach the main water shut off as well as possibly pour the driveway…well, unfortunately the ground nearest the garage was still too frozen for concrete, so we ended up moving in on plywood. We spent several evenings cleaning the new house as well as the old one…and each night we flopped ourselves down in bed, exhausted. Because the back yard is so muddy and we won’t be able to sod for a while, we had to ship Penny off to George and Sandi’s temporarily. I kept Buddy and have been walking him down the plywood drive and over to an empty lot to do his ‘duty’. He’s much better on a leash than Penny is and he’s been a perfect angel! I miss having Penny around, and I think Buddy does too, but I know I couldn’t have done it with both dogs there at the new house. Hopefully it won’t be too long and I’ll have a full house again.

Steve has been slowly adjusting to the new territory as well. So far, so good! Overall, I think we are all slowly adjusting. I think it’s good to have this distraction with Matt gone, but I can feel myself missing him more and more. I’m glad we can e-mail and talk frequently though and I just pray that the time apart goes quickly and the benefits are worth the sacrifice.

The move went better than I could have expected…we had a large group of family and friends show up to help out…they just blew me away with their help! We had the truck full in about an hour! I owe each helper a big hug…you just have no idea how great it was to have all that help. I was touched and humbled yet again. It’s amazing to me, how much people have done for us. I’m just so grateful.

It was a crazy week – and I couldn’t have made it through without the support of all my friends and family…THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!! I can’t wait until Matt comes home and we can all celebrate the house together!!!

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