Roller Coaster

Wow. In the past week there have been a lot of ups and downs. I was blissfully happy enjoying every second of life. Then Sunday my mom went to the emergency room for severe stomach pains. I started freaking out, naturally, and Alex and I drove in to Lee's Summit to see her at the hospital. On the way to LS, Alex's car started overheating about 1/2 mile away from my mom's house. We kept driving until we got there, praying that we'd make it safely to my mom's. Once we got there, Alex went next door to ask our mechanic neighbor what the problem was. He told Alex what happened and what he needed to buy to fix it. Alex took my mom's car to buy the part and more coolant and came back. The neighbor came over and made sure Alex knew how to fix and and then left. To drive to Florida with his family. If they had left even 10 minutes earlier, we would have had no idea what to do besides tow it to a shop to have them fix it. And it would have cost a whole lot more than the 22 bucks it cost us to buy the part. An amazing Godsend during a potentially stress inducing incident. God totally answered our prayers of getting us there safely, and then some.

Back to my mom.

She was admitted overnight and the cat scan showed that there was something blocking the contents of her stomach from entering her intestines. So they had to stick a tube up her nose, down her throat, and into her stomach to get everything out of her stomach and relieve some of the pressure. I spent the night in the hospital room with her and Alex stayed with my siblings at my mom's house. The next morning they took the tube out and put a little camera scope down into her stomach and 12 inches beyond to see if they could figure out what the blockage was. The doctor found nothing unusual. Then came the barium drinking and x rays of her intestines/small bowel to see if they could find anything that way. By the time the x rays were finished, my mom was feeling much much better. She stayed overnight again, but this time I didn't stay with her. Alex and I got home that night around 11ish. My mom was released the next evening, with the only explanation of her pain being that she has screwed up twisty intestines (obviously they did not say it in those words :)). The pain was relieved not by what they did, but her body just did it naturally. More answered prayers. Many people were praying for my mom and her healing. God answered those prayers.

I was reflecting on these incidents and felt very peaceful and I knew that people had been praying for my strength during this time as well. I felt so encouraged that God was taking such incredible care of us during a hard couple of days. I have a fear of things in my life being too good, from when we came back from the honeymoon to a burned down apartment. I get this horrible feeling that if I get too happy, something bad will happen to destroy my happiness. I was on cloud nine until I found out my mom was in the hospital. But then that all was resolved and I felt like maybe I found stable ground.

Until Tuesday night.

Tuesday night I got ready for the shower just like I always do, and put my wedding/engagement ring in the same place I always do when I shower...on the dresser. I thought to myself about how I put all my jewelry there, and it is a wonder that our cats never mess with it. Boy was I wrong. A few hours after the shower, after Alex and I got done watching Monsters, Inc, I went to put my ring on before I went to bed. But it wasn't there. The rest of my jewelry was, but not my ring. I asked Alex if he moved it, he of course replied that the last time he saw it, I was wearing it. I started to look for it, and I noticed that Rumpy (our youngest of the two cats) had pulled two hair ties off the dresser as well and took one into the kitchen, and one into the living room. I looked everywhere for the ring, expecting to find it within a few minutes. Nope. Alex helped me look. Still no luck. We looked for at least 2 hours and didn't find it. We went to sleep and looked for hours upon hours more the next day. Still nothing. I'd like to note that our apartment is 743 square feet, so there really aren't that many places it could be. I looked all day today again. I still. haven't. found. my. wedding ring! It has been really hard emotionally for me. I don't have my wedding dress because it was lost in the fire, if I don't find my wedding ring and don't have either of those very important and sentimental items, I think I might lose it.

The maddening thing about it is that I know it's in the apartment somewhere! It is here and I just can't find it. I have run out of places to look. You name it, and I've looked there. Fifteen times. And so has Alex. Now I'm just waiting for it to show up randomly someday like everyone keeps telling me it will.

I sure hope it does. I am praying that it will.

PS- We leave for our Cruise at 530 Saturday morning and I am determined not to let it ruin our wonderful trip!