You’d think with all that energy that I would have done better at getting Christmas cards out this year, but I’m afraid that didn’t happen.  I sure did enjoy hearing from all of you who so faithfully send pictures and cards each year!  It is so fun to see how families grow and change!  Life takes us all so many places, and we all do so many things, that if we don’t take time to review it is easy to forget how blessed we really are.

I guess since I missed the Christmas greetings to all, I will take time this morning to recap 2010 in the Eckert home.  Tom continues to enjoy his job at Baldwin & Lyons.  It has given him so many chances for advancement and is a constant challenge for him!  He is actually one of these guys who needs to be challenged to be motivated so it is all good believe me!  Around mid-October he was able to set aside a near daily occurance in our home that really ate up his R&R time at home, Dialysis!  He was so faithful to be my main support and assistant in this so that we could do this process at home!  It was a blessing to do it at home, but oh how blessed not to have to do it at all anymore!  Equipment is gone!  2nd guest room waiting to be made over! 

After a long struggle with health issues, to stressful to even list here, I (Bethany), was blessed by a dear friend this past fall with the gift a kidney!   The whole event was such a spiritual journey for not only me, but my donor as well!  I am so thankful that Mary King was willing to follow God’s leading in her life!  Scott and Mary two incredibly special people to Tom and myself!  As Tom has so often said, “how in the world can you even begin to say thank-you, for such a gift?”,  it has so reminded us once again in a very personal way, of the gift of life that God has given each one of us if  we just accept it!   Thank-you Scott & Mary!  Thank-you, Jesus!

Braedon, our growing up handsome boy!  He has changed so much this year! In size alone, he has grown over three inches, gone from size 4 to size 7/8 clothes, size 2 boys shoes!  I can’t begin to even keep up!  He has such a tender spirit, and we are so thankful for his heart that is so open to learning about the Bible and God.  He loves his Christian School, our church, and he constantly amazes us with the prayers that he prays each night!  I ask that you pray with us, that he will continue to build a sure foundation in his life on Jesus Christ! 

As we start off this new year we are completely satisfied, knowing that whatever this year brings, God will keep us!  Not to say that there won’t be hard things to bare, or that we are expecting a easy road to walk on, we are just SURE of who is in charge, and rest in that this year!  

Blessings to each of you!

Bethany, Tom, and Braedon

When I went to Clinic on Tuesday morning this week, Dr. Taber told me that he was comfortable enough with my progree to start to seeing me only once a week now.  He double checked my lab work yesterday just to spot check a few items, then called and said I really didn’t need to come to Clinic today, Friday!  I will see him down at IU every Tuesday morning through the end of November , then he will start seeing me up at Clarian North Hospital, which is exactly 7 minutes with all lights red from my house.  It  takes about 45 minutes to get to IU, just so you know why I am so excited.  I do not enjoy driving downtown before daylight, it is a scarey place for all the beauty that is there. 

I have been on a tremedous roller coaster of emotion ever since the transplant.  I had been counseled prior to the surgery that this would happen.  One minute it seems like I am excited, laughing, overwhelmed, and just plain full of joy, then in an instant I can start having overwhelming fears that this is all to good to be true.  I am learning to deal with these emotions but it has been a journey for sure.   I am learning to immediately when the feelings of fear start overwhelming me to start praising God for all the miracles that He alone worked out prior to the transplant, how HIS hand was so evident.  With such overwhelming evidence it doesn’t take long to get on the upside of life again.  How thankful I am for our wonderful God and Saviour, Jesus Christ.

Another praise worthy idem is Dr. Taber said he will give the order this coming Tuesday to have all of the dialysis equipment removed from our home. Wow, we will have another room to decorate.  How fun that will be!  Believe me I have plans. Our deck has been being redone outback and that should be completed today.  So you see there’s just all kinds of fun stuff.  Next Wednesday we find out if our wood floors that we found in the flood can be fix and refinished.  If not then to decide what to replace them with! Ok, that enough of my schedual.

I will end this post by once again just stating that we serve a great big God friends. I read everyday on FB about friends who are going through challenges that they never dreamed would happen to them.  If I could only get through to each one the message that my dear blog buddie posted so long ago now, “There is nothing, no circustance, no trouble, no testing, that can ever touch me until…it has past God and Christ, right through to me. If it has come that far, it has come with great purpose, which I might not understand at the moment, but refusing to panick, I lift up my eyes to Him, and except it as coming from the throne of God.  If it has come that far, it has come with great purpose of blessing to my heart. No sorrow will ever disturb me, No trial will ever disarm me, No circumstance will cause me fret, for I rest in the joy of what my Lord is…that is the certain rest of Victory!”  The prayer of my heart each day of late has been that I can be this kind of person from the inside out.  

Blessings,

Bethany

Well, being the brave one that I thought I was I walked around all evening with a bath towel on my nose.  Finally, Braedon went to bed and he is such a great little go to bedder, he was asleep in no time!  I remember falling into our bed and even though it was still bleeding, and out of exhaustion I fell sound asleep.  Suddenly, at 3am I believe God woke me.  There was so much blood on me, the bed and pouring onto the floor. Immediately I called Randy and Sheryl, they came right over. While they were on their way, I called 911.  Let me tell you, there is no more blessed sight then 4 big burly firefighters coming to your rescue in the middle of the night.  Randy rode with me in the ambulance and Sheryl took sweet Braedon home with her.  After that the next two weeks are nothing but a blur.  Tom came as quickly as he could, however he had a hard time getting a quick flight out of Miami.  My mom made it  before him somehow and during that time of waiting for my family, I had several very dear families, Tim and Cristina Wright, Randy and Sheryl Saine, and Ty and Amy Cahill, setting at my bedside and comforting me.

Well, the summary of the story up to this point is:  hemalitic anemia had set in probably several days earlier, causing my blood counts to drop suddenly,  then because I am on Coumadin for my heart valve it became very concentrated in my system, thus I had NO clotting factor in my blood.  For anyone medically minded, upon my arrival to the hospital, I had a hemoglobin of 3.0.  So, 22 bags of blood later I was feeling mighty fine!   However, that is when I was made aware that due to an infection that they had also found and my kidneys starving for blood I was in complete renal failure.  I cannot even begin to express the emotions of those first few weeks.  Without the love and constant support of my family and friends around me I would have never had the courage to face the next three and one half years of dialysis.  Ok, I cannot even now go back to those days without weeping, so let me get control I’ll be back in a minute!

Well, three times a week off to the dialysis center for a 4-5 hour session on the machine!  My days were Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday.  For the next two years, that was my life.  I am so thankful for the family and friends that stayed right by me comforting me, encouraging me and most of all constantly reminding me that God was really there whether I could see, feel, or hear Him or not. That He truly did have a plan for my life and I just needed to be content to take each day that I was given and not look far ahead and become discouraged.  I will admit that during this time, I felt very much that God had deserted me.  I have never felt so empty and dry at any other time in my life.

Finally, after much planning, Tom was really in a place that he needed to move forward in a job, and so the search began for a new job for him.  During  these two years I was able to get back to nursing and loved it, that really helped to keep my focus off of me!  I was to the point at this time though that the docter felt I should look at quitting work, as my heart was not holding up to dialysis very well.

God graciously lead us to Indianapolis in a job change for Tom.  This got us back in range to a little more family support than we had in Colorado.  It was hard to leave so many dear dear friends, but in God’s good time we were able to settle here and establish friends here as well!

When we first came to Indy, I started out at the dialysis center, but even at my first session here the social worker started talking to me about doing a new program at home called NX Stage Dialysis at home.  It really seemed to fit our life much better than taking off to the center at 5am every other morning.  With little Braedon it was perfect!  So, we went through the training, and moved home for what would be the next approx. 2 years.

About 15 months ago one miraculous day,  a sweet girl that I grew up with happened upon Tom’s facebook page.   After growing up as kids together in Alaska, I had gone my way to nursing school and she had gone hers.  During my last year of Nursing School, Tom had gone off to Kentucky to teach at a small Bible College there.  He knew Mary, my donor from there, but Mary didn’t realize that he had married me!  After all these years, that day the she found Tom on FB she put the puzzle together.  Tom had posted that day the urgent need that we had for a kidney.  Mary contacted Tom shortly  after that and told us that she would like to be tested.  She would be my donor if all worked out to be a match.

And so the testing began.  No small feat I must say!  At times it seemed like they took so many tubes of blood that it was quit  possible we might not have any left!  In the end,  my Donor Angel Mary was a PERFECT match!  God is so good!  She could have been a good match and the doctors could have made it work, but God blessed us once again with His Perfect match!

So after sorting out scheduals and rearranging scheduals, and planning and planning, the Big Day finally arrived!  October 13th, 2010.  We got up at 5:30 to get to the hospital by 7am.  After that everything happened so fast.  I can only remember being so excited I could hardly stand it!  I remember walking down that hallway into the surgical suite with tears of joy running down my face and after crawling up on that awefully narrow table looking up and begging the anesthesiologist to put me out I just couldn’t stand it!  Thankfully she smiled and said “OK Girlie, this is the best day of your life!”    That was it, next thing I knew I woke up with a nice nurse looking down at me saying the surgery went flawlessly!  The surgeon said that the kidney never stopped producing urine and he had a hard time stitching the ureter in place because he would position the needle and here would come a big drop of urine throwing his needle off!  This is really amazing because normally the donor kidney kinda goes into shock for 24-48 hours before starting to produce urine.  I had a full urine bag by the time I left recovery!

So, 3 surgeons, 100 staff members standing ready to do their job in our surgical suite, 4 hours for Mary, 5 hours for me, and my new life began!  Oh yes, I must include the 1.5 million dollars as well!  Thank God for insurance!   I think best of all, we had the most awesome support team of family and friends standing by through it all lifting prayers to Heaven through the entire experience.

I will bring this to a quick end.  I know that there is countless more events and miracles to share , but that will come another time.  To end this I just wanted to share one more special moment that I had, that I never will forget.  I believe it was the morning of day 5 after surgery, I had been moved out of ICU the evening before, the nurse came in and removed my foley catheter.  About thirty  minutes later I felt the urge and what a feeling to be able to urinate on my own again.  A feeling a joy overwhelmed me and I couldn’t stop laughing.  Every one in my room started laughing with me and it was a moment of joy I will never forget.  Never forget to thank God for all the blessings of your life!   Blessings!     Bethany

Transplant has come with a wide variety of emotion, some of which I will never be able to express, but I wanted you all to know that I am still here doing well and basking in the new life given to me.  This is the end to a long day, exhaustion is setting in, but I promise to share the wonderful story in full soon. Blessings!   Bethany

Mr. Jerry will finish the dry wall in the basement tomorrow and in the afternoon the carpet cleaners come!  Tomorrow night the basement can come together and we are done!  After the transplant we will have the wood floors that we found in the dining room and great room refinished.  That will be an extentsive project that is just impossible to attack right now.  We are very comfortable now though with everything back in its place upstairs and thoroughly cleaned!

What beautiful weather God has blessed us with this week!  The leaves are changing so pretty into those deep reds and golds! Fall is my absolute favorite time of year!  Lots of good things seem to happen to me in the fall!  The latest being my kidney transplant!  I am so excited!  We are closer than we have ever been before and I am so ready physically this time. Physical therapy really did it for this old body!  I have so much more strength and stamina than at any other time through this whole process!  It has been three years since kidney failure struck!  Hard to believe in a way that it has been that long. Then, I think again and have to say oh my it has been a long time!

I know that time will be at a premium the next few weeks, with lots of unpredictable things happening! I will try to post along the way, especially since I have a lap top now you know!  Tom will be doing Google updates while I am in the hospital. Contact him if you need directions how to get on his list!  Blessings to each of you my friends!  

Bethany

Mr. Jimmie came in this morning to put down the first layer of our kitchen floor.  I am so excited.  The finished product is going to be beautiful, and I can hardly wait.  This afternoon, Mr. Jerry is coming into do the drywall work in the basement.  Possibly by the end of the week we can have the carpet restretched and cleaned, then, this weekend we can get the basement back to normal living!  So you see life isn’t so bad after all! 

Poor little Braedon had a tough weekend.  Friday night we went  out to the country to some friends house for the church choir picnic.  The kids played so well all evening, that I didn’t even realize til into the evening that something was flaring up that old asthma.  Poor little fellow could hardly breath by the time that we got home.  We did all the treatments at home that we have been instructed to do.  The hot steamey bath, Vicks Vapor Rub on the chest, back, and feet, warm cup of tea.  He was so exhausted that he fell asleep drinking his tea.  He seemed to rest well all night, but got up feeling aweful.  After the breathing treatments and the meds that I had available at home he continued to worsen.  Late afternoon we took him into the ER.  I was so glad that we did.  He tested positive for Strep Throat.  He is on antibiotics and predinisone to calm the asthma flare.  He is much better today although his doesn’t have much energy.  I kept him home today, just so he could rest.  I was so thankful that we found this all out early, because I was able to go onto antibiotics as well as preventative.  The last thing I need is Strep Throat two weeks prior to transplant!  God is so good.

With news of yet two more friends coming down with some form or reoccurance of cancer, it has made me stop at the beginning of this week and sincerely thank God for the blessing of health this day.  I am sure that each one of these friends would gladly trade my common cold for their diagnosis.  I know that each one of us has our own battles to fight, some days there is triumph, and some days defeat.  I can’t help but come back to that most powerful quote from my “blogger” friend Charlee, who stated “There is nothing, no joy, no trouble, no testing, that can ever touch me until it has come past Christ to me.  If it has come that far, it has come with great purpose, which at the time I may not understand, but lifting my eyes to Him, I recieve its Blessing.  No sorrow will ever disturb me, no circustance will cause me to fret. I will rest in the joy of what my Lord is, I the rest of VICTORY.”

I know that as this week goes on it will likely get pretty busy so this might be my last post for a few days.  I always have time to do a quick check of my blogroll, so I will look forward to following along life’s road with all of you this week.  Have a Blessed day.

Bethany

Today the SERVICE MASTER boys come back to take the pergo flooring out of the great room. I am so excited to see what shape the wood flooring is in underneath.  We are thinking that it would be great to just have it refinished if it is doable. We will then be able to set up house again on unfinished whatever we find, until after my transplant.  The kitchen will be completed by this time next week. I’m thinking that it will be great to have my kitchen back.  You seriously have no idea how much time you spend there until its all torn up!

19 days left until transplant.  I am so excited. I can’t believe that it is finally within reach.  I know that the days will fly by. I am so thankful for my donor.  Just the thought of her being willing to donate a kidney to help restore my worn out body is unbelievable.  I just  cannot even begin to explain the overwhelming feeling that it gives me.  The gift of life,  help me Lord to never take it for granted again. 

Braedon is doing so well in school.  He is reading and loving it.  He is so proud.  Everywhere we go he reads all the words he sees.  It is so cute to watch him swell with pride when he reads something new!  He is so tall and handsome.  He has a awesome sense of humor, loves to sing, he’s a great people person, I am proud can you tell? LOL

Tom is doing well in his job.  He loves it and is constantly challenged to expand his knowledge.  He will be able to take time off over my transplant, but he will work when he can.  They are good about letting him work on his computer even at home or hospital, so that is nice.  God has blessed us so much.

I will try to post regularly through the events all beginning to unfold.  After all, Tom bought me my own laptop so I have no excuse not to.  Unless of coarse it makes me sea sick to look at the screen!  Please keep us in your prayers.  We walk forward into the unknown completely trusting God for His will to be done.  We rest in His peace knowing that all things will work in His time.

Bethany

I am so excited to see what this week brings. I really have no plans at this point, but I do believe that each day will be filled to the max, with numerous little tasks that need done right now!  I always have loved adventure, and I’m 100% sure this week will be filled with it!  I have never got to chose flooring before, doesn’t that sound exciting, I think so!  An just think,  when its all over,  you won’t even know that anything ever happened!

Through the fog of everything else that’s happening, I have started into our new material for Ladies Bible Study at our church.  The book is titled UPROOTING ANGER.  I have never really thought that I had issues in this reguard, until I had a five year old!  Upon a lot of reflection, I really think that I have a lot to learn from this book.  I truly want to learn what God has in mind for me to learn and apply in my life.  If you have nothing else to pray about today, please pray for me in this reguard.   BTW, please do not think anything other than I love my five year old with all my heart, we just have some issues at times that I know I could handle a whole lot better!

As the week unfolds I should know more and more definite plans about my kidney transplant.  I really am having a very hard time being patient.  One more reason for thanking God for the busy week ahead of me! 

Blessing to All!

Bethany

P.S  With a HUGH DE-humidifier sucking all the water out of the air,  it kinda feels like Colorado in our home today!  Tom pointed this out to me today, and we had a good laugh!

As we continue plowing through this time in our lives, I have to say Thank-you for all the response to my request for prayer in our parenting of Braedon.  I have gotten the books that have been suggested and we are planning to go to the Parenting Conference at our church in October,  8,9&10.  I was really hoping that my transplant would not interfere with that conference and it looks like that won’t happen until the 15th or so.   I am sure God is looking down and seeing our need for this right now, and just is working it all out!

Well, I have a house to clean!  I am behind again, believe it or not.  With all my free time, I am behind!  I plan to get it all done today though! Oh, for the smell of a nice clean house!  I love it!   Have a great weekend.  It was nice to have a short week this week wasn’t it?  Oh, yeah!  I just reminded myself  about last weekend.  Great time with friends, great time with family, can’t beat that.

Bethany Eckert