July 30 - Back to Kansas

On July 30th, after waiting to get oxygen delivered and then finding out they were delivering it to mom and dad's house, and waiting to get a new cord for dad's wound VAC because the other one was shorting out. Dad and I loaded into our van, and mom loaded into her car and we headed back to Kansas! Mom and I started out pretty tired and fighting off headaches but we loaded up with sunflower seeds, Coca-Cola Slushes, and our 2-way radios.


We left around 12:50 pm MST and we stopped about ever 1 1/2 hours so dad could get out and exercise and stretch. After the first stop, dad wasn't looking too good. Mom wondered if we needed to get a motel, but we made some minor adjustments in the van so dad could try to get some rest.


At the second stop dad looked much better. We filled the vehicles with gas, got some snacks and dad walked a couple of times back and forth beside the building. The next stop was in 2 hours at Hays. We stopped by Walmart to pick up some pillows and we got some Subway and we ate in the vehicle. After eating it was "walk" time. As dad said, "Other people walk their dogs, and Julie gets to walk her dad." For dad to go anywhere, he had to have someone carry his wound VAC and push his oxygen because he was on restrictions on how much weight he could carry and push.


We then pulled into Holyrood around 9:30 pm CST. There were a few surprises waiting for mom and dad. 1) My sister Tammy was there. 2) A friend from there small group who took care of their house pulled up. 3) Their house looked totally different!


Over the 4th of July weekend, my parents' small group from their church came over and repainted their house and the garage, reglazed all the windows, replaced all the broken windows, and built a new awning over their front door. All of us girls knew about this, and mom may have had a clue because Tammy had to "secretly" find out what color she would want their house. While this was going on, Tammy would email me pictures and I'd have to check them out when mom and dad weren't around. These are her pictures.

She didn't send a good picture of the "before" front of the house. I looked back in some of my pictures and I couldn't find one quickly either. But you can see that the house as blue.

The Awning

The finished product and the group who did it.

The group also made mom and dad a memory book of the whole thing and the gift was waiting in the house. The funny thing is, until dad opened the gift and started looking at the pictures, he didn't know the house had been painted! I'll have to give him the fact that it was dark when we pulled in and he was so taken by surprise that the lights were on and that my sister Tammy came out of the house.

Thank you to this group from Community Christian Church in Great Bend, for caring about and loving my mom and dad!