Going home soon?

Mom is still in the hospital, where she has been since June 15th. She just said, "It is so discouraging." Sometimes she feels good and sometimes she doesn't. She has to take some stool softener every day which seems to help but before that she doesn't feel like eating much.

On the other hand, she seems to be quite strong and getting stronger every day. Yesterday was a good day for her. She was talking and she even expressed her frustration with me. That was the first time we had a really awkward moment because of a difference of opinion. I guess that is a good sign as far as her coming back to her old self.

On the other hand, that was an unfortunate experience and was a reminder of how overprotective my parents were of me and I think I was guilty of the same thing with Mom last night. What was the problem? We're trying to figure out how to best help Mom when she gets home. Of course, if I were going to be home forever we may not have much to worry about, though I'm sure we'd still need to find other people to help out. The big concern is how to find someone to be with Mom when Dad goes out of town for business, which he does on a weekly basis these days. He's not gone every day but he leaves for two or three days every week. We've been thinking that we (That's JoAnn, Bruce and I) will find help for Mom without asking Mom who she'd like to help. She didn't like that idea because there are obviously some people she's more comfortable with than others. Now I know this is a "well duh" situation and am embarrassed that I didn't think about this more. I felt bad last night even though we both said, "I'm sorry" and forgave each other.

Today I went to my family's church. It's an Independent Baptist Church. I was not looking forward to this nearly as much as I was going to the Episcopal Church I attended last week. But I survived the experience. My only major qualm was that it seemed like the pastor "guilted" the people. A secondary qualm was that he was all over the place, which reminded me of my pastor in Korea who goes to so many different passages that it seems utterly impossible for me to understand him preaching in Korean. Because my dad sings in the choir, he noticed I blinked my eyes a lot. I told him it was because I was so tired from listening to the long sermon.

Ironically, the pastor today preached on the same lines as the priest last Sunday: giving. But of course their passages were different (Today's was from Acts and last week was from one of the gospels). Today, the pastor emphasized giving in general, not just financially, though financially was a big part, perhaps in part because they have a building project in line, though they haven't begun any of the actual work. I'm not sure if they've even gotten the plans finalized just yet.

I think there's plenty more I've been thinking about but I guess that's enough for now. They just took Mom's temperature and she seems to have a bit of a fever. She wants to go to bed soon so I'll try to post more soon. Thanks for your prayers and following this blog, especially regarding Mom's health and her road to recovery.