February 24,2012

Greetings from Malaysia!  We finally arrived. God was at work the whole journey. What a journey it was. We were late taking off from Boise. There were some mechanical problems with the plane, that was one delay. God made sure we boarded a safe plane. Then, for whatever reason, the scanner would not take our boarding passes. The agent encouraged us to board while he worked on the issue. He also needed to keep our passports to work it out. Of course this frightened me. I did not want the plane to take off with our passports back in Boise. The attendant did finally bring us our passports. We arrived into LAX. I had requested wheel chair assistance for Gary. I rounded up an airport employee, named Hector, who assisted us. Lucky for us. We had to leave the terminal we arrived in and go to a different terminal to fly to Hong Kong. Hector used his radio to call for a van to pick us up. They were very delayed. It took close to an hour before the van showed up. We were wainting outside and it was somewhat chilly. Gary was shivering violently and this made me so anxious. I was also worried about missing the connecting flight. We were not sure what the hold up was on the van. We arrived at the Cathay Pacific terminal and only had to wait under 5 minutes to get to the ticket counter. There was quite the line, however with Gary being in a wheel chair, we were ushered to the front of the line. It did take some time to get through this process. The attendent on this leg of the journey informed us that she checked our bags all the way to Kuala Lumpur. I guess Boise had them stopping in Hong Kong.
Well we were ushered up to our gate where we had a layover of approximately 1 hour instead of the anticipated 21/2 hours. This gave me some time to grab something for us to drink and snack on. We boarded this massive plane. It would have been wonderful to have ridden business class and enjoy the bed like seats. I do not know how one could afford $23,000 each to get these seats. Crazy! We had good service and seats were slightly larger than the first plane to LAX. We were still crammed into the plane. Gary did not eat well and it was hard for him to keep his right leg up. I guess I need to back up and share what happened Wednesday morning.  Gary went and had a session with Jim. Jim suggested we check with the docs on why Gary's right calf was hurting. He has blood clots in both legs, however, the left was the one that originally gave him grief. We went to MSTI. dropped off some prescriptions, had a finger prick to check levels and then saw a nurse practioner.  She suggested an ultrasound. We questioned if a blood clot were found, what then? She said that they would put him on Lovenox injections instead of coumadin. We asked if we would be benefiting anything by have the ultrasound other than changing the meds? She said no, so we just said, change to the Lovenox. Once again, back to the pharmacy. This ate up almost 2 hours of our day. I still had not packed yet and needed to work on some real estate. Yes, my blood pressure was extremely high. I was not doing a good job of putting everything into God's hands. We arrived home, I made some lunch and started packing.  Marj, Gary's sister, stopped by and brought us this beautiful prayer quilt and blessed us with a warm, helpful prayer. I continued working on packing, real estate. The kids began arriving to spend some time with us before we headed out and also helped with dinner and making sure I had the things I needed. They took us to the airport and waited with us. We had to go to the ticket counter twice in Boise, as the self check in did not give us the proper tickets. We did have someone check our bags, but I guess he did not realize there was an issue.

Okay, back to the flight to Hong Kong. It was so tightly packed with people. Gary was struggling with his leg pain. When we had about 4 hours or so to go before arriving in Hong Kong, he went back to use the restroom.  He was not coming back. I kept looking for him. Finally, I couldn't wait any longer and went to look for him. As I was getting out of my middle seat, the gentleman who was sitting next to me, who had gotten up after Gary, came back and said that my companion was having some health issues and they were looking for a doctor on board. Yes, I was very concerned. The attendant by this time had come to me and told me I needed to come back to where he was.  Gary was sitting in a seat with his leg up, blocking a couple of the restrooms. He was once again shaking violently. I asked him what was going on and told me that a particular area on his calf had swelled up to the size of a baseball. He informed one of the attendants that he needed a place to lay down and raise his leg to decrease the swelling. Then they went and located the doctor, who had actually been asked to assist another individual earlier on, and then came and found me. The attendants were wonderfully caring. After discussing with the doctor about Gary and his health concerns, he agreed that there was not much we could do, other than getting his leg stretched out and raised up. Guess who found a way to fly first class. Yep, Gary did. I was so thankful. God once again stepped in and took away some stress. The down side, I guess another small one, that is, Gary had not eaten much for the 16 hours we were flying. I had given him pain pills, but with no food, they tend to make him ill. One of the attendants brought Gary's meal and said he did not want to eat it. I informed her, that he had not eaten much, so she told him he had to eat. It was fabulous having her in my corner concerning his caloric intake. When we landed in Hong Kong, his leg swelling had reduced. We were wheeled off the plane and then taken to an area where we had to wait to talk with staff of the airline and possibly medical personal. Meanwhile, it was time to get to our connecting and final flight to Malaysia. We did not end up talking with a medical person and they did finally let us proceed to the next gate. 

This last flight was not very crowded and we ended up having a row of 4 seats to ourselves. This allowed Gary to be able to stretch out as if on a couch. The down side of this flight is that he ended up being ill. There were no airplane puke bags, but, thankfully I had a baggy full of cough drops in my purse that I was able to empty and let him use. The attendants did not even realize this was going on. His timing was less than wonderful. Our lunch had just been served. It makes it hard to eat with the aroma of vomet. He also ended up puking a small amount on a blanket. Gary, Gary, Gary. I gave him some anti-nausea meds and told him no more pain pills til he ate more. Gollee Gee Whiz, he ate part of croisant and a couple bites of a roll and then a couple small bites of water melon. Guess what, no pain pills. Harsh, perhaps, but maybe not. I need him to eat to keep his strength. It was a arduous journey.

We arrive in Malaysia and once again had help from an attendant navigating the way. The Lord was so wonderful sending all these individuals to us. I do not know how I would have managed finding my way with the language barrier and the size of the airports.  Alas, the mishappens still continue. Our luggage did not make it to Malaysia. All I wanted at this point was to get Gary cleaned up so he could fill refreshed and then rest.  We filled out the missing luggage report and was told that the luggage would arrive between 5:00 and 7:00 p.m. It finally arrived at around 8:30. Woo Hoo!!!

Dan met us at the airport and immediately took control. He dosed Gary with some herbs and by the time we started driving away from the airport, his color looked much better. We arrived at the hotel and were ushered to the Premier Lounge. They gave us wonderfully cool pineapple juice to quench our thirst. Yum!! Gary was given some more herbs. We finally had the pleasure of meeting Sifu, the Monk. I had such a sense of peace when I was around him. He told us Gary was going to be good. I proceeded to get us checked in while Gary visited with Sifu. After getting our rooms assigned, we visited a little more over a second juice drink and then said good bye to Sifu for the night and went to our room. Dan had walked Sifu out before we went to our rooms and he said Sifu did whatever it is that he does and the sky boomed and banged. Gary and I did not hear it, however, Dan said people were looking around and talking about what was happening. He was working on Gary. I know it sounds unrealistic and make believe, but I have to say, I am seeing a miracle happen.  We took Gary to the room and he slept for 21/2 hours. We left him to rest and upon returning, Dan gave him some more herbs.  Gary ate, FINALLY. He ate better than I did. It was wonderful. God Is Great!!  I encouraged him to bathe and he now lays sleeping peacefully while I write. My heart is overfilled with joy and gladness, and yes, great relief. 

Our room looks out over the valley and a beautiful mosque. We can hear them praying from our room. We are on the 15th floor and the Mosque is probably about an 1/2 mile away. WE have a picture perfect view. Sandy, you would take a grand picture. I will take a picture, but my attempt will fall far short of your wonderful talents.

Thank you again everyone for all your generous support and donations that have allowed us to take this journey to save Gary. I can not say it enough. God has worked a miracle by bringing everyone together in prayer for Gary and he is working on another one which is going to be Gary's healing.

It is my turn to clean up so I am going to sign off and say Good Night, or to everyone in the states, Good Morning.

Our love and blessings wished to all,

Gary and Sue