March 4, 2012

Happy Sunday everyone.  We made it home safe. I just have to once again give praise and thanksgiving to God.  I was quite concerned about the lack of time we had between connecting flights from Malaysia and Hong Kong. Gary and I said a prayer before leaving the hotel on March 2. We asked God to be our pilot and to keep our travels safe.  Upon arriving at the airport in Kuala Lumpur, we had to wait for about 30 minutes before the counter opened up.  When it was our turn to go up to the attendant and get our tickets, the attendant told us we would not make our connecting flight. She informed us that the plane had arrived late the night before and that the plane we were to fly out on that morning was short staffed.  I must have looked quite panicked.  She told me she had an idea. She said they would put us on a different airline to fly out. I asked if there would be a cost incurred and she informed me no. She had another airline attendant personally walk us over to the other airline. It took us about 40 minutes to get things arranged, but we received our tickets for Malaysia airlines. We were supposed to fly out on Cathay Pacific.  We had about an hour wait before the flight.  The airline personel wheel chaired Gary to a seating area to wait.  I proceeded to go exchange our currency back from the Malaysian ringett to the Usa dollar. I then found us something to eat.

I feel I must share my bathroom experience. This was before the money exchange and the food. Yes, I washed my hands extremely thouroughly. Okay, I went into the ladies room and waited for a stall to become available. One finally did, and boy was I surprised. It was just an approximately 3 inch raised platform with a hole in the floor.  I was not liking it at all.  I braised myself and relieved my liquid. When finished, I stood up and low and behold, I missed the hole and peed on the floor. Oh my goodness. There was no toilet paper either. Thankfully I had tissues in my purse. I cleaned up my liquid and then used the hose attached to the water faucet to further clean up. Boy, what a learning experience and one I would rather not have to repeat. I guess the women there just use the water to cleanse when finished doing their duty. Needless to say, I did not use the toilets in Hong Kong either just in case they were similar. I hate airplane toilets, but at lease they are toilets like I am used to. It was pretty comical to say the least. It will be a life lasting memory.

We arrived into Hong Kong with no issues and were whisked to our gate to wait for boarding our Cathay Pacific plane back to the states.  I have to say, the seats on Cathay Pacific our awful.  They do not recline. They have no butt padding either. However, they feed your three meals plus snacks.  We had one meal on the Malaysia airlines on the way to Hong Kong as well. Lots of airline food.  The Malaysian airlines flight was not very crowded. Gary had two seats to himself to stretch out and I moved to the middle aisle where I had five seats to myself, even tho I only used one.  Gary was able to stretch out and I did not have to have him draped across me.  Unfortunately, I can not say the same for the long, almost 12 hour stretch from Hong Kong to San Francisco.  We were crammed in there like sardines. Gary did get a window seat, I was in the middle seat and there was someone in the aisle seat.  Gary was Mr. Fidget! It was refreshing, yet at times frustrating. Refreshing that he was showing his ADHD behavior that used to be somewhat normal, but frustrating because he was Mr. Whiner pants about his leg hurting.  Sifu gave me an assignment to encourage Gary to power through the pain. The pain had already dimenished drastically from what it was upon our arrival into Malaysia, but he was constantly fretting about it. It seemed that every five to ten minutes he was whining about either his leg or butt hurting.  I told him to cowboy up. My butt and legs were hurting also. I was not allowed the privelege of draping my legs across him, like he was doing with me. I had to remind him that at least he was alive and could feel the pain. What a blessing.  Also, what a blessing that he had a leg. I reminded him about his brother who lost his leg a year or so ago and our dear friend who lost his leg near the same time. I told him, they were most likely always going to experience leg pain. Gary had a better prognosis. The radiation was moving out through his lymph glands and eventually would be purged out. I told him to look for the blessings instead of embracing the discomfort. This is one of Gary's challenges. He was wanting instant healing and back to what he considered normal. Sifu told him, the cancer was gone, but the mental battle was going to be challenging. I think the fact that Gary has not had any prescription pills since February 24, is itself, a miracle and blessing from God.  He was so heavily drugged on the trip to Malaysia that he does not recall it. I have to say, I wish I could push it from my mind as quickly and easily.  It was frightening and really tested my faith and trust in God.

Gary actually watched some in flight movies travelling to the states. Great progress, once again, from the flight going there.  Gary showed impatience during our meals as well.  We had ordered bland food for him, so he received his food first.  He would be completely done eating before the rest of  us had our food brought to us. He would want the attendant to clear his plate and then he would want up to use the restroom. Once again, I had to pray for patience. He was told by the attendant that she had a clean cart and could not take his food tray until after she had distributed the meals.   I guess he did not believe me when I told him. He had to hear it for himself. Patience is not his strong suit at this time in his life.  I can only look back and smile. He is free from cancer and not a walking zombie any longer.  He is quite thin, but we are working on fattening him up.  It was great that the flight back to the states was almost 4 hours less.

We arrived at San Francisco airport.  Once again, there was someone waiting with a wheel chair to assist us back through customs.  We once again were required to remove our shoes, something we did not have to do in Hong Kong or Malaysia.  Backing us slightly, when we arrived into Hong Kong, Gary had an airport employee use a gun-like unit to take his temperature. There was an individual on the plane to San Francisco that perhaps should have had this done to them. It seemed like they were coughing up a lung the whole flight.

We received our boarding passes and had about 3 hour wait for the flight to Boise. Gary stretched out on the airline seats and proceeded to nap.  We had the worse seats on the flight home. We were in the last row on a puddle jumper. These seats do not recline and they are directly across from the toilets. Woohoo! Economy seats. I was exhausted. It had been a long 21 hours. The positive, we made it to Boise 5-10 minutes early.  We were able to watch the kids walk in to the airport. It was so heart warming to feel their arms around us and to see their smiling faces.  We grabbed our bags and headed home to a shower to clean up before going to Rachel's and Josh's for a yummy homecooked, not airline, meal.  We started watching a movie and we did our best to keep our eyes open. However, Gary and I, I guess, had snoring wars. The eyes were not wanting to stay open any longer.   I felt a soft touch to my cheeks and it was Gary asking if I was ready to go home. I said yes and off we went.  This is the great part, Gary drove home.  God is Glorius.  Gary has not driven since December.  My heart was singing.

We were awake by 1:30 a.m. We were still on Malaysia time.  We fell back asleep and I woke up at about 2:30 ill.  I fell back to sleep and woke up about 3 hours later, extremely ill. I had to change the bedding,including the mattress pad. It was not a fun experience.  I jumped into the shower and Gary slept on the couch until I could get the bed re-made and clean up the mess.  We went back to bed and woke up about 8:00.  I spent most of the day doing laundry and continuing being ill.  Saturday evening  I folded my massive loads of laundry, while the cats played around.  We crawled into bed about 10:15p.m. I stretched out and felt a wet spot at between our feet.  I couldn't stand it. I was thinking perhaps the sheets had not dried all the way because something has gotten tangled up in the sheets during drying time. I climbed out of bed and looked.  The little brat, Minuee had peed on the bed. She was punishing me for being gone.  She would not even let me hold her all day. Once again, I had to change the bedding, including mattress pad and comforter.  I washed the comforter. I got up at 3:00 am to change it over to the dryer, the wash cycle was not done. I finally changed over and started the mattress pad at 4:00 a.m.. I got up at 6 a.m. and put in the sheets.  We finally got up at about 8:30.  We layed down for a nap at around 1:50 p.m., but I had some nightmares, or daymares. Gary said I was mumbling extensively in my sleep and then my phone started going off. Needless, to say, naptime was over.  We went to Amity school and played frisbee golf for awhile. What a beautiful day.  Gary was whining about being a whimp, but, he said his leg does not hurt like it had been.  Sifu was right, exercise would make it better.  I went to the grocery store from the school, and Gary went with the kids to DQ for ice cream.  Gary helped bring in the sacks of groceries and once again, Mr. Whiner pants. He said he was a whimp cuz it tired him out carrying a couple sacks of grocery. I just threw back, that 3 weeks ago, he was unable to carry any.  Gary is showing progress every hour. We had a nice roasted chicken dinner with gravy , mashed potatoes and corn. Yum. Way better than airline food. I haven't been ill since 2:30 p.m. and it is now 11:07 p.m.

I am going to sign off for the night. Computer needs to re-charge and so do I.  It seems so surreal to be back home.  We left with Gary close to death and return home with him experiencing new life. The amazing power of God and His healing miracle. I ask all to just "Trust" in God and believe. That is all anyone needs to make it through each and every day.  We Believe.

Love and Blessings,

Gary and Sue