life's journey...

for christmas, a dear friend of mine (karen kimball) gave me a tile with this saying on it:

life's journey is not t0 arrive at the grave in a well preserved body,

but rather to skid in sideways totally worn out shouting,

"woo hoo! what a ride!"

i love it! and this is exactly what i intend on doing!

my hero !

this man is one amazing person!, whom i love with all my heart! he is my father-in-law. he has at this time 93 decendants and has a love for each one of them (how many people can say that about their in-laws?) i have been in the family for 35 years now and he has always treated me like his daughter. i don't think i've ever heard him talk bad about anyone (well maybe, one time, when he got sent home from work for throwing his hard hat at his boss). he is 85 years old and has been in a wheel chair with ~ primary lateral sclerosis for over 10, maybe 15 years and i have never ever heard him complain. i even asked my mil, before she passed away, if he ever complained to her and she said "no". he use to be a big tease, and when we would tease him back, he would take his glasses off, like no one could see him, if he couldn't see anyone. now he just sits back and watches. he loves his family and especially his grandkids.

he can't hardly even feed himself anymore. some one comes in and bathes him and gets him dressed every day and then after he drinks his 'slimfast' (his breakfast of choice), he leans back in his 'jazzy' and listens to western music all day.

one sunday, a long time ago... i had just had surgery on my neck. don took the kids and went to church. i woke up and there he was sitting on a chair in my room, just watching me. he said that he didn't want me to be alone. yesterday, i get a call from lacey (who takes care of grandpa) and she said that grandpa wanted to talk to me. which was quite a surprise, because he doesn't do much talking anymore. he just wanted to know if i was ok, and to let me know he was thinking about me. ~how sweet is that?~

his sweetheart passed away in july and i know that he misses her terribly. one thing that attracted me to don, was the way his father treated his mother. he loved her and i we could all tell. ohhhh... he wasn't perfect and i remember mom getting really, really, mad at him at times, but he always treated her well and we always felt the spirit in their home. dad... i love you and will be ever so grateful to you for the way you have always treated me.

what i love about my age....

"people can get crazier as they get older. i can just be weird whenever i want, and there is the freedom of NOT caring what peolpe think!"
~ candice bergen

pinky promise?

never, never, never, make a pinky promise to do something until you are really, really old!

last summer my friends, ladawn and karen and i, made this pinky promise that if ever one of us was in a situation where the "plug" needed to be pulled, one of the other ones would go in and pull it! well... after thinking about it, i've decided that i maybe should wait until at least i'm 95 before making that kind of promise, ever, ever, again! because when i saw ladawn come into the ER, last week, i thought for sure the plug was going to be pulled and i couldn't do anything about it. the only words that i could form with my mouth, was NO, NO, PINKY PROMISE!

so, sorry ladawn and karen, i'm to young to be old! but we can still be friends forever! love ya both!

my scarry day...

this is kind of a long story, so you can just skip thru it if you don't want to read it all. i'm writing more for myself to remember, than for anyone else.
last tuesday morning (jan 6), about 6:40, i jumped out of bed, because cheyne had slept here - which he NEVER does - and he hadn't gotten up yet. i went into the spare bedroom to get him up and of course, he is not an easy person to get out of bed in the morning - i don't know how he does it at his house. any way, he asked me how much it had snowed the night before - just to put me off a few more minutes before getting out of bed (i'm sure!). i started down the hall and i don't know how far i really got, but he heard me knock into the wall. he jumped out of bed and started down the hall. i came back into the room and he said that he could tell something was wrong. i was woozy and thought that maybe i just had a head rush. he grabbed my hand and started yelling at me. i could hear him, but i couldn't answer him. he yelled "mom if you need help, squeeze my hand!". i started to squeeze and he immediately got on his phone and called 911. i could hear him talking, and i was thinking, i don't need 911, i just need to sit on the edge of the bed for a few minutes. i guess he carried me down the hall, so that he could open the front door for the paramedics. he also called haley. then he called dr cosgrave and told him what was going on. (he was here before they had me loaded into the ambulance). they couldn't get a hold of don - who had gone to work about 6:15. When they finally got a hold of him, dr cosgrave and cheyne were following the ambulance down to the hospital. as they approached the hospital, i could hear the EMT saying that they were going to by-pass the american fork hospital and go straight to utah valley hospital because they were dealing with a "STROKE" victim. i kept fading in and out, but i DID hear that. when we got to utah valley hospital which took a little more time than usual because of the snow storm we had been having all night, cheyne had also called one of the counselors that had been in the bishopric with don, who got there right after the ambulance. he is the head of the rehab department at utah valley. once don got there, they gave me a blessing and hauled me in for more testing, MRI's, UTS, etc. dr cosgrave doesn't have privileges at the valley, but he was there with all of my history etc. he called his nurse and had her reschedule his whole morning. dr hilmo (the counselor in don's bishopric) was also right there making sure everything was goin alright. the best was when he came in and confirmed that ' I AM NOT PREGNANT! whew... was worried about that one!

it only took a few hours to get my right side working again. but it took a few days to get everything right again. i still have a little trouble now and then with word associations. and... once again, MIRACLES hit the HUNTER family! it IS a miracle that things panned out just the way they did. they determined that i did have a stroke in the left side of the brain. my blood pressure and everything else was good. i have to go in for another CT scan on wednesday and have my blood tested a couple of times a week for a few weeks, because they put me on a blood thinner. then in about 6 weeks, they are going to go in and do a procedure to close a whole in my heart (that no one knew I had) which they think may take care of the headaches i've had for the past 45 years. (maybe blessings in disguise!)
i came home from the hospital thursday afternoon and feel like a REAL BIMBO! because everyone is bringing all this food and all these beautiful flowers in. and... I "REALLY" CAN do all this stuff by myself! haley was even here taking my christmas down, making soup bowls, soup, and home made bread, when we got home from the hospital.
everyone is shocked when they ring the doorbell and i answer the door! but I DO feel GREAT!

thank you everyone... for all the prayers, and support of my family during this time. and especially to my family... you are the BEST!

911

Hi. This is Melanie. For those of you following this blog & know my mom, I thought I'd let you know that she had a stroke yesterday morning. I will not share all the details, but I will say that we were lucky Cheyne had spent the night and was able to get her the help she needed - immediately. She was taken by ambulance to Utah Valley Regional Medical Center and is currently there.

She is doing well. We are hoping to bring her home tomorrow.

If you would like to contact her or would like more information - please email me directly huntermele@yahoo.com.

happy new year!

2008 was good to us, even though we had some heartache.

*first of all ~ we know without a dought that MIRACLES still do happen! we are grateful to still have kendyl here, and will ever be grateful to those "angels" that lifted that truck off of her.
*don was released as bishop of the singles ward in june and we were able to go back to our 'home' ward. it's nice to get to know people that live around us and are our neighbors. we have been out of the swing of things for over 7 years. we even went on the ward trek in wyoming ~ what an awesome experience that was!, but we do miss those young single adults!
*we lost don's mom in july and miss her dearly. she was such a great and wonderful lady! she was a great blessing in my life as well as many others. i was blessed to be able to help take care of her alot in her last few months. she kept us quite entertained with the cats that she never had, and she had quite the sense of humor, as that is the only way she could keep her dignity.

*in october, we were blessed with our 6th grandchild ~ isley fetineiai. she is beautiful and healthy, (as are the other 5). we are blessed that they all live close and we are able to spend alot of time with them.
*we have been for the most part healthy, well... as healthy as "old people" can be, but at least we are getting old and are able to enjoy life still!

*another great thing is that donnie is almost finished with his 'barn'. i can't wait until he is completely done with it, then maybe we will have another life besides "working on the barn".
all in all, we have had a wonderful year and hope for another in 2009!

happy new year y'all!