The Georges in Peru

The Good News first:

Amy's maintained her weight for about a week now.  

She's been laughing again.  She has rarely laughed and never cried over the last 2 months.  She still will say funny things (I mean on purpose, not the hallucinations, which are funny too).  She's been laughing frequently over the last day or two.  I think it's always nicer to be around people who laugh.

The Bad News:

She's having more difficulty swallowing and is getting hard to feed during meal times because she reaches for random things (including the food on Mia's plate) and drags her hands through her food.  She'll sometimes chew a mouthful 30 times.  Or 100.

She was verbally unresponsive for much of the last two days.  She couldn't come to supper last night or breakfast this morning because she was too 'out of it'.

Pretty much anything feasible that Amy requests she gets.  This would be approximately half the requests.  When she requested a haircut yesterday, we thought, "We can do that!"  So Sarah and Mia started their careers as cosmonauts, [ahem] cosmetologists yesterday.

As I've mentioned, Amy says a lot of nonsense right now.  She's pretty convinced that we have two more kids, Ellie and Luís (and sometimes Lisa and others).  At first when she spoke like this we didn't know how to react.  Can one laugh at someone whose brilliant mind is now splintered and in disarray?  Interestingly enough, the people who knew Amy well have all said, "Amy would have wanted you to laugh."  So we talked about it as a family and decided, "Go ahead and laugh.  She would have wanted us to laugh."  I think this kind of freaked out a visitor we had yesterday, as if Amy's children were being disrespectful to her (I actually wasn't there but the kids told me later) but it aligns with what we think her wishes would be.  The kids wisely came up with the plan to be less cheeky when guests are present.

Last night Amy slept pretty well, and she's eaten well today, though I've noticed that she is having more difficulty swallowing.  She has lost 10 kg (22 pounds) in the last 20 days, so we are trying hard to get to her eat more, especially now while she doesn't have so much headache and nausea as before.  We've stopped asking if she wants peanut butter on her apples.  We just add it on to boost the calories.

No, it wasn't a normal day.  It's rather hard to imagine 'normal' at the moment.  But we try to carry on with our normal activities.  Not that we are in denial about the gravity of Amy's situation, but we can't sit paralyzed waiting for her to die.  I went to our missionary team meeting this morning.  The kids went to school.  I bought groceries.  A haystack of laundry was washed and dried on the line.  Today was the first day of track practice and Paul and Mia seemed to enjoy going. (their coach clearly isn't as sadistic as my high school coach!)  Today was the 2nd edition of Sarah's weekly cooking Bible study for teenage girls.  They make muffins or cookies and then have a Bible study.  Or at least giggle a lot.  Amy used to have a ministry like that in Abancay years ago.  Amy had a pretty good day.  She didn't need any pain meds, but she was disoriented all day.  Having her comfortable is our goal.  She ate well and has been keeping everything down for several days in a row now.

Sarah and her cookie bakers

"I want to go to an Easter sunrise service!" demanded Amy.  Hmm.  Easter sunrise services (where one has a service outdoors to catch the sunrise) haven't really caught on yet in Arequipa.  Okay.  We can have our own.  There is a 'Mirador' (a lookout point on top of a mountain) about 3 miles from our house, so yesterday, on my run, I went to check it out to see if one could drive up it and park someplace close to the top.  It looked good.  Next, how would we decide if Amy was feeling able to go without everyone waking up early?  Here's the plan:  If Mom is alert enough to go, I'll get her dressed and loaded into the truck and I'll wake everyone else up at 5:15 am.  If I don't wake you up, I decided not to go, so you can sleep in.  But at 4:50 am, Amy was awake, so I got her ready and we went.  At the top of the mountain I asked the kids, "Why do they have Easter Sunrise Services?"  "To feel spiritual!"  "To assuage guilt!" (I have no idea where my kids get their cynical side!) "Probably for some.  But for others it is a chance to imagine the women going to the tomb on Easter morning in the dark and learning the world-changing news that awaited them."  Instead of preaching about the first Easter, we read from Luke as I didn't think there was any way to improve on the original story.  Then we waited until the first beams of sunlight came through a small valley in a nearby mountain.  I had never seen a sunrise from a place where there was such an instantaneous change from predawn to 'flaming with light'.  It reminded me of Wesley's hymn, "And can it be that I should Gain" when he writes:  

Long my imprisoned spirit lay,

Fast bound in sin and nature’s night;

Thine eye diffused a quickening ray—
I woke, the dungeon flamed with light;
My chains fell off, my heart was free,
I rose, went forth, and followed Thee.

Happy Easter from the Georges!