She Did It!!

Marietta has graduated from High School ... it took an extra year and a few tears, but she made it!

If you look at Marietta's report card you would never know that she accomplished about a third of her high school time while having a brain injury.  Her marks remained superb throughout all her years, but the effort and energy and pain it took to accomplish those marks changed drastically.  Brain injuries are hard to understand, but one thing we are reminded of from her experience is that a brain injury does not mean a person has suddenly become a dunce and cannot think, it does mean that at times it takes them longer then normal to think or they simply cannot process what is being said, but when the brain kicks in it is quite capable of doing amazing things.  

Marietta could have chosen to just go with the flow of her injured brain and let her school work reflect the fact that many days she could not process what was going on, but instead she chose to make sure that her work and her marks reflected the ability that she is capable of.  Last year was a hard year for Marietta as she returned to school and slowly worked her brain up to being able to do an afternoon of courses; this year proved to be an even harder year, not necessarily because of the school work, but because of the disappointments she had to work through.  She had expected after a decent summer that she would slowly be able to work her brain up to being able to take a regular course load, but this was not to be, and this fact was hard to take.  Each semester this year Marietta took 2.5 courses (Bible being a "half-course").  The plan had been to add another course in, but as the school year wore on she was still struggling to manage the courses she was taking and had to come to terms with the fact that her brain simply could not do more.  The dream of becoming a teacher slowly closed for the time being, talk of dropping out of school happened at various intervals, tears of frustration were shed from time to time, many days were missed due to the brains inability or simply too much pain, but in the end she made it and we couldn't be more proud of her.

It has almost been two and a half years since Marietta's accident and sometimes we feel like she is not making progress, but at those times we have to take a step back and look at the big picture.  Instead of looking back days or weeks, we need to look back months or even years.

Just over a year ago Marietta could not make it through a full "normal" day without rest.  She slept in and took a long time to get out of bed, it was a slow process for her to wake up and get through breakfast and get ready for school. She attended 2.5 hours of school, driven by car because the bus caused motion sickness and had way too much noise, and came home exhausted and needing to rest.  Life outside of school was pretty much non-existent as school drained all her energy.  

This is the biggest aspect of change we have seen.  She gets up each day with the others, goes to school at normal time, attends her classes and when not in class works on homework at school.  At the beginning of the year when we lived in Taber she took the bus to and from school, now that we are in Coaldale she walks home (about 20 minute walk) when she is done at school.  This helps to keep her on schedule with her daily exercise that the Concussion Clinic wants to see.  Once home she does usually have some "down" time, which for her means texting/chatting with friends or doing some non-homework things.  She works on homework in the evenings again and tries hard to get to bed on time (around 10 pm) as she needs a good amount of sleep to get through her days.

As far as symptoms goes, unfortunately we haven't seen as much change as we would like in this area.  Symptoms continue to be up and down with no real rhyme or reason.  They are not the same all the time but can vary from head nausea to head pain, vision disturbances, noise sensitivity and sometimes still light sensitivity (she has special tinted glasses that seem to help a lot with this issue, which she would really like to wean out of, but just hasn't been able to so far).  During these times she will be exhausted and have no energy, these symptoms will also effect her ability to process what is going on around her, her balance and sometime her ability to speak.  Some times she can simply feel that the brain is not really processing as it should and knows that she needs to keep it low key and stay home, other times she can start off doing okay and suddenly tumble into pain.  When things are good she enjoys it and does what she can because there is no storing energy for another day. Just use what you got when you have it. 

These challenges mean that Marietta very seldom drives and if she does it's only a very short distance as she has to be sure that nothing will change from the time she leaves until she comes home that would change her ability to return home.  A couple months ago Marietta's brain entrainment equipment broke and she decided to try without it.  This means she no longer has to be woken up at 5:45 am to turn on the equipment (she could go back to sleep while it ran).  She would also run it when she went to bed to help her get to sleep - the first few days without it were harder for her to sleep, but with time she has adjusted and seems to be doing okay without the equipment.

In January Marietta started at the Concussion Clinic at the University of Lethbridge.  Through their assessments they have determined that Marietta's brain can work and she can have energy at times, but if you try to get the brain to work while doing something that takes energy (walking on a treadmill) then it isn't able to function very well anymore.  We have always known that she is struggling with energy ... is it the brain that is draining the energy or is use of energy draining the brain?  The clinic has her working towards increasing her ability to do these separately and then they want her to work on putting the two together.   Previously the clinic had her doing physio therapy, which ended up causing a ton of symptoms and a lot of missed school.  So since Marietta has already been struggling a lot, especially the past couple month, just to get to school we decided not to throw any further loops into the situation and have put the clinic on hold until school is done.  

With school done Marietta has decided to take some time off to simply work on letting her brain recuperate.  Holding a job at this time would be a challenge as she is unpredictable on when she is well enough to work and returning to school in the fall has absolutely no appeal to her since it is so hard on her brain.  She simply wants to give her head some time and see where it leads her.  This time will likely also involve trying a few different therapy options which we just didn't want to attempt while she was in school as it seems all the previous options we tried didn't help or caused more symptoms

In October Marietta developed a bad head cold that really wiped her out.  Since her concussion she has been struggling with major sinus pressure and has tried various home remedies to help alleviate this, but it never seemed to help.  After this cold the pain got extreme enough that we ended up taking her to Emerge (since we did not yet have a family doctor) so we could try some antibiotics to see if this would help.  She tried the antibiotics for several days but when her symptoms did not improve and she started having some other weird issues we realized the medication was the problem and so we returned to Emerge where she was given pain medication and told to stop the antibiotics.  With no real answers we decided to implement our other suspicion - removing egg from her diet. This suspicion has been confirmed as the pressure is about 90% gone now and mostly just appears on her really bad days.  

On February 3rd Marietta made Profession of her Faith.
After 18 months of not being able to attend church Marietta was finally able to join church for the sermon section (without the noise of the organ/piano and singing) a year ago.  Throughout the past year she has had ups and downs in her attendance, sometimes attending just the sermon, sometimes being able to stay a bit longer, sometimes listening livestream at home and sometimes not being able to listen or process anything.  But even with these challenges she speaks of how these difficult times have helped her to grow in her love for God.

Marietta will tell us that it's her classmates that got her through this school year.  At times when she just wanted to quit she couldn't give up the idea of missing out on the social aspect of school and the friends she has made.  But while she quickly felt at home here, she still has her best friends in Ontario that she misses and was so excited that Elianna could come visit during the Christmas Holidays and Kendra came for a surprise visit during the Spring Break.

And a few pictures from her graduations.  The class had an official photoshoot (in the rain), but those photos won't be ready for a bit, so here's a few snapshots that were taken throughout the day.

Marietta had really hoped to no longer need her tinted glasses by time graduation came around, but she just isn't ready to give up the tint yet (they are always like that, it's not just because she's outside) , so she did some of her pictures without her glass so at least we can see her lovely eyes 

Their grad text:

"Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man"  Ecc 12:13b

10 Months Post-Treatment

Today is Rebecca's last day of Grade 11, so I guess we can do her next for an update 😀

Last Day, Last Exam for Grade 11!! 

It's hard to believe that we have reached 10 months post-treatment.  The kids mentioned yesterday that it was a year ago that they visited the Coaldale school for the first time ... and on July 2nd it will be a year ago that the kids started treatment in Edmonton.  What a year of changes it has been!

There has been a lot of improvement for Rebecca in the past year.  She did not come out of treatment feeling any better and this was a disappointment for her at the time.  We had been told that she wouldn't feel better right away, but we had really hoped we would have at least seen some little signs of improvement at that point.  But as September rolled by we seen that there was definitely improvement in what she was able to manage each day by doing full days of school and treatment after school.  Unfortunately things went downhill from October to December and we struggled with evaluating whether there were any further diet changes we could make or changes to supplements.  We did some tweaking here and there and then Christmas Holidays came allowing for some extra rest and this seemed to help things.  As January slowly passed we seen improvement again and while there continues to be ups and downs, overall things have gone in the right direction.

Looking back we can see that things have definitely gone in the right direction.  A year ago she was dealing with regularly feeling lightheaded and having brain fog, bad neck pain, migrating joint and muscle pains, abnormal amounts of hair loss, regularly having bright pink cheeks, often a feeling like she had a fever even though the thermometer would say she didn't, occasionally having numbing and tingling sensations in random places and fatigue, fatigue and more fatigue!!

Currently she only occasionally gets lightheaded and brain fog, usually when she more tired then normal, she continues to struggle with neck pain, although with chiropractor and massage therapy it seems to be a bit better and she feels this is different then the pain she used to have, thankfully she no longer gets migrating pains, but does have to use caution when doing physical things as she very quickly bruises and becomes sore very easily, she no longer pulls out handfuls of hair at a time or feels like she has fevers, she doesn't have numbing and tingling sensations anymore, we do see the bright pink cheeks at times when she is going through a down phase or lacking in rest, a sign for those around her that she's not feeling very great, and then there is the fatigue, fatigue and more fatigue that unfortunately is still there.

Sometimes it feel like things haven't changed because of the constant fatigue that she feels.  This was always the biggest and most noticeable symptom and it continues to be there.  But when we look back at the list and see all the other things that have changed we realize that there definitely has been improvement and even though the fatigue is still a major factor, even there we have seen improvement.  Although it's not always clear whether the fatigue has decreased or just the lack of other symptoms has made her able to handle more, it is clear that she is able to handle more then before.  When I look back at pictures and remember that we used to use a wheelchair if we were going anywhere that required more then the basic walking because she simply did not have the energy to walk and even with the wheelchair she would often feel drained just from being out and doing more then the basics and want to go back to her bed, then I realize that she has come a long ways in the past year.  We can also see the improvement in energy where in the past couple months she has moved from just going for a walk for her daily exercise to actually going for a short jog a few times a week.  These jogs are usually only 5 minutes long, but this is huge considering getting her to go for a walk used to be such a challenge.

Visiting the Alberta Legislature Building as one of our outings last summer during treatment.

Over the past year we have seen the social side of Rebecca resurface.  She loves to do social activities and be involved but the past couple years it has just been too much.  She now carefully paces herself and is very good at setting limits.  She will try to partake as much as possible but leaves early to make sure she gets her rest.

On the school side of things she has not only been able to take up an almost full course load (she is not doing Phys. Ed.) but she also is part of the Student Council and ARPA clubs. She made it to school pretty much every day of the year, I can only really recall one time that she stayed home because she was just too tired to keep going. At the end of November she requested to apply to attend the ARPA God and Government Conference in Ottawa in February.  After some thought we decided to allow her to apply even though we did not feel that she was up for it at that time, but since the conference was a few month away we agreed that if there was no improvement by that time then she would not be able to go.  Not only was she chosen to be a delegate, but by February she was doing well enough to take the trip.  This was super exciting for her and us as parents as we know her love for politics and we were so happy that she was able to partake in this opportunity.

All ready to leave for Ottawa - her first time flying!

In January we seen our new family doctor and at that time blood work was run and it was found that Rebecca's iron levels were low.  This is not a new issue for her, as a child her iron levels would fluctuate abnormally fast. So she has been placed back on a supplement and we thought maybe it was helping, but recently she has really been struggling again and so she has a follow-up appointment to go over blood work again next week.  The issue with iron is that you end up with the same symptoms if your iron levels are too high, and it can also be dangerous if your levels are too high.  While normally one struggles with just getting the numbers to go up a little bit (as was my issue for years), when she was younger she would have her levels jump drastically and so she had to be monitored closely to keep them from going too low or too high.  In the past years the levels were remaining stable on their own and she no longer had to take supplements or watch then, so we'll see at her followup what the supplements have done for her this time.

Before we left Ontario we had an appointment with the Sleep Clinic where it was advised that Rebecca has Upper Air Resistance Syndrome and they recommended trying CPAP.  When Rebecca hits the pillow she is asleep instantly and even on her sleep test she was asleep in 1.9 minutes.  We asked for the testing wondering whether she was actually truly getting proper sleep and also wondering whether she has periodic limb movement disorder as she would kick and squirm in her sleep.  The testing indicated that it took her a long time to get into a deep sleep and that she had a few breathing stoppages, not enough to be considered apnea.  Because CPAP needs to be monitored when you first get it, we were not able to start her on a trail to see if it would help.  Coming here we had to start over with this process and the ENT decided that he would like her to do another sleep study as it is very odd for someone her weight and age to have these issues.  So a couple weeks ago she went for another sleep study and now we are waiting for the results.  Interestingly, in the last month Rebecca has changed from falling asleep immediately to  been having trouble falling asleep, an even greater frustration when one is so exhausted and just wants to get proper rest and then can't get to sleep

All wired up and ready to go to bed

While we were living in Taber Rebecca also was able to find the energy to return to playing the piano before the church service, as well as the first congregational song.  Between this and playing for the school choir it was nice to hear the piano regularly and for her to have some incentive to pick up music regularly.  Unfortunately Coaldale does not use the piano for the church services, which she is somewhat disappointed about.

Play pre-service as well as the first congregational song

In March Rebecca was finally able to get her Class 5 GDL (known as G2 in Ontario).  In Ontario she would have qualified to get her license in November, but with moving she had to wait a full year from when she got her Class 7 (G1/Beginners).  She was not too impressed about this, especially considering that in Alberta you can get your Beginners at age 14 and your license as soon as you are 16.  In the big picture it is only four months of extra waiting, but at the time it seemed like a long extra time to wait, especially to Marietta who was so looking forward to having a new chauffeur.  As parents we are loving that the girls are now able to go out on their own, at the same time we were very thankful to those in the area that so often would give them rides.

The examiner told me that Rebecca did a great job on her test.  For Rebecca it was a bit of a breeze since she did the test in Taber (a town slightly bigger than Dunnville), whereas her learning had been in Hamilton and city driving.  Rebecca loves to drive and has a bit of her father's diesel blood in her. It's a comfort as parents when you know your child is a cautious, careful, but yet confident driver.

Rebecca was our child most against the idea of moving to Alberta.  We discussed this idea already a couple years ago and she was more than adamantly opposed, but as things progressed the past 18 months she silently went into acceptance that this was likely the route we would take and when the time for a decision came she was okay with the idea.  Rebecca is our shy and quiet child (most of the time) and so settling into new surroundings is more challenging for her than our bubbly outgoing Marietta, but we are so extremely thankful that she quickly settled in here and did not suffer from any extreme homesickness.  This is not to say that she doesn't miss Ontario and certain aspects of it, I think we all do, but as parents we were definitely concerned about how she would fair health wise and mentally if she did not like it here and we thank the Lord for allowing this process to go so well. It is our continued prayer that with time we will see more improvement in Rebecca's health and that one day she may have more energy and stamina, but at the same time we are so grateful that the treatment she has undergone has helped so many aspects of her health and pray that this will remain stable in the years ahead.

"O give thanks to the LORD, for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever!"  Psalm 107:1

Matthew

Overall Matthew has been doing really well the past couple months  😃

One thing I forgot to talk about in my last post was Diet.  For FIVE WHOLE months, from July to December all of us except Rob followed a very strict diet, it had many different factors to it that made it a bit like Keto, a bit like Whole 30, but still different and the easiest way to explain it to others was to say that we were Gluten Free, Dairy Free, Sugar Free, but even that didn't cover it because they wanted us to eat more nuts and seeds for protein then meats and it was actually more grain free then gluten free.  And sugar free literally means sugar free, not replace sugar with alternative options.  Fruit was limited because it had more natural sugar, then vegetable, although this was one of the first things we slowly increased in order to survive the diet.  Fruit became our treat/dessert and while I tried to keep the fruit in our smoothies to a lower amount, it just was getting harder and harder to swallow them without adding some more natural sweetness in it.  Occasionally we would indulge in something that would have a very small amount of maple syrup in it ... other then that we were sugar free.  Certain foods had to be completely avoided because of they naturally have more mold - such as peanut butter, grapes, mushrooms, cheese and many grains.  Add to that the fact that we tried to decrease the amount of nightshades we had (peppers, potatoes and tomato), especially for Rebecca. And then to discover that one can't handle almonds, one can't do eggs, several don't do well with coconut ... to say it was complicated and boring was an understatement and by the end of five month we were done with it and ready to expand out palate.

As Christmas time came it was getting hard to stick to this restrictive diet.  For the first months it was easier since we had started fresh with an empty fridge and cupboard when we moved and I simply didn't allow anything that would tempt us in the house.  But as we settled in this became harder to do with Rob back living with us and trying to have "normal people food" for socializing. And so things started creeping back in.  The whole process did help us to learn a few extra sensitivities that some of us have and taught us a variety of other ways to eat healthier foods, so it did have some benefits and we continue to incorporate what we have learned.  At this time it would be easiest to say that we eat mostly Gluten Free, low amounts of dairy and try to keep sugar to a minimal.  It is easiest to stick to the diet at home, but we save flexibilty and "cheats" for when we go out.  Each of us has different sensitivities and limitations that we have to work with.  All in all our diet is a lot like a more strict version of where we were before we started treatment ... reading labels was not a new thing as the four of us have Fructose Malabsorption and have followed the FODMAPs diet for about ten years.

Okay so that's the diet up-date.  Back to Matthew ...

All that being said, Matthew has the most freedom from the diet.  He himself doesn't seem to notice any obvious symptoms from eating more variety or indulging in some wheat or sugar items.  Whether that is because he truly isn't very easily effect or that he just isn't able to recognize how it does effect him we don't know  As a baby he was quite sick from food intolerances and we don't know how much he has outgrown so it's just easiest to keep him on the diet since the rest of us have to eat that way anyways.  In the past we would notice if he had over-indulged, small amount were okay, but frequent cheating over a longer period of time  or a sudden binge brought  mood and behavioral  issues.  While he is allow more freedom then the rest of us, he is still restricted enough to not show symptoms.

A refresher on what Matthew was dealing with last year:  bad headaches, excessive dizziness or what they thought to be vestibular neuritis, motions sickness, constant cracking/adjusting of his neck, random squeaking sounds in his throat (like a tik disorer), random zapping in his head and sometimes other parts of his body, stabbing stomach pains, neurological symptoms that would cause bouts of negativity and drastic lows.

I can pretty much say that most of these symptoms are gone and the ones that are not gone seem to be appearing less and less often, especially now that spring/summer is here and he is outdoors more.  When we do see symptoms it is often after extended times of being stuck inside the house or not being physically active.  So in periods of really cold or rain (not that they get that often here) or sickness, where he stays inside for several days then we start to see the neurological symptoms resurface and sometimes the headaches, neck cracking and squeaky sounds.  Thankfully he loves to be active, he loves to bike and when it was warm enough he practices basketball.  In the winter he would often go skating on the coulee or play hockey in the yard, or even in the basement since our Taber house was so big

The coulee was great until we got a period where it snowed several times and Matthew was too busy with basketball to get down there to clear snow each time.  By time he got back down there, there was just too much snow ... after that we also got a long stretch of -20C to - 25C days where he toes would have been frozen after a couple minutes anyways.

Hockey in the basement.  This plan developed after he had pneumonia and found himself coughing up a storm everytime he went out in the really cold ... so he just brought his net downstairs to play.

In the fall Matthew joined the Junior High School Basketball Team  ... had I known ahead of time this would mean giving up many of our weekends for tournaments, I likely would not have agreed to let him play, but thankfully I did not know. (So for all you Ontario families ... be thankful that you don't have to deal with weekend tournaments - as in both Friday afternoon/evening and Saturday, on top of one to two games per week - it appears this is the norm around here.)  It was a different kind of busy and I won't complain as it's a busy that we chose to partake in, unlike when we were so busy with  appointments and health issues.

Being on the basketball team was good for Matthew the same way it is good for most kids to be involved in organized sports, but we also really seen how it helped during those winter months for him to keep active and not be in the house too much.  Unfortunately Basketball season is at the same time as Hockey season, which meant he sometimes had to choose between the two and also made it extra busy, and then both ended at pretty much the same time.  It was nice to slow down, but we did notice that when Matthew spent more time in the house and less time being active some mild symptoms resurfaced.

One thing that Matthew does now struggle with is indoor pools.  The school did Phys Ed at  an indoor pool for a few weeks.  Matthew was sick after the first time - headache, dizziness and motion sickness.  We decided to try again just to see if it was a bad day or coincidence, but the next time it was just as bad.  So indoor pools are not a good place for him and we will have to test whether he can handle outdoor pools where all the smells are not contained.  He also has struggled when shopping in clothing stores or the mall, etc.  He has not gone shopping since the fall, so I don't know if this is still an issue, but I suspect it is not something that will go away, although he may become less sensitive.

Matthew had a rough winter, picking up quite a few bugs and ending up with pneumonia twice. The first time he had very high fevers for 10 days before we finally got a diagnosis of pneumonia after making a third visit to the doctors once it was realized that there had been some miscommunication between radiology and our family doctor.  Once on antibiotics I think we allowed him to return to activities and basketball too soon, but he was so tired of being home in bed with fevers that he was so excited to be done with fevers and just wanted to go, even though he was rather weak still.

Trying our best to keep the fevers below 40C

Lots of rest, but often would wake up drenched from sweating off the fevers,
needing to change or even shower in the middle of the night while having his sheets changed

Over the next few weeks he picked up a couple more bugs and seemed to only get a few days of decent health before something new hit him.  Then on Moving Day he woke up looking and feeling really unwell, so we made another trek to the doctor.  This time it only took one visit to diagnose him with pneumonia again.  Interestingly it was in the other lung this time. Since having pneumonia twice in a row is not common for kids, after that the doctors had him come back six weeks later to check if he was actually getting better.  This xray showed improvement but it was not all the way better, so he returned again at ten weeks, which once again showed improvement and basically close to back to normal.

Moving Day he was feeling so sick he had valid excuse not to do any work but just lay there and rest and watch videos.

In April we moved to Coaldale and we questioned how good this house would be for him, but compared to other rentals it was our best option and with little time to find a house we didn't test before hand.  Instead we did a thorough clean and set up our air filters and hoped for the best.  When we started seeing more neck cracking, hearing more squeaking and seeing more neurological symptoms we began to question whether hoping for the best was the best plan and so we spent the money again and tested the house.  Unfortunately it did not come back very good ... better than the Ontario houses we tested, but far from good enough for someone who is sensitive to mold.

Our goal is to decide on a permanent location sometime in the next year, so we keep telling ourselves that this is just temporary and we will make do because we really have no desire to move again.   In the past month Matthew has done very well again because the weather is nice,  the windows are usually open when he is home, he's outdoors more, and usually physically active. He bikes to school, bikes home, has a snack, does his chores and then often hops back on his bike and is gone until dinner, either biking and exploring, playing basketball at a nearby school or watching friends play soccer.  Soccer sign ups were at the time where we didn't know where we were going to be living, so he didn't sign up this year.  They run the soccer program early here, starting in April and done when school is done.  As things are right now, living here is doable but I do fear a bit about getting through the winter months when we're more cooped up indoors.  For now we just keep going with the hope that we can make a decision on where to move sooner then later.

It's really hard to believe, but today is the last day of Grade 6 for Matthew.  A whole school year has gone by and now he's done Elementary School and off to Junior High next year.  Since our school is a K-12 school there is no graduation from Elementary School, you just progress to the High School hallway.  A slight difference from what we are used to with Grade 8 graduations and the big change from Elementary to Guido ... and he doesn't get to go on an Ottawa Trip.  He very much misses his old elementary school and the friends he had there, but while he is missing out on some of the growing up traditions from Ontario, he is enjoying many other things here in Alberta and we pray that with time the longing for Ontario will decrease.  (He is insistent that as soon as he is done high school he is moving back to Ontario.)

Last day of Grade 6

We are so very thankful for the increased health that Matthew has had this past year and pray that  as long as we remain vigilant in being aware of the surroundings he is in and how they effect him these issues and struggles will eventually be behind us with the hope that one day they simply won't be an issue anymore!

And Here We Are A Year Later

As I scroll through Facebook this past week and see pictures of final days of high school and Grade 8 graduations I am very much reminded of life a year ago. 

A year ago it was our last day in Ontario. There was a lot of uncertainty about our future plans at that time and so we left with mixed feelings, or maybe confused feelings is a better way to describe it.  The girls were more quiet and did not show their emotions, but I'm sure there were plenty there.   Matthew would be helping one moment with packing and getting ready and a few minutes later crying because he didn't want to leave, like riding a roller coaster.    It felt like we were leaving for holidays, which we were as we took our time getting to Alberta, but at the same time there is a large possibility that we (except Rob) would not come back again, so it was hard to know how to feel.  Were we saying good-bye to our home and our life in Ontario?  Or was this just an extended holiday?  In a sense it made it easier because it felt like a holiday, but yet inside we each knew the uncertainty of our coming back.   Such a hard time and so difficult on the emotions.   Regardless as we pulled out of the driveway during the very early hours of the morning on June 16 we knew that it was good-bye to our current home as no matter whether we stayed in Alberta or came back to Ontario we would not be living there again.

And here we are a year later ... we survived some crazy years and are now settled into a more "normal "life in Coaldale, Alberta ... and I've been terrible at updating the blog, so hopefully I can do a 8 month update now :)  I'll start with the general life stuff and then hopefully in the next days do an update on each the kids health and where they are at.  

As mentioned in my previous post we arrived in Taber, Alberta just after midnight on Saturday, September 1st.  This gave the weekend to settle in before school started on Tuesday. Thankfully someone allowed us to use the items from their camper for the first weeks, so we had camper mattresses and kitchen items until Rob arrived.  Rob arrived safely in Taber on September 12th, thankfully he didn't start work until September 17th, so this gave him several days to catch up on some very much needed rest.

The first months were a time of "newness"  New church, new school, new town, new city, new places to shop ... and lots of shopping as we had to replace all our items.  We got the basics to tie us over until our house sold.  Our house was listed fully disclosing the mold issues and that we had fixed them to the best of our knowledge and this did not deter interest in the property.  It sold in 3 days for more than our asking price with a closing date at the end of October.  It was a big sense of relief to not only have it sell, but to sell so quickly and easily.  It made all those hours of hum-hawing about what to do, whether to fix it, how to fix it, etc. melt away. Once again we could see God's goodness and care in carrying us through those difficult months and helping us to move forward.  Of course, as is typical for us, the closing didn't go all so smoothly when a couple days before closing date we found out the buyer could not get a mortgage and needed to look at other financial options, even though there had been no conditions of financing in the offer. Needless to say, after some back and forth the house did end up closing a few week after the original closing date.  With the money in the bank we could finally finish purchasing our furniture and random other items.  Thankfully our rental home had come with some furniture so we had been managing until this point.

Rob and I were suppose to fly back to Ontario from October 22 to October 29 to finalize things with the house ... but Rob decided to desert me and drive to Ontario instead.  His work had a truck that needed to be delivered to Toronto, so Rob chose to get paid to go to Ontario ... unfortunately I had already booked our flights (without cancellation) before he had the lightbulb moment of thinking that work had trucks that needed to be delivered.  So Rob left Friday night and arrived on Tuesday.  I flew there on Monday.  We spent another crazy week cleaning out what was left in the house during the days and partying the rest of the time 😆  We had picked our dates to line up with Rob's nephew's wedding, while we were there we also had a company farewell party and a friends farewell party as well as attended an anniversary party for friends.  

We were worried about the adjustment for the girls to a small high school, but they easily settled into their new school and very quickly felt at home here.  Marietta has eleven students in her grade and Rebecca has nine.  Math and English are taught separately by grade, but for the other classes Grade 11 and 12 are together.  For the girls this meant they were together for  Biology and Bible, since Marietta did not take Chemistry and neither of them took Phys. Ed.  This creates some friendly rivalry for the top mark between the two overachievers.  Marietta and Rebecca also found themselves on Student Council,  Marietta as secretary and Rebecca  as president.  In the spring an ARPA Club was set up which the girls are both involved in and Rebecca is the president of this as well.

Matthew has had a bit of a harder time adjusting to the changing of school, but overall seems to be settling in well and enjoying himself (even though he won't actually admit it).  Matthew also has a small class with ten in his grade, but Grade 6 is combined with Grade 5, which is a larger class, putting him in a classroom with 30 kids.  In the fall he joined the Basketball Team  and also the local Hockey group.  Hockey is still his favourite, but after learning basketball he has also come to really enjoy it.  While Matthew seems to be enjoying himself here he is the one who most often says he wants to go back to Ontario, and still continues to say he would rather be in Ontario.

Rob on the other hand is loving it here.  He has had a desire for a couple years to move to Alberta and so far is not regretting that desire.  He has a great love for the prairie landscape and the big blue open skies here.  His first three months here were in the shop at ITB getting to know the company and how things were built.  In December he officially began his position as the mobile service guy.  While that was when he officially got the position it hasn't been until the last month that he has actually really begun the job to the full extent.  This is a new venture for the company and so this meant setting up a truck for the job and working out various other aspects of the job.  The company in the meantime discovered that Rob has knowledge in the hydraulic department and so they put him on a big challenging job in the shop, which has taken far more time and energy then originally expected, but is finally done and now Rob is free to focus on his main job.  

 At the end of February we found out that the house we were living in had sold.  This meant that we had to find another place to live and we quickly found out it was a challenge to find nice rental properties for a family(as in well maintain to avoid water damage issues) and even more challenging when you insist on having a garage as well (for all of Rob's tools).  Due to changes in mortgage laws, many are unable to get a mortgage and so the rental supply is limited.  Our desire had been to stay in Taber and not have to change churches again, but in the end we found ourselves in Coaldale.

We spent some time debating whether to buy a home, but in the end concluded that at this time it is still more reasonable to rent until we know for sure where our "permanant" (if that is possible for us) location will be.  Since Rob's job is mobile service that means he is travelling a lot and not always home.  Since the position is completely new to the company we have no past records to look at to see where the demand is the most and to know where would be best to settle.  It is not ideal that he is away from home, but with the kids being older it is much more manageable.  Ideally we would really like to stay in this area, and if Rob is only away a week out of a month then we do not need to uproot again, but if we are finding that he is gone more often and it is effecting our family then we need to consider moving to the area that he is most often.  That being said, the company is very family oriented and encourages him to spend time at home if he has worked long hours, meaning he is able to take days off here and there.  At this point we can say that we see more of Rob now then we did when we were in Ontario.  We realize it won't stay like this as his job ramps up and then he eventually finds himself back on committees and such, but for the time being we are thoroughly enjoying his time off as elder and the more ideal work hours.  I think more than that we realize that when he is home now, he is actually not just physically home, but also mentally home, something that was often a struggle for him the past few years with so much on his plate.

So on April 6 we settled into a new town again and a new church again.  There is much to enjoy about living in Coaldale as now Rob is just minutes away from work and can bike to work.  This leaves us with another vehicle and since Rebecca got her license in March she usually takes the van to school as there is no bus service for those in town here.  School is also only a few minutes away and on most days Matthew bikes to school.  Since Marietta does not have classes all day she will often walk home in the afternoon. Rebecca has tried the walking home thing a few times, and while she can manage the walk most days, she can't carry her school bag because of the neck pain that she has.  So in the end we just went with letting the kids take the van to school, unless I need it.  Being closer to school will also come in very handy next year when Matthew starts begging to be on every sports team 😁

And here we are only days away from the end of another school year, so unbelievable how fast time flies.  So that's the big picture of what we've been up to the last 8 months.  I will try to get around to doing the actual health updates in the next week, but overall I can say that there has been improvement in the past year and for this we are so very thankful.  The rollercoaster ride has been much smoother in the last months.  There are still things to figure out, yet we know that loops and bumps are a pretty common part of life and so we pray the Lord will continue to strengthen us and grant us what we need whether we're riding the smooth path or the loops.  He has upheld us thus far, we have no reason to doubt that He will continue to do so.

"Trust in the LORD with all your heart and do no lean on your own understanding.  In all your ways acknowledge him, and He will make straight your paths."  Prov 3: 5-6

And a few pictures, since pictures are always what makes a blog interesting 😏

Working 44 hours a week was a new concept for Rob.  He quickly found himself an after-work job helping one of the local farmers to help fill his love for field work, for the open prairies and every extra penny helps after the additional expenses this past year

After 12 weeks of being separated, Marietta's bunny made the drive across the country with Rob and arrived in Taber.   Marietta got Thumper for her 8th birthday and trained him to be a indoor litter trained bunny.  He is now 11 years old (rabbits live about 8-10 years) but you would never guess as he's a spry as can be still.

Matthew wasted no time making sure we checked out the local hospital.  For those in Ontario ... it's even better and faster then Dunnville 😀  On the third day of school he biked to the bus stop but wiped out on the way, gathering some war wounds here and there.  After a few days his wrist was still really bothering him, thankfully it was only a sprain ... but this did end any questions about whether he could join the volleyball team.

And I just have to include a few photos of the regular wildlife we could enjoy right from our house windows in Taber (no zooms used ... they litterly are right outside the window).  The house we were living in was on about 3 acres of land, backing onto the coulees (a coulee is a valley with very unique character, shaped more like a box then a v as most common valley's are).  The coulee is home to various wildlife, although some of that wildlife felt more at home in our backyard most days.  I seen coyotes a few times, but the mule deer were around most days, usually mid-morning to mid-afternoon.

This was the area behind our house.  It looked more like a regular valley, but in other areas you could definitely see the uniqueness of a coulee.  The other uniqueness about them is that if you looked out the house window all you would see is flat prairie, with no indication that all of a sudden there is this valley.

Of course I can't find a good picture of coulees when I want to ... I should just check Marietta's phone as she feels it necessary to take a picture of them every time we drive through them in Lethbridge.

While Rob loves the prairies, I love the mountains ... although I have to say I have a greater appreciation for the beauty of the prairies and the prairie skies now.  In February Rob and I had a chance to get away for a few days to the mountains.  Of course we picked one of the coldest weekends with the weather between -25C to -35C ... but it was still beautiful.  

The mountains always seem so close and yet are still an hour or so away.  On good clear days we could see the mountains from Taber ... which is about a 2 hour drive from the moutains.  This picture is taken about 45 minutes from the mountains.

-25C and extremely windy at Waterton