The Heymann Family Journal

Juergen just called again. They are on their way home. Jessica woke up well. She was very sweet. They cut her ear drum open this time (before they cut behind her ear). She had no tumors. They cleaned her ears. She has no major bandages and very little pain. It was by far the best surgery yet (she has had 18 surgeries in 16 years). They gave her an antibiotic to protect her heart. Now she is able to come home!!! It went very well!!! Thank God for His grace. Thank God they did not need to cut her ears open. Thank God there are no tumors!!!

Juergen took Jessica to the hospital at 7:30am. I met him there after I took the others to school. Jessica was hungry and thirsty but could have nothing before the op. We waited in the hall, and took walks. It was very hard to keep her calm. she has had this surgery 5 times. She can not speak but she isn't stupid. By the time we tried to get her hospital gown on her, she was soaking wet from sweat. It took 4 strong attendants to hold her down, and force an IV into her arm. Then they gave her one drop of some medication, and she was out cold. I had to leave to pick Philip up from school. She finally went into surgery at noon. It will not be pretty when she wakes up. She usually is in a panic, and also very sick from the drugs and also in pain. Juergen will be with her. It's not an easy job but he can manage it well. ...Juergen just called. There were no tumors in her ears!!! Praise God! I could cry!

We finished the exam today. It went pretty good. Jessica was wonderful! It took 4 people to hold her down to take blood. She cried. This was the hard part. I love Jessica. She is such a sweet and beautiful soul. I pray everything goes well tomorrow. Please pray for her. -There isn´t enough darkness in all the world to snuff out the light of one little candle.

Mickey went poop in Philip & Thomas' room when I was at the hospital with Jessica this morning. Thomas got very upset about it...but the poor dog was stuck in the house. It's not his normal behavior. Anyway, I found this funny dog poop video to show Thomas. I think we have hit a new low on this blog!!!

I took Jessica for her pre operation check up this morning. It went pretty badly. I had to pick Philip up at noon from school. We didn't get everything done. In fact, in 4 hours we only managed to speak with the Anesthesiologist. I could scream because the whole system is so poorly organized!!! They changed everything. You use to go to one location and have the whole screening done there. Now you have to go to 4 different locations. You stand inline and wait for a very unfriendly receptionist to take your papers. You wait in a waiting room for almost 2 hours before being seen. Then you move to the next receptionist, and the next 2 hour wait! Anyway, I have to waste tomorrow morning trying to finish the process. Jessica has ear surgery on Thursday morning. In the photos you can see a very board Jessica who refused to sit on the chairs. She insisted on sitting on the floor. I personally have a headache all over my body! I canceled all my other appointments for the day (o...

Jessica is scheduled for ear surgery on Thursday. Tomorrow I need to take her in for a pre operation exam. This will require blood. Not fun! Please pray for Jessica and for me. My poor sweetheart Jessica gets so afraid. It is so hard to see her panic!

A friend of mine Jill sent me this video . It has been all over the Internet. It's a last lecture given by a dying man on how to live. It's very powerful!

Poor Juergen. He spent a few hours today working on our big chair. Philip jumped on it and broke it. Two weeks ago Thomas broke our sofa. It seems every weekend there is one more thing to fix. BOYS!!!!

Butt Prints in the Sand One night, I had a wondrous dream; One set of footprints there was seen. The footprints of my precious Lord, But mine were not along the shore. But then some stranger prints appeared, And I asked the Lord, "What have we here?" "Those prints are large and round and neat, But, Lord, they are too big for feet." "My child," He said in somber tones. "For miles I carried you alone. I challenged you to walk in faith, But you refused and made me wait. You disobeyed, you would not grow, The walk of faith you would not know. So I got tired and fed up, And there I dropped you on your butt, Because in life, there comes a time, When one must fight and one must climb, When one must rise and take a stand, Or leave some butt prints in the sand

Nicole's class is in charge of the Easter chapel service at her private Catholic High school. She wrote a song last year about Jesus and she will be playing and singing this song. She also wants to say something about how important the resurrection is. I'm proud of her, but nervous too. She froze the last time she shared her faith in front of her class. She got so nervous she even started to cry. She is very shy. Her heart is good, and she wants to step out and "preach". I am sure she will do a great job, but I hope she doesn't freeze. The service is March 14th. Maybe you could pray for her. She really does have a good heart.

I took Jessica to buy fish food & other supplies for our aquarium. On our drive home we saw an extraordinary sun set. I don't think I've seen a sunset so beautiful since I lived in San Diego. I thought of Juergen’s mom, and how the sun is now setting on her life. I wanted to cry but the traffic was heavy. I had to pull myself together. There was a song playing on my cd player. The words went "you will never walk alone; Jesus will be right beside you all the way". Then I hear the sweet voice of the Holy Spirit saying, “The sunset was beautiful, but heaven is more radiant. It will not be long until she is home."

It's been an interesting day. I took my kids to a new church. It's actually a church my church helped start about 5 + years ago. There are a very large number of people in this church I've know for many years. They are my age and share very similar life experiences. One of those experiences is the loss of parents. Juergen's mom has grown very weak. She basically did not wake up today. She does not eat and did not drink anything today. She can not live without water. We know she can not have much more time...days perhaps. Anyway, there was a world class pantomime performing in the church today. The kids were really taken in by the mime. Thomas and Philip are both practicing what they have seen today. Tonight we had a babysitter for the kids. Sarah did well. We first went to church. It was so great to sit next to Juergen in church together. We will be trying to do this at least two times a month. Then we went to dinner together. The conversation was a m...

http://edition.cnn.com/video/#/video/world/2008/02/12/vo.mexico.quake.damage.tvazteca

Dear Parent, Your child has become a part of the Global Expeditions team! We are pleased to inform you that they have been accepted to participate in a mission trip with Global Expeditions. With your support, they are about to embark on the adventure of a lifetime, where lives will be forever changed! I am still waiting to see if they will let me (an old mom) go too. But Nicole got accepted! Isn't that cool!!!

Jessica's ear drum busted in the night. This morning when I dressed her for school I saw the puss running from her ear. She never gave us a clue she had any pain. That's one of the hard parts about living with a non verbal person. It's hard to tell if they have pain. Juergen got her an appointment at a clinic in Heidelberg. Jess has to see experts because she has a history of tumors growing in her ears. I don't even remember how many times she has had to have surgery on her ears. I was nervous all morning, praying she would not need another surgery. Juergen just called with the bad news. She has to have surgery again in two weeks. We will try to arrange a dentist to come do some major dental work at the same time. If she must go under , we might as well get the most work done. She is 16 years old and still has baby teeth that have not come out. Finding a dentist willing to work on her is nearly impossible. As most of you know, Juergen’s Mom is doing very ...

The boys have been very expensive lately. This weekend Juergen repaired a hold in the back wall of the house. One of the boys got curious about Juergens electric screwdriver. He tried to put a screw in the outside wall and ended up punching a big hole in the wall. Then they repaired the sofa. The boys were using it as a trampoline when I wasn't in the room. It broke the frame of the sofa. So Juergen had to repair that. Then there was the olive oil problem. A few weeks ago I asked the boys to carry in the groceries from the car. One of the boys dropped a bag of groceries onto the ground, and dragged it to the house. When they dropped the bag, it broke a bottle of good olive oil. The whole walkway was soaked in oil. Juergen had to buy expensive soap, and rent a special machine to get the oil out of the stone walkway. Oh, they also broke the stain glass kitchen window. I have to pay 400€ to get that replaced. On the positive side, they are learning how to use tools to fi...

This afternoon I took Nicole and her friend Laura out to lunch and a movie. We had some extra time to kill before the film so we went to IKEA. It was fun! We saw the movie Enchanted. It is a story about a fairy tail princess who comes to real life in New York. She basically falls out of fairy tail love and in real love with a man. I love this scene in the film where she introduces her prince to everyone. Instead of saying this is my dream man, or the great love of my life the disenchanted princess says, "This is my prince". Cute. It was OK (probably better in English). The best part was just spending time with the girls. I'm happy they are not so "cool" that they would be willing to go anywhere with mom!

I took Jessica to look at birds today. She was so excited to go...but showed little excitement when we saw the birds. She wanted to get a book about fish instead. Juergen doesn't need to worry; I will not be buying a bird for Jessica. I actually think she was afraid of them. She loves to look at bird pictures, but real birds are different. She gets this way with motorcycles too. She loves photos of motorcycles but I can not even say the word without her shaking and jumping in fear. Something’s were just meant to be loved from a distance!

I had a really bad day with the boys. Boy did they stress me out with their bad attitudes and behavior. But as bad as it is, it always ends with a good night kiss and a prayer. I had them both read to me, and I read to them too. Tomorrow will be much better, you can bank on it!

I asked my sons to clean their room oh, about 8 hours ago. It should have taken 20 minutes. 8 hours later, and a lot of fights later it is still not really done. I took away the TV and computer time, they lost some new Lego I bought for the vacation (but they had promised to be good), they won't earn their AWANA patch for cleaning their room; they will not get the doughnuts I bought for a snack. I had to talk with them and say I was disappointed. It really does seem to hurt me more then it hurts them. I worry about their future. Will they ever be able to get a job? Will they be able to keep a job? I couldn't keep my room clean when I was young. Why do I worry so much? I just want them to learn some character, responsibility, and follow through. I can sure understand the whole concept of military school. I can see these boot camps as an act of love. Are all boys so lazy?

Jessica really wants a bird. She writes about it all the time. She even carries around a paper with birds on it.

Juergen went to his parents for a few days. I pray God gives him help and peace. It is not fun to watch someone you love so dearly struggle in the final period of life. Death is not pretty. You can say all you want "she is going to a better place". I will not argue with you. The transition is ugly, and the hole she is leaving is giant! We desperately need the comfort of the Holy Spirit to carry us in this very difficult time. In the mean time, I'm the single mom to 5 children. One of them, Thomas, is a real pill. The kids are really getting into doing puzzles lately. Sarah started working on a 60 piece puzzle, and Philip on a 100 piece puzzle. Thomas talked really big, like I can do it better then anyone. Well, he is older...naturally he can. But the problem is he would not help Sarah, he wanted to take over for her. He would not help Philip because I actually think Philip can do it better then Thomas. He just made trouble. I had to send him to his room. ...

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