Rollercoaster of a day!

Well I used to like Rollercoasters as a child, even as a younger adult, these days I prefer to watch and look at the photos afterwards. Today has been a day of ups and downs so fast I am still not sure where the bad stopped and the good started and vice verse!

Having been up and down a lot in the night, if not with one child then with another, then just because I had so many prayer needs spinning round my head I needed to organise them out again! I woke up with my dear friend C on my mind. Her daughter S has been seriously ill in hospital since 30th November, She has double pneumonia and serious bowel problems. All this on top of being a child with complex health needs and disabilities already. Mum and Dad have other children with other needs and they live a long way from the hospital. This means that Mum is in Hospital with S and Dad is at home/work caring for the rest of the family.

As I have done most mornings since they were admitted I sent a text letting C know that I was still praying for them and wanting to know how the night had gone. The response came a little while later, that there was an improvement in her lungs as her Oxygen need had gone down significantly, however she was still in intense pain from her Bowel Issues and a different consultant was making different decisions to the one last night. Prayer ensued as I went about our usual morning. It was a busy morning, nothing going quite as smoothly as it may, Needing Eve up and dresses as well as Rosie by 8 am, and the usual busy manicness of Morning's Chez Hiller!

Once the school bit was done, and David had headed off with Joshua and Christina I set to with organising Jonathan for college whilst clearing away the breakfast stuff, picking up scattered pyjamas and nappies and all the other paraphenalia of getting up! During all this I took a time to load up the internet on the lap top ready to check overnight emails.
When I came back to look there was one from the computer company where I had sent my broken lap top for repair. This was a toughbook Lap Top I had bought off Ebay in 2007, sadly it was not as tough as I had hoped and had a disintergrating keyboard and other annoying issues. I had packed it away when it failed to charge always intending to get it repaired but never quite managing to get round to it. So when it fell out the cupboard onto my foot I decided now was the time for a quote. I rang the manufacturer and they organised a courier to collect it. Now here was an email from them. I opened it expecting a quote, I got something quite different!

Aparantly on examining the unit they discovered it was on their list of reported stolen!
They had contacted the original customer and were awaiting contact details for the police and would leave the police to contact us directly!

Hummmph!
We had bought the lap top through an Ebay shop, but over the phone by credit card as we had rung them for advice on the ribustness in realtion to Rosie's destructiveness. It has just seemed easier to deal with them this way then and I bought it with credit card over the phone. This was early 2007 and we no longer had any of the paperwork.
Once Jonathan had left for college I spent the next little while trying to trace the card transaction. unsure whether it had been credit or debit card. I was able to go back through my debit card transactions and nothing there correspnded, so I went through the Credit card. Only on line it only allowed me to go back a few months. So I went to find the paper statements, but David had not filed them, I then rang the bank. After being on hold for what seemed like hours, but was only about 15 minutes, the lady came back very appologetically...apparantly they could not trace my statement beyond Middle of last year! Very odd, usually they can trace back up to 6 years! After a bit of a heated discussion over why they could not approach head office on my behalf to trace this I put the phone down Stumped!
The only evidence I have of where I bought the machine is on a discussion thread on Special Kids. I had sent a link to the Ebay shop and it is still trading. I will leave that to the police!
Meanwhile I had anlother text from my friend. The hospital politics were affecting the treatment of S. All very frustrating and not at all helpful and meanwhile S was in significant pain.
David and I escaped the work in the house for a short while to go buy some supplies from the pet store, more about that another day. But it was a brief respite from the turmoil in my head,

We arrived home around midday, I continued to try and trace this transaction, make a vets appointment for the Rabbits and organise borrowing a pet carrier to put them in. David was continuing with the staining of wood for the window linings, arranging pipewoirk for the Kitchen and generally making a lot of noise and mess. We stoped for Lunch alllowing us just 15 minutes before the Payroll support officer came to assist me through some interviews for Carers.

I had interviewed several people on Friday and noone had really burst out as being THE right carer. We had two people coming today and we were not really convinced by either application form.
Sadly the first didnt turn up, and the second just didnt interview well. We were left with two could be's from Friday. I decided to discuss one of the big issues with my preferred choice and if she was still not a possibility then offer the job to the other. A gentleman we interviewed on Friday seemed an ideal carer for Jonathan so we decided to offer him that post!
As we were discussing the CRB and Reference take up my phone rang. It was a Dream come true charity responding to an application for Rosie.

Rosie is in love with Aled Jones! She tries to climb into the TV when he appears on Songs of Praise. So we wrote to Songs of Praise a few weeks ago to see if there was anyway we coudl arrange for her to meet Aled in person. I never really expected a response. So imagine my surprise when his PA sent me an email! Cutting a long sgtory short Aled is appearing at the Lowry Theatre in Manchester in White Christmas! If we can get there to a performance he will meet with Rosie after the show!
This charity were ringing to say they will pay for us to get there and stay over night! I had to forward the emails from Aled's PA just to confirm that Aled had agreed to meet with Rosie. Now we just have to wait and see when we can go! YEEEEHAAAHHH I cant wait to see her face!

Down to earth with a huge bump when I got a text from C again. Telling me they had now got a diagnosis and it was about as bad as it could get! At this point she had not been able to talk with her husband so no details. I went about the rest of the evening on tentrehooks waiting to hear back. Managed to cook a meal for everyone, even if it was nearly 8 o'clock before we sat down. IN the meantime David had managed to cut through a pipe he thought wateer was turned off to....unfortunately it wasnt! Turning the water off involved taking up floor boards in the upstairs landing. Floorbaords that happened to have a large very full bookcase standing on them! Guess who got to hold the bowl under the hot water whilst he went up to find the stop valve???

Just as we finished eating the text came back from C. The news is not good at all. S needs an operation to remove her colon. Without this surgery she could easily die, they have the night to make their decision. With so many miles between them, the other chidlren's needs to meet and needing to talk this over properly with full information, the situation is impossibly difficult. All I can do is sit here and pray.

Praying that God's presence is felt by them all. Praying for comfort, for wisdom, for strength, for peace. For God to over rule and grant His peace and grace and mercy to all involved, Mostly for God to wrap His loving arms around D and C...and all the children.

A wonderful bright moment when opening Sarah's Blog tonight. Seeing the beautiful pictures of more of her 39 new children. Seeing the smiles that are there already and imagining the solemn faces a few weeks down the line once they know the love and care of being with Sarah's covenant Homes.

I dont know the answer to the Why's...I am so glad I know the man who does!
God is good ALL the time. I am so glad I know I can trust Him even when it is so hard!
Blessings!