Captain Dann Shubin

Boy do I have a lot of catching up. I had to read my last post to find out where we left off. First a little explanation for our absence…

In January Dann and I made an offer on a house here in Spokane (VERY exciting!). Little did we know that the term ’short sale’ did NOT refer to how quickly the sale would go through. We have waited….and waited….and waited for the bank to approve the sale. At the end of June our lease was up on the house that we were renting, so we moved into our motorhome and had a very adventurous summer. We (including our 2 cats, Tinkerbell and Dreamer) camped at Priest Lake, ID, the Spokane valley, Lake Tahoe, CA, and the Fry’s front yard. Well, we finally worked it out to rent the house that we’ve been waiting for until the bank can make a decision, so we moved into ‘our’ house on Aug. 7th. I can’t tell you how good it is to have a ‘home’ again. 5 weeks in a motorhome….with 2 active little kids…..2 cats…..a recovering husband…..yeah - adventurous summer.

Now for Dann’s update. Dann did recover from his cough and was doing better. We went on a few bike rides, including a tandem ride which really had me teared up, it had been about 5 years since Dann and I had been on our tandem together. I even let him ‘drive’ - I didn’t think much about it before we started, but there were a couple of moments when I didn’t think he would stop/turn when I asked him to - tandem riding takes a lot of communication and trust between riders, but overall Dann did great!! We especially enjoyed riding the Centennial trail. Dann finished up his speech therapy for the summer at the end of June. I’m looking into a new program called PATREC. They are located in Philadelphia (or Pittsburg? hmmmm) and would work with Dann using Skyp for about a year. I hope to start that up in October.

The only bad news is that Dann suffered another seizure in July. We were in our motorhome and had just opened the door to go in when I looked up and saw Dann starting to seize. Unfortunately, I did not get to him in time to prevent him from falling (and hitting his head on the counter on his way down). This seizure was much shorter in duration than the one in Feb 08. The paramedics arrived VERY quickly and took him to the hospital. Well, this time they decided to keep Dann at the hospital because they started him on antiseizure med and wanted to monitor him for a couple of days, also, there was some mysterious bleeding along the VP shunt line (which turned out to be nothing). The good news, Dann did not have any complications from hitting his head, and we went ‘home’ (rv) after 4 days in the hospital. The Dilantin (antiseizure med) has been hard for Dann. It makes him REALLY sleepy, confused, blank stares, and his speech has been set way back. He’s been on the med for about 6 weeks and has acclimated some, but still is noticeably affected by the med. We go in to see a neurologist who specializes in medications on Sept. 3 and I plan on discussing other med possibilities for Dann. It’s been hard to see him so out of it. Those feelings of missing my husband have been constant for most of the summer. I’ve also noticed that Dann doesn’t even try to join conversations when I’m talking to strangers (he still will make effort when we talk to friends/family).

On the plus side, being in our new home seems to have stirred up Dann’s ‘pride of ownership’. He will go outside and spend hours (literally) pulling weeds all around our house. He has clearly enjoyed the view from our deck, and will stand at the rail to watch the deer, quail, turkey, quail, coyotes, yellow jackets, whatever happens to be walking around the hill behind our house. The house/property is really peaceful and I really think it will be good for Dann. We are going to explore a couple of roads that take off from our house, hopefully good walking paths. We are also getting involved with an organization up here called BOMB (Believers on mountain bikes). Our first ride will be this Saturday at Riverfront Park. It’s supposed to be about a 90 minute ride with some easy single tracks and double tracks ( did I mention that I don’t ‘mountain’ bike…should be interesting). I am excited for Dann though - he’s going to have a blast. I have already talked to the guy in charge about Dann and his situation and he assured me that they always ride according to the weakest rider. Pray for safety. Dann has also really had fun at a local water park that we discovered this summer. It is a small scale park, but it does have one very fun twisty-turny slide. Watching Dann go down that slide with a huge grin on his face, made me feel like I had a glimpse of Dann at age 7. And he went down again, and again, and again…..it was hilarious and wonderful!!!!

I think that’s all highlights, if I remember anything else I’ll add it on later.

Thanks to everyone who has kept in touch throughout the summer and for all your continued prayer and support. I was reading again how God uses our trials to grow faith in our hearts and as I look back over the last 2 years (YIKES!!! we went over his anniversary date - TWO YEARS!!!) I see the valleys and the mountain tops and His loving arms around us all the time. It’s not always easy, and sometimes scary, but GOD, ever faithful, ever loving, ever enduring, loving us through it all.

For His Glory
colleen

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