The End of the Day

We would like to say thank you again for all who were able to come to the viewing and funeral. Your presence was a blessing and a true testimony to the life my dad lead. We still are in a bit of shock. We don't understand God's purpose but we are not to question it. We must except what has happened and try to fill the very large shoes that are now empty.

I have had several express appreciation for this blog. I am amazed at how many people were comforted by my simple words. To be very honest, I started this out of pure frustration with answering phone calls and questions. This quickly turned very therapeutic. I realized that others were finding comfort from my very disjointed thoughts.

We have all lost a lot. We are not the true losers in this though. We all have memories of my dad. We can all remember words of wisdom, moments of joy, and a lot of laughs. There are currently three people do not have the opportunity. Dan and Bekah and Bryan and I are currently task with the enormous responsibility of telling Lauren, Kate, and Grant about their Papa. Hopefully one day David and Melanee will have this task a long with any others the rest of us are blessed with. This leads me to my one request. Please help us with this. Yes, we know our father inside and out. But we don't know the ways he blessed you. We would like to create some sort of book for all current and future grandchildren so they will know the power of God through their Papa. Please add a comment or send me an email (meldou@gmail.com) and give us your Frank or Dwight stories.

I wanted to also let you know that I will try to post the picture video from the funeral soon.

Thank you for your prayers thoughts and kindness that you have shown to my family the last month.

More Information

Good afternoon! It seems like such a weird day to not be giving updates on progress. I wanted to let everyone know that there was a memorial set up for the church my parents had grown to love and call home. By what I have seen the last month and especially the last few days, they are loved and considered part of the family as well.

Temple Baptist Church
2501 Northshore Blvd.
Flower Mound, TX 75028

Again, thank you for the great comments. You will never fully understand how much they are helping us. We are so honored to hear how he touched so many lives.

God is so good to us! Thanks for the prayers, comments and everything everyone has done.

Thank you

I just wanted to say thank you for all the great comments today. We have been so encouraged by them. We are in true amazement at the amount of people that have looked at this site. We really have no idea as to God's plan from here. We know that He has one that is perfect. Please keep the comments coming. They have been such a help to all of us today.

I am suppose to be in a preparing to tell the parable of the talents to a room of kindergarten's, 1st and 2nd graders. I have thought a lot about this today. My dad was given so much talent and he, like the first two servants, worked to make the talents he was given be so much more. He did so much for so many.

Please remember that through all of this and no matter what else comes any of our ways God is good!

Update

Thank you so much for comments! They are very encouraging to all of us.

Visitation will be on Friday, January 9th from 6 to 8 at Bluebonnet Funeral Home.

http://www.bluebonnethills.com/

Funeral will be on Saturday, January 10th at noon at Temple Baptist Church in Flower Mound.

http://www.templebc.org/

Please let me know if you have any questions.

Thanks again for all the prayers and comments

Wednesday Morning Update

I am very blessed to tell you that there is a new member of heaven. My dad won the lottery this morning! He has found his eternal home in heaven. I am not sure of all the details of what all happened in the early hours of the morning. I am not sure I will ever know. But the one thing I know is that my father has meet our heavenly Father. God is a good and merciful God. He promised to always answer our prayers. They are not always the way we want them. But we must trust that God's is bigger then us and our plans.

I will post more later. Please check back for more details.

Thanks for the prayers!!! You have no idea how much each of you has meant to us. We may not know you all. But you are answers to our prayers.

Tuesday Evening Update

We have a couple of really big prayer request tonight.  The first is for comfort and rest.  He is having a hard time getting the rest he needs because he cannot get comfortable.  My mom told me that he is miserable because he is tired.  The prayer is that the nurse is able to find out the medicine combination to get him comfortable.  Also, the doctors will be able to find the source of the pain tomorrow and have a solution.  The second request is a new thing.  The discovered a colony of MRSA cells in his lungs today.  MRSA is a strain of staph infection.  They think that it came in from the trach hole.  The prayer is that the doctors will have wisdom and that this will remain inactive.  They are working on removing the trach.  He is doing well on his own.  This is a huge praise.  But also a request that he is able to do it on his own.  

I sometimes feel like I am asking God to move mountains.  I do know that God is the only one that is able to do that.  We serve a wonderful and powerful God.  I want this all in no other hands then our God's.  We as a family are humbled by the love and support you have all shown us.  Thank you so much for being a visible sign of God's love to us!

Thanks for the prayers!!! 

Tuesday Morning Update 12/16

The cat scan showed that there was fluid build up around the lungs.  They are doing a procedure to drain that today.  There is also additional fluid build up around the pancreas.  We are unsure right now what the plan is for that.  We were told that we will have several steps forward followed by steps back.  I guess we are in the steps back right now.  Thankfully these are not untreatable.  I will update you as I know more.  

Thanks for the prayers!!!  Please keep praying.  We are not through this yet!

Monday Evening Update

He had a rough afternoon and evening.  Please pray that the nurse is able to get him comfortable and that he rest well tonight.  He told my mom that he hurt from the top of his head to the bottom of his feet.  I don't have any reports on the test done today.  They did a cat scan of the lungs and abdominal area.  Hopefully we will have news on the in the morning. 

Thanks for the prayers!!!

Monday Morning Update

I don't have much of an update this morning.  He did not sleep well last night.  This will hopefully correct itself once he is out of the ICU.  He told my mom that he found it interesting how the nurses interacted at the nurses station outside his room.  He has a very busy day scheduled.  He will have a heart screen sometime.  The heart doctor thinks he is doing well.  This test should only confirm that.  He will also have physical therapy and speech therapy.  The lung doctor has cleared him to go to the step down unit.  We are just waiting on approval from the surgeon.  He asked for his Nintendo DS with his Brain Age game (this is something he used a lot after the stroke) and for his sudoku books.  He is trying to build up his brain power to get back to work!!!  I will post more as I know it.  

Thanks for the prayers!!!

Sunday Evening Update

My mom walked into the ICU room this morning to find the lung doctor.  He had just replaced the trach with one that would allow my dad the freedom to talk.  My mom said that he is talking very quietly, but we will take that.  He has actually been off the ventilator since Saturday morning.  We were told that he would probably be in ICU 24 to 48 hours after getting off the ventilator.  He would then move to a regular room on a regular floor.  We have also been told that he will not move out of ICU till the gallbladder is out.  That surgery is still weeks away.  All that to say that we are unsure what our next milestone will be.  Hopefully we will know more tomorrow.  The white blood cell count was down a little.  That is good.  The red blood cell count is also down a little.  That level is not quite low enough to need another blood transfusion.  His back has started to bother him now.  Hopefully they are able to get him comfortable tonight and he is able to rest.  So not much new information.  The weekends are always slow and frustrating.

Thanks for the prayers!!!

Sunday morning update

He breathed without the ventilator all night. Everything sounds like it went well with that. Numbers appear to be good. The big thing is pain level and lack of pain medicine.

Thanks for the prayers!!!