I am so thankful for my family. Good times, bad times, hard times...even tho we live in different states, we are there for each other. My sister, Leanne, posted this update, after spending part of her Spring Break getting my Dad settled in his new digs at the nursing home.
"I have returned home from my spring break trip to the Veteran’s Center in Claremore, Oklahoma with a very full heart and a sense of peace with the facility that my dad will now call home.
My family dreaded the day he was to be transferred to the VA Center. He had been at the rehab place for 100 days after his fall and his time was up there. Almost every day he asked about going home and our fear was that when they loaded him up in the transport van, he would think he was going home and would be devastated when he realized where he was going.
My family prayed, and we asked our friends to pray, and we decided to turn all of that over to God in prayer.
Except we didn’t.
We prayed, and then took it all back – all of the stress and worry and fear and dread – we took it all back.
And then when our prayers were answered in a HUGE way with the seamless and EASY transition to the VA Center, we still questioned when the other shoe would drop.
Maybe it just didn’t sink in with Dad that this was his home now.
Maybe Day 2 would be bad? Maybe Day 3?
And because we are human and flawed, it is still so unbelievable to us that after almost a week at his new home, Dad is happy and content and more alert and lucid than he has been in a long time.
At first glance and first visit to the facility, it doesn’t look like much. It is a somewhat cold and functional military facility. But the more time I spent there, the more familiar it felt. It was every office building, hospital, doctor’s office or commissary we frequented during our life spent living on military bases.
Maybe Dad feels this sense of familiarity and comfort there too.
Dad was the first to notice the airplanes hanging from the ceiling only in his wing of the unit.
If you know my dad, you know he loves God, his family his country and then AIRPLANES, in that order.
The dining hall is amazing and the food is good. Dad has been eating so well. The dessert bar with unlimited soft-serve ice cream is his favorite spot in the whole place!
Everyone we have come in contact with has been so kind and they tend to dad in such a loving, caring and respectful way.
And the most amazing thing is that all of it; the nursing care, the physical therapy and the occupational therapy, the medications, the food and unlimited ice cream are all 100% covered for my dad because of his service to our country.
This makes me so proud.
I’m proud of him and I’m proud of us, as a country, for honoring and respecting our Veterans in this way.
The very first night at the VA Center, Dad took my sister-in-law Shelley’s hand and told her, “It’s all going to be OK. I am going to be just fine here.”
Today, we are thanking God for answered prayer and thanking our friends for following along and supporting us on this journey."
Thank you, Leanne, for this awesome update on our Dad.
“Look around at the nations; look and be amazed! For I am doing something in your own day, something you wouldn’t believe even if someone told you about it." Habakkuk 1:5
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