We Have Only Begun

Good Wednesday Evening, August 22, 2018! How was your day? I lazed around until 4pm. It was lovely. No cares. No expectations. No drama. It has been a very good day!

I am sitting in my chair, relaxing in my chamber. Oxygen is working. Pressure gauge is right where it needs to be. All is good!

Last evening I was hit with nausea and indigestion within a 1/2 hour from exiting the chamber. My body began to ache and my head started hurting pretty bad. The dizziness was apparent as I was listing mainly to the right when I walked. Yesterday I spoke of some of the symptoms I live with and headaches was discussed. I failed to tell you about the stabbing headache pain I feel often. It is midline at my forehead and hairline. It feels like a nail or a knife stab (I’ve never felt a stabbing, but this is what I imagine it to feel). I went to bed fearing a night of sleepless but I did fall asleep and stay asleep until mid-morning today. I did have nightmares of alligators trying to eat our dogs and that I was the only person to save our dogs, and I did.

I chose the title ‘We have only begun’ because this journey is only in its first week. I suppose it is like a new job or just about anything new that a person has to become familiar with. I am still trying to figure out how to get comfortable with the stuffiness I experience. I have a cool towel that I put on and within a few minutes it seems to lose its freshness and become one with the chamber’s atmosphere. I’m not complaining but I will continue to look further into cool relief. I no longer have a thyroid and parathyroids. They were surgically removed in 2011 or 2012. So I do not have the internal temperature regulator that you possess.

What have you recently just begun? A new diet? A new exercise program? A new class or new students? How about a new career? Or a new promotion at work? We are all in motion, aren’t we?

D and I recently purchased this house. What a stressor! We made it through with the help of our excellent team of loan officers and document assistants. Our real estate agent even pitched in to help us ready the house for inspection. We had our friends from San Diego drive here to help us paint and do the most immediate repairs to the house. They gave of their time and talent to make this home feel more like home. Thank you Lorraine and Bill.

Tonight’s dive is tiring me. I feel a bit worn out and I am only half way through the dive. Its ok…..We have only just begun…haven’t we?

My Mom called this afternoon with news that a family friend had passed away last week. He died five years after my Daddy passed. It was so sad for me to hear. I understand that with life, death must occur. God bless you, Marilyn and family, as you grieve the loss of George. I love each of you very much. I believe in heaven. I choose to believe that Daddy met George and showed him around. They were both able to bow to the ground together when Jesus walked by! I see it so clearly in my heart!

D just told me that thunderstorms are brewing. I love the cool air and the sweet smell of rain. It is so good that rain has come to our parched land. The fires this summer have been tough and I sure hope that the rain has helped water our land and bring the needed water to our rivers, streams, and reservoirs.

I wrote a few days ago about the early years of my life. I spoke of the difficult early years we had as a growing family. My Mom and Dad moved us from Illinois to California because of my little brother Christopher’s health, my health and Daddy’s too. We left the house that our parent built for us. We left grandparents and aunts and uncles and cousins and playmates behind. We left all of the wonderful memories all the way back there. Often during that very long drive to California I would look behind us and wonder if we would ever remember how to get back to what was familiar. We arrived in California to no job, no home, no city to call ours, no family in close proximity, no immediate or future plans, nothing but the dream that the warmer climate would be best for the three of us. I have no idea how we ended up in Fullerton, CA at a tiny motel next to a small airport. I was eight years old and felt all of the fears anyone would feel in a strange new place. Our grandparents, Grandma and Grandpa Komes, drove our family’s second car with us so we at least were with a few familiar faces. Michael and Joseph enjoyed the adventure. They had planes right at their back fence.

We finally ended up in a home that we rented. It was in a neighborhood not far from where we bought the house that Mom and Christopher still live in today. I did not like the house we were renting. I did not like the girls who lived next door. And I did not like the boys that lived down the street. One day the girls next door pinned me down and one of the boys got on top of me and kissed me. I was so hurt and mad. I later learned that both of those boys fought over me and one of them bit a chunk of flesh from the other boy’s shoulder. YUCK! It was troublesome for me in my third grade class because those two boys were in my classroom. School was hard to adjust to. I had been taught phonics in Illinois and California taught the see-and-say way. I truly felt as if I had been dropped off on another planet. And then…..the Hilgen family moved to their permanent residence…away from those annoying girls and further away from the two boys. I still remember the boys names, Charles D. and Jeffrey T.

We had only just begun at 1107–our new address when Gregory was born. My sweet little brother was a joy to my heart. I played with him and cared for him. He slept with me and I woke at night to care for him. Mom had a very difficult pregnancy with Gregory. She lost Gregory’s twin and the doctor has to deliver Gregory before he wanted to come out into the world! He had such a smile that captivated my heart. Mommy needed me to help her because she was alone and had Chris to care for and now baby Gregory was with us. Our first California Hilgen baby. One Sunday morning Gregory was sitting in an infant seat (back then they were so flimbsy) on the kitchen table. He was fussing. Joseph was told to watch him. Little Joe did what he was told but he did not try to stop Greg from falling off of the table. I walked into the kitchen as found baby Gregory falling from the table and lunged to catch him before he hit the floor. In the process of catching him I caught my lower lip on the edge of the table and split it wide open. I was crying and carrying him into my parent’s bedroom with blood all over his bunting. I thought that somehow I had caused him to bleed. It took a while for my parents to assure me that baby Gregory was fine and that I needed to go the hospital for stitches. Two years later Terrence was born. He had a way of looking right into a person’s soul. He would turn his head and the whole world around him would follow his gaze. He was quiet and observant. He was compliant and gentle. And then, one early morning, I would wake up to an event that I will never forget. Into my bedroom came Daddy telling me, “Suzi, you have another brother. Thomas is his name.” I was thirteen years old when Tommy was born. I was in eighth grade. What an armful! And what a character!

Three brothers born in Illinois and three brothers born in California. God chose these six boys to help frame my life. I am grateful. I am blessed. I am amazed at what each one of them has brought to my character, my very nature. God’s plans are far above anything that we could even imagine.

My dive is nearly complete. I am melting. Its very humid in here. I am humbled and elated and very grateful D just started deflating the chamber. I’m still breathing in the oxygen. It is turned on before I get in and it is the last to be turned off when I get out. The decompression seems to be going well. The gauge is slowly going down. There is still pleanty of room in here. I have mastered climbing in and out of the chamber with no complications. I am blessed to know that this is how God had always intended to get me to a place of rest and restoration and recovery and rejuvenation and renewal and revitalization. Yes, it is a life of many new adventures and challenges and hopes and dreams fulfilled. I believe dear LORD….help my unbelief.

Love to each of you,

Suz