Just Reed: After Christmas Excitement!

WOWZERS...this has been a Christmas I will never forget...for sure! It began with my Dad having emergency surgery for a ruptured bowel on December 18th. My dad, as you may remember, has Lewy Body Dementia, and it's very risky to be put under anesthesia or given narcotic pain medicines. These meds can cause irreversible damaged. So, it's a scary proposition to be told you're having emergency surgery within an hour...and no time to prep or call your neurologist at Emory and ask for advice about anesthesia! We covered him in prayer, and God was good. His recovery is going fantastically well. They ended up removing about 4 inches of his sigmoid colon, and he has an ileostomy bag for 3-6 months which will then be reversed. There's a reason I'm not a nurse...I'm squeamish!! But God has given me the strength to help care for him, empty the ostomy bag, etc. without getting sick or feeling faint. Isn't God good? I'm so thankful and relieved to have this time off to care for my mom and dad in their hour of need. Please continue to keep them in your prayers!

Before all of this chaos, I did manage to update my Kevin Henkes and Peggy Parish Author studies. They've doubled in size and content, and I've added much better fonts, graphics, clipart, borders, and more. Plus, better activities, more craftivities, etc. I'm really excited about them! If you've already purchased them, please redownload them at TPT. If you haven't purchased them, these would make some great author studies for the last half of the school year. There's plenty of material in each to cover a 4-6 week author study if you want to stretch it out that long! :)