Gimpy Molly

My poor little fur baby started limping around Friday, so we took her to the vet Saturday and apparently she either sprained her toe or got a spider/scorpion bite cause it was way swollen and super sensitive. The vet told us little to no activity for the next week! She is a spazzy terrier, so I'm not sure how this is going to work, but the twice a day Benadryl and anti-inflamatories are definitely helping to knock her down a few notches where she is almost like a normal dog. She gets around pretty good, she just tucks the hurt leg away and can almost walk with just the 3 legs or limps (which breaks my heart cause she looks so pitiful).

Dear Gillian Barre syndrome,

I know you thought you had found the perfect person to attack. As I'm sure you are beginning to realize, boy were you wrong. Way wrong. My dad is strong- stronger than anyone I know, and most definitely stronger than you. You put up a fight that's for sure and there was some scary moments over the past six weeks but, well- you lose.

The first time I walked into the hospital room and saw my dad and what you had done to him, my heart was broken. My wild and crazy dad wasn't there. I saw what resembled my dad but it wasn't him. Between the bells palsy in him face, the intense pain he was in, and numbness of his extremities, and all the other awful ways you attempted to drag him down with, my dad wasn't my dad. I cried. A lot.

Now I could of wrote you a doosie of a letter about 3 weeks ago. It would of been full of "I hate you"'s and lots of not nice words. I have my moments and still think these things from time to time. However, I've had a change of spirit. I still think you are an awful illness and I hope you never visit anyone I know again, but I think maybe just maybe you may have been a blessing to my family.

You didn't see that one coming did you? Me neither. As a result of this big mess you've caused my family is closer that we've ever been. I always loved my parents but now I appreciate them so much more. To see the way my mom took care of my dad, spending night after night in the hospital, not a single complaint once- she taught me even more about what kind of wife I want to be. To see my dad take this awful experience and turn it into an opportunity for him to grow, is just amazing. Both of my parents have been warriors the past six weeks and I respect them so much.

I don't wish an extended stay at the hospital on anyone, however it was nice to get to just sit and be with my family. Living eight hours away, that doesn't happen very often. Some of my favorite Threlkeld family memories will now include the four of us holding hands, taking dad out for a walk in his wheel chair after laying in bed for nearly two weeks and how emotional that was, us all praying together, getting to laugh and make a collage of things my dad loves with my brother for his hospital room, and just all the heart-to-hearts that only something like this can provoke.

Now I know you are just an autoimmune disease, so I don't expect you to understand this, but I wanted to say thank you. Now leave my dad alone! Or don't, it doesn't matter- cause he is going to kick your butt regardless!

Sincerely,

Ashley Luksys

Going mad this weekend....

We've been go-go-go for awhile and were a little overdue to have a weekend at home. I love that I had such an amazing birthday weekend, and then got to spend the 2 weekends before that with my family, but I needed some chill time. Doesn't chill time sound so much better than "a weekend of laying on the couch and being worthless"? Or even better- when I get text asking me to come and do stuff and I say "we are just laying low this weekend". Laying low is just so much cooler than saying "I choose my netflix queue over you". Anyways, we decided to lay low this weekend and it was FAB-U-LOUS.

Okay, so one of the things we did this weekend was watch nearly all of Season 2 of Mad Men. Is anyone else watching this show? It's so stinking good! I just love the sixties and it is so interesting to watch how crazy different things were not so long ago. It's about an advertising agency in NY in the early 1960's. They almost always show dressed to the nines with a cigarette in one hand and a drink in the other. Blatant sexism, scandalous story lines, to-die-for wardrobe? L-O-V-E it.



I also made some curtains, but can't find my camera, so that will have to be another post later. Hope everyone had a great weekend!

Celebrations

So I say this every year, but I feel like every year my life gets better and better so I'm not lying when I say this is possibly one of the best birthdays I ever had. I think part of the reason it was so special is because it had been about three weeks since I spent anytime with friends and just felt so disconnected from my life. I've spend a lot of time in Tulsa lately (praise God that I've had the freedom to be able to do that!). My dad is getting better and better every day and his positive attitude and even more passionate view on living life definitely had something to do with this birthday being such a celebration.
So for starters, on of my best friends Sara and her hubby Drew came down for the weekend! Yea! We always have a blast together and I'm so glad they came down.
Okay, so Friday we hung out and went to Alamo and saw "The Other Guys", it was so funny and I love it. Then Friday night we went to Hula Hut! I was so overwhelmed by love that night with so many friends coming, it was just a perfect evening.


Rachel, Brandy, Elana


Sara and Drew



My best friends from work- Kim, Dinah, and John!


The Gang!

Then we got up Saturday morning and went to SCHLITTERBAHN! Oh yes, it deserves all caps- it is the ginormous and one of the best water parks in the world (from what I've heard, I haven't personally checked that out, although I wouldn't mind that job!) Here's a shot of us before we adventured out!


We had big plans to go see the Spazmatics downtown Saturday night, but Schlitterbahn kicked out butts so we went to my favorite mexican food place, ate huge amounts of fajitas and then came home and vegged out out. Ahhh...it was perfect. Spezmatics will always be there, a night in with friends- much better!

Then the icing on my birthday cake of a weekend was that a bunch of friends from American Cancer Society got together on Sunday to catch up at the Deep Eddy Pool. That place is amazing. I think it's like the oldest public swimming pool in Texas, it's huge and just so pretty and definitely one of those Austin treasure that you can only find out about through word of mouth (one of my favorite things about this city- always some new place to explore). Anyways, it was SO great to catch up with everyone, it's probably good I work form home, cause I have some awesome co-workers that I wouldn't probably just sit around and want to goof off with all day! There was probably about 20 people that came, here are just a few of the lovely ladies I get to work with!



Thanks for all the sweet cards, texts, and calls everyone, I love you all!

How ICK quickly turned to AWWWWW....

So the other night I am chatting up a storm with my mom on the phone and freak out cause there is a huge possum on our back fence! I spaz out a bit and then somehow completely forget about it (seriously- zero attention span- I worry for my future children...). So then Andy come home like an hour later and sees the possum still there! So being the testosterone oozing man that he is he goes to check it out and take care of it. It's little leg is stuck! I'm totally grossed out by the whole thing, but Andy goes and takes a picture of it up close to show me how cute it is....




Ewwwww.....I'm not convinced of it's cuteness. We try to figure out what to do with the little guy, so we call my mom. For this to be funny, you have to realize I have the most gentle, caring person in the whole world as a mom. So I call her up and her advice? "Find a 2x4 and knock it as hard as we can over the head to kill it." LOL. Did I mention my mom was raised on a farm? Now I know that we are bleeding heart, granola eating, Austin living type, but that just cracked me up. For a while Andy tried to psyched himself up to do it, but the second he started telling me about how the possum has an abandoned family up in the trees that are scared I figured the 2x4 plan wasn't going to happen....

So we finally find the number for animal control and they agree to come out! About an hour later, and Andy nearly constantly checking on "his little guy", a nice lady from animal control came and got him. His poor little foot was almost completely broken off, she was going to take him directly to an emergency vet clinic. Thought that was pretty cool, because I totally figured they would just kill the animal but she said they try to rehabilitate them if they are able to.



Once I saw the possum up close in the cage, I have to admit they do have cute little faces. Just can't get past that nasty tail....

Update

So my dad is doing better- out of ICU- Woo hoo! I went back up there Thursday-Sunday so I could spend some time with them and try to help out when able. There was definitely progress since I had been there the week before. He will probably be in the hospital for a while but there is progress, he is even doing a little bit of physical therapy. I know it's going to be a long road, but my dad is the crazy maniac who ran a 100 mile race- TWICE! He is the toughest, strongest person I know and I cannot wait till we look back at this whole situation as the little bump in the road that changed us all in a good way.

Here he is running a race through the mud, I wasn't kidding- the man is hard-core...


After spending a little bit of time in the hospital I start to get a little restless. Maybe it's just me and my toddler-like need for constant stimulation, but I cannot sit and read issue after issue of Southern Living, so I've come up for a few hospital games...

"Where's McDreamy?" So in this game we attempt to find lool-alikes for all the cast members from Grey's Anatomy. Found George, Callie, Lexi (dead-tinger for her!), McSteamy (this was the most exciting find for obvious reason ;) ),and Alex. I have high hopes for finding McDreamy at some point..we gotta have goals people...

"How many 65 cents lattes can I drink?" I think this game is self-explanatory, but can you believe I can get a swiss mocha for a mere 65 cents- eat your heart out Starbucks!

"Stink eye" There was one doctor that was rude and short with us, I haven't seen him again but am practicing my best stink eye so I will be prepared to visually say "check yourself before you wreck yourself mister"- and yes it can be hard to portray that with just a look-thus the need to practice...



I just want to reiterate how blessed I am to have all of you in my life. My phone and inbox has just been blowing up the past couple of weeks with so much love and support and it means the world. We went to church Wednesday night and had so many people come up to me and tell me they had been praying. I even had a friend whom I had kinda lost contact with call me and offer to give me a round trip flight to Tulsa- so thoughtful and generous! Seriously, what amazing people I am surrounded by. Thank you. Love you all!

Update on dad

I don't even know where to begin...what a crazy week. I will give you the cliff notes of the past couple of of weeks. As a lot of you know my dad has been sick. It got real bad last week after he had his gallbladder removed and eventually lead to a diagnosis of Guillain-Barre Syndrome. Guillain-Barré syndrome is a disorder in which the body's immune system attacks part of the peripheral nervous system. Yea, I know, it sounds bad but he received treatment and is already making progress. He has been is lots of pain but is making lots of progress. He may even get released from ICU today!

There are a lot of good things that have already come out of this- our family is so much closer, it made us realize how precious our short lives are, what is really important in life, and just how big our support system is. We have received insane amounts of notes, emails, text, all sorts of encouragement, but most of all prayer. I know we all know this, but let me say it again- prayer works. It works! Do we always get the answer we want? Maybe not, but boy does God hear us! Prayers for the doctor to figure out what was going on- BOOM! Answered! Prayers that the pain levels get under control- BOOM! Answered! Prayers for the family to be strong! BOOM! Answered! Okay, so I could go on and on, but I will just simply say the God I serve is so good.

He still has a long road ahead of him for sure so I ask for you to keep him in your thoughts and prayers!

Here is a link to the press release, it goes into a little more detail....

http://www.kjrh.com/dpp/news/local_news/2news-chief-meteorologist-dan-threlkeld-hospitalized-with-rare-condition