The pacemaker is in!  What a relief!  IT ACTUALLY HAPPENED!  January has been a long month in anticipation of waiting for the pacemaker to get put in!  We stayed in seclusion as much as possible, only heading out to church & an occasional trip to the grocery store or several doctor appointments with a stop at a favorite restaurant just to 'be out' ....we chose the ones where we could social distance the best!
Jeff will be in the hospital until Wednesday.  They are switching him from one of his medications that they do not want to leave him on long term to another medication.  With the new medication he needs to be monitored for 48 hours to be sure the medication is working properly and not causing any issues.  I asked lots of questions this morning of Dr. Hansen.  They will be doing periodic chest X-Rays and EKG's during this two day hospital stay to monitor things.  They are being very thorough and for that we are very grateful!
We (well really Jeff but we are in this together!) have a few more hiccups to get through yet. 
We had a little scare at Christmas time but once again, God has been at our side helping us through it all!
Jeff's hemoglobin has been low, apparently has been low since he started A-FIB issues in 2017 but the numbers were tolerable, they have now plunged lower and not so tolerable anymore.  Our primary Dr. caught this at Jeff's physical in October & she started putting things in motion to get this checked out.  Hemoglobin has to do with your Iron in your body/blood for those of you who may not know.  I don't pretend to know all about it BUT I sure am learning a lot lately!  The Dr. started him on 2 iron supplements a day.  After rechecking this several times since October his numbers remained low, dropping even lower.  This is not good, what is causing this?  So next theory - does Jeff have some internal bleeding going on????  The Dr. had him send in a stool specimen and they found blood in his stool the week of Christmas!  With this hanging over our heads we spent the holidays with Ashley, Jeremy, and Casey and had some wonderful family time!
January 5th Jeff went into the hospital (nothing like meeting your deductible the first week of the year) for both an upper and lower GI. Upper GI they go down your throat with a camera and look around and lower GI is a colonoscopy - he sure loved doing the prep for that!  By God's grace they did not find anything in either one of those tests.  He had 2 small polyps which they removed and they tested benign for cancer!  PRAISE GOD!  The blood in the stool could have possibly come from hemmorhoids at the time the sample was taken.

Where do we go from here - we still don't have any answers?  Next step - see a hematologist which is a blood Dr. and hematologists are also oncologists (at least the ones we are seeing are).  First visit - let's draw 3 LARGE tubes of blood, fill them into 10 or so smaller tubes of blood and let's run some blood tests!  HOLY CATS!  The blood tests results started coming through on his My Prevea chart.  I couldn't even pronounce some of the names of the tests!  Of course I started researching online - bad mistake!  Don't do that!  I told myself I had to STOP!  I was finding out way more than I wanted to know and was not liking what I was seeing! 
He had his follow up visit this past Friday, Jan. 28th to find out the results.  Once again, by the grace of God, nothing major as far as all cancer tests or any tests for 'bad things' came back negative.  However, Jeff's Vitamin B12 is very, very, low.  The hematologist said this can and is probably a huge factor as to why he is anemic (low hemoglobin).  Here we go again - now he is on Vitamin B12 supplements.  He is on these for 3 months and will go in for more blood tests after that and re-check to see if this is making a difference.
However - we are not 'in the clear' yet!  We ended up seeing 2 different hematologists.  They work together as a team and the one we saw at the first appointment is unavailable now until the beginning of May so we saw another one for the follow up visit.  Both Dr.'s mentioned to us that Jeff's kidney numbers are 'high'.  What does that mean?  I guess his kidneys may not be functioning correctly.  I asked a few questions and the hematologist said he is not a kidney specialist but it can be caused by several factors.  So, I, being who I am, will not let this go.  I messaged our family Dr. this past weekend (you know the same one that got the ball rolling on the hemoglobin being low....I sure do like her!) and asked her if this should be a concern.  I got a message from her this morning (she is very prompt at returning messages....did I mention yet that I like her!!!!) that stated within the next 2 weeks (we will let Jeff recover a little from his pacemaker installation) she recommends he have a renal function panel drawn (I think this is yet ANOTHER blood work up for more tests that weren't run on this last one) and based on those results she will decide if he needs to see a kidney specialist.

Jeff-Jeff-Jeff - not sure when this is going to STOP!  One thing after the other!  He (Jeff) sure is testing the for better or worse, in sickness and in health part of this agreement we made almost 35 years ago (in April will be 35 years!).

Pray - pray - pray!  We continue to pray and God keeps answering our prayers!  Something tells me each step along the way God is leading us by the hand to find anything and everything that is going on to get Jeff healthy again!  Talk about having your faith tested!  2021 was a very long year for us and 2022 is starting out the same!  Praise God that He has been with us each step of the way!

On another note - Jeff is RETIRING!  His short term disability ran out Jan. 18th.  His FMLA is used up!  He cannot even think of going back to work for at least one month post op of the pacemaker going in.  He has to wear a sling for a month.  He cannot lift his arm over his head, can't lift more than 10 pounds with his left arm (yes - he is left handed)....and who knows how long it will take before he would even feel well enough to go back to work...and we are still working with hemoglobin and possible kidney issues.  Vollrath does not have to hold his position for him, we didn't even ask them about it, we just decided retirement it is!  He is taking his vacation he earned in 2021 and his actual retirement date will be mid February!

Anybody want him for a few hours a day once things settle down?  I may need to get him out of my hair for awhile as I continue to work from home!  Don't get me wrong, I praise GOD he is still here - but.....you all know what I mean I am sure!  LOL!

Thank you to so many of you who have reached out through phone calls, texts, Facebook messages etc.  We both really appreciate all of your support and all your prayers!  Throughout all that has happened we continue to see God's help in all of it and we know that the prayers help.  I spend many days/nights talking to God.  I don't ask 'why' anymore, I know the answer to that.  I just ask for His grace, His undeserved love, that He continues to shower on us as He helps us through this all!

I will update again when I have some more answers.....

I leave you with this hymn which is in the new hymnal we just started using at Immanuel and has quickly become a FAVORITE of mine and sums up the faith I have in our Savior!  I encourage you to listen to it!  I will also share the lyrics for you: