August 6, 2011

In the middle of the night I woke up with a sharp pain in my chest. I laid here and breathed very shallow so it wouldn’t hurt so bad. I finally had to wake Bruce up to help me because I couldn’t breathe. When I got up I passed out and that really scared Bruce. By 7:30 I had called a Sister Scott who is a nurse serving in Nairobi and she brought great relief when she told me she thought it was pleurisy (infection in the lining of the lung) and to take Amoxicillin for five to seven days along with Ibuprofen. She said it was probably caused from the fumes of the diesel fumes coming out of the trucks we follow everyday and the bad pollution that is in Nairobi. I only had one other attack (it comes and goes) before the medicine began to work. Wow I had never heard of that before and I am so glad I wasn’t having a heart-attack.

At 8:30 President Broadbent called to tell me my mother had passed away. I thought she would make it the eighteen months but her many health complications had worsened over the passed two weeks. My sisters, brother Gary and wife Laura, and gradpa were with Grandma when she passed. This will be hard on all of us but Grandpa Virg, who loved her so sweetly will be very lonely. It is hard to not be with family at this time. Bruce and I have hugged each other and cried together. He is very good to me. I told him we couldn’t go home for many reasons but also because I knew he wouldn’t come back. I will write a talk for the funeral and asked Angela to read it at the funeral. Mom would like that. Our mission friends came by to hug me and bring flowers for our apartment/flat. Dad finished painting the living room and I made some cookies. We were just quiet and peaceful the rest of the day.