Uncle...

I'm crying, "Uncle!" I have to! I can't take much more!!!!!

John: Well today was another bad day. He slept most of the day and hardly got out of bed. His headache is excruciating which is exhausting him. He did (from bed) work on some schoolwork with the children. However, he hasn't eaten much and I keep finding him moaning and holding his head. It seems I cannot state often enough: John is RARELY conscious these days. When he does have moments of lucidity, he typically spends them interacting with the children. The extent of my communication with him is usually, "What can I get for you honey?" or "When is the last time you gave me pain meds babe?" MANY keep commenting that he, "is not answering his phone...." or that he "is not returning my calls." rest assured you are in good company because he is not conversing on the phone AT ALL right now. He is hardly conversing with those he lives with. I beg of all of you, PLEASE understand that he is not in any condition to be returning phone calls in a timely manner.... not to ANYONE. I am trying my best to keep up with all communication for him, but as you will see in the portion of the update about me, I am ready to throw in the towel I am so overwhelmed right now.

Children: They are really not doing too terribly for those whose family has been through what ours is going through; however, the stress is starting to show in some areas. Some (who shall remain nameless to protect the guilty) are MUCH more whiny than typical, some are more aggressive than typical, some have actually reclaimed lost territory in the area of potty training regression (that has been a tiny little miracle), but ALL are desperately in need of some normalcy and to be able to be their old LOUD and ROWDY selves for a little while. In spite of the extreme circumstances around here, school has been going VERY well. Noah and Jeremiah have been making INCREDIBLE strides in penmanship and math! Elijah is proving himself to be a little math whiz tackling his new curriculum voraciously. Hannah is learning her alphabet VERY well and keeps begging to start on our phonics program. ALL are tearing up the AWANA books! Noah recited 7 sections at TNT last night!!! Hannah already earned a patch and last night she did her required section as well as 2 makeup sections. So educationally we are ON IT!

Jami: Oh pray for Jami! Pray HARD for Jami! I am really, really, really standing close to the ledge and am very tempted to JUMP! Today was a bad, bad day. In spite of the fact that I got 7 hours of sleep last night (for the first time in at least 3 weeks), I did NOT have a great day. In one 24-hour period I took on more work than I took on all of last week. That is GREAT!!! because work = $$$.... BUT difficult because John had a bad day and I was left to try to juggle a long day of work, school, and caring for him all by myself. The kids seemed to get rowdier and rowdier in direct correlation to the crescendo of my headache pain. It is now 5:06 p.m. (I was waiting for one more call for work that never came) and NOW I am finishing this blog while there is NO dinner ready and I have NO energy to make any. The upstairs is pretty much in order, but the downstairs.... well while I was working today the kids were trashing the downstairs. I need to get a few more night's sleep under my belt to get rid of this continual headache. I need to take a walk and get some exercise. I need to get my house cleaned and make a few more meals to freeze and finish the laundry and grade papers and plan tomorrow's lessons and AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! SEE why I wanna JUMP!

How you can help:
1. Please, please, please PRAY! Pray for John. Pray that his good days start coming in 2's and the bad days stop coming. Not only am I exhausted from holding down the fort all by my lonesome, but I miss my best friend! Pray for the children. Pray that they can just tone it down and lower the volume a bit longer so that John (and I) can make it through the headaches. Pray for me. Pray that I don't throw in the towel. That I somehow superhumanly find the strength to cook, clean, teach, work, and LOVE all while getting little to no sleep.

2. Please do the very best you can to get caught up on John's condition via one of the electronic modes we are using: Twitter, Facebook, Blogger. It is VERY time consuming to have to individually update multiple people everyday. I get multiple calls/e-mails/texts in a day asking me how John is doing. It is very hard to answer all of these in a timely manner. So please visit this site or stay in tune on Twitter or Facebook in order to relieve a little of my stress. That being said we do feel a bit lonely out here in the boonies, so PLEASE do not stop attempting to communicate with us, but understand that we are not going to be able to answer every phone call, text, e-mail. Pretty much this is a one-man show up here (ME) and I am about at the end of myself with things to do. So please keep the encouraging messages, e-mails, and texts coming. We need them badly! We need to know that people are out there thinking of us and praying for us, but please understand we (and by we I fully mean I.... for John is completely unable to assist me in responding to any one's queries) just don't have enough time in the day for personal replies to each inquiry.

3. If you have a second, please send John a quick get well wish. When he is conscious he typically asks me to check his facebook and e-mail for him. Then when we find nothing but SPAM he gets discouraged. So if you could please do me a quick favor. Stop for a second and send him an e-mail: jkastner3@gmail.com I would REALLY appreciate it.

Okay well I'm going upstairs now to find something I can quick throw together and call dinner. Then I think I will try to sneak into my closet, shut the door for COMPLETE darkness, and cry for a little while. Tears are soothing sometimes.

Peace out everyone!