It has been 3 years and 3 months since I have written anything here. Is it time to return to blogging? I miss the interaction with my friends here, although many share Facebook and Instagram with me.
So what has happened in the past 3+ years? Many of you already know, but for the ones who do not, David died on March 8, 2017. He fought a hard fight with cancer and was actually doing very well but there was one problem that plagued him. Controlling his blood sugar. As a diabetic, losing 60 pounds during the course of his cancer treatment made controlling his medication a challenge. You can see how healthy he looked in this picture after gaining back 30 of those pounds, but blood sugar became his nemesis. The night before he died, I was rushed to the hospital with what turned out to be a bowel blockage. They kept me in the hospital for 24 hours in the hopes that it would correct itself without surgery. David was by my side almost constantly and was exhausted by the time he finally agreed to go home and get some rest and eat. In spite of my urging all day about eating, he hadn't had much of anything. He left the hospital and went home, called our kids and settled in to watch the hockey game on TV. Totally exhausted, he fell asleep, his blood sugar dropped and he went into a hypoglycemic coma and passed peacefully. I won't go into detail about all that followed but I can share my thoughts about this. I miss him every minute of every day. We were told when he was diagnosed that patients with esophageal gastric cancer have a 3-5 year prognosis. We always figured that the cancer would return some day, probably in another organ. We lived every day as best as we could. In those 2 years post-surgery, David was honored to receive an honorary doctorate from Thiel University and was named Pastor Emeritus at First Lutheran Church in Pittsburgh where he had served for 24 years before his retirement in 2013. He didn't get to fish as much as he would have liked or travel as much as he wanted but we had some time good time and always a lot of laughing together for which I am extremely grateful. When it was time, God did the most merciful thing in letting David pass from this world without any pain. God's blessings are never ending.
And so now what for me? In the past two years, I have become very active in my church, St. Peter's Episcopal Church in Lewes, Delaware. I again have a loving and supportive church family. I also have real family, my sister and brother-in-law and my nephew and his family living in the area. My kids have been a constant source of support and come to see me as often as possible. I'm also blessed to have great neighbors who have become solid friends.
Life is as good as it can be without David and I'm soon going to be participating in something that is a MAJOR bucket list activity. I'll fill you in later.
Find me on Instagram as Joyce Gleason (clever, huh?)
I hope this blog posting works as I'm doing it on my iPad which I've not before.
I'll be back soon.
If anyone is reading this, please step out and comment so I know you're there.
xoxo
