Our Tina.

In November we had a very big change come to our lives. With the trach removed Greyson didn’t qualify for nursing care any longer and we began the transition of learning to live without the help and care of Tina on a daily basis.
We cannot express the gratitude we have in our hearts for Tina. She began working with us in September of 2008 and has been by our side as we faced great challenges and celebrated great victories. We credit her for much of Greyson’s progress in all areas. Her consistency and persistence was just what we all needed to move forward in our lives. For Bob and I, incredible comfort has come from her friendship and encouragement. Because of her support we were able to slowly regain some normalcy in our lives after such an intense period. The assurance that we had that he was being cared for so well while we were at work and also the assistance she provided us with nursing tasks like changing the trach and g-tube, ordering supplies, maintaining and cleaning equipment, and going with us on drs visits was so appreciated. Tina is the kind of person that looks for ways to help others out even with the small stuff. We certainly feel blessed to have had her care.
Of course Greyson adores her and will do just about anything she wants him to. It is so cute when we sit in church and he sees her across the aisle and up a little ways. He wiggles his way down if he can and takes off crawling to her. His face lights up when he sees her come into the room and he is always going over to a picture of them together that we have taped on the wall, patting it, and saying, “Nina and Gayson”.
We all are still missing Tina’s presence in our house a lot. It has taken me almost three months to finish this blog post and I’m still doing it with tears even today. We are of course so fortunate that Tina is still a regular part of our lives. We see her at church each Sunday and we also work at getting together often to hang out and have fun. In fact we are looking forward to Thursday when she and her family will be over for dinner to celebrate my birthday! Change is inevitable in life, most of the time I choose to embrace it as there really is no other choice; but with this change I am asking God to bring comfort and wisdom to our family knowing that it will take some time to get used to.
I’ve included some picture of Tina and Greyson. Tina is a little camera shy so we don’t really have many from her first year with us. The one where Tina is dressed up as a cat is my favorite because I will remember that moment forever. Greyson looked and looked at her and then we saw the amazement come over his face when he finally recognized her. He thought it was pretty funny seeing Tina in a cat mask.