Life as a Yowler

Do you like how I jumped right to the point?

It’s been so long since I’ve blogged, that I barely remember how. There was a season in my life that I would write down my thoughts to help me process them. I did this pretty faithfully when my kids were young. I still made time to do it, even with high energy kids climbing things as I would sit and write. Lately, I’ve been making excuses not to. But the events of the last couple months have brought me back to a place where I need to process my thoughts.

Two months ago our family was scheduled to go on a Caribbean cruise. My mother in law gifted us with this trip for Christmas and we were all looking forward to some warm weather and fun memories. The night before we were scheduled to leave, my dad had a heart attack and was transferred by ambulance to a bigger hospital. Our first step was trying to delay our plane tickets, to give us more time to determine if we should go on the trip or stay behind. We moved our tickets to a day later. The next day, after a lot of thought and prayer, we planned to still go on the cruise, but I was going to fly back if needed. We started heading to the airport. As we were driving to Detroit, we got the report back from my dad’s heart cath. We found out that my dad’s heart attack was far more complex and dangerous than we originally thought. He had 6 blockages and a condition called SCAD(spontaneous coronary artery dissection). SCAD caused 5 artery dissections and he was too weak for surgery. We decided then to cancel the trip. My dad was sent home on strong meds and told to rest and sit around until the arteries healed. We hoped his arteries would heal enough to eventually handle a surgery. He rested for several weeks, when we decided to seek help from another doctor who was at least familiar with the condition, SCAD. We made the right decision, and the new doctor provided much more knowledge and help. He came up with a plan of action and immediately started treatment that my dad has been responding very well to.

Life is far from easy. No matter how much I try to stay positive or joke something off, the reality of the difficult and the heavy don’t disappear entirely. I know God is good and I’ve never doubted his faithfulness. But when I rely on my feelings, it’s easy to miss His goodness.

A couple weeks ago our family business, Gascho Furniture, caught fire during a horribly windy and stormy night. The cause of the fire was lightning. I woke up at 5:15 in the morning to exercise and glanced at my phone to realize that I had missed 32 phone calls. My ability to wake up during emergencies is lacking to say the least. When I finally realized what happened a couple hours previous, I headed over to the shop immediately. I drove to the shop and saw 14 fire departments coming and going along Haist Road. There was no water at the shop, so firetrucks were constantly coming and leaving. We all thought the whole shop was going to burn because of the wind. The fire chief did an amazing job containing, and the worst of the damage happened to two of our buildings. We are so thankful for God’s protection and trust that God has a plan in everything. But the process of insurance, rebuilding, and all the details that go along with temporarily restructuring production have been very draining on everyone, including our employees. We are so thankful for our community and our employees who have been very understanding and flexible. The Mennonite Disaster Service team has been such a blessing to us. They have served countless hours and helped clean, fix equipment and even drove all the way to Indiana to attend an auction to buy a part that saved our company so much cost. A huge thank you to Tim Maust for his smart thinking and selfless dedication to fixing our air makeup unit and finding that part in Indiana. One of the things that we as a family have found very comforting since the fire, is our original shop building was untouched by the fire. There wasn’t even smoke damage. The original shop was a chicken coop. The shop sits on a family farm that goes back 6 generations of Gascho’s. When my dad was a young boy, they had a devastating barn fire. They were farmers and this was a huge loss for them. They chose to rebuild a chicken coop and become chicken farmers. Then, when my dad started Gascho furniture, he started it in his family’s chicken coop. We are so thankful for God’s protection of the chicken coop, as we are all very sentimental. It is currently the new finish shop for our temporary production line up. Trent, Kiersten, Brandon, and my mom have been working tirelessly to make sure everything got up and running again. It’s times like these where family buisness can be very rewarding because we can all lean on each other.

About 8 days after the fire, Brandon and I experienced a personal disaster. We have a little Amish made cabin on our property where we lived during our house remodel. It has since become a guest house. We don’t check on it daily as we are very irresponsible people. But we do check in every couple days and we had just had the heater serviced 2 weeks previous. The day before a horrible cold front was coming, I went out there to turn up the heat to prevent frozen pipes. I walked into the cabin to find the heater wasn’t running at all. We estimate the heat was off for about 2-3 days. We immediately turned on space heaters and a couple hours later pipes and water lines started exploding. There were some extremely unbiblical things spoken between both adults present. There was some frantic rushing to find the shut off valve in the cabin, only to realize that was completely frozen. So there was a frantic run to our house next door to find another shutoff valve there. We found it……behind a panel that was screwed to the wall. The panel was ripped off and there were even more unbiblical things spoken. We succeeded in shutting the water off. But our year has started with Fire and Water and the details of figuring all those things out have been tiring.

A few days after our flood, Brandon was traveling to Oklahoma City to open a new furniture account. He made it to Flint, when he became disoriented and unable to drive. He was pulling a trailer full of furniture to show the new buyer. He called me to tell me he needed to go to an ER immediately. He was slurring his speech and unable to form complete sentences. I made out between words that he had a pop in his ear, he completely lost hearing in the right ear, everything was spinning, and he was nauseous and dizzy. He somehow managed to get himself to the Flint ER. He was right by McLaren in Flint, which we have since learned is NOT the hospital one should choose. They ran a test on him to rule out a stroke, told him he had acute vertigo, then discharged him even with being unable to walk. They discharged him in the middle of the night. They put him in their waiting room and told him to uber home or catch the bus that started running at 6am(but they were unsure if it ran all the way to Pigeon, Michigan). I was confident they were going to admit him and had plans to go down to the hospital first thing in the morning. When I got to the hospital, I found Brandon in a corner laying down, completely disoriented and unable to walk. I got two security guards to help me load him in a Wheelchair and we wheeled him out to our car. The ride home was a nice combo of Brandon vomiting, and me panicking. He couldn’t hear a thing I was telling him(as he was half deaf) and he still could barely talk. He couldn’t answer my questions. I wanted to take him to another ER, but the trouble was he couldn’t sit, stand, or look at any light without puking. He begged me to take him home. So I called his family doctor and they recommended rest for a day then another ER the next day. I didn’t have much of a plan for getting him into our house other than starting the tractor and shoving Brandon onto the tractor forks then launching him inside the front door. Luckily he was able to stand when we got home. He walked himself in the house, vomitted, then went and fell face first on our bed. He told me to shut all blinds and turn off all lights, including the Alexa light that was just barely flashing. He slept all day. I woke him every hour to make sure he was still coherent. He lost 8 pounds in 2 days. The next day his nausea eased just a little bit, but he was still having the vertigo issue. We took a short window of time, where he had a little relief, and took him to the Scheurer Hospital ER. This doctor there told him he thinks he has Ménière’s disease(a disease of the inner ear that can cause crippling vertigo and nausea and hearing loss). He started him on a steroid for the ear inflammation and another medicine for the Ménière’s. He set him up for a follow up with an ear specialist. After starting the steroid, Brandon feels a lot better. He still doesn’t have hearing back and there’s only a 50% chance it will come back. He’s still dealing with vertigo, but the nausea has gotten much better. Brandon takes care of managing all the coorporate accounts and business meetings, so he travels often. He’s going to need to learn to manage the Ménière’s and always carry medication with him. The whole thing was very emotionally draining on us. But finding out it was an ear disease was a relief compared to what I originally thought, which was that he was having a stroke.

The ups and downs of the last several weeks have been heavy. I’ve been finding myself so drained and zapped of energy. I’ve developed some health issues this last year and during times of high stress, I find my health issues are stronger. Ive been diagnosed with POTS syndrome and also hemachromatosis(which is iron overload). I need to limit iron from my diet because of the hemachromatosis. When iron levels become too high, the treatment is phlebotomy. I need to manage the pots by a combo of rest, water, salt, exercise, and taking care of myself in general. I’ve been working hard at trying to exercise daily and eat healthier. I’ve been trying to surrender the things I can’t control. I’ve also been trying to focus on the good, not the bad. I know God has been so good to me and I’m incredibly blessed. But I fall short all the time, and I’ve really been struggling with some depression lately.

Consider this next part of the blog like a Christmas card that I never sent this year. Here’s a little update on us:

Joah is 13 and is one of the most passionate kids about sports that I’ve ever seen. His love of basketball and soccer keep him inspired to throw balls all over my basment(which is the area he’s allowed to throw them in). He gives 100% of himself during games and has grown so much in talent. His passion is sometimes too much, and he needs to be tamed. He started working at Gascho’s last summer and he really enjoyed it. He shocked us all by having decent work ethic and seemed to be well liked at work. At home he enjoys leaving towels and socks around, never putting his toothbrush away, and leaving his bed unmade. Joah has made the wall of shame(if there is one) at the orthodontist. I can’t even look the lady at the front desk in the eye every time we enter the building. He breaks multiple brackets each month and this last month they decided to forget the regular brackets and go for the strongest ones known to mankind.

Brielle turns 12 on Valentine’s Day. She is our hobby child, and you never know what hobby she will currently be into. Recently she has developed a desire to learn how to play the drums. This actually comes at great timing for Brandon, as he is half deaf. Just a month ago she started crocheting. The month before that she was 3d printing things. She loves music and takes piano and voice. She also is becoming very talented at soccer and basketball. She has a gift of assembling things and any time I have something complicated to assemble, Brielle is always up for the challenge. Brielle has never dreaded hard work, and actually enjoys a challenge.

Caed 10 years old and is our deep thinker. His favorite books are the Weird but True series. He repeats random facts to me multiple times a day and always starts with “mom, did you know?” I’ve stated to just answer “yes I did know that.” “Yes Caed, I did know that the ceaser salad was invented in 1924.” I don’t know that he’s buying it though. Caed enjoys legos and loves to put together complicated Lego sets. He loves roller blading in our basement. He loves hoverboarding in our garage. He also loves soccer and basketball. He is very compassionate and cares deeply about people.

Isla is 8 and could be the clingiest child who’s ever lived. She is very social by day, but by night becomes very needy and begs to sleep with us every single night. Some nights we cave out of laziness. Rarely, we stand firm. Lately, with all the stress, her clingyness has risen from a level 5 to a level 10. Isla enjoys music. She also takes piano and voice. She enjoys playing soccer. She enjoys cooking with me in the kitchen. She is my best cleaner of all the kids and sometimes I rely on her to help me clean up after all the rest of the messy people in this house.

Bear is our dog and is dumber then ever. He has horrible hygiene and has never smelled very good. He enjoys barking at every deer and squirrel outside the window. He enjoys digging in and emptying trash cans. He also enjoys claiming the bean bag(which is in our living room) entirely as his own.

I decided to let my girls get some outdoor cats this last Summer. They had been begging for cats and my dad has an overflow of them in his barn. The outdoor cats stay in our garage, but they get just as much attention as indoor cats. Let me tell you. The girls go out every day and play to them and carry on real live conversations with them. Even the boys will occasionally be caught petting one. Garfield, Odie, and Smore have also become family members.

I’ll end with our life verse for 2026. I’m clinging onto this hope and I know God has a plan and He’s not finished with us yet:

And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. Romans 8:28

Another verse that we are clinging to:

Cast your cares on the LORD and he will sustain you; he will never let the righteous be shaken. Psalm 55:22