The Ussery Update

Over Easter weekend, we took a couple of pictures together we wanted to share with our family and friends. Last Friday night, Good Friday, we took in our first Rangers baseball game of the season. As great of a season as the Rangers had last year, unfortunately every single game we went to, they lost! We were hoping for better luck this year. Well, the Rangers won 11-6 and hit five home runs. There was supposed to be post-game fireworks, but they were cancelled because of high winds. It was still a night filled with fun. Check out my Rangers dress! My wonderful friend Susie made it for me. She has an ETSY site called "Love My Game Dress". You can visit her shop here . She makes super cute, unique dresses out of sports t-shirts. The bottom of the dresses are made out of solid colored t-shirts. Up until recently, she's made mostly college dresses, but now she's made some Rangers dresses as well. The neatest part of my dress is the fact that the top is made out of one of...

Grammy died this morning about 6:20. She had a very calm restful night and went peacefully this morning. The Lord chose a special day to take her because she loved Easter. I plan to do a post in tribute to her, but I want to make a few notes and gather some thoughts. I will post more in the coming days. I am thankful that she is now joined with her beloved husband of 52 years, my grandfather whom everyone knew as "Flash". I'm thankful that she is no longer in pain and has been restored to the fullness of her health. Most of all, I'm thankful for our relationship and the memories we shared. I love you Grammy ~ you will be greatly missed! Until we meet again... Riley

Hello Friends~ I will keep this fairly short, because at this point there's really no sense in going into the past few days and series of events, but the fact is that the end is probably near. Grammy is getting worse daily and her body is beginning to shut down. She's had fever, low blood pressure, low blood count, little kidney output, irregular heartbeat and she's been unresponsive for several days. I'm not sure how much time there is whether it's a matter of hours or days. Her birthday is next Tuesday so my prayer is that if it is in fact her time, that she would go to be with the Lord before or after that day. I'm thankful that I was able to go see her one more time on Sunday and touch her hand and tell her that I loved her. Even though she didn't know I was there, it was important to me. I will keep you posted, but I continue to ask for your prayers of strength and comfort at this time. Thank you! Riley

9 years ago today (April 16,2002) we had the joy of saying "We're ENGAGED"! Oh happy day! I remember that day well and it holds a special place in our hearts. One thing we've always done from the beginning of our relationship, and still to this day, is celebrate all of the special and memorable moments in our life together. So today we are celebrating the fact that 9 years ago I said "Yes" when John asked me to marry him and thus began our journey to become husband and wife about 10 months later. We were engaged only 3 months after we met, but when you know, you know...and here we are married now for 8 years and know that the best is yet to come! Thank you for asking me to marry you John. I love being Mrs. Ussery! Until we meet again... Riley

Hello and Happy Thursday! Here is a little bit of an updated on Grammy. Over the past several days she has been running a fever, but all of the tests have been negative so the doctors were a little stumped as to what was causing her fever to spike. Long story short, they determined that she has a bacteria/infection in her urine so they have moved her to an isolation room in ICU and they have been giving her antibiotics to treat it. She will indeed be having a tracheotomy today around noon. They are supposed to do the surgery bedside in ICU. Several people on the medical staff have said that this should make it easier to wean her off the ventilator and help her breathe on her own. Barring any complications, she will be moved to a new hospital on Friday. She will stay in San Antonio, but be moved to another hospital down the road - Select Specialty Hospital's ICU at Baptist Hospital. She is being moved there to their long-term acute care facility. We are hearing that she will ...

Happy Friday! I know I haven't posted any updates since Tuesday, but there really hasn't been too much to report. As far as the ventilator situation, it remains the same. Grammy is still on the ventilator. The doctor said that if she is still on it (not weaned off) by Monday they will do a tracheotomy. If they indeed do the tracheotomy, they will move her to a long-term acute care facility. We aren't sure of the details of that yet, just something mentioned this morning. One of the nurses that cared for her before surgery said they might also try to wean her off of the trach. Her fever is still spiking, but all of her blood work and cultures have been negative so they are trying to figure out the cause of her fever issues. The infectious disease doctor is supposed to come by again today. That's about all I know at this point, but I wanted to at least share that. I ask that you would please continue to lift up a prayer for Grammy's healing and recovery and for ...

This is my Grammy ~ pardon the old picture, but it's the newest I could find. Her birthday is 3 weeks from today and she is very ill and needs your prayers. A week ago yesterday (3/28) she had a triple bypass heart surgery. The surgery was very high risk because of various other health issues and possible complications - it took about 5 1/2 hours. John and I went to San Antonio to visit Grammy before the surgery and to be with my Mom during the surgery. Unfortunately, "life calls" so we came back to Dallas last Tuesday. When we left, Grammy was in surgical ICU recovering from surgery and on a ventilator. Well, here we are a week later and she remains in surgical ICU and remains on a ventilator, so sadly there has not been much change. There have been some signs of improvement here and there, but nothing consistent. Each time they attempt to take her off the ventilator she struggles to breath on her own and breathes way too hard. The doctor said yesterday, he's...

BASEBALL YOU'VE BEEN MISSED! Until we meet again... Riley