February 1, 2010, 9:30am PDT - Bess Needs Prayers (From Dina)
I also talked to Bess a few minutes ago...she sounded a little yucky. She's hoarse, so it's kind of hard for her to talk on her phone because she has the speaker phone. She said she was doing OK, just puny, running a fever still. I will try to keep everyone updated! ~Dina

PLEASE KEEP HER IN YOUR PRAYERS!!! WE DEFINITELY DO NOT NEED ANYTHING TO GET WORSE FOR HER!!!!!!

Despite all the harsh weather we had here in our area on Wednesday with tornados popping up everywhere, we all managed to gather with Bess after church and have a little Christmas get together. I took several pictures and will post them as soon as I get a chance.....

She was SOOOOOOO thrilled to hear from everyone and was more shocked at those sending her things from people she didn't know...

She asked for me to tell everyone how much she loved her things, THANK YOU VERY MUCH and she appreciates everything you all have done for her....the prayers, the cards, the calls, EVERYTHING!!!!!!

She said she was truly blessed to call you all her friends!

She asked me to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Bess Chaney.....
I will be the first to tell you I'm not good at taking compliments on what we do for her.....I am SOOOO appreciative of all the comments on what I do....I DEFINITELY could NOT have done anything without God sending the Quinn's in to help me! We are a great team that's for sure! They do most of the "running" because they work/live within about 20 minutes of her...I'm close to an hour. I do a lot of the calling, searching the net, posting, I pay some of the bills, Barbara pays some and Charles--well, he's in charge of Cody and taking him to see Bess!! LOL We leave him to the hugging committee...

I know I keep alot of people think Bess is the one that is blessed to have me and the Quinn's in her life...and she is because we give her the hardest time and cut her NOOO slack!!! LOL But in reality, I look at how blessed I am to have her in my life! She's constantly reminding me what I have when I complain about what I have to do or what I don't have! It's like a reality check!

On the other side of that....I don't think I would be able to consider myself a human if I had turned my back on her that day I walked in to her room and she said, "Dina, Dina, Dina...I need you! I need friends that know God. I need you to pray for me and pray loud because I need help."....saying this to me when she was floating up in the ceiling because her meds had her all messed up, eyes closed, going crazy and I had NOTTT even told her who I was when I walked in....not sure that ANYONE could turn around and walk away!!!! It doesn't make me special...God knew what he was doing! I told Bess that bless her heart, at her expense, both of our lives have been changed! But it's been a change for the better in a lot of ways for the both of us...her physical state not so much of course...I knew Bess only walking around in the warm up pen at Marshall talking about our little ranch ponies. We would talke a few minutes then tell each other good luck on the runs and head off. That was about the extent of it--except I would feed Cody some scraps! LOL

I can't express the attitude change she has made me do and the impact she has made in my life. I can catch myself calling her whining then I realize what I'm doing! I'll tell her I need to just shut up because I am calling someone that has noooo movement except her head/neck/shoulders! She says, "Dina, your problems are just as important! That's what I'm here for as a friend." We've been there for her when she was able to talk to her parents and I witnessed the smile on her face! The Quinn's and I have witnessed her breaking down bawling when she said she was soooo tired of being in the chair. We've witnessed the smiles on her faces when she would receive calls/letters and other things from people she didn't even know! So, with that being said, she makes MEEE realize I am sooo blessed!!!

I know I keep a lot of updates on here...for more reasons than one...a lot of people actually email me asking about her but on the other side of that...I pray that ONNEEEE day, the right person will see her issues and have the resources to help her! I have learned to do some off the wall things and put into effect some really wild ideas that I would have NEVER considered before meeting Bess. On the lighter side of things, I never would consider letting someone spit their gum in my hand UNTIL I met Bess! LOL Now it's just habit! That, wiping noses, wiping tears and many other things I would have never dreamed of!! I can tell you I wouldn't change a thing that God has placed before me since her accident! I have my moments where I just want to not be responsible because it's hard...and I don't have to do everything 24/7! My hats off to a full time care giver because it is NOTTT an easy task! But when those thoughts enter, I just slap myself back into reality and ask what the heck am I thinking! No, that doesn't happen very often at all! More when I feel like things are getting overwhelming....but we will never leave her!!!! Period! End of discussion!

So....ya'll will continue hearing about her and one day, you will hear some amazing things about her!!!!Even more amazing than you do now!! I just hope one day there is a get together close by where I can take her and she get to meet so many of you! And one day, that time will come!

All in all...THANK YOU so much for the compliments but remember....I'm more blessed than anyone to have Bess as a friend in my life!

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL OF YOU!!! I hope each of you stop and count your many blessings this holiday season!

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO EVERYONE!!! ~Dina

Bess and Barbara & Charles Quinn	Bess, Barbara & Dina
Bess & Barbara

For anything that is bigger than a regular mailbox, you can send it to my work address at:
State Farm
2318-A Judson Road
Longview, Tx 75605
Attn: Dina Reynolds

Gift cards, movie tickets, warm cuddly stuff, big sweatshirts and that type of stuff is what she likes.....

If anyone has any questions please feel free to contact me at (903) 932-1800!!!!

A really good friend of our's went by there yesterday to fix a few things on her van. Matt decided since it was such a beautiful day, he would kidnap her and take her for a ride and out to a really pretty park. Well, they headed off and strolled around the park. She gets to one area where there are some little cross bridges. That's all good except there is one little bitty part on her chair that if you're not careful, it will high center. It's the bolt coming down underneath her chair that locks her into the van to hold her steady. Well, this little bitty bolt high centered! Matt decided he would use the handles on the back of her chair to pull her up just enough to get her thru the hump....WRONG! The handles slid off, Matt fell back and hit the dirt! You guys have to know Matt to appreciate all this because he DOES NOT get in a hurry about anything! Well, when the handles fell, the wires on her chair and all came down also and some pulled away from her chair. Guess what......that meant NO MOVEMENT for Bess! She was stuck! She was telling me it looked like they were going to have to pitch a tent and sleep with the coyotes! They called the people on the chair to see if they could walk them back thru on how to put the wires and all back up....YES, THERE IS A GOD!! Just so happened that a repairman was in Kilgore on another call (which is where they were)....he was nice enough to come meet them at the park, get her chair back together and she was back in action!

I can just see the both of them out there, no one around, wires hanging everywhere and wondering "WHAT IN THE HECK ARE WE GONNA DO!" She said she did enjoy the outing though and leave it to her to do something like that! ;o)

She's been doing really good lately...no infections, no headaches or anything....THANK GOD! She's a stubborn individual that's for sure but I love her and we've all decided we are in it for the long haul.....

Just keep the prayers coming....one day, I'm going to get her to a place where she can cone visit and meet some of you guys!!!!

Bess is STILL fighting a urinary tract infection. She has been transferred to a hospital type clinic in Kilgore where she is receiving some strong antibiotic thru IV. It has to be monitored, lab work and different things the nursing home is not allowed to do. She is probably going to be in there 2, maybe 3 days. Of course, she's not real thrilled because she can't "roam the parking lot" but just something that has to be done....oh--and they don't have a good satellite system! She said by golly it was a requirement that she have a good tv because if she was going to have to lay there, she wanted something interesting to watch! HAHA Not very demanding at all! But on the flip side, I can totally understand her thoughts there.

Anyway--she will be there and HOPE AND PRAY we can kick this infection down out of her system! Those UTI's in a person of her injury can be detremental to her so it's very important that we get this down!

I have made and received some phone calls from Baylor Rehab in Dallas but we've been playing phone tag....I've also talked to TIR Memorial in Houston and they can take cases on medicaid. However, they have to have previous reports showing some kind of improvement. Ok--how do you show signs of physical rehab improvement if you don't get any??? Hmmmm...but I'm going to keep shooting for it! I told Bess that we all loved her but we would ship her to Houston or Dallas in a heartbeat!!! LOL LOL

I went to visit with her last night and she was in great spirits....however, I had to give her some bad news. I have been taking care of her old rodeo horse, Baby Jet, since May. When I say old...he's like a 1986 model which makes him soon to be 24! He's been in great shape....Sunday he began to turn away from feed, graze a little bit, nibble on hay and drank his water. Due to the change in weather, I knew they could colic easy but he was showing no signs what so ever. Well, I took him to the vet, we drew bloodwork and his kidneys were starting to shut down. My options were to pump him with massive amounts of fluids to MAYBE get him back which was $1000-$1200 or something in that ballpark or put him down. Well, we all know that none of us have that kind of money! But on the realistic side, he's old and not being ridden....so, I brought him home, we put him down and I have put him under a big oak tree not too far from my arena. I told Bess last night--I really didn't want to say anything because of the issues she's been having with blood pressure and all that. However, she probably took it better than I did! I HATEEEEEE having to do things like that even though it's just life in the horses! I told her that when I got home I loved on him, pet on him and all that...he even ate some treats from me when he wouldn't really eat anything else. She said, "well yeah! he's a pig!" and we laughed about it.....told her that even when he was feeling really bad, he would pin his ears back at my horses...which was him naturally! He was head honcho out there among 13 horses even at 24 yrs old!

Sooooooo....you can tell we've had a great few days but I know it can always be worse! ;D I will update everyone when Bess returns back to her "Holiday Inn" as they refer to it......JUST KEEP PRAYERS COMING FOR HER HEALING AND FOR THE ASSISTANCE IN REHAB TO COME AVAILABLE TO HER!!!!!!!!! Thank you everyone!!!