Tag: sister

Five questions with Kara Ellcey

Everyone has a story. What’s yours?

Kara Ellcey

What does an average day look like for you?

Wake up to a smashin tune on my phone, who uses real alarm clocks anymore? Hit snooze twice, then get up for real. Head to work sometime between 7:30-8; Spend my day with our elderly brothers and sisters, trying to figure out what exactly I can do to make the day better for them, whether it be eating or communicating better. Then head home for the evening. Squeeze in a workout, waste a lot of time busying myself with projects, then get ready to do it all again in the morning.

What’s been the best day of your life?

Gee that’s hard…..I have been blessed to have more good days than bad days. To name a few; engagement, grad school graduation, every Christmas, the day we brought our Izzy home…. any day spent traveling to a new place.

What’s been your greatest achievement in life thus far?

Completing graduate school, and finishing a 1/2 marathon.

What made the biggest difference in helping you achieve that goal?

Support of family and friends, setting expectations high for myself, knowing that I had full support of my mom and dad who knew I could do anything I put my mind too.

If you could solve one problem in the world – what would it be?

Having a home of love, trust, and hope for each orphaned child. There are too many lonely hurting kids out there who have no idea what it means to feel the arms of their mom hold them, and know the joy of hearing their dad say, “I’m so proud of you.” Each child should have open loving arms to run to when their world crashes, someone to pat them on the back and tell them to keep it up, someone to wipe away their tears and hold them…… and to tell them about their heavenly father whose love we can not even begin to fathom.

Kara Ellcey is my youngest sister. What else do you need to know?! 😉 She lives in Mesquite, Texas with her husband and their dog Izzy. She doesn’t blog or Tweet – but if you’re lucky you might be able to find her on Skype from time to time. You can also read some of her thoughts that she shared after the death of our sister Amy – Modern Day Medical Miracles

Amy Elizabeth Blundell

Amy Blundell
Amy Blundell

BLUNDELL, AMY ELIZABETH, 24, went to be with her Lord and Savior, Monday, March 21st at Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas after a month of complications.

Amy was born in Dallas, December 22, 1980, to Fred and Margery Blundell.

She graduated from Poteet High School, Mesquite, in 1999, and also graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Nursing from The University of Mary-Hardin Baylor in 2003, and was awarded the Golden Cross Award, awarded to the nursing student displaying a “Christian Attitude” in all he or she does.

Amy returned to Dallas after graduation and worked as a Labor and Delivery Nurse at Presbyterian Hospital until her death.

Amy was an active member of Metropolitan Bible Church in Dallas, where she worked with AWANAS and taught Sunday School.

She also participated in the Bible Study Fellowship International and served as a camp counselor at Hidden Acres Retreat Center in Kaufman for several years.

She served for a month with The Evangelical Alliance Missions in Germany teaching English as a Second Language to German students.

She also volunteered at the Downtown Pregnancy Center in Dallas.

On December 28, 2004, Amy was engaged to Matthew Lehmann of Dallas, the two were to be married in May.

She was preceded in death by her grandparents, John E. and Rosemarie Blundell.

Amy is survived by her parents, Fred and Margery Blundell of Mesquite; her older brother, Jonathan Blundell of Belton; her younger sister, Kara Blundell of Mesquite; her fiance’, Matt Lehmann of Dallas; her grandparents, Deryl and Oleta Knotts of Dallas and numerous aunts, uncles and cousins.

Visitation will be 6:00 to 8:00pm Friday, March 25, 2005, at Grove Hill Funeral Home. Funeral services will be 10:00am Saturday, March 26th at Lake Ridge Bible Church in Mesquite, with Rev. Charles R. Diffee officiating.

Interment will follow at Grove Hill Memorial Park.

Memorials may be made to The Downtown Pregnancy Center, 1707 San Jacinto St, Dallas, TX 75201. Dignity Memorial Grove Hill 3920 Samuell Blvd. Dallas (214) 388-8887

Published in the Dallas Morning News on 3/25/2005.

Modern Day Medical Miracles

By Kara Blundell

There are new discoveries made everyday and advances made that promote our everyday quality of life. Babies are born with syndromes that could cause nearly immediate death. People are traumatized into a comatose state. Medical doctors have an important and prominent place in society as they use the new discoveries to give a child a shot at a normal life, and bring a patient out of a comma back to a functional state of living. We depend on our doctor’s knowledge to heal our pains and ease our hurts. Medicine has come a long way, but it never actually holds power over life and death.
My sister spent the last month of her life in and out of the hospital. No doctor could give her a clear diagnosis. Once she was even dismissed saying it was just a migraine. She had two spinal taps, several MRIs, CAT Scans, and every test in the book run on her. A world known neurologist was assigned to her case even with his team of experts they never figured out what was really going on in her body. It was not until her third trip to the hospital that they found a tumor on her kidney. This tumor was unlike any they had seen. They said it was 5 by 8 cm and excreting a hormone that caused her blood pressure to sore into the 200s. She was in immense pain that even Morphine could not sooth. The doctors planed to medicate the tumor and then operate when it was safely at rest. We all thought they would take care of her. We were thankful that modern science and the knowledge of the team of experts had finally found the cause of her pain. We eagerly awaited her healing and her soon approaching wedding day, but this time the doctors did not know enough and to their shock her heart gave out on March 21, 2005 and even the doctors are left with questions of how and why.
A preliminary autopsy report came back with astounding results. The tumor was described like a football and the average size of this kind of tumor is usually pea sized. An average person has 550 units of the hormone it was excreting. Amy’s tumor poisoned her body with over 40,000 units of this hormone and caused the left side of her heart to enlarge. The pathologist had never seen anything like this and they have no explanation. All the doctors were amazed she was alive as long as she was.
Amy blew them all away and all medical knowledge they have can not explain what happened in my sister’s body. Medicine is an amazing thing and has greatly helped in many ways, but we must remember that no matter how much stem cell research we do, no matter the technology we use in intervening there is still a force greater then us. The doctors could not heal my sister, but God knew exactly what was going on in her body and he healed her from suffering for forever. I believe that God can use doctors as a tool to bring healing to his children, but ultimately there is no stopping God’s plan. We have been blessed with medical advances and he has given us great knowledge, but the true medical miracle is seen in the power of an almighty God. He brought my sister into the world and created her to bless my life and the lives of over 800 people that attended her funeral. Ultimately he created her for his glory and was ready to take her to be with him forever. We are all blown away with what went on inside my sister’s body and we can not explain it. It was a miracle to us she was alive as long as she was, but this was no shock to the Lord. He knew this day before he formed her. She was his gift to us and her life was a miracle.

“The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away blessed be the name of the Lord”

blu38705@obu.edu