May 30, 2010

WOW! I was sitting at my desk this afternoon and thought about writing a blog post that would summarize the past two months. So I started jotting down some of the things that have happened and the list just kept growing and growing! So, rather than list everything out I'll just hit on a few of the big things.

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First there was Michael's surgery. Back in mid April Michael finally got the surgery that he had needed for the past year. We were extremely lucky to find a Dr. up at the University of Washington that could figure out what was going on with Michael's shoulder and what needed to be done to repair it. Unfortunately, what he recommended was total shoulder replacement. There were so many issues going on in his shoulder that there wasn't anything that could be done that would be a long term fix other than replacing it. Hearing that was a shock because he's only 32!! But if he ever wanted to use his arm again it was our best option. So he had the surgery on April 20th and everything went very well. The surgeon was actually able to fix another problem he found while operating that they hadn't known about.

Michael's Dr. was sure to put his initials on the correct shoulder.

While Michael was in the hospital my niece Mariah moved in with us. We spent a few days talking about expectations and making sure everyone was on the same page with things. So far things have been really good and she is an amazing addition to our family.

Mariah put on a puppet show for Payton's birthday.

Other than that we have been really busy with baseball, swim team, school, church, field trips, end of the year testing, Mariahs Senior Prom (and soon graduation!) and all the other things that fall into the days to make them full.

January 2, 2010

Last Saturday, the day after Christmas, Payton and Ryan decided it would be lots of fun to jump on his bed. And it probably was, too. Until Payton fell off the edge of the bed and smacked her lip on her dresser. Then the fun up and left. In its place was blood, pain and lots of tears. Oh, and blood. A whole trail of it through the house.

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I was in the kitchen when Ryan came storming downstairs yelling that Payton was bleeding 'all over the place.' I took one look at her lip (and really, the picture doesn't do it justice) and knew we were headed for the E.R.

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Living so close to the hospital and being the fast acting parents that we are, Michael and I had Payton at the E.R. about 15 minutes after the accident happened. We got her registered, signed our life away I mean, gave our billing information and settled down for what we were sure would be a short wait.

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NINE HOURS LATER...

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...we were finally given a room in the back and were seen by a Dr. He had her fixed up (she needed four stitches) and discharged in less than an hour. I think he felt bad about how long we had to wait. Seriously, people in the waiting room were getting upset about how long we had been waiting.

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Oh, and on a side note. There was a guy in the waiting room (he was there to be seen. Not waiting for someone else) who ordered a pizza and had it delivered!!

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Payton has done fine with the stitches. She hasn't messed with them at all and has been really good about letting up put a salve on it. The Dr. said her lip will look a lot worse (scar wise) before it looks better but that in a year it will only be a thin line. Sounds good to me.

May 31, 2009

Yesterday Devon helped at a car wash the youth group was holding and got a MAJOR sunburn!! She was holding the car wash sign for about five hours with no shade. I gave her sunblock to put on but apparently she thought covering her arms and legs as good enough. Her cheeks are so red they have little blisters on them!! Even the whites of her eyes turned a little red!

I've been slathering aloe all over her shoulders, face and upper chest but she was still in a lot of pain. Ali suggested using sour cream to help stop the burn and ease the pain. We tried it and Devon said she thought it was helping but Michael didn't like the idea of having dairy (bacteria) on her blisters so we washed it off and went back to the aloe. Hopefully she'll feel better tomorrow.

The flash on my camera washed out the color of the sunburn on her face. In person it is very red.

April 27, 2009

I know, I know! I keep disappearing and leaving my blog for weeks at a time. I'm sorry! I got caught up in Facebook and got lazy. With Facebook I only had to think up a single sentence at a time. It was so easy! But I miss my blog. And I think that maybe my blog missed me.

So, let's see. Since my last post we have been to five birthday parties, two field trips, mopped the floors about sixteen times and mowed the front yard twice. Michaels arm was re injured (thats a whole 'nother story!) at work so we have been to many doctor and therapy appointments. In march we decided Ryan would probably do better at home with me so we took him out of school. I have had SO much fun teaching him. He is such a quick learner and so motivated!

I have to take Michael to the orthopaedic Dr this afternoon (he isn't supposed to drive) so I'll try to get another post up tonight or tomorrow.

February 27, 2009

Yesterday was Michaels 4 week post op visit with his surgeon. When he was checking in at the front desk the lady handed him a form to sign. But first she asked him if he was over 18. Maybe she thought I was his Mom?






They took another x-ray to make sure the bone was healing properly. It is. So they took off his cast and said he was good to go. Are they crazy? They didn't even give him a splint or brace. Obviously they don't know this man.

The boy with the super sensitive ears thought the cast removing saw was too loud.

Here's the finished product. Courtesy of Dr. Frankenstein.

February 13, 2009

You'd think that having Michael home the past two weeks would free up some of my time and I could actually get some posts done. Too bad it doesn't really work that way. Michael has a really hard time sitting around the house doing nothing so he's had us running around like crazy people just about every day. The dishes and laundry piles are getting a bit out of hand. I think I'm going to try taking the weekend to get caught up. Although, now that I think about it I heard Michael talking to Regan about going to Chuck E. Cheese's tomorrow.

Yesterday was Michaels two week post op visit. I went with him to this appt. so I could talk to the Dr. about switching to an ortho here in town. I didn't realize they were going to take Michaels cast off and remove the staples. Oh My Goodness!! I almost got sick when I saw his arm. They had to make a six inch incision along his forearm to clean up the bone fragments and put the metal plate in. When they closed it up they put in SEVENTEEN staples! And they didn't even try to make it look nice! I think this scar is going to be a bad one. Not that Michael will care. Cause chicks dig scars. Right?

February 2, 2009

Friday morning Michael and Wes were loading a crane pad onto a semi trailer when another guy tried to help out and accidentally caused the crane pad to slam into Michaels forearm. The break was a compound fracture so he had to have a plate put on the bone to hold it together.

The accident happened around 2 am and I got a call from the foreman around 5 am letting me know what happened and that Michael was about to go into surgery. Thank goodness my husband knows me so well! He asked Greg (the foreman) to wait until they knew what was happening before he called me.

So my Mom and Julianna watched the kids for me so I could head up to the hospital. By the time I got there the surgery was over and he was in recovery. I had to wait two hours! before I could see him. And they sent him home the same day. I think it was around 2:30 when we got home.

So now he's home and feeling fine but unable to go back to work until the surgeon releases him. Which means he's going to get bored really quick and start making me crazy.

Sunday evening Paytons arm was injured. Devon was holding her and she decided to fling herself backwards. Devon tried to catch her but only managed to grab her arm. Poor Payton started crying and crying. After checking her out and noticing she wasn't moving her right arm I decided to take her to the ER to have it checked out.

I was beyond shocked when the ER doc took us right back to a room and got stuff going. He too thought it was a dislocation but after trying unsuccessfully to get it to pop back into place he ordered xrays. The xray techs brought their machine to our room and took two different views. One of her elbow and one of her wrist. The Er doc looked at them and didn't see a break so he tried again to get her elbow to go back in. No such luck.

So then he thought it might be her shoulder. It was really hard to tell where she hurt because she was freaked out by all the strange people who were touching her and she screamed everytime someone came too close. We had another xray done and even that showed no breaks. The doc was feeling so bad about messing with her arm he said he would try one more time to get the elbow back into place and if that didn't work we would have to have her arm put in a cast/splint.

She got the cast. It went from her fingertips to her shoulder. The ER doc told us to make an appointment with an orthopaedic dr. for Thursday or Friday. When I called to make the appt. they said they could squeeze us in on Wednesday.

The orthopaedic dr. looked at the xrays from the ER and checked her out. He removed her cast and moved her arm around a bit and determined that is was dislocated but had gone back into place. The pain she was feeling was most likely from a tendon getting caught on a bone.

So today is Friday and she is finally using her arm again. It was a little freaky watching her walk around with her arm hanging limply beside her.

Oh, from the time she got hurt to the time we got home from the ER was only three hours! How amazing is that? I've had to spend longer than that just sitting in the waiting room!