Moments

Some of my favorite moments this week:

Seth waking up before Gavin (not early!) and us listening to him waking up singing.

Hanging out with all my guys on the deck before dinner tonight. Just all of us being together.

My amazing nurse, Kathy, being willing to come every day to take care of my wound because it needs it, even if she doesn't get paid to do it.

Finally getting outside in the fresh air, and the muggy weather passing - at least for now.

Andrew not having to leave yesterday, and us having an extra weekend together.

Cooking 3 meals today for the first time since I went to the hospital.


Some of my not favorite moments of today (and this is just a small sampling):

Finding the boys hiding in the basement storage closets eating girl scout cookies stolen from the storage freezer.

Seth throwing a ball at Gavin and him ending up with a bloody gash on his eye.

Lets just say that I was happy to put them to bed, and am glad for a fresh day tomorrow.

Games.

After going 6 rounds with Gavin on Tuesday to reestablish my authority (the longest was it taking 4 hours for him to take his 4 minute time out...) we have seen a lot more peace and joy around here. Seth and Gavin have been really sweet playing together most of the time. The other night at dinner Gavin says to Seth: "When I say red you can talk, and when I say green you stop." They played this until they noticed Mommy and Daddy watching and got a little embarrassed and stopped. :o) I just love all the games they come up with for each other to play!

Yay!

After informing my doctor that the nurse removed 48 cm of packing from my wound yesterday, that I had attempted to go just ibuprofin and it was not very successful, and that my nurse recommended I continue with one vicadin a day, and that here is my nurse's phone number so you can call her for an update on the progress of my wound - my doctor gave me a week prescription and scheduled to see me in two weeks. She was on the phone trying to get ahold of Kathy (my amazing nurse and new friend) as I left with my appointment date for 1 June. So thankful for God's grace over me with this whole process. I am off to take a nap while the boys are playing at Dae'Vonn's house for the day. Thanks for praying for me.

Just so you know...

...Buffalo Wild Wings is a coffee place according to Seth. :o)

Health Update.

I am thankful for Kathy - my visiting nurse who has carefully unpacked, irrigated, and repacked my wound daily, as well as monitoring my health. I am making slow and steady improvement. I passed some large bloodclots yesterday, and now the wound is bigger - I guess it is one of those "getting worse before it gets better" situations. The inflamation and infection is steadily decreasing. Getting the wound dressed is very painful and I take one pain pill each day before she comes. I get tuckered out easily. I went on an outing with everyone this morning for about an hour and a half. After getting back and having Kathy take care of me I napped (for the second time today) for several hours.

These are my challenges:
My mind is fuzzy from the drugs,
My body is tired from fighting and I have very little stamina,
My skin around my wound is irritated and starting to bleed from all the dressings being changed at least once a day (but I am thankful for the ability to keep the wound sealed off and sterile to prevent a secondary infection from setting in),
My doctor at the clinic was not very helpful last Monday and thought that I should not need the heavy duty pain medication anymore (despite the fact that the packing is forced into the wound with a small dowel that scrapes at the infected and irritated flesh and Motrin doesn't seem to really touch that type of pain for me), and unless she is sympathetic this Monday I will not have any meds left after Tuesday,
Our insurance is saying that I should not be covered for the visiting nurse, and Andrew is having to appeal their decision (of course we found out 19 minutes to 5 on a Friday evening.)

I will be on my own with the boys as of Monday (with lots of amazing friends willing to help out if I need it.) I appreciate the prayers of everyone. I have been spoiled with people helping by cleaning, cooking, watching the boys, doing laundry... Humility gained from not being able to cope with regular life stuff, not to mention all my projects I have started around here is hard earned. It is hard for me to admit that I need help and cannot take care of myself or my family by myself. And I can't right now. So thank you to everyone who has helped and is willing to keep helping. I am being healed with love and kindness surrounding me. And the flowers and chocolates haven't hurt either! :o) Thank you.

Bright and Early

5:30 am. I heard an unusual sound and woke up to Seth standing in my doorway. He sounds different than Gavin moving in the night. I am glad I woke up. "Mommy, my bed is wet." I get up and as I walk into the hall I can smell the urine. (I think drinking lots of milk with Aunt Abby here has increased his fluid intake. He didn't believe me when I told him he had wet the bed in his sleep.) As I snuck into the room to strip the bed I hear Gavin - wide awake and cheerful. So we had bathtime at 5:30 am. Yup. Then dressed. I decided that we could snuggle and watch morning come, so I got the bean bag and a quilt and posted us by the back sliding doors to watch the morning come. We heard the birds, saw a grackle. Then Seth says, "Mommy, what is that?" I had seen a bit of fur next to the stair to the deck and told him it was a bunny. At that instant an opossum climbed up on our deck and meandered around!!!! Never seen one around here before, and it is on our deck. We watched from the kitchen windows (better angle once it was off the deck) as it gathered leaves with it's tail and made itself a nest for the day under the deck. We looked up some nature sites and youtube videos on possums. I fed the boys breakfast, and then went back to bed and let the other adults in the house take over. What a surprise for us! What a special moment with my boys. So thankful for the early wake up call (and my in-laws and husband who have been keeping up with all the peed on bedding while I rest up and rebuild strength.)

Telling stories.

With 5 littles getting into things, and 3 of them being big energetic boys... well, lets just say that things go wrong - things get messed up, people get hurt... So in the process of trying to figure out what really happened around here there have been some lies told and some timeouts taken. I think this is the best whopper of them all.

Abby came upstairs from the basement one morning to find Gavin eating a Butterfinger through the wrapper. She took it away from him, but couldn't get it out of him where it came from. He said the basement, but as she had been down there that was an obvious lie. Well, none of the adults had a clue how a Butterfinger turned up mysteriously. Our best guess was from Seth's Cubbies goodie bag. So at dinner last night I asked again out of curiousity.

"Gavin, where did you find that Butterfinger?"
Gavin is eating his dinner in the dining room, "It was in here..." (he starts looking around and waving his arms) "...it was just flying around and around..."
At this point we all just crack up laughing. Gavin admits he made up the story but we still couldn't get a straight story out of him. (I finally got him to spill the beans today after follow up stories - "it was in the playhouse, Audrey and Hannah brought it up there" and "it was hiding in your closet."
We have an issue here, folks. It is funny cause he sure can tell a whopper, and it isn't funny that I can't trust my kid!!!!!