Update

Ok, to start with....Steve is back to work. They have him doing paper and computer work at the Elroy office. He cannot wait until life is back to normal but work is work. He goes to therapy twice a week and continues to follow the doctors orders of his home therapy. He is finally starting to sleep again. I think working has helped that. When he was home he slept a lot during the day which made him not sleep at night.

My migraines have improved. I continue to take the meds daily. I have also had to change my diet drastically, which I HATE! I had to give up all artificial sweetners and other things because they where now "drawn" into my allergy realm and were causing a lot of my migrianes. Even a half of a pack gives me a migraine. Poor Levi made me a glass of ice tea on Sunday afternoon and put in a half of a pack like he usually does. One small sip gave me a migraine for 2 days. I am still also trying to figure out what I can eat with the stones too. Saturday I spent pretty much the whole day in bed with galstone and kidney stone pain. I did lots of reading and found that flax seed tea and sweet potatoes helped settle the galstones but the kidney stone is not going to pass at the size it is (over 6mm-1/4") The doctor said it is not interfering with my kidney funtion so there is no need to see him again. (Can you see the confused look on my face!?!)

Now on to better (and more interesting) news. Garrett, and the rest of the band, had a concert on Monday night. I just could not get a good picture of him. Steve was in pain, as the not so smart (I did not say stupid!) part of him tried to clap after the first song (DUH!). Any way as I was looking at the flyer I noticed a few kids had * next to their names. There were just 5 names out of all of the band members and Garrett was one of them. He is a nominee for the Honor Band. He did not even know. The bummer is the Honor Band concert is the same day as a pizza party he wants to go to. Hopefully they are at different times and he can still make it to both.

Yes, I know these are not good pictures, but the fish just will not stay still! I had to clean the tanks yesterday. In the 55 I found 4 baby Red Zebra Cichlids about a month old. I had to totally empty the Convict Cilchlid tank. Remember they had about 50 babies in July and boy are they messy. Here is what I have left. They are getting pretty big, so if you want some speak up now! Kaleb said he is getting ready to filet a few (and he does not eat fish).

Steven's Surgery Update

So the surgery went well. We had to check into the hospital about 10:30 a.m. He had already been up all night pacing and of course if he is up he had to make sure I was too. So I woke up with a migraine. What a way to start a busy day! He finally got into surgery at about 2:00 p.m. He was very very very nervous and scared. He had never had surgery before, so this was a whole new experience for him. He was in surgery for just over 2 hours. The surgeon told me it went very well and that he is to do NOTHING for the next week. Ok, I now believe my job for the next week is harder than hers. They sent him home around 6:00 p.m. and he was starving since he had not eaten since midnight the night before. The ride home was uneventful since the nerve block was still holding pretty well. It finally started to wear off around 11:00 p.m. (just as I ready to fall asleep) and he was miserable. So I held on to his pain meds and kept track of what he took when. At 3:00 a.m. He swore that he was going to die from the pain. So he called the hospital and they told him to come in. I was in no shape to drive since I had only slept maybe 2 hours in the last 48 and had taken meds for my migraine. So we tried other things.

They sent him home with a cyro cuff. Now this is a fabulous invention!!! It comes with a cooler that you fill with ice water. You connect the cooler to the tube on the cuff, raise it up and it fills the cuff. You lower it and it will drain. So we kept cycling the water for a couple of hours every 10-20 minutes all night. It did help and I got to close my eyes every few minutes (not usually by choice).

This is picture of the cyro cuff. It is not a picture of him. I found it on a google search. There is no way he can look this good at this time, plus he also has to wear this special sling (again not him, he cannot get a shirt on yet so I WILL NOT post a picture). This will just give you an idea of the contraption he is in. The cyro over the sling since he cannot take off the sling until his appointment next week.

I do have pictures of the before and after of the inside of his arm if you are interested and have a strong stomach. I even have a picture of the bone they cut off....

Well, it is time for his pain meds again so I better go dispense them! Have a great week and thank you for the prayers!

Hello

Has it really been over 2 months since I last posted on here? Well a lot has been going on. The painting and floor is finished in the Living, Dining and Kitchen-grouting. Steve fell at work the end of July and tore 2 muscles in his rotator cuff. He is scheduled for surgery on Friday to re-attach the muscle and repair a bone where arthritis is setting in due to the accident. My migraines have improved. They changed my medication and I quit using all artificial sweetners. I hope that is the fix of it! We had a great day today at the Civil War re-enactment at Norskedalen. We have missed it the last few years because Garrett had football games. Did you see Seth's pants are a little short? He might have even grown a bit this summer! Dave & Dena met us there. The view was beautiful. Not bad for taking them out the window while driving 60 miles an hour huh? The cow at the end of the slide show, the boys begged me to take her picture....