Post Surgery Follow-Up

We had an early morning out on rotten roads to Calgary for Lennard's follow-up appointment with Dr. White.  We got there in good time, but then we sat and waited... and waited... and waited!  It was ridiculous!  We were supposed to have the appointment at 10:05, but we didn't see anyone until about 11:20ish.  Lennard was so happy to get the bandages off.  He was SO swollen still!  He has two incision sites where they took the bone graft and where they pinned his scaphoid bone, but they are both doing well.  They took the stitches out and then put tape on them before they re-casted him.

He sure cringed when they put the cast on!  As soon as they started pushing on it to form it correctly he was not happy.  Ouch!  They put in an access point (the white thing on his cast), so that he could be part of a research study on whether or not ultrasound waves can help heal scaphoid fractures quicker.

We were glad to finally get out of there an on the way home!  Now we wait another 6 weeks to see if it starts to heal!

Good Helpers

This month has been a test of Lennard's patience.  Not being able to use your right hand for anything is extremely frustrating.  Luckily, the kids are more than willing to 'help'!  It was so cute to come into the room to find Emma and Ben trying to tie Lennard's shoes for him before we headed off to church.

Family

Mindy organized another temple day for us to do sealings that she had ready. After a lazy morning, and wolfing down my breakfast so that I could get to the temple on time, I raced in to the temple and found that I wasn't the last to arrive!  (Lennard stayed home with the kids, since having a broken right wrist doesn't help much.)  We ended up waiting for my Dad and Uncle Scott for a few minutes and then ended up starting without Shauna & Matt (they came after the first sealing was done).  We got a lot of families sealed together, taking turns as we went.  Shauna had gone on a long run this morning and didn't end up eating any breakfast before heading to the temple, so she ended up almost passing out!  Once she got cooled down and had some water she said she felt better, but she didn't do anymore sealings after that either.  Shauna, Matt and I left a bit earlier than the rest of our group who stayed to help another family with their sealings.  I sat and visited with them while they had some lunch and then they drove me home.  It was a nice way to spend the morning.

The kids were off to play with friends when I got home so Lennard and I both layed down for a rest... Lennard fell asleep immediately and, after listening to him snore, I got up and went to watch a show on tv.  After about an hour, the kids came home and we headed out to the airport to go through the trailer and organize things a bit more.  We went to the RV show in Lethbridge last night, so now we have the travel bug.  We got a lot of measurements and ideas on how to streamline things a bit.  As we headed out from the airport, someone needed fuel, so we stopped to do that and then we went home so that I could leave to go to Lethbridge with my mom!

I love having some one-on-one time with my mom.  She needed to get a bunch of groceries, so we went to Costco first.  I'm not sure what was going on in Lethbridge today, but it was nuts!  The line ups for the checkouts were clear back to the books on both sides!  After Costco, we popped in to Value Village.  Mom needed a bunch of work shirts, but instead she found a few shirts for Dad.  I found a new-to-me purse (since mine is literally falling apart).

By then, we decided to head over to Firestone where we were going to meet Shauna, Mindy and Trisha for dinner.  It was 5:30 when we got there and we'd told everyone to meet at 6:00.  We figured if there was a wait, we'd at least get on the list and cut their wait down a bit.  They told us it would be an hour wait (only 30 minutes for the rest of the girls), so we decided to wait.  Big mistake!  It was almost 1 hour and 45 minutes before we got to our table and another half hour or more before we got food!  I was starving!  And then the food wasn't very hot (or very good).  Grrr!  Thankfully, the company completely made up for the wait.  I love visiting with my sisters.  Seriously laughed so hard!  Before we even got to our table, Trisha had us in tears as she started handing out chocolate mints to everyone waiting and apologizing for the wait!  (The hostess station had the chocolates there to take on their way out.)  There were a few people looking at her weird, but we just thought it was hilarious.  The laughs didn't stop and we had the best server ever.  At one point, we asked him if our food was ever going to come and a few minutes later he came out with steak knives and informed us that he'd now 'armed us' in case we had to fight for our food.  Hilarious.

We decided the next girl's night will be at my house, so I can make everyone Yorkshire pudding that actually taste good.  (That's what mom and I had for our meal.)  Such a fun night with tons of laughs. I am so blessed to have such wonderful sisters/mom.  (We missed Melissa, Rachel and Nysha!)

(Of course - there's no picture of me... I'm always behind the camera...)

Airplane

Thanks to my mom and dad and lots of hours spent at the hangar with Lennard - the plane is starting to look like a plane!  My mom sent me this picture and I think Lennard's ears were bruised from smiling!  So exciting to see real progress being made!

Thank You

Attending church on Sunday and going to Adult Sunday School and Relief Society was a strange experience after being in Primary for over 3 years.  I caught myself drifting off.  I have been used to being so busy and up and down in Primary that to sit for the full hour without getting up was a challenge!  I also sat in Sunday School and could tell which kid was in the hallway.  I know them all and it was hard not to be with them.  Having said that, it was nice not to have to deal with teachers, finding subs, getting everything organized, etc.  Oh well...

Anyways, I had the new Primary President (Holly M) pop by this afternoon and hand me a card!  In it were two pictures of 'my' Primary kids saying Thank you!  It totally made my day.  I especially love that Junior Primary is making silly faces - made me feel like a normal Sunday!  (ha! ha!)

I sure love these kids.

Babysitting Duties

My parents have been working on the airplane when they have time and Lennard has been pretty anxious to see what's been happening, so today, my parents picked him up and took him out to the airport with them.  I told them that they were on official babysitting duties to make sure Lennard doesn't do anything with his right hand!  It has been SO good for Lennard to focus on something other than what he can't do though.  He's been able to find parts, follow the plans and just talk airplanes.  It's been a lifesaver!

Going Home

This is how I found Lennard when I got to the hospital!  He was definitely ready to head home! Neither of us had slept very well.  He had nurses in every two hours and I just wasn't feeling well.  He texted me just after 7:00, so I got up, got ready and was over to the hospital by 8:00.  It is so cold outside that I wasn't sure the van would even start.  Then, when it did start, I had to wait for the windshield to thaw before I could drive!  

It took about another hour or so before all the 'stuff' got done for him to leave.  He is pretty sore and tired, but we are both glad to get home!  Thank goodness my parents were willing and able to stay and take care of the kids for us.  We can never repay them!

Surgery

We were told to be at the hospital for 8:30 and that Lennard couldn't have anything to eat or drink from midnight on.  We visited with the kids quick before we left the hotel and then we were on our way.  He got admitted and then up to the 3rd floor we went... to wait.  Since Lennard was an add-on, they didn't have a room for him for quite a while.  Thankfully, the chairs in the waiting room were fairly comfortable!  They finally came to get him and go through the pre-op stuff, get his IV in, etc and then we waited some more.  He went in to surgery at about 1:00 and then the waiting game began.

Only this arm!

I hadn't eaten anything all day since I didn't want to eat in front of him and I didn't know when he would be taken in so I didn't want to go get something in case.  I was starving!  When they took him in to surgery, I went downstairs and got a sandwich and some orange juice and read my book for a while.  Then I went back up to the third floor and hung out.  They'd told me the surgery would be about 60-90 minutes long and then about an hour in recovery.  The South Campus is all brand new and they had a screen with color codes so that you could look for the patient's initials and the doctors name and be able to see where they were at - ready for OR, in OR, in recovery, etc.  I sat and watched and waited for hours.  He finally got back to his room about 5:00pm!  I was stressing out that they had run into complications or that they would have had to take the bone graft from his hip, but everything was fine.  He just took a long time to come out of the anesthetic.  Thankfully, Dr. White was able to do the bone graft from his radius so he didn't have to have the pain in his hip.  He said everything went really well and he was happy with the surgery.  He offered to discharge Lennard tonight, but he was still so out of it that Lennard asked if he could stay the night.

I finally left at about 7:00 after Lennard had eaten something and was settled for the night.  I went and booked myself back in to the hotel and crashed.  I didn't have dinner, I didn't call anyone, I was completely exhausted.  It definitely didn't help that I have a horrible cold and feel rotten.  Such a long day!

Specialist Appointment

Lennard had another specialist appointment for his wrist today.  We got the kids off to school and then we headed out.  The roads weren't great so we took our time getting there.  Lennard had arranged to meet with a guy from Linestar for work so that he could get all new climbing gear.  After getting everything that he needed, Brian took us both out for lunch!

 We then headed over to the hospital so Lennard could get the CT scan before his doctor's appointment.  We got in to the doctor and he took one look at the scan and said, "I can still see the complete break."  My heart sank.  He said that he'd been really hopeful that it would have healed but it hadn't.  His next words were - let's do surgery.  We'd always known it was a possibility, but I'd really hoped that in the 12 weeks since his accident that it would have healed.  Dr. White said that he would try to fit him in tomorrow, so we called my parents and asked them if they could stay with the kids.  They agreed and thankfully we'd packed a small overnight bag as an 'in case of' situation.

We drove over to the hotel next to the hospital and booked a room.  I had a rotten cold and it had gotten worse as the day went on (and I hadn't brought anything with me for it), so we stopped to get some meds and a phone charger (didn't think to bring that either).

When we got into the room, we opened the drawer and the first thing we saw was 'The Book of Mormon'.  Just seeing the scriptures helped me to have hope that everything would work out okay.

 After resting for a bit and talking out our concerns and worries, we finally decided to go out and get something to eat.  We're both struggling with the idea of him basically starting over with his injury from having surgery tomorrow.  I just pray that it goes well and that he'll be able to start to heal now.

Happy Birthday to Me

What a day!  It's been a roller coaster of emotions!  It all started off with it being Fast Sunday.  Then I was asked to meet with the Bishop - with my entire presidency.  I was told that after almost 3 1/2 years of being the Primary President, I was going to be released today!  In some ways I felt a huge relief, but in others it ripped my heart out.  I shed many tears thinking of leaving the kids and feeling a little lost after that many years in Primary.

The Relief Society, Young Women's, Primary Presidencies and the Ward Mission Leader were all released today! It was a huge shake up.  I had a hard time going in to Primary and teaching Sharing Time knowing that it was my last time as president.  I tried not to even think about it so that I could get through it without bawling!  Everyone kept coming up and congratulating me... and saying Happy Birthday!  What a strange combination.  Happy/Sad/Up and Down...

Once Lennard was finished up at church, we headed out to my parents for a birthday dinner.  We had 'birthday' pie for dessert and the kids were thrilled to help with the candles.

This is the only picture I got of myself today - but as you can see... the wrinkles are still there!  The grey hair is at least not visible in this picture!  ha! ha!

We got home in good time, got the kids to bed and then I had the new Primary President come over to get some orientation and all my materials and keys.  It will be very strange not to cart my huge bag of Primary stuff to church every week!

Hangar Time

My parents have been in a bit of a holding pattern with things in their life right now and volunteered to help Lennard with the airplane.  I brought out lunch for them all and Ben managed to convince Grandpa to play a game of air hockey with him.  I love seeing the relationship my kids have with my parents.  It reminds me of my grandparents and I'm glad my kids get to have that in their lives.

2017 - A Year of Miracles

"And now, O all ye that have imagined up unto yourselves a god who can do no miracles, I would ask of you, have all these things passed, of which I have spoken? Has the end come yet? Behold I say unto you, Nay; and God has not ceased to be a God of miracles."  Mormon 9:15

Some may say that what we see as miracles are just coincidences - but I believe in miracles.  I believe in a loving Heavenly Father that watches out for us and allows things to happen for our good.  We are only three days into a new year and I have seen miracles.

MIRACLE #1:
Just before we left to go to Omaha, we were having problems with getting heat in our van.  We discovered that the antifreeze was empty... so we filled it.  Everything seemed fine.  We drove it to Great Falls and left it at the airport for a week while we were gone.  When we returned on the 1st, we could smell a bit of antifreeze when we drove to the hotel, but didn't think too much of it.

Unfortunately, as we got on our way the next day, the heat started to give out again.  We'd already left Great Falls and didn't have anything with us that would be of use and none of us had super warm clothing either (oops).  We made it to Conrad, MT and stopped at a gas station, bought a couple jugs of antifreeze and some Stop Leak - added it to the radiator and kept going.  By the time we stopped at the border, we could really smell the antifreeze and knew that something serious was going on.

We made it home and when we checked the antifreeze levels... it was empty again.  Thankfully, my parents are amazing, talented, patient people and they allowed us to come right out!  My dad took one look at it and quickly discovered a large crack in the Y connector where the hoses attach.  He just shook his head and was amazed that we made it home and that we hadn't fried our engine in the process!

We had to leave the van there for them to get parts, but they were easily ordered in from Lethbridge and installed today.

MIRACLE #2:
Before we left, our furnace had quit working.  Lennard had got it going again, but we called the company in Lethbridge to come do a service call anyways.  Almost $400 later - they said it all looked good.  We left for Omaha at ease, knowing that the furnace was good and that my parents would be watching the house for us.  It snowed like crazy while we were gone, and my parents had the herculean task of clearing out our driveway.  We arrived home on the 2nd and early the next morning - the furnace went out.  Really?!  What are the chances that the first night we got home there would be issues?  I can imagine what a mess we would have come home to if it had happened while we were gone!  While it's frustrating to have issues with the furnace again, we feel truly blessed to be here when it happened so that we could deal with it and not have frozen pipes, etc.

MIRACLE #3:
With the crazy amounts of snow we've got this year, and knowing that we were going to have to drive down to Great Falls, we decided that we needed to get winter tires for our van.  We have only ever had All Season tires, but we both kept feeling like it would be a good idea to do winter tires.  Lennard popped down to Kirk's Tires a few days before Christmas and got the last four tires that Tom had in stock.  The total for the tires was WAY more than I was expecting and we weren't sure how we were going to pay for them (other than just putting more debt onto our line of credit), but we still felt that we needed to move forward.  Just a day later, Lennard was talking with WCB about his wrist and was told that they would be compensating him for some of the mileage for all the appointments he's had to go on.  While not happy about his wrist being broken, we were glad that something good could come from it and looked forward to getting a little bit of money to help cover costs.  When we received the cheque yesterday, I was shocked to see that it was almost the amount we need to pay for the tires.  Truly amazing.

I choose to look on these events as miracles.  I know that even though we are struggling with a few things right now, we can have faith that miracles have not ceased.  I plan to look on this year as our year of miracles because I know that the Lord is directing our lives in ways that we can't even imagine.  We may not understand why things happen, but we do know that someday we will understand the reason.

Second Christmas!

We'd barely walked in the door when Lennard checked the answering machine and discovered a message from Greyhound saying that a package had been delivered!  While I took the van out to my parents to see what was going on, Lennard took the truck to Lethbridge to get the package!

Since we had to leave the van at my parents overnight, Lennard came to pick us up.  We had dinner at my parents and then we let the kids open their presents from B&T.  Emma's birth parents are seriously the nicest people in the world.  They manage to find the perfect gifts for them each year and have always included Ben.  I feel so incredibly thankful for them in our lives - they gave us the best gift we have ever received - our Emma.

 Emma loves candy - any kind!  She was thrilled to open candy, gum, Pez dispenser, etc.

 Ben loves anything Minions and was thrilled to do Play-Doh barber shop on minions!

 Emma was so excited for all the craft items - braceletes, perfume, stickers, pipe cleaners, pom poms, cookie mix... she was in heaven!

 Ben just kept looking at all his gifts and exclaiming, "B and T are the best!" (We sure think so!)

Once again, they've been spoiled rotten... but we sure love the thoughtfulness and generosity of B & T.  What a blessing they are in our lives.

Happy New Year!

We had a very low key New Years Eve.  We hung out, played games, watched movies, visited, and ate lots of yummy food.  The kids were in bed at their normal bedtime and we weren't too far behind them!

We all had to get through showers and get ready for church in the morning.  I also had to get all the suitcases packed and ready to go for the afternoon!  We made it to church in time (barely).  Rigel was the youth speaker and gave a great talk on service.  As soon as Sacrament meeting was done, we headed home to get changed, finish packing and grab something quick to eat.  We got to the airport in good time and the kids were glad that Scamp had come along for the ride.

 Thankfully there were no adventures getting through security this time!  We were able to get to our gate and board only a bit later than we should have.

The connection in Minneapolis was tight.  We hurried to our gate - thankfully there were four sets of moving sidewalks that helped us get there faster.  We didn't have our seat assignments yet, so we needed to check in and get them figured out.  It was dinner time too, but everything we passed was closed or had huge line-ups!  We managed to get to the gate and I took Emma to the bathroom.  When I got back, Lennard said they were still trying to figure out the seat assignments and he went off to the bathroom.  He'd barely got back and went to find something for us to eat, when they started calling for people to board the plane!  I had a few minutes of panic when I didn't know where he was and we still didn't have seat assignments, but thankfully he found some sandwiches for us to eat and got to the gate just minutes before the last passengers were loading.  Whew!  Of course (hurry up and wait), we all got loaded and then sat for about 20 minutes before we even moved from the gate.  Oh well, at least we all got to sit together this time!  It was good to land in Great Falls.  We got our bags and then waited for Lennard to go get the van.  We stayed at a hotel that night and we all fell asleep almost as soon as we layed down.

We ate breakfast at the hotel and then went grocery shopping for a few items that we can only get in the States and then we were on our way home.  As we were driving we could sometimes smell antifreeze and then the heat conked out.  Not a good sign!  We'd had issues a few weeks ago, but we thought we'd just been low on antifreeze.  We stopped in Conrad and bought some more antifreeze and put it in and hoped we would get home.  When we stopped at the border we got bombarded with antifreeze fumes... yuck!  We knew then that we had bigger problems!  We managed to get home and check and it was completely empty again!  We added more antifreeze and headed straight out to my parents garage.  Unfortunately, the problem was a large crack in one of the hoses that has to be ordered in.  Fortunately, we didn't fry our engine!  What a blessing!  We are all glad to be home - the kids haven't stopped playing with all their Christmas presents that we had barely opened before they had to leave them.