Nursing

Well, Daddy has been here for 10 days now. I'm a bit tired of being a nurse! Mom has actually shouldered more of the responsibility that I have, but I'm in charge of all the medications, doctors appointments, therapy appointments (there are at least 3 different therapists) and organizing stuff.

Meals are no longer being prepared for us. I understand why. But boy I wish we could have had them for another 2 weeks. It's just hard learning to juggle regular household duties with:

medicine at 8:30 a.m.
feeding at 9:00 a.m.
medicine at 9:00 a.m.
cleaning out trach. after meal
shower and dressing dad
feeding at noon
dissolve medicine at 12:30 p.m.
give medicine at 1:00 p.m.
feeding at 3:00 p.m.
feeding at 6:00 p.m.
medicine at 8:30 p.m.
feeding at 9:00 p.m.
medicine at 9:00 p.m.

then there's the laundry because he has towels that he keeps around in case he coughs too much out of his trach.

Don't forget I have 2 kids, am considering homeschooling, have the DSs in counseling to deal w/ this summer's events (as well as myself), in addition to O.T. for one of them, and speech therapy for both of them, and piano for one of them (which I finally canceled for the rest of the summer), an injured leg on the oldest, etc., etc., etc......

I've resigned my volunteer position at the elementary school and will soon finish my volunteer duties at church in about 3 more weeks.

All of that being said, my parents will probably go back to their house within the next 3 days or so. Then I guess I'll find out who my *real* friends are when I start calling and asking for help to get the downstairs part of the house livable again.

Peg tube is in

Daddy had surgery yesterday to insert the peg tube for feeding. We didn't know they'd do that so quickly. We thought it would be next week. But it was Friday and surgery happened. My friend Karen took both of my boys and kept them for the rest of the day. Shopping trips included! Thanks Karen!! It was nice to be able to stay yesterday and not have to worry about getting back home to pick up the boys. I'll be glad when my DH is back home. Only 8 more days.

laundry is piling up. house is a mess. but Daddy is better.

Off to get the oldest DS seen about -- his ankle. And church camp is next week. I hope he's o.k.

@#$%&

Daddy didn't pass the swallow test today. It seems that too much damage has been done to the muscles and nerves in his neck. That's not to say that things won't get better, but it means that for now, he'll have to have a peg tube surgically inserted into his stomach for feeding.

The swallowing issue also means that he will have to come home with the tracheotomy tube in. Since he cannot swallow anything, that even means the lung secreations that each of us swallow every day will not get evacuated, so the trach. tube has to stay in.

I'm trying to stay positive and believe the God will allow the nerves to regenerate and that Daddy will learn how to swallow again. But if I allow myself to go down the other path, it just seems awful. Having to have two tubes in your body forever. Yuck. And my mom and I will have to learn how to feed Daddy and clean both of these. I don't mind, but what if it IS forever?

Mom wondered tonight why God allowed this. I have to admit, that it never occured to me that this would be one of the possible outcomes. Our speech therapist at the hospital is so sweet and so caring, she was really upset by the outcome of the test today too. Mom isn't doing well tonight. I'm single-parenting while DH is on a long business trip (4 trips in one). This was to have been the trip I got to go on with him. Oh well....

On the homeschool side of things, I have gotten a few lessons handled. Not as many as I would like, but at least enough that I can wing it if I have to.

Starting week Four

Well...

Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday of this past week were bad. Monday, Wednesday and Friday were better. I am very tired. DH is gone on business, DSs are off to camp again this week. Lots of to-ing and fro-ing this week.

Thanks goodness for friends who are still preparing meals.

I must contact hospital administration if we cannot resolve the caregiver issues tomorrow.

Pray for understanding on all sides.

Three Weeks Later...

Well, alot has happened in the three weeks since Daddy was in that deep, dark place. The EMTs, the CareFlight crew and the trauma surgeons did an amazing job on my dad. His sutures are to come out this week. He's learning to talk with the tracheotomy. That is to be a temporary thing. He is sitting up for an hour and a half or more at a time now. He can talk with the trach, but it's an effort.

Cards keep coming in from friends. We keep taking them up there. Daddy has set a 100 card goal for himself. We're getting there.

The church family is still feeding us and that is a tremendous help. Mom's still here with us and I think that it's good for her.

The doctors say that a stay in rehab and then a psych facility are both required before Daddy is released. It's going to be a long summer......

World Upside Down

To those who don't know...my dad attempted suicide on 6/22. We'd been adjusting his medications under the care of his neurologist, and Daddy was not in his right mind. The depression was too much. He is alive. He was care-flighted to the hospital.

But...it was a very long day. He was in surgery for about 4 1/2 hours. He did major damage to his neck with a knife. Please understand that I don't want to go into further details.

He did NOT hit his carotid arteries or the veins; the nerves did not appear damaged; his larynx and trachea were injured, but appear to be o.k. after surgery. They are keeping him sedated for obvious reasons. He has had to have a tracheotomy.

However, his blood pressure was so low that stroke is a possibility. We'll know more tomorrow when they 'un-sedate' him to see if he's had a stroke.

Thank you to those of you who came to the hospital to be with us...words will never be able to express how much that meant to mom and me. For those of you who were praying, I saw the answer to your prayers when the surgeon came out and reported all the things that had NOT gone wrong.

Unfortunately, Mom is the one who found him and she needs extra special prayers for now. Images that won't leave are the greatest burden right now.

We love you and appreciate your prayers. My husband will man the phone, but please understand that email will probably be the easiest way for me to update you, as I don't want to go into details where my boys can overhear.


This is the text of the email I sent out the first night. How I could do that I don't know. God is amazing. He protected Daddy.

Getting on the band wagon

Well since my youngest DS seems intent on home schooling, I've begun investigating curriculum choices. I believe I'll go with the "Five in a Row" by Jane Claire Lambert for the beginning. It's a thematic program where we read the same book five days in a row, pulling out various things to study each day.

I've created a list of books I'll need to check out from the public library for the entire first volume of this curriculum. I am actually getting excited about this. Since I'm not a teacher by trade, I would imagine I'll have lots of work to do to learn how to best help my son, but at least I'm excited about it.

Today he and I were reading a book and he got the wiggles. I had him hop up and do 10 hops in place, clapping on the 'downbeat.' he shorted me a couple of hops, so he had to do it all again. He was laughing by the time we'd actually gotten 10 hops in a row out of him. He was also able to sit still and read for awhile longer.

THESE are the things we can do at home that public school isn't geared for.

I'm hopeful, prayerful and trusting in God.

P.S. The new fence on our property is underway! I am SO excited about that!