I'm working on reminding myself to be thankful and not crabby. Here is a post I've been meaning to write, but haven't because I just haven't been feelin' all that thankful recently. Here is my try:
All of the thank you notes for our Christmas gifts have been written and sent out. We've published a letter in the Iowa City Citizen thanking people for their help on the day of our accident. We've written to thank the volunteer fire department and the family who came to the emergency room with shoes for William, a shirt for John and a bag of M& M's for me. However, there is another group of people out there who deserve a HUGELY public display of gratefulness from our family. In no particular order:
*To my mom who calmly handled the first (and subsequent) phone call from the ambulance
*To my family who dropped everything they were doing to come and get us after the accident
*To my mom who made some calls to some friends to find out about treating John's injury and then taking John all over town in order to satisfy our insurance requirements.
*To my mom who was SO calm for John during all those hours with the doctors and asking all the questions that needed to be asked.
*To my family for all the HOURS of William sitting you provided. Megan, Mike, Grandpa, & Grandma. You were huge lifesaver for us at a moment's notice. You allowed John and I to be together when we needed it most. You protected William from having to see John (and us) go through some very hard times. You changed work schedules and moved around commitments so William was always taken care of. And then? When the emergency was over? You STILL offered to watch William so we could go out to celebrate our anniversary, ring in the New Year and shop for a new car. AWESOME.
*To our extended families. We weren't exactly in holiday spirits this year. We weren't exactly in any spirits at all with the exception of the Stressed Out Spirit and Crabby Spirit. Yet, you helped us celebrate Christmas and for this we are glad. We will be able to look back at the pictures and see happiness was present this year at Christmas. I'm so glad William didn't have to celebrate with Stressed Out and Crabby by himself. That would have been a poopy Christmas all around.
*To my dad who went car shopping with us and "held our hands" along the way. We made some mistakes the first time around and you didn't let us (read:me) do it again this time.
*To Grandpa Heidt who allowed us to borrow the red wagon. When there are two cars and five people in a house needing to get to different places, it is very challenging.
*To all of you! You keep checking back on us even though I am crabby and ungrateful. I am thankful for you! AND
*For all of the prayers and thoughts that have been with our family over the last month. I know that John's healing and recovery are not entirely a result of his hard work alone. Your hard work has been paying off. Thank you.
Thank you....I'm getting there...instead of demanding SERENITY NOW! I'm more along the lines of Serenity soon, please.
Monday, January 19, 2009
You're Invited
to my pity party. I haven't been posting much this week because I've been busy. But, I've also been at a pretty sad pity party for one. I'm working on being thankful and recognizing the blessings we have not to mention how incredibly lucky we are. However, it is a struggle. Although John's recovery is going VERY well and he is working VERY hard there are still a lot of adjustments that we (I) are having to make about our routines*.
Because the doctors don't want John's hand to get wet or bumped in the area where the pins are located, a lot of the daily work has fallen to me. Which is okay, because I like to work hard. Just not all the time. It has been almost a month since our accident or roughly four weeks. It has been exactly that long since John has changed a diaper. Or washed dishes. Or given William a bath. Or been able to pick William up and hold him when he is crying. Or carry him to the car from a store. Or carry anything with two hands. What might be hardest of all is knowing I can't leave the house at by myself while William is awake for any length of time because John is simply not able to handle a diaper change on his own.
This has been difficult for me because John and I have been a team for a long time (we started dating in 1996 for those of you who keep track of these things which would equal almost 13 years). There are just some things that are unspoken: John takes care of dishes after dinner and empties all the garbage along with many, many other tasks. Always. Now things are different and I hate to admit that I'm not taking it well.
To add to the workload, I'm also trying to fight off the intense nesting bug. Before Christmas I had a mantra "We'll get the house together after Christmas. We'll focus on the house after Christmas..."
Only, now the major projects I had outlined for 2009 are either unable to be completed because of John's injury, because we spent a lot of our money we had set aside for house projects on a new car or because I'm now too crabby to tackle some of the projects by myself.
So, I'm frustrated. And crabby. And pregnant. And craving chocolate. A huge amount of chocolate. A vat of chocolate with a Diet Coke might just bring me out of the funk. But, I know that isn't the problem, so I'm trying not to overdo the sweets/caffeine thing (I'd be lying if I said I hadn't had ANY). All of my plans for moving/decorating/finishing/carpeting/etc are now on hold and I'm not handling it very gracefully. But, I'm working on it.
*To be clear, John is working very hard at his recovery. I am so proud and thankful that he is working so hard and doing so well with the healing. I am frustrated with the changes in our daily lives NOT with him (although he has taken the brunt of my frustration recently). He is now able to complete most tasks by himself without assistance. Early on, he needed help with everything (YES, EVERYTHING...how many hands does it take for you to take off your pants?).
**End is in sight. Pins will come out next week on Tuesday. I can't wait=understatement of the year.
Because the doctors don't want John's hand to get wet or bumped in the area where the pins are located, a lot of the daily work has fallen to me. Which is okay, because I like to work hard. Just not all the time. It has been almost a month since our accident or roughly four weeks. It has been exactly that long since John has changed a diaper. Or washed dishes. Or given William a bath. Or been able to pick William up and hold him when he is crying. Or carry him to the car from a store. Or carry anything with two hands. What might be hardest of all is knowing I can't leave the house at by myself while William is awake for any length of time because John is simply not able to handle a diaper change on his own.
This has been difficult for me because John and I have been a team for a long time (we started dating in 1996 for those of you who keep track of these things which would equal almost 13 years). There are just some things that are unspoken: John takes care of dishes after dinner and empties all the garbage along with many, many other tasks. Always. Now things are different and I hate to admit that I'm not taking it well.
To add to the workload, I'm also trying to fight off the intense nesting bug. Before Christmas I had a mantra "We'll get the house together after Christmas. We'll focus on the house after Christmas..."
Only, now the major projects I had outlined for 2009 are either unable to be completed because of John's injury, because we spent a lot of our money we had set aside for house projects on a new car or because I'm now too crabby to tackle some of the projects by myself.
So, I'm frustrated. And crabby. And pregnant. And craving chocolate. A huge amount of chocolate. A vat of chocolate with a Diet Coke might just bring me out of the funk. But, I know that isn't the problem, so I'm trying not to overdo the sweets/caffeine thing (I'd be lying if I said I hadn't had ANY). All of my plans for moving/decorating/finishing/carpeting/etc are now on hold and I'm not handling it very gracefully. But, I'm working on it.
*To be clear, John is working very hard at his recovery. I am so proud and thankful that he is working so hard and doing so well with the healing. I am frustrated with the changes in our daily lives NOT with him (although he has taken the brunt of my frustration recently). He is now able to complete most tasks by himself without assistance. Early on, he needed help with everything (YES, EVERYTHING...how many hands does it take for you to take off your pants?).
**End is in sight. Pins will come out next week on Tuesday. I can't wait=understatement of the year.
Saturday, January 17, 2009
Day 2 & 3 are...
a bust. He ended up in his crib for both nap times. Two and a half hours today was just too long and I lost my patience. He fell asleep right away once he got into the crib. Gah! We'll be trying it again tomorrow.
PS Even though I don't like doing this, I put one of those child proof door handle protectors on the inside of the door so he couldn't get out. I still found him in the living room trying to open the baby proof gate at the top of the stairs. He definitely isn't supposed to be able to figure out that one! I keep telling myself: He will do it eventually. He will do it eventually. He WILL do it eventually.
PPS Pictures of him waking up in his big boy bed are now posted here.
PPPS Pictures of John's hand and Xrays from two weeks ago are now posted here
PS Even though I don't like doing this, I put one of those child proof door handle protectors on the inside of the door so he couldn't get out. I still found him in the living room trying to open the baby proof gate at the top of the stairs. He definitely isn't supposed to be able to figure out that one! I keep telling myself: He will do it eventually. He will do it eventually. He WILL do it eventually.
PPS Pictures of him waking up in his big boy bed are now posted here.
PPPS Pictures of John's hand and Xrays from two weeks ago are now posted here
Thursday, January 15, 2009
Shh....
because my baby is napping in his Big Boy Bed! Can you believe it? Neither can we!
The big boy wakes up in his bed (I was WAY to nervous to take a picture of his actually sleeping).
** It was both harder and easier than I thought it would be. He took a long time to settle down and required me to be in there for a period of time (laying next to the bed, eyes shut, no interaction). However, he never got out of the bed and managed a 2 hour, 15 minute nap.
The big boy wakes up in his bed (I was WAY to nervous to take a picture of his actually sleeping).
** It was both harder and easier than I thought it would be. He took a long time to settle down and required me to be in there for a period of time (laying next to the bed, eyes shut, no interaction). However, he never got out of the bed and managed a 2 hour, 15 minute nap.
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
Updates
It has been a busy few weeks with all of our appointments. I meant to post about my 28 week OB appointment and John's appointment with the doctor, but time got away from me. Luckily, we have enough appointments in the next 6 weeks to fuel this blog on medical information alone. In order: John's stitch removal, Kelly's OB, John's 1st appointment with a hand dr in St Louis
1. As I mentioned before, I had to work really hard to find somewhere in the St Louis area to find ANYONE willing to take out the 6-7 stitches on John's fingers after surgery. Our surgeon assured us any general practitioner would be more than qualified to remove the stitches. However, no one we see regularly was willing to take out the stitches. A conservative guess would put the amount of time I spent on the phone booking this appointment right around 3 hours. Amazing when the actual stitch removal took about 4 minutes from beginning to end.
However, we were finally able to locate a place relatively close to us that was willing to take the stitches out in the time frame we needed. The bad news was that the doctor John would need to see was not a hand surgeon and wasn't going to be someone we would continue to see for follow up care.
The end result: stitches were removed last week on Monday and more X rays were taken. I'll post those pictures tomorrow at the bottom of this post for those of you who do not care to see the pins. The doctor we saw made a bunch of recommendations that were not in line with the surgeon's recommendations - and made some calls to find out what actually needed to happen.
The left hand with pins in
A hand comparison
An X Ray showing the pins in his finger. Yes, the pins go all the way through to the knuckle...
2. We went directly from the stitch removal appointment to my OB appointment. We had William with us as our child care had fallen through the night before. We were in and out of waiting rooms from 8am until about 11am that morning. All things considered, William was AMAZING and wonderful (note: not perfect, but pretty darn good).
This was my first visit with my OB after the accident and I had some concerns that needed to be addressed. In the end, there is lots of good news and no bad news. If something was going to happen with this pregnancy as a result of the accident, it would have happened in the first 24-48 hours after the accident occurred. All the tests they ran on me the evening of the accident didn't come up with anything at all (including not one, but two pelvic exams: FUN!, two ultrasounds, 6 hours of fetal monitoring, 6 vials of blood taken and tested, urine samples, cord blood pressure taken, amniotic fluid measurement, and old fashioned blood pressure readings).
The short version: I am not any more high risk now than I was at my appointment 4 weeks ago. Nothing has changed to make my doctor concerned about this pregancy or my health in general. Her biggest worry currently is the strain carrying/lifting William is causing my back/other parts. Unfortunatetly, it is looking like it will be two more weeks before John will be able to lift William and help me out with some of the heavy work that needs to be done. Other than that, the appointment was boring and normal without anything interesting to note.
3. John had his consultation with a hand specialist here in St Louis the morning. We were glad to be referred to someone our doctor knew personally and had worked with in the past. The appointment went well and this doctor felt John was making great progress. The doctor felt the pins needed another 2 weeks to fully allow the fractured finger to heal and so we made an appointment to return the day after William's birthday. The pin removal is supposed to be very easy (which I cannot understand). John won't be given any kind of pain medication - the pins will just be pulled out. The doctor assures us this is super simple/easy and John will be able to work for the rest of the day without problem. John is most excited because the doctor told him when the pins come out, he can keep them (ummm...yuck). We were sent on to physical therapy for a quick review of John's condition and exercises he should be working on.
PS For those of you who are interested, it is actually cheaper to delivery a baby the natural way with an epidural and stay overnight in the hospital than it is to have a finger reattached and stay 1 night in the hospital. Hospital bills for the surgery arrived yesterday. Now we wait to see what kind of fight lays ahead of us as the insurance companies start their work.
1. As I mentioned before, I had to work really hard to find somewhere in the St Louis area to find ANYONE willing to take out the 6-7 stitches on John's fingers after surgery. Our surgeon assured us any general practitioner would be more than qualified to remove the stitches. However, no one we see regularly was willing to take out the stitches. A conservative guess would put the amount of time I spent on the phone booking this appointment right around 3 hours. Amazing when the actual stitch removal took about 4 minutes from beginning to end.
However, we were finally able to locate a place relatively close to us that was willing to take the stitches out in the time frame we needed. The bad news was that the doctor John would need to see was not a hand surgeon and wasn't going to be someone we would continue to see for follow up care.
The end result: stitches were removed last week on Monday and more X rays were taken. I'll post those pictures tomorrow at the bottom of this post for those of you who do not care to see the pins. The doctor we saw made a bunch of recommendations that were not in line with the surgeon's recommendations - and made some calls to find out what actually needed to happen.
The left hand with pins in
A hand comparison
An X Ray showing the pins in his finger. Yes, the pins go all the way through to the knuckle...This was my first visit with my OB after the accident and I had some concerns that needed to be addressed. In the end, there is lots of good news and no bad news. If something was going to happen with this pregnancy as a result of the accident, it would have happened in the first 24-48 hours after the accident occurred. All the tests they ran on me the evening of the accident didn't come up with anything at all (including not one, but two pelvic exams: FUN!, two ultrasounds, 6 hours of fetal monitoring, 6 vials of blood taken and tested, urine samples, cord blood pressure taken, amniotic fluid measurement, and old fashioned blood pressure readings).
The short version: I am not any more high risk now than I was at my appointment 4 weeks ago. Nothing has changed to make my doctor concerned about this pregancy or my health in general. Her biggest worry currently is the strain carrying/lifting William is causing my back/other parts. Unfortunatetly, it is looking like it will be two more weeks before John will be able to lift William and help me out with some of the heavy work that needs to be done. Other than that, the appointment was boring and normal without anything interesting to note.
3. John had his consultation with a hand specialist here in St Louis the morning. We were glad to be referred to someone our doctor knew personally and had worked with in the past. The appointment went well and this doctor felt John was making great progress. The doctor felt the pins needed another 2 weeks to fully allow the fractured finger to heal and so we made an appointment to return the day after William's birthday. The pin removal is supposed to be very easy (which I cannot understand). John won't be given any kind of pain medication - the pins will just be pulled out. The doctor assures us this is super simple/easy and John will be able to work for the rest of the day without problem. John is most excited because the doctor told him when the pins come out, he can keep them (ummm...yuck). We were sent on to physical therapy for a quick review of John's condition and exercises he should be working on.
PS For those of you who are interested, it is actually cheaper to delivery a baby the natural way with an epidural and stay overnight in the hospital than it is to have a finger reattached and stay 1 night in the hospital. Hospital bills for the surgery arrived yesterday. Now we wait to see what kind of fight lays ahead of us as the insurance companies start their work.
Monday, January 12, 2009
Crazy Jeff
Our friend Jeff is crazy enough to jump into Lake St Louis again this year for the Polar Bear Plunge. I've put up a fundraising button on the side of the blog if you would like to donate in support of Special Olympics. Last year his team of jumpers won the "Schools" category and he is hoping to take it again this year. Go Jeff!
Sunday, January 11, 2009
Big Boy Bed, Phone
Quick update, I'll be back tomorrow with pictures because it is LATE. We bought the big boy mattress today and put it in his new room. He is so SO excited about it! And so are we!
William got Mr Potato Head for Christmas this year (which he LOVES). His favorite part about Mr Potato Head? The glasses. He loves to wear the glasses.
More glasses
Pushing the glasses up - maybe they need to be adjusted?
How funny (and true!) is this shirt? Thank you to Aunt Sheila and Uncle Bobby who picked this one up for William at the Grand Forks airport.
The belly button is starting to pop out...and the light was good the other day in our living room. William was not cooperating with my photo shoot ideas, so I had to turn the camera to NewBaby.
William saw the cat in the basket and decided he wanted to try to get in....
Turns out it was hard work to fit such a big boy into a little basket! Funny thing about those red socks: we're working on William making some of his own choices. We present (when time allows) two clothing options and he gets to choose one. Any time the red socks are an option, he picks them. Guaranteed. Every single time.
William's nest. I'm not sure how this one started (Daddy maybe?), but now we have to take all the available pillows and put them into a circle around William to make a "nest". After the nest is constructed you need to carefully sit in it and crow about your beautiful nest.
The whole way home, we talked about how this was a new big boy bed for William to have. He was SO excited about it when we got home! When we walked in the door he said "My bed! Sleep! Blankets, pillows, big boy bed!" and he ran off to get some blankets to put on his bed Right Away so he could go to sleep. Very funny, only it was time to eat dinner and he wasn't happy about having to wait.
After we ate, we finished cleaning out his new room, put up the curtains and put the sheets on his new bed. Then we practiced using it. Here I am in bed with my babies reading books! We're going to take a few days this week to just talk about it and lay in the bed before we start actually using it. I am looking forward to having him out of the crib, but totally dreading the fact that he will be able to get out of the bed all by himself from now on. His room is going to be empty for a while until I can trust him not to injury himself on other pieces of furniture.
In other news, the phone problems have been worked out. We both have the same phone numbers and both of us have phones. However, if you call one of us for the next week or so, you'll be talking to me. After my phone was lost, we gave everyone John's phone number. John doesn't have access to his phone at work, so I'll be keeping his here for the time being to field insurance company calls.
After we ate, we finished cleaning out his new room, put up the curtains and put the sheets on his new bed. Then we practiced using it. Here I am in bed with my babies reading books! We're going to take a few days this week to just talk about it and lay in the bed before we start actually using it. I am looking forward to having him out of the crib, but totally dreading the fact that he will be able to get out of the bed all by himself from now on. His room is going to be empty for a while until I can trust him not to injury himself on other pieces of furniture.And, just for fun, a few other pictures from this week!
William got Mr Potato Head for Christmas this year (which he LOVES). His favorite part about Mr Potato Head? The glasses. He loves to wear the glasses.
More glasses
Pushing the glasses up - maybe they need to be adjusted?
How funny (and true!) is this shirt? Thank you to Aunt Sheila and Uncle Bobby who picked this one up for William at the Grand Forks airport.
The belly button is starting to pop out...and the light was good the other day in our living room. William was not cooperating with my photo shoot ideas, so I had to turn the camera to NewBaby.
William saw the cat in the basket and decided he wanted to try to get in....
Turns out it was hard work to fit such a big boy into a little basket! Funny thing about those red socks: we're working on William making some of his own choices. We present (when time allows) two clothing options and he gets to choose one. Any time the red socks are an option, he picks them. Guaranteed. Every single time.
William's nest. I'm not sure how this one started (Daddy maybe?), but now we have to take all the available pillows and put them into a circle around William to make a "nest". After the nest is constructed you need to carefully sit in it and crow about your beautiful nest.
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