Thursday, October 11, 2007

My corrections to the previous blog...

On our way to visit the surgeon this morning I was relaying my previous blog post to Joe. As I was relaying it, he began correcting me. Joe has to correct me a lot, I mean, a lot. I don't know if I just get in a hurry in life and don't pay attention or what, but I've learned that 99% of the time when he corrects me he is right. And so, even though he was in so much pain that he had to take morphine, here are the errors that he corrected.

  • It was not called the Skinny Cow. It was called the Spotted Cow. I guess there are ice cream sandwiches that you can buy in your local grocery freezer section that are named Skinny Cow. And so, even though I got it wrong for where I ate on Tuesday night, I still ask who wants to eat a skinny cow or look like one?
  • Second thing I got wrong--not sure how this happened--the doctor's name. His name wasn't Joseph. No, in fact, his name was James Brown. Yep--that is almost even better than if his name was Joseph. I'll let your mind wander on that one...

He goes in for surgery tomorrow afternoon to remove an organ that God gave us, but we evidently don't have to have in order to function in everyday life. I'll keep you updated!

Look at all the pretty houses!

Tuesday night we decided to check out one of the ERs in town. This is something that we try to do when we move--especially when we get bored. And seeing how we had nothing else to do on Tuesday night, we decided that would be the night. Okay, actually, Joe had been sick since Monday morning and was in really, really severe pain by Tuesday evening and so we made the trip. (I wish it was because we were bored.) Anytime you have to go to the ER there are interesting things that happen. Tuesday night did not leave me disappointed. It happened around suppertime (doesn't it always!). And so I put the half cooked hamburger in the refrigerator, gave very brief instructions to our wonderful friend who was going to watch the kids and jumped in the truck to take Joe to the nearby town where the ERs are located. You would think I would have been a little more prepared since he had been sick since Monday, but, honestly, I hadn't really noticed how sick he really was. I won't go into details, but let's just say Tuesday was a crazy day even without our trip to the ER. So, we are in the truck headed to the ER when I realize I don't even really know where I am going. (We are new to town, remember?!). I ask Joe which hospital he wants to go to. (Fortunately he had already had to make a couple of hospital visitations so he was a little familiar with them.) He tells me. And then I mutter somewhat under my breath that I don't know if I can find it and I wonder if Joe can tell me how to get there. At this point Joe says "Stop worrying about little things and just get me to the hospital!" Obviously he either didn't here me or he had completely lost perspective on what the big things and little things are! So I make my way blindly there and start cracking jokes (I had early been informed that I needed to "be strong" and "not cry" so the only other option was making jokes). His pain seemed to come and go quite a bit so I thought we should start timing them. We knew how to do that since we have four children. He didn't think it was as funny as I did, but I found out later that the pain actually is very similar to childbirth. Anyway, we got to the ER and you can always find funny things at the ER. Here are just a few things I came across:

  • The nearby cafeteria (I hadn't eaten supper, remember) was called the Skinny Cow. Now why would you name a restaurant the Skinny Cow? Have you seen a skinny cow? Do you really think you want to eat a skinny cow? Are they trying to give you subliminal messages and make you think you will look like a skinny cow if you eat there? And even then, again I ask, have you ever seen a skinny cow--I don't think I would like to look like one either!
  • What are the odds of the med student, the doctor and the patient all having the name Joe? (Okay, technically the doctor's first name was Joseph, but you know no one actually calls him that.) This prompted all kinds of things to go through my mind, like "how many Joe's does it take to find the patient's gall bladder with a bedside ultrasound?"
  • They gave Joe morphine--need I say more? Okay, even though I don't need to, I will. We were driving to the pharmacy after they dismissed us and Joe kept saying (keep in mind it was dark!) "Look at all the pretty houses." When I mentioned that it was dark to him and I couldn't really see the houses, his response was "But aren't the lights just beautiful." And, no, the people did not have Christmas lights out yet, they were just the regular city lights.
Joe is doing a little better as far as the pain is concerned. It was determined that it is a gall bladder and we see a surgeon today. Pray for us!

Monday, October 8, 2007

My new view

Any of you who remember our old house remember that we had a halfwall between our dining room and kitchen. I loved that halfwall. It is where the kids hung out a lot--especially Sara and Ashley while I was cooking. And so, now you can see my new kitchen view. We got barstools for our breakfast bar. It feels a lot more like home now that I've got these smiling faces to look at while I work in my office (AKA the kitchen) each day.

Maybe we should try a smaller scalpel...

My future surgeon
Seriously, is there anything cuter than a 3 1/2 year old boy?


My knight in shining armor!

Check out what I made for dinner the other night--looks real appetizing doesn't it?!
And so my knight in shining armor comes to the rescue!


Blue state bureaucracy

Yep, I'm still alive. Actually I'm the only healthy one in my family. (Oops, I probably shouldn't have said that out loud! Who knows what will happen tomorrow now!) Today I made my third trip to the doctor's office since Friday. I also went Tuesday of last week. So I guess that makes 4 visits within a week's time span. My pediatrician aptly said today that we evidently don't get along with our new locale's germs. To be fair, today's visit was a physical for the girls so they could continue to attend school. Now usually in this blog I stay fairly apolitical, but I can't resist to comment on the blue state bureaucracy that I ran into this last week concerning my girls' physicals. It all started last Monday when I got a letter from the school--a fairly harsh letter involving words like state "code" and "said child will not be allowed to attend school" and "truancy" and "sheriff will be notified"--I think you get the idea. Evidently they didn't have the appropriate physical form for Sara to be attending school--and Ashley as well although I created that one myself by letting them know that Ashley didn't have our current state's physical form either. Now a phone call or previous letter would have been nice, but that is a whole other story. So I got the appointment made for their physicals so there would be no need for a sheriff's visit to our house. Now here is the beauty of this whole situation. The form that needed to be filled out was basically just their vaccinations. So the school gave me a copy of the vaccination sheet that they had received from Sara's school records and from me for Ashley. I took the copy of that vaccination sheet to the doctor's office. The doctor (actually the nurse) wrote the vaccinations that were on the school's sheet onto the official form, the doctor signed it, and we are all set. How absolutely, unbelievably crazy is that! Ahh, you gotta love living in a blue state--it adds humor to my life.