Sunday, March 17, 2024

Long Roads

This has been a busy but not exciting week.  The first part of the week was consumed by wrapping up the Snickerdoodle Preschool era and filing our last business taxes.  Also early in the week, we had Merrick's MRI on his ankle and we were working with our home warranty company on getting someone to come look at a leak we have in our upstairs bathtub that's leaking into the garage.

By Wednesday, we finally started to make some progress on those fronts.  Business taxes got mailed off, we got a repair man scheduled to come out on Thursday, and we got the results of Merrick's MRI.  The MRI indicated that Merrick didn't break his fibula as the doctor had originally thought, but he did tear both of his ankle stabilizing ligaments and has significant bone busing.  The good news is the doc felt that surgery was not indicated, just lots of physical therapy.

As the week progressed, we saw progress on the other issues as well.  The repair man came out and diagnosed, but did not fix the problem because nothing is quick and easy when dealing with a home warranty company and of course we have to get approval before the repairs can be made.  Merrick also started physical therapy.  I was ablet to call around to find somewhere with immediate openings so at least we didn't have to wait to get moving on that.  He will go twice a week for the next several weeks and the PT is setting expectations that it could be a long road.  He gave him a 20% chance of playing in his first baseball tournament in 3 weeks.  Merrick is determined to be that 20%, but we will see.

Saturday, we had clean up days for both baseball and softball.  It was a divide and conquer kind of situation.  Merrick and Jeremy went to the baseball cleanup and Elsie and I went to softball cleanup.  CC had a primary activity and got out of all clean up.  I will just speak to the softball clean up, which was HARD manual labor, raking rock hard ground to uncover a former field that had been completely overtaken by weeds and grass.

By the afternoon, Jeremy and I were worn out.  Merrick got off easy for clean up in his current condition and Elsie spent cleanup day playing on the playground with her friends.  Thankfully, the girls both had plans in the afternoon that meant that the rest of us could have some relaxing time.  Carrigan went with her friends to see a play of the Hobbit and then went for ice cream.  Elsie had an Auntie day extravaganza that started with lunch, ended with dinner and ice cream, and in the middle included a Target shopping spree, a movie, and a park trip.








Today we are hoping for a relaxing day that doesn't include any hard, manual labor, any complex tax forms, or any trips to the hospital or doctor.  That shouldn't be too much to ask, right?

Sunday, March 10, 2024

Go Away Hospital

 I'm going to be keeping it short and sweet this week.  It's late and I am exhausted.  I just got back from 5.5 hours at urgent care and the ER with Carrigan.  More on that in a minute.

This weekend we were supposed to be in Bend for the second, and final state tournament.  That plan got derailed in just about every possible way.  First Merrick's ankle, he had a follow up on it this week.  The doc confirmed the break, but he still has too much swelling for that to be the only issue.  He is still non-weight bearing and he will have an MRI tomorrow to determine what else might be going on.

The ankle wasn't going to be the deal breaker on our trip to Bend though because our Airbnb was non-refundable.  We made plans and preparations to still go and the girls were excited to have a trip that was going to revolve less around basketball than it would have otherwise.  Then, 20 hours before we were supposed to check-in, our host canceled our reservation.  We spent an hour on the phone with customer support trying to get something worked out, but ended up bagging it.

Merrick ended up going to Bend with his coach and we had a weekend at home with the girls.  We did lots of fun things, ate out, went to the mall, went to Starbucks, went to Dave and Busters, and watched movies, but most of the time C.C. complained about stomach pain.



Today Carrigan's stomach pain came to a head.  When we left church with her in tears, we decided it might be a good idea to take her to urgent care.  There they said they couldn't rule out appendicitis and they wanted us to go to the ER.  MANY hours later at the ER they decided that she didn't have appendicitis, or anything that was an immediate emergency and they sent us home with no answers.  We are supposed to keep a diary around the pain and follow up with our PCP.  In the meantime, she was in tears again going to bed tonight.

Merrick got home just before Carrigan and I.  He had a great time in Bend and his team won the Bend State tournament.


I, once again, feel like I need a do over of for the weekend.  More than anything, after our visit for the MRI tomorrow, I need my kids to stay out of the hospital for a bit. 

Sunday, March 3, 2024

Recovery and Winning

 This week was all about recovery from the trauma of the week before.  It was a quiet week, with school, work, and not a lot else.  Merrick's road to recovery has been bumpy.  Monday into Tuesday he was awake for 2.5 hours in the night in pain.  Tuesday was a rough day and just about the lowest I have seen Merrick through all of this.  The sun rose again on Wednesday and he was back to himself.  On Wednesday we had to take pictures of his ankle for the orthopedist.  A week and a half post incident (two weeks now) and we still have a lot of swelling and new bruising showing up.  He is still non-weight bearing, at least until our next follow up next Wednesday.





This weekend has been a different kind of tough for him.  Friday marked the beginning of the Salem State Tournament.  Merrick attended every game, cheering from the sidelines.  He struggled with not being able to play but supported his team the best he could.  In the end, they came up victorious, winning the Salem State Tournament.  I am grateful that Merrick still felt like part of the team, despite not getting to play.











Sunday, February 25, 2024

The Good (Elsie's B-day) and The Bad

 This week was a rollercoaster of epic proportions.  To be honest, I have been dreading this week for about a month.  I knew it was going to be a busy and stressful week, with Elsie's birthday, Merrick's surgery, and Jury Duty.  It turned out to be much more stressful than that.  To paint the full picture, we have to go back to last Sunday, shortly after my last blog post.

Sunday afternoon, Merrick had a basketball game.  It was going fine, other than that they were losing.  With just a few minutes left in the game, Merrick went up for  a rebound and came down wrong on his ankle.  Likely he would have been able to walk that off, but while it was rolled, a very large kid from the other team fell on it.  Merrick couldn't get up from that.  Instead he would have to be carried off the court and to the car following the car and we would head straight to the ER.

In the ER, they didn't see any obvious signs of a break but they were surprised at that based on the amount of swelling he had.  Ultimately, they sent him home in a boot and with instructions to be completely non-weight bearing until we could follow up with an orthopedist.  By the time we left, we had 57 hours until we have to be back for the next thing.



This situation complicated everything else that followed, in an already completely stressful week.  Tuesday, the only day he went to school last week, he had to be driven to school.  He needed help with things he would normally do independently, like taking a shower.  Things that he would normally help with around the house were, and continue to be, off the table.

We made it through Tuesday, and somehow, at the kids insistence, even found time celebrate our dog, Millie's 4th birthday that day.


Wednesday was Merrick's second heart surgery.  We had to be at the hospital at 6:00am for a scheduled 8:00 am surgery.  Again, everything was complicated by his foot.  He was in a wheelchair right off the bat.  Getting into the hospital gown, getting into the bed,  and getting up to go to the bathroom were all more difficult.  We had to discuss his ankle with every doctor and nurse and went back and forth about whether he should wear his boot during surgery about a million times.  In the end, we decided against it, and had to just pray that no one would accidently bump it during surgery.


The surgery itself went just about as well as it could have possibly gone.  It was scheduled to be a 2-4 hour surgery, but I think it ended up being just under 2.  They were very quickly able to determine that the SVTs were being caused by a problem on AV Node.  They were able to diagnose it as atrioventricular nodal reentrant tachycardia (AVNRT) and ablated the site that was causing the issue.  Everyone was extremely pleased with the results and there is only about a 5% chance of the problem returning.  We are praying that we are in the 95% group.  We will follow up with the cardiologist in about two months.


Thursday was both Elsie's birthday and my jury duty.  We started the day with birthday cinnamon rolls and one present and then it was off to jury duty for me and school for her. Unfortunately, I didn't get called off from jury duty the night before as I was hoping, but fortunately they ended up having a bench trial that took priority and all jurors got to go home. 






After school we were in full birthday mode.  I picked the girls up from school and we were able to stay and play on the playground with friends.  This is something the girls have really missed since I started my new job, so it was a great birthday treat for Elsie.

That evening, we had homemade cheese pizza per the birthday girl's request.  She then opened the rest of her presents from us.  She got Barbies and other toys, but one present was a little wild. She really wanted to get her ears pierced for her birthday, but after lots of research for a place that would pierce both ears at the same time, I gave up and decided to buy the things to do it ourselves.  My sister pierced her daughter's ears and I knew I could recruit her help. The jury is still out as to whether we will actually do them ourselves.  So far she hasn't had the courage, but we will see.






After our family time, the extended family came over for cake and ice cream and more presents.




Friday was supposed to be a recoup day from the week of crazy, but it end up being the day we had to follow up with orthopedist and that brought a whole new batch of stress and bad news.  It turns out that Merrick did facture his fibula, but the doctor was more concerned about the amount of swelling he still had.  That was not consistent with a fibula fracture.  She is much more concerned about potential ligament tearing.  He were sent home with strict instructions about icing and elevating.  He is to remain non-weight bearing and we will decide next Wednesday on the next steps.  She also dashed his hopes of playing in the first stated tournament next weekend and said the Bend state tournament in two weeks is highly unlikely.  This kid just can't catch a break.

Yesterday was Elsie's birthday party with her friends.  We had a Barbie themed party at our house.  We had 14 kindergarten girls here to celebrate.  They played Barbies, colored Barbie coloring sheets, had a Barbie fashion show, and played "Pin the Bow on Barbie".  Everyone had a great time and that's what's important, not the fact that for me it was the stress icing on top of a stress cupcake.









Today is the Sabbath, the day of rest, and I could sure use it.  To say that this was a stressful week for our family would be a gross understatement.  I am just so thankful for the outpouring of support and encouragement we got from family and friends.  Otherwise, we never would have made it.