Wed. Update

Just an fyi, I do have cell phone coverage up here...it is just sporadic sometimes. So I don't feel completely cut off from the rest of teh world. :)

We finally got to meet with the physician and he sat down and talked with us. It was really great for both Dan and I to get some questions answered. Mainly to know that she has not been going in for continued clotting. The only clots in the artery were the first 3 surgeries. The proceeding surgeries have been to relieve pressure and clean out the area. They have her on Heprin (a blood thinner) so that she won't get clots and what is happening is that she is bleeding into the tissue surrounding the incision, creating pressure and pain. So they keep going in to remove the blood that is building up. Julie thought that they were going in for more clots. Well the blood is clotting, but in a normal fashion. Now they are trying to figure out she is bleeding into the surrounding tissue and how to stop it. They would like to get her on an oral blood thinner, but the previous two times they tried, she did have more arterial clots.

The catch and the main concern is that normally people have 3 main arteries that run down your legs and two of hers are not functioning. The doctor speculated as to why that is, but wasn't sure. So if the remaining good artery continues to clot, there is not an alternate route and the blood supply to her foot would be greatly decreased.

The doctor was compassionate this time around and helpful. I think once he sat down and stopped trying to run away, we stopped being defensive and he started to talk. His assistant was there also, so she showed great compassion at the situation we are in. So that was really great. I am so glad that we pushed for a family consult, it was what we needed.

So in the immediate future the concern will be the transition to the oral blood thinner and to watch out for more clots. If the artery remains open, that is good news and she will be on the upswing. If the artery clots, then the doctor described a couple of options that they have, but would rather not.

As far as we are concerned, we are remaining here probably through Friday or Saturday. Both Dan and I feel like this is where we are supposed to be. She has only had one other visitor (the pastor and his wife). Her other friends and family are almost 2 hours from here and now the roads are getting bad. So I doubt that any one will be able to make the trip this week. The doctor believes she will at least be another week in this hospital and assured us that if she needs follow-up care that she would get it. The way he put it is that health care facilities are agressivley competitive and that she would get good care. So that eases our mind that they will take care of her following her stay. Plus she has a social worker assigned to her case now

Josiah is starting to get stir crazy here and I think he is really missing his friends at day care. I think he is starting to miss the stimulation that they could give him that we can't. I know he loves swimming and he gets braver every day, jumping in and putting his face in the water.

A big milestone that he made here was peeing on the big potty. He has gone twice now and he clapped both times, he was so excited. So maybe he is ready after all to start potty training...or it could just be a fluke :) But we just faced him backwards on the toilet, no potty chair or potty seat...just the big toilet and he tried and went both times we set him on it :) What a big boy!!

Another big milestone...he has entered the phase of terrible two's that involves the word NO! For a while there he answered YAH to everything and it was so cute. I knew it would end, but I had no idea it would be so abrupt and with such fervor. Not only is his first and favorite word NO, but it is usually accompanied by a blood curtling scream that makes every one around him cringe and us want to cover his mouth (which doesn't really work, by the way).

At any rate! it has been nice to have so much time for our family to spend together.

Update on Dan's mom

This is the first chance I have had to give an update on Dan's mom. We took off on Thursday morning for the UP and got up here about 4 pm and were able to see Julie (Dan's mom). It has been alot of surgeries and a lot of ups and downs. She is still in the hospital and will most likely remain until past Christmas.

The first surgery was Wed afternoon to determine where the blockage was and to try and break it up. Unsuccessful. The second surgery was late Wed. night and the doctor was pretty confident that he was successful at removing the clot. He said that the clot had not just appeared that it had been there for quite some time and it just got to the point where it was causing pain due to pressure. Things on Thursday seemed to be going well and we thought she might be able to come home the next day. So Dan and I were making the 1 1/2 hr commute each day, hoping that she would be able to come home on Friday. We called on Friday morning and they said that there was no pulse in the top of her foot and that there was more blockage. So at 11:00 am they were going to do an agiogramto determine where the blockage was. Shortly following that procedue they took her into another surgery. We though this surgery was to put a stint in the artery, since it either kept collapsing or clotting, but apparently they went in to remove more blockage. We were finally able to see her at 7:00 on Friday night. So we spent about 1 hour shopping in the area and 3 1/2 more hours hanging out in the waiting room since the new unit that she was taken to didn't allow kids at all. She was pretty out of it on Friday night, but once they were able to relieve some of the pain caused by laying completetly still for so long, I think she was able to relax.

At this point we had to make the decision whether or not to keep driving back and forth. We didn't get home until 10:30 pm last night and Josiah won't sleep in the car right now. Thank goodness he is such a good rider though. He just watches his movies and plays with his toys. At any rate, even though financially it is going to be hard on us, the driving and gas back and forth was just taking its toll. Julie's neighbor then told us that the hotels in the area gave a good discount if you had a person in the hospital, so that is exactly what we did. Spending our entire time in the car and hospital waiting area is tough on a 2 year old. So now, Dan can come and go as he needs and he's only a few miles away. And Josiah and I can go swimming and run the halls. Much better.

Today: we called to check on her today and she was in quite a bit of pain in her leg now. Apparently the incision was bleeding into the surrounding tissue and fluid was starting to build up. They were going to go in and do a quite procedure to clean out the area but weren't planning on doing anything. However they found another clot. This is the 4th surgery now to remove the clots. Here's the kicker: the doctor told us last night that he would try and remove the clot 1 more time and if that didn't work he would give up. What the crap! What kind of cockamamy dr tells teh family that he was just going to give up. The guy seemed drunk and what we know of dr's I wouldn't be surprised. It was the first time he had given us the time of day and he would hardly do that. He basically said he didn't know what was causing it and he didn't know what else to do. Great! Now that 4th surgery has taken place, now what. No one is telling us anything.

So here we sit in the hotel, having no idea what is going to happen, how long she might be there, what might happen to her leg. he pretty much said that she would continue to have problems and eventually lose her leg. So that is what's rolling around in our head. We don't know about care for her after the hospital, shoot we don't have any idea how long she will be in the hospital.

So many unknowns and we are both so emotionally unstable. Because not only don't we know anything about Julie and her situation. I go back home to a huge unknown. I don't have a job. So here we are, alone in the UP, trying to be there for Julie and trying to cope with our own situation. This will not be one of the best Christmas's we have had. But at least we are able to be here for Julie. She lives just far enough away from all of her friends and family and it is at just the wrong time of year that we have been her only visitors besides her pastor.

Neither Dan, nor I have cell phone coverage up here, so if you want to contact us you can call 906-225-1393 room 109. Just try and not call during the afternoon cause Josiah will be taking his naps. I know most people probably won't even be reading this blog until into the new year, but who knows, we just may be here that long. I will try and keep you updated on Julie's progress.

On the up side for us...Josiah loves to swim and we had so much fun in the pool.

Heading to the UP early, Please Pray

We got a call this morning that Dan's mom had a blood clot in her leg. By 5:30pm she had had one procedure that didn't work and they were taking her into surgery. By 8:00pm we got another call that the first procedure hadn't worked and that they were taking her into surgery again. Dan just received a call from the dr (strange man from what Dan said), but at any rate, she is out of surgery and recovering. Apparently the clot was chronic and had been there for some time. She still needs prayers for a recovery and that they resolve why she was getting a blood clot to begin with.

Dan and I are heading out tomorrow to the UP a couple of days early to visit and take care of things up there. So prayers for our travels. The hospital is an hour and a half from the house and they expect her to stay at least 3 days. So lots of driving coming up!

Merry Christmas to everyone who reads my blog :) And may I come back to my blog with good news regarding Dan's mom, our visit and some sort of work lined up for me in the New Year!.

Thank you to our Secret Santa (you know who you are and we are so very grateful for the help)!!! From both Dan and myself :)

Mystery Solved

I called Snapfish today. I have always been happy with the prints that I ordered directly through Snapfish, so I really couldn't understand why the quality was so very poor, even by going to Wahlgreens. So I called customer service at Snapfish and I had a great customer service person who understood exactly what I was talking about and could explain what had happened. They have a new feature on their website, called quick upload. What I didn't know, and probably many other people don't know, is that the pictures get truncated, or reduced when uploading this way. So the pictures that I uploaded that were originally 4256x2848 and the pictures size that actually got uploaded 590x394. Quite a difference there and explains 100% why the pictures were so crappy. There is an option that allows you to still upload the high quality picture, you just have to know to select it.

So I can't blame Wahlgreens, although I really do hate the glossy finish and will still probably not send them there again. But live and learn. And Snapfish is going to refund all my pictures so that I can reupload the pictures the way that doesn't lose quality and reorder the prints. So our Christmas cards will be really late this year. Oh well! Better late than never.

A Smile Makes Everything Better

On Sunday when I was at my lowest, it was just Josiah and I at home. I was sitting in the rocking chair kind of moping. Ok, so I was moping, no kind of about it. I had closed my eyes for a little while and all of the sudden he crawled up into my lap and snuggled. Which, any of you who know Josiah, know this is not normal behavior. And he stayed in my lap for quite some time. It felt so good to just sit and snuggle with my little man.

And then over dinner, which I had to drag myself out of the chair (yah, I was in bad shape, but much, much better now) to make dinner for Josiah, Josiah started acting really silly. He was trying to make me smile and laugh. He would bonk his head, smile and look at me to make sure I saw him, and then again and again, until he was laughing. God definitely put children on this earth to help us through the tough times and to, in general, make us laugh J There is no greater sound than the sound of a child laughing.

Peace and Quiet

Everyone had gone to a meeting but me :) So here I sit with complete silence around me and no one to tell me I did something wrong or show me a detail I missed. Peace! They also left me little to nothing to do until 3:00 this afternoon. Gotta love that. So I will post and update.

Sunday and Monday
Mood: really down and sad
Dan and I are both really stressed or at least on edge about our future (financially and career wise). We just don't know what's coming and there are so many unknowns. A very difficult situation to be in for any type of control freak. The hardest thing (which should be the easiest), is to know that God has a plan for both Dan and I and we just need to be patient to see when He will reveal it to us. So hard. I am especially getting scared about January, since my position here is over as of January 2nd or so. And since I got the final word that I didn't get the position here where I am working (which explains the depression), I don't know what I am going to do. I have put my application into many, many places, but have heard nothing back. Except for one that called on Monday for a CSR position. I don't know much about it, but they are supposed to be calling me sometime this week. Who knows!! I have also been applying for Dan to several places just for kicks. Who knows, maybe there is a company out there that might appreciate him and show it :P Things did get better when I got home yesterday though. Dan had left a little note for me that said he was sorry for getting upset the day before (which contributed greatly to the down mood). That was the best thing that could have happened. I let go of the crappy mood right then and there. I cleaned the kitchen like crazy and Josiah and I danced to Trans Siberian Orchestra. To cute! We were twirling around and around in the kitchen. There is just something about dancing freely that lifts the spirit.

Today
Mood: much better
Today, I actually got up early since there was a chance that the roads might be bad. So I got to work with time to spare today...always a good feeling. Morning went by pretty quickly...however still very little to do. I really can't stand that about this position. Oh yah, speaking of fast paced jobs. I stopped by AF yesterday, my previous employer, and they notified me that if I had stayed a few more weeks, that I would have definitely been hired. So I am not sure if it is a good thing that I left, because it was not meant for me to be there, or that I made a bad decision coming here for a few extra bucks. However what's done is done and I have to look forward. I did ask them if there was any chance they might need someone in the near future and he wasn't sure. So I am now waiting to hear back from the person that would know more. Who knows!!

Over lunch I did a quick return, picked up my crappy pictures from Wahlgreens. Ok, so I am going to vent. I am really ticked off at the quality of pictures that I just picked up. I ordered them through Snapfish. Never, never again will I order pictures through snapfish to have them picked up at Wahlgreens. Crappy, I tell you. I uploaded a very high resolution picture and they are blurry, very pixilated and glossy. I selected matte finish when I was ordering, however I guess Wahlgreens only does glossy. I hate glossy prints. So now what to do?? I think I am going to call Snapfish and complain. Maybe get my prints redone by their printer. Shoot my $100 printer made better prints than Wahlgreens. Ok, I'm done. Still ticked, but done.

I also picked up the final portable DVD player holder for our car. I think this is number 10. I have bought and returned so many holders, because none of them quite worked for our car. The one I ended up with I am happy about and it fits. So now only one more to return (the one previous to this one). For thinking I got a good deal on the DVD player itself. I was horribly wrong. $100 for the player and then $37 for the holder. If only I had waited a little longer into the Christmas sale season, I wouldn't have been out so much money. But Merry Christmas to us and it is a really good one with a nice big screen :) I just hope it lasts a very long time.

Oh yah, we got our family portraits done this weekend and I just haven't had time to upload the pictures. I will have to try and do that tonight or tomorrow. They turned out really great (except for the developing part :P) However Josiah was not very cooperative outside. We were outside for the family pics and he was just not happy. We couldn't for the life of us get him to laugh. Nothing any of us did made him smile. So Christy was at least able to get the poses that kind of look like he is smiling. Then we went inside in a new outfit and we got him really giggling. Very cute pictures when he is grinning.

So now I am up to date on the happenings in our lives. Hope all is well with all of you :)

Thanks for the prayers but...

I didn't get the job. I have no idea what happened between Monday and today, but the end result was that I did not get offered the job. As of Monday the recruiter told me that she just needed to get authorization to offer me the job and by today, I am completely out of the running. That I know of, nothing changed. I continued working hard after the whole Christmas thing, I didn't let it get to me to much. They wouldn't tell me and I have no idea what happened. All I know is that I am out of a job because someone had something to say about me. And that just plain sucks! I am trying desparetly to not let the black hole suck me in...the one that says I am incapable of working with people or doing anything. It may sound extreme, but that's what tends to happen when I get news like this. So I am going to try my hardest to just focus on the positive (just haven't figured them out yet) and not dwell to much on the crap.

Things are better!

After I cooled down yesterday and got my emotions in check, the rest of the day was better. A good laugh changed my attitute. It is amazing how a good laugh is so very healing. From that point on things got better...not great, but better. I didn't cause any waves at work. I wasn't mean to anyone. I mostly internalized it and wrote about it, so on the surface, I just kept on working until the anger faded away. I am sure that the prayers that were lifted played a big part as well. Thank you!

Now just hurry up and wait.....

Josiah turned 2 on Sunday!

What a fun day! The weekend leading up to the fun party was alot of work, but a successful work weekend. My mom and Bob came down to help us clean (our Christmas present and probably the best present to date). We got so much done! I can still hardly believe it. We now have a bonus room in the basement where we can put all of Josiah's toys. A place where he can get away and play :)

Here are the pictures, I think I will let them speak for themselves. We had a great time!!!

A visit with a friend long overdue and to short!!!

On our trip to MN, I got to visit my best friend from High School, Karen. Actually, funny enough, Dan's best from high school was Jeremiah (which is who we stayed with)...to have both of our best friends end up in the same city (or close by), is so crazy!!! And then to top it off, they both had little boys within 7 weeks of Josiah.

Anyway, my visit with Karen was far to short. I wish we could have spent an entire day with her, but there just wasn't time, plus she had to work. If we ever make that trip, I think I will set a day aside to spend with her family.

We met at Red Robins for lunch, and Jeremiah, Kelly and Brayden came along too. So there were 3 boys all just under 2 and 6 adults. Josiah refused to eat anything that we got him and was just a stinker. He just wanted to get up and run around. Sam (Karen's little boy) and Brayden just sat in their seats and ate...someone had to be the stinker. And as you can see from the pictures he just wanted to be left alone to run free, which meant that he wouldn't sit for a picture. The boys were funny though. Sam and Josiah finally found something to play with...sugar packets. Who would have guessed that sugar packets could tame the lion ;) But they took them out and put them back in the container over and over. Then they ended up on the floor, so they both ended up on the floor (gross, I know, but such is life) picking up the packets. At least they were occupied!!!!

Karen hasn't changed a bit...well except for the growing up part. But she was just like I remember. It was so great to just sit and talk like old times. Again, I wish we had had more time to reminisce. Next time! I just hope next time isn't 12 years from now. Anyway, here are some great pictures from our visit...

Not so "Merry"

So the company I am temping for has never made me feel like a temp...that is until today. I have been included in all the fun things that they do, all the birthdays, parties, hoopla, etc. I have brought food in for food day, planned a birthday party. The great thing about working here has been that they have not belittled me because I am a temporary employee. That is until today! Merry Christmas Heather, however you cannot come to the departmental Christmas party because you are a temp...oh and by the way maybe you could stay back and answer the phones! WHAT THE CRAP!!! No I will not answer your damn phones, are you kidding me. Apparently my supervisor is in control of this get together (whereas he was not in control of anything else) and he always plays by the rules and he went and asked HR. Mind you, they are not going out to eat, they are simply going to one of their houses for a light lunch. I could understand not getting a gift from the department, but being completely excluded. Merry freakin Christmas.

As you can see I am a bit upset. Tears have been shed, but I think that has to do with the unknown about a potential full time job at this company. I am simply waiting to hear if the head of HR approves it or not. So in other words, I have been selected (yay), but HR still needs to put their seal of approval on the deal. Along with Dan still not hearing about his potential raise and what's going to happen there. I am feeling quite stressed right now. I just didn't need to feel so belittled right now. I kind of want to curl up in a ball, cry and go to sleep. Crying has already been done, but I am sure there will be more. I hate it that stupid stuff like this can get to me so easily and make me so upset...but so be it...today they did!!!

Pics from MN