Weekly Review October 28 '16

Here it is, long after bedtime. This day did not go how I’d planned. I exercised and showered and was all ready to get going on the work I needed to do today and then the phone rang. It was the guy from the furniture place—the dining set we ordered was in but he had just looked at it and it was still all scratched up and gouged and everything. He was very apologetic and wanted to know what we wanted to do—reorder, order something else, or cancel altogether. We still haven’t decided yet. But we did spend the next couple of hours discussing it, checking out some dining sets online, and then going to Costco to see if they had any furniture on display there (they didn’t). By the time we got all that done, I only had one hour before I needed to pick up Seth from school. Then I worked on the budget for a few hours, which was also more complicated than usual because of short term disability payments and so forth. I hadn’t finished that before it was time to go to the ward chili cook-off, so I had to finish when we got back, then I wrote to Tanner, and now finally I have time to update the blog! That’s the short version of how the day went.

We are obviously very, very frustrated about the furniture situation. When we refused the first furniture shipment, we were told that they would re-order our furniture and we would get a totally new set. For some reason, that didn't happen. Instead, they sent back our original set and asked them to fix it. The result is that it just came back with more scratches and dents than before. I don't have much faith that we will ever get an acceptable level of quality from that particular manufacturer, so I definitely don't plan to re-order again. We may go back to the furniture store and pick out something from a different manufacturer and hope they will do a better job. (The furniture store will give us a big discount if we do that, to try to make up for all the problems.) Or we may go somewhere else entirely, and buy something less expensive that isn't what we really wanted for the long term but that will last us several more years. We're just not sure yet. I'm really disappointed because in the meantime, we are still stuck with only 2 good chairs for the 3 of us (when we have guests it's even worse). I really, really wanted to have a decent dining set before the holidays. We ordered this set in April, for goodness sake!! The only good thing is that they refunded all our money, which I definitely think they should have done. Just not sure where we are going from here.

To add to our frustration, we've also had a lot of hassles with Frank's lost wages and short term disability payments. We did finally get our first short term disability payment today. But we still haven't received any payments from our insurance for lost wages, and we got the information they needed sent to them weeks ago. Plus, the guy in charge of that was not returning any of Frank's calls. Frank finally called again today and talked to someone else and guess what--the guy assigned to his case quit working there! That's why he wasn't returning calls. Not sure why the new person had not contacted us yet. But he did find out that a payment has been sent to us, so we should get it soon. Just not sure why every step of this process has to be so difficult! 

Frank has been resting as much as possible the last week but he has also had a decent amount of work to do for clients. He started physical therapy and has had 2 sessions so far. Although he is doing better, his knee is still quite painful and he tires very easily. For this reason, he’s decided he needs some more time before he goes back to work. He decided to extend for another week, but then when he talked to the surgeon’s assistant, she told him he should really extend it out further. The recovery is supposed to be 4-6 weeks and he’s only at 2 weeks at this point. Why is he trying to go back so soon?, she wanted to know. So they extended him out until December 19^th. He may be able to go back before then if he feels up to it, but now he doesn’t have to extend again in a week. (Extending his leave involved quite a bit of hassle and paperwork as well.) I actually think that’s a good idea. I really don’t think he’s ready to go back to work yet. After being up an hour or two, he’s exhausted and in pain. I can’t see him being ready to go back to 8 hour days, plus travel time, yet. He really needs to heal more fully before having all that responsibility again.

The chili cook-off was pretty fun tonight. We would have stayed longer, but Frank’s knee was hurting. There were lots of different yummy chilies to choose from, plus cornbread and chips and they had doughnuts and cider for dessert. They also had activities to do like pumpkin carving and coloring and face painting and so forth. We didn’t make chili this year—Frank wasn’t up to it and I didn’t have time. So we just brought a bag of chips and some cheese as our contributions. Here’s a fun coincidence. Last week we got a new Elder in our ward. He’s from Rexburg, Idaho and it turns out his dad is one of the technical theater professors there and Jared is in one of his classes! Small world, right? So tonight we took a picture of ourselves with this Elder and sent it to his dad. He loved it!

Last Saturday we had Pack meeting. We had it outdoors and the boys did some outdoor cooking and a campfire program. Unfortunately, it was in the low 50s and windy, so it wasn’t very pleasant to be outside. But we toughed it out, and the boys did a good job on the cooking and on their campfire program. It was a decent amount of work for me, getting everything ready and helping the boys and then cleaning up afterwards, but it all turned out well.

Remember how in last week's post I mentioned that one of the speakers for Sacrament Meeting was sick, so they called a few people out of the audience to share their testimonies? Well, the same thing happened on Sunday and guess who got asked to come up this time? Yes, me! I also sang in a small group for a musical number. The funny thing was, as we were going back to our seats from the musical number I just kind of had the feeling I was going to be going right back up there. So I wasn’t even shocked or stressed out when the bishop asked me to come up. Frank did make it to church, although he left after I finished my testimony. His knee was hurting a lot and he couldn’t put it up the way he needed to in order to get some relief. I think this week we are going to take a pillow with us and see how that goes.

The rest of the week has been pretty routine. I got a package put together and mailed to Jared for his birthday today. He did get it today, too, and seemed to like what we sent him. For den meeting, I arranged to have a guy in our ward come and talk to the boys about his job as a police officer. We also learned how to dust for fingerprints. You can imagine how fun and messy that was! On Wednesday I had some free time so I cleaned the stove and the refrigerator. I know—such an exciting way to spend my free time!! But they both needed to be cleaned pretty desperately.

Tomorrow I am going to pick up Sam and he is going to come stay for the weekend. I’m going to take him to see Gettysburg tomorrow.

This week’s post is short and boring, but I can’t think of anything else to tell you about. I’ve been re-reading the Conference talks and all of them are awesome!! I was reading Elder Stevenson’s talk “Look to the Book, Look to the Lord” a few days ago and he quoted President Benson as saying “There is a power in the book (the Book of Mormon) which will begin to flow into your lives the moment you begin a serious study of the book. You will find greater power to resist temptation….You will find the power to stay on the strait and narrow path.” I’ve actually heard that quote several times before, but for some reason this time that thought really struck me. It’s true!! There are a lot of things that I don’t even find tempting. There are some sins that I am not drawn to at all. I’ve been reading the Book of Mormon my whole life, and very consistently since I was in high school. I never realized before that maybe that’s why a lot of things aren’t tempting to me. I mean, I still do wrong things! Mostly because I get impatient or selfish or prideful. But I don’t really feel tempted that often. I think a lot of times we get help and blessings that we don’t even recognize. Some things bless is in ways that we don’t see. I’m grateful I’ve always had the blessing of the Book of Mormon in my life. I’m grateful that my parents took the time to read it with me, that my seminary teachers helped me understand it better, that on my mission I had the opportunity to read from it for at least 30 minutes every day, and that since then I have chosen to read it consistently—usually at least one chapter every day. It really has made a difference, in ways I can see and in ways that I can’t. The Book of Mormon is the word of God. Trying to live it’s teachings has brought me joy and peace. The testimonies of the Savior recorded in it are powerful. I know it’s true!!

And just to finish up this week, a few cool things we've seen in the sky lately:

Weekly Review October 21 '16

Seth has the 3 boys who used to carpool with us over to play today so we’ll see if I can think straight and write a coherent letter in spite of all the noise. There is no school today again! I think it is a professional development day for the teachers today.  Today has been a pretty good day so far—I got the lawn mowed and exercised and showered before the kids got here. I got the budget done last night (I usually do that on Fridays) so I’m not feeling overwhelmed by the list of things to do before the day ends. It is cloudy today and probably going to rain soon (which is why I was motivated to get the lawn mowed early) but the rest of the week has been sunny and very warm. We had highs in the 80’s most days so I even wore shorts some days. In the middle of October! Tomorrow the high is only going to be 56, so we’ll be back to normal fall weather. It was definitely nice while it lasted, though.

Last week when I wrote, Frank had just had surgery the day before. He has spent the last week recuperating. His knee is still very painful but he is up and about more the last few days. He spent the early part of the week mostly lying down with ice on his knee. I would like to see him in less pain than he is, but he is definitely improving and has more stamina. I’m actually worried that he is doing too much the last few days. One of his clients had their firewall go down yesterday, so he spent most of the day up and about getting that taken care of. Then this morning he bought them a new firewall as well as two other computers for another client, and he is working on getting those set up. I think he is very happy to be doing something besides lying around, but I hope he doesn’t over-do it. He had his follow up appointment from his surgery yesterday, and they took the stitches out of his knee. They also gave him an electrical therapy thing for his knee and scheduled his first physical therapy appointment for next week. He doesn’t have to keep his knee wrapped up to shower now, and he can drive and start moving around more. But he is still supposed to keep ice on it as much as possible and rest—I don’t think he is doing too well at that so far! Right now, he is scheduled to go back to work in another week, although they may move it back if he’s not ready yet. We’ll see how this next week goes.

Last Saturday I went to the funeral for our ward member who passed away the week before. It was really nice and I’m glad I went. On Sunday Seth and I went to church as usual. (Frank is hoping to go this Sunday.) One of the speakers wasn’t feeling well so they had to fill up some time and called on a couple of people to share their testimonies. Thankfully, I wasn’t one of them! I realized about half way through the meeting that Seth had not asked for his drawing pad and pencils. He sat through the whole meeting, listening. Wow!! I’m wondering if that will continue or not. We had the sister missionaries over for dinner that evening.

On Monday, besides the usual stuff, I did a bunch of Cub Scout planning and took dinner to a family in our ward because the mom of the family just had surgery the previous Friday. I had a library book due that day which I hadn’t finished reading. I tried renewing it but there was a hold on it so I couldn’t renew it. So I stayed up really late that night finishing the book so I could return it the next day and only pay a fine for one day. I enjoyed it, but I am getting too old to stay up late at night! Now I am reading Go Set a Watchman, the sequel for To Kill a Mockingbird. It's pretty good so far. My friend Rebekah came over on Tuesday so that I could look at some quilts with her that she is working on to help her figure out how to bind them. She brought lunch from Panera for Frank and I too, which was really nice. We didn’t have den meeting that evening because we have Pack Meeting tomorrow.

I went to the temple on Wednesday. The traffic was bad and the temple was really busy so that trip took a lot longer than I thought it would, but I was still really glad I went. When I came out of the temple at noon, Frank had sent me a message letting me know he had an appointment with the sleep place to look at his CPAP at 1:00. So I hurried home so I could take him to that appointment. It took a long time (about an hour and a half) but the lady that saw him worked with him for a long time to make sure he got what he needed, which I appreciated. She said the reason the CPAP was putting out so much oxygen was probably because his mask didn’t fit right so it was leaking oxygen and the CPAP was trying to compensate for that. So she had him try on a bunch of other masks and now he has a different mask that only goes into his nose instead of covering his mouth too. He hasn’t had that problem with the oxygen blasting really hard since then, although he is still getting used to the feel of the new mask. The first night he said the mask was jabbing him in the nose. Last night was better, though. It’s going to take some time to get this working consistently, but in time I think he’ll figure out what works. By the time we finished there, it was almost time for me to go pick up Seth from school. We had the Elders over for dinner and then I took Seth with me to get the Wal-Mart shopping done that evening. Somehow everything got done before bedtime!

Yesterday was a bit crazy since after taking Seth to school I ended up taking Frank to the client with the firewall problem and it took a lot longer than he thought it would so we had to go straight from there to his doctor appointment. After his appointment, he went back to his client while I went home and tried to get going on all the regular things I needed to do, like exercising and vacuuming. I didn’t even get the laundry started until after I picked Seth up from school! But I did get the laundry done before the day was over, partly because we have really small batches with only 3 of us at home these days, and partly because I stayed up late to watch the first half of the BYU football game.  Since it was midnight here when halftime started, I decided to go to bed at that point. I'm glad I didn't stay up for the whole game, since we ended up losing by one point (frustrating!) although it sounds like the 2nd half was pretty eventful. I am a loyal fan, but 2 am is just too much for me!

That’s about all that’s been going on around here, except that paperwork stuff is driving us crazy. Frank had to apply for a leave of absence from his work and that has to be approved before he can receive any short term disability payments. We got a letter this week saying that his leave hadn't been approved yet because the date on the form the doctor filled out was "illegible / looked like 2011, which means the form has expired". Well, we have a copy of the form so we looked at it. His doctor had to fill in the dates for his leave of absence, and it clearly says the leave should begin on September 26, 2016. The ending date is October 28, 2016 but he didn't write the "6" in 2016 very clearly so it kind of looks like a 1. But seriously...who would ask for a leave of absence beginning in 2016 and ending in 2011??!!! I can't believe they nitpicked like that. Thankfully, when we called our doctor, they agreed to fix it and fax it in for us the same day. In the meantime, we should have got paid this week but because of this we didn't. We're okay, but it's the principle behind the whole thing that bugs me. The paperwork involved in getting a leave of absence and disability payments is ridiculous. I keep wondering how I would have managed all this if Frank were more seriously hurt...and in a coma or something. They really ought to make it all a lot simpler. I mean, you need a leave of absence because you're too ill / injured to work. So let's give you a bunch of complicated paperwork to do, when you should be lying down and resting instead!! 

Okay, rant over. Thanks for listening!! Hopefully Frank will improve a lot this coming week and we'll be able to put all this crazy stuff behind us soon. Thank you for your continued prayers in his behalf. 

Weekly Review October 14 '16

It is already afternoon and I need to go pick up Seth from school soon, and I don’t feel like I have accomplished much today so far. For starters, the day started out late because I was up a lot in the night and didn’t wake up until nearly 8:00 this morning. Why was I up a lot in the night? Frank had surgery yesterday but he was not the one who kept me up last night. It was Snickers. First of all, I heard him heaving and throwing up in his crate. Then later he started whining so I let him out of the crate and let him outside and changed the towel in his crate. An hour or so later he was whining again and I took him out again. I heard him whine again after that, but Frank told him to go back to sleep and apparently he did because the next thing I knew it was almost 8:00. So I was still wearing pajamas when I took Seth to school, and I didn’t even care. That’s how my day has been. I have managed to exercise and get a shower and make the bed, and that’s about it—besides taking care of Frank, of course. But at least I’m not still in my pajamas!

I guess I’ll start with Frank’s surgery instead of going back to last weekend first. He had his surgery yesterday afternoon, and it went well.  It turns out the tear in his ACL is very small, so they didn’t need to repair that. They did fix the tear in his meniscus and there were some loose bodies stuck in there that they removed. Frank has been able to put weight on his leg since the surgery, so that is good. It still hurts, but he says it hurts in a different way. The old pain is gone. Now it just hurts because of the surgery, and we know that pain will go away, so that is encouraging. It just feels a lot better knowing that he is on his way to recovery instead of just waiting to do something. Right now he is lying down with a compression / ice thing on his knee. A guy in our ward who used to be a physical therapist loaned us this thing he has which is really nice. It’s a wrap that he puts around his leg and it’s attached to a machine with a reservoir. You put ice water in the reservoir and when you turn it on, it circulates the ice-cold water into the wrap. It also compresses a little around his leg. You can set it to different temperatures and levels of compression and you can also set it to go on and off for different time intervals. Frank is supposed to ice his knee for 30 minutes and then go off ice for 30 minutes. So we have it set to come on for 30 minutes and then go off for 30 minutes. It is really helping his knee feel better and it’s nice for me too because I don’t have to keep track of time and keep adding ice like I would have to do with a normal ice pack. I’m keeping busy enough making sure Frank gets his medicine at the right time, and feeding him and getting him drinks and so on.

Now I’m back from picking up Seth from school. I forgot to give him his medicine today and when I mentioned that to his teacher, she said that he was a lot less focused today. So that means the medicine really does help him, which is good to hear. Anyway, I’ll finish up with the medical stuff before I go on to other things. Frank had an MRI done on his right knee on Tuesday. I took the films with me to his surgery yesterday and the surgeon looked at them. He said nothing on there jumps out at him. There might be a very tiny tear in his meniscus but nothing that needs surgery. He thinks his knee has a very deep bruise from the wreck and also hurts because he’s had to compensate so much because of his left knee. He thinks therapy will help the right knee. So that’s mostly good news—no more surgery, at least—as long as the right knee stops hurting eventually. I think it will. Frank has a lot of physical therapy in his future for both knees as well as his neck and back, but in the end I think he will be feeling a lot better.

In other medical news, I took Frank in on Monday to get his CPAP. I’m happy to say that it is not very big and it makes so little noise that I can’t even tell if it’s on or not. Frank is having some trouble with it, though. Every night around 2:30 am it starts blowing oxygen in so hard that he finds it difficult to exhale. So he hasn’t worn it the whole night yet, because he takes it off when that happens. He called the company this morning and they said that definitely shouldn’t be happening so hopefully they’ll be able to get it fixed or get him a new one. However, it is helping with the sleep apnea problems. He doesn’t snore when he’s wearing it, for one thing. For another, he doesn’t stop breathing nearly so much. When he got the CPAP, they told him that during the sleep study he stopped breathing about 29 times per hour (a second or two each time). During the hours he wore the CPAP the first night, that number dropped to about 3 times per hour. So I think in time it’s really going to help him and he’s going to feel a lot less tired. The first night he wore the mask, we had Seth come in and look at him in it so he’d know what it looks like and it wouldn’t scare him if he came in during the night and saw it. Seth actually thought it looks really cool, which made me laugh. Like a guy in Halo or something.

I think that is all the medical stuff for this week! On to other things. Last Saturday it drizzled / misted all day. Frank and Seth both desperately needed haircuts and both of our cars desperately needed oil changes, so we got all of those things done. This required a little bit of driving on Frank’s part, but not much. We also watched the BYU game in the afternoon and were glad to see BYU win! We didn’t see their last game because it was really late at night but it sounds like it was a really exciting game so I’m sorry we didn’t get to see it.On Saturday evening I made some cookies which is noteworthy since I almost never bake. I wanted to take some cookies to the a family in our ward mostly, which is what motivated me to make some. (They are the family whose father / grandfather died suddenly last Friday.)

On Sunday Frank stayed home from church but Seth and I went. That evening I baked again! This time I made pumpkin chocolate chip muffins. I decided I wanted to do something for the four ladies I visit teach BEFORE Frank’s surgery since I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to visit them or do anything for them afterwards. So that was my motivation for making the muffins. Plus I love anything pumpkin and I knew there’d be leftovers. :) On Monday I took muffins to all four of those ladies and actually got to talk with all four of them—two of them for a long time and the other two for shorter visits, so that was good. They were all happy to get the muffins, too! That was a super busy day though because I also did laundry, vacuumed, bought groceries, exercised, took Frank to a client’s for a little while (I’ve actually done that several times this week) and prepared for Tuesday’s den meeting. Oh, and we had FHE that evening too.

Tuesday I took Frank to his MRI and that evening Seth and I had den meeting and then afterwards I had Cub Committee meeting. So that was a busy day too, along with the regular chores. Seth didn’t have school on Wednesday because it was another Jewish holiday (Yom Kippur this time, I think). It was weird but kind of nice to have a day off in the middle of the week. He played at a friend’s house for a few hours. Meanwhile, I had Wal-Mart shopping to do and Frank came with me. Unfortunately, there were no open handicap parking spaces and when we got into the store we discovered that all the motorized riding carts were gone too. So Frank had to walk around (I told him to just sit on a bench in the front and wait for me, but he didn’t want to do that) and that was really painful for him. In the afternoon I mowed the lawn and then I spent another couple of hours digging up all my old iris plants and planting some tulip and daffodil bulbs so we’ll have flowers next spring. All I had to work with is a small trowel (the full size shovel would have been much easier but we lost it at a service project a few years ago and keep forgetting to buy a new one). By the time I finished, I was feeling really sore and I realized that was a really unwise thing to do the day before Frank’s surgery because sometimes when I do things like that, my back goes out. I was very stiff and sore that evening but Frank put some of his muscle stuff on my back and I used his nice heating pad too and I also said a fervent prayer when I went to bed that night that my back wouldn’t go out. And my prayer was answered. Although I was still sore the next day, it was mostly my legs and hands that hurt, not my back. My legs and hands still hurt today but less than they did yesterday. The palm of my right hand is really tender and I notice it whenever I do something like shift the car from park into drive or open a pill bottle—two things that I have to do pretty frequently these days! Anyway, the front flower bed does look a lot better without the overgrown iris plants. When I was at the grocery store yesterday morning, they had lots of beautiful mums at a great price so I bought a couple to put in the flower bed. I got a pumpkin too, so now the house (the outside, anyway) looks ready for fall. It’s been cooler this week (quite chilly most mornings) but most days have been sunny and crisp and beautiful—my favorite kind of weather, actually.

Yesterday Frank had his surgery in the afternoon. In the morning I got the laundry done and vacuuming and bought groceries, so the day went pretty fast for me. Probably not for Frank, who was lying around without a lot to do and he couldn’t eat or drink anything either so that’s never fun. I arranged to have a lady who used to live in our ward pick Seth up from school and take him home to play with her kids until I could pick him up later. (Her kids go to the same school as Seth.) I’m glad I did that because otherwise I would have had to pick Seth up when Frank was coming out of the anesthesia. As it was, I was able to get Frank home and settled before I had to pick up Seth. Frank got a little sick on the way home but we were prepared for that and then right after we got home Snickers threw up on the stairs! Great timing, dog! Just what I needed right then. (He does seem to be feeling better today, though, thankfully.) Frank was really hungry after we got home of course, and he was craving Boston Market which happens to be near the house where I needed to pick up Seth, so I went to pick up Seth and then got us some dinner. I had planned to pick up some food for dinner anyway—thought I’d give myself a break!! Frank didn’t sleep great last night, but it wasn’t a really bad night for him either, so we are grateful for that.

In between all the craziness of appointments and so forth, I have done a little bit of reading (a lot of that in doctor's office waiting rooms) and I finished A Man Called Ove. It was really good and well worth reading, if you want a good book to read. Ask Frank how many times I laughed out loud while reading it! (Plus it's also sweet and poignant.) Now I am reading another book by the same author called My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry. One of the ladies in my book club recommended it so I got both books from the library at the same time. This book needs to go back in a few days so I am trying to finish it. So far it is really good too. In the meantime, I picked up the book we are reading for book chat now (Go Set a Watchman) yesterday so I will start it as soon as I finish this book. I also started reading The Bronze Bow to Seth last week. Another one of my childhood favorites!

Well, Frank is waiting for me to help him get his knee wrapped up so he can get in the shower and after that I need to make dinner and I think that is most of the news from these parts anyway. He just took the big bandage off his knee a little while ago, and it doesn’t look too bad. They just made two small incisions-one on either side of his knee. The stitches will come out next week.

Thank you for your prayers everyone! Please pray that Frank will have a speedy recovery!

Weekly Review October 7 '16

Let’s see if I can get all my scattered thoughts together. Conference weekend was great!! Although by the time it was over, I felt like all I did was sit and listen and eat for two solid days. That’s okay, though. It was definitely the best thing to sit and listen to. I had a ton of snacks like we always do plus we had 2 kinds of leftover soup and I made crock pot dinners each night so there was just a lot of food! Sam was here spending the weekend with us and I am glad we had another person to help us eat all the food. Plus, we enjoyed seeing him, of course! He doesn’t have a car yet, so a guy in our ward picked him up Friday evening and brought him here (he works near Fort Meade) and I took him back on Sunday evening. On the drive back, we were talking about some of the crazy songs Curtis sings on his guitar and Sam sounds just like his dad when he sings the Boa Constrictor song. It was funny!!

Conference was the best and I haven’t had as much time to go back and listen to the talks again as I would like. I thought that the Plan of Salvation was definitely a theme, though. Also joy—I couldn’t believe how many people talked about joy! I really liked Elder Cornish’s talk “Am I Good Enough? Will I Make It?” also. I think that talk must have been comforting to a lot of people! Anyway, I am thankful we have the technology that we can read or listen to the talks again and again and study them.

Enjoying Conference:

(I realized after I took Sam home that he was here all weekend and I didn't take a single picture of him! I will have to do that next time.)

Monday was a Jewish holiday so Seth didn’t have school. He spent most of the day playing at a friend’s house. I ran a whole bunch of errands and did Cub scout stuff and was very busy all day. On Tuesday Frank had two doctor appointments that I took him to. One was with our primary care doctor which was a follow up on his back. (He probably just needs physical therapy for that, but has to wait until after knee surgery to start.) We also talked to him about Frank’s right knee and he decided to get an MRI on that knee too—that will happen on Tuesday. He also decided to change Frank’s pain and anti-inflammatory medications to see if they would help him better than the ones he’s been taking. The pain medication was making him dizzy and nauseous too. So far, the new meds haven’t helped much either but at least he’s not nauseous like he was. He had a very bad week as far as sleep goes, until last night. He slept almost the whole night last night and he is definitely happier today than I’ve seen him in quite a while, even though he’s still in pain. A good night’s sleep really makes a difference! Anyway, his second appointment on Tuesday was just a pre-op visit with the orthopedic doctor. Tuesday evening I had den meeting (I did finally find someone to help me) so that was a busy day. It sounds like they aren’t going to be able to call a new den leader anytime soon, so I am just muddling along as best I can.

On Wednesday I went to the temple and it felt SO good to be there again. I just love the temple. When I walk in, the peace just envelopes me, and besides everybody there smiles at me and says “welcome!” The traffic was terrible getting there so as usual I missed the 10:00 session by not very much but there was a big crowd waiting to do initiatories so I just waited for the 11:00 session and it was wonderful. The sister I was proxy for was born in the 1700s in some Asian country (the birthplace was written in some sort of Chinese characters so I couldn’t read it) and her name was something like “Im-Gyeoung-Bok-Ui Bu-In”. That was a fun one, but the temple worker told me not to worry, just do my best with pronounciation because this sister had a translator up in heaven. I loved that!

 The temple took most of the school day, so after I got back I picked up Seth and he came with me to Wal-Mart to get the shopping done. He kept begging me to buy him Lego sets, but I was a mean mom and didn’t get him one. He has a few things to add to his Christmas list now.

On Thursday I took Frank back to the doctor because his legs and arms were tingling / numb like they feel when they’re “asleep” and that was a bit worrisome. After examining him, the doctor said that he probably has some nerve damage but nothing serious and although annoying, it will get better in time. He did do some blood work just to make sure nothing else was going on and that came back normal, and he also told us what symptoms we do need to worry about, so we know what to watch for. So overall, that was a relief. On that day I also got my hair done and took Frank to a client’s and ran a bunch more errands and in the evening I had book chat, so it was a really busy day. I totally gave up on reading the book (Plato’s Republic) because I didn’t have much time and every time I tried to read it I fell asleep. It’s philosophy and it kind of drove me crazy because it just went around in circles. But I did enjoy the discussion we had and apparently if you wade through to the end there’s some really good stuff in there. So maybe someday I will make the attempt to finish it. In the meantime, I had reserved the book for this month and got it and started reading it (A Man Called Ove). It is much easier to read and I am enjoying it a lot. At book chat we decided to put it off another month because the book is in demand and it’s hard to get a copy from the library so we are reading a book called Set a Watchman first, which is a sequel to the book To Kill a Mockingbird.

This morning Frank and I went to meet with a lawyer and we decided to hire him to help us with Frank’s accident stuff. We really weren’t too happy with the lawyer we got last time so we got a referral for this guy from a guy in our stake who is a lawyer (he would have done it himself, but he and his wife are going on a mission soon). After talking with this lawyer and discussing what we didn’t like the last time, we felt a lot better about this guy. It will help a lot to have someone else dealing with a lot of the paperwork and phone calls and such. That has been quite a weight on Frank and I both. That  meeting took most of the morning and after lunch I got the budget mostly caught up before I had to go pick up Seth from school. Seth had asked me to go through the car line to pick him up, but when I turned onto the street by the school I discovered that just past the entrance to the school parking lot the road was blocked off by several police cars with their lights flashing, so I went into the parking lot and walked in to get him instead. I was a bit concerned about what might be happening down the street, not because I thought it was dangerous for the school (I was sure they would have been on lockdown or something if there was any criminal activity nearby, instead of having a normal dismissal) but because I knew a member of our ward's apartment is right there. And sadly, as it turns out, I had a reason to be worried because he passed away, and that is why the police cars were there. I don’t know any details yet, but it is so sad for his family. His married daughter was my secretary and then one of my counselors when I was RS president. Her kids go to the same school as Seth so that is how she found out her father died, when she saw the police cars. She is one of the best people I know.

Last week I was complaining that we hadn't heard anything about Dad's CPAP but later that day he got a call about that. He has an appointment on Monday to go get that set up. It is not a cheap device and we will have to pay for it since we have a deductible for equipment that is more than the CPAP costs, but I'm sure it will be worth it!!

So I admit that this week has been pretty draining. As I mentioned, Frank didn't sleep well most of the week and of course he's still in a lot of pain all the time. Seeing him suffer is pretty emotionally draining for me. I also feel a lot of pressure being the only able-bodied adult in the household. Frank really does a lot to help me and keep things running smoothly around here, and when he isn't able to do the things he normally does, I really notice. I am lucky that he is so helpful most of the time. Add to everything else that I am also his caregiver now. It has just been a lot! I had sort of a meltdown yesterday morning but I've felt better since then. I guess I just needed to get some of the pent up stress and emotion out of my system. On to happier things...

JARED’S MISSION CALL ARRIVED TODAY!!!!!  I'm sure you all know where he's going already, but just for the record, he will be serving in the Texas McAllen Mission, speaking Spanish. He reports to the Mexico MTC on February 7th. We are very excited for him, and this news has cheered us up a lot!! We used Google hangout to watch him open his call. Scott was stuck in traffic, so Jared put him on the phone while he opened his call. I took a few pictures, which I will add below. His mission borders Mexico, and one of his roommates commented "Hey! You'll get to be there when Trump builds the wall!!!" We all laughed about that.

It's here!:

 Waiting for a friend to arrive so he can open his call:

I think that is quite enough for one week, don't you?

Weekly Review September 30 '16

This morning I mentioned to Seth that it is the last day of September, and he was surprised. “Really?! September went by fast!!!” I feel the same way. It is cloudy and raining today. We got a lot of rain Wednesday night and yesterday too, but that’s good because things have been pretty dry here the last few months. I miss the sunshine, but we really need the rain.

Last Friday we had Pack Meeting—the Space Derby that we have been preparing for. It went pretty well; it was kind of chaotic because it took a lot longer to get the rockets ready—wound up and on the track—than we thought it would, so there was a lot of down time and the kids got bored and ran around the gym a lot. There were also a lot of malfunctions with the track, like rockets getting stuck at the beginning and stuff like that so they had to re-run almost every heat. But the kids really didn’t seem to care and no one seemed upset if their rocket didn’t go very far—they just had fun and each boy seemed to be really proud of his rocket, so I’d say overall the evening was a success. By the way, I think Seth’s rocket was the slowest! :) Frank didn’t make it through the whole evening because his knee and back were hurting too much, but he did come for the beginning of the event.

Saturday I mowed the lawn and cleaned the kitchen floor as usual. I don’t think I’ll be mowing tomorrow because it will still be raining. Anyway, in the afternoon Frank and I watched the BYU football game. Even though they lost again, we were encouraged that the offense is starting to look better. I actually had to leave before the game ended to go to the broadcast of the Women’s Meeting. I invited one of the sisters I visit teach, who is less active, to go and she accepted so I picked up her and her daughter and we all went together. There was food and visiting for an hour before the meeting started which we enjoyed and then the meeting was AWESOME as always.

On Sunday I taught RS and it went pretty well; my only complaint is that the time was too short! We watched President Uchtdorf’s talk from last conference called “In Praise of Those Who Save” and discussed it briefly. I’m glad I got to do the lesson because as always when you prepare a lesson, I learned a lot. I was really impressed that there was so much wisdom from a prophet of God in this talk. It was just full of gems. We are so fortunate to have prophets to lead us through the crazy world we live in today! I’m really looking forward to hearing what they have to say in the next few days. I’m sure it will be wonderful!

Frank’s right knee started hurting a lot on Saturday, and now it hurts just as much as his left knee. So on Monday he went back to the orthopedic doctor to have that knee looked at. He saw a different doctor this time, who insisted that he has gout in his right knee. Frank is still skeptical about that, but it is possible that gout can be triggered by trauma so maybe it is. They did blood tests to confirm and the results were not entirely conclusive, but he has an appointment on Tuesday to find out more about that so we’ll see what they say then. In the meantime, he’s been pretty miserable this week in spite of the various pain pills, anti-inflammatories, and muscle relaxants he’s been taking. Seriously, we have enough different medicines in the house to start a small pharmacy! It’s kind of frustrating that none of them are helping much. Because of the increased pain in his right knee and an extreme lack of sleep (Frank can’t sleep more than a few hours at night because of the pain), we decided over the weekend that he needed to take a leave of absence from work immediately, rather than waiting until after his surgery. He was really struggling to get any work done, even from home. So at least Frank hasn’t had to worry about that, and he’s been able to take medicine more consistently and sleep during the day whenever he needs to, which has helped. We’re still working out all the details, but he will get paid part of his salary while he is on leave (through short term disability) and he’ll be able to recover all his lost wages from the car insurance company so financially we’ll be okay even though it will be messy for a while.

Meanwhile, someone was supposed to be calling to schedule his surgery and when they didn’t, Frank called them and the lady told him they were scheduling out to the first part of November so couldn’t get him in for surgery until then. What?!!! Frank explained that there was no way he could wait that long and the doctor had told him it would only be a few weeks. So she said she’d talk to the doctor and get back to him. They finally worked that out yesterday, and he is scheduled for surgery on October 13^th which is still two weeks away, but much better than over a month away. I can’t imagine him having to go another month in the pain that he’s been in, although of course he will be in pain after the surgery too—but at least he will be in the recovery stage instead of just waiting for the surgery that will get him on the road to recovery.

Last Friday Frank went to the dentist because his teeth have been bothering him—ultra sensitive to heat and cold and hurting a little—ever since the accident. The dentist checked his teeth and said there weren’t any cracks or anything like that, but then he checked his jaw and it was very painful in one spot. He said his jaw was dislocated, and he needed to go to an oral surgeon to have that evaluated. So I took him to the oral surgeon on Wednesday. The surgeon said it’s not really dislocated, but he has TMJ and the joint is inflamed. The normal way to treat it is to wait a month or so and take anti-inflammatory drugs to see if it will heal on its own. If that doesn’t work, then the next step is usually to make some sort of a mouth guard, but he’s not sure that will even be possible in Frank’s case because he has a pretty severe under bight (he’s had that his whole life). So if they can’t do that, then they can try cortisone shots which are really painful, but they actually knock you out to do them so you don’t feel it. So anyway, we are in the waiting game on that one. The pain in his teeth & jaw are not severe, fortunately. He is supposed to eat soft foods so he is doing that.

Frank mentioned to the oral surgeon that he had his bite analyzed by a dentist about 20 years ago (when we lived in New York) and that they told him in order to fix it he would need surgery which would involve breaking his jaw in at least 3 places. At the time, we decided not to do anything about it because the surgery obviously sounds major and the problem with his bite was not causing him problems (he can eat, he can talk…). The oral surgeon said he could understand why he wouldn’t want to have that done, but he told him he might want to re-consider having that done someday. (And he came right out and said “I do that kind of surgery, but I promise I’m not trying to drum up business for myself!”) The reason why is that he said Frank’s bite is very unstable and as he gets older, he will likely have more problems with TMJ. He also said that his bite is actually contributing a lot to his sleep apnea problem, because when you have an under bite, it obstructs your airway. I had no idea there was any connection there. He said if he had the under bite corrected, it probably wouldn’t eliminate his sleep apnea but it would probably be much less severe. So maybe we will look into that someday, but obviously right now would not be a good time to do something like that. (By the way, we’re still waiting for them to do anything about treating Frank’s sleep apnea, which I find frustrating.)

Well, this post is turning into a medical journal! On to other things. On Monday I ran a bunch of errands and in the afternoon I babysat for a little while. A young mom is here staying in our ward with her husband's family while he is doing some military training and she just had a baby last week. So I was asked to go watch her little boy (he’s about 15 months old) for a few hours so she could get some rest. He is a really cute and smart little boy, so that was kind of fun. We had the Elders over for dinner that evening. On Tuesday my visiting teachers came to see me. I haven’t been visited (although they have contacted me in other ways) for several months, so that was fun to get a visit. We had den meeting that evening and got a lot done. The Wolf leader moved and they still haven’t called a new leader so one of the parents came to help me, which I was grateful for. She can’t come next time, though, so I need to try to find someone else to help. (It’s not just that it’s hard to handle 6 boys by myself, the BSA requires “2 deep” leadership.)  On Wednesday afternoon I worked at the school library again and once again it was very slow but there were even more books that needed to be shelved, so I spent nearly an hour doing that. That evening they had a little baby shower for the young mother I mentioned earlier, so I went to that. They had yummy food and we visited and it was a lot of fun—I really needed to have some girl time at that point!!

Yesterday I took Seth to the orthodontist for an evaluation. His teeth are not very crooked (yet!) but the x-rays showed that some teeth are going to have trouble coming in. The orthodontist thinks his upper jaw might be a little on the small side. He asked me “is there any history in your family of under bight?” Hmm…funny thing--we were just at the oral surgeon the day before learning all about Frank’s under bight! Anyway, Seth might need to have a couple of baby teeth pulled to facilitate some of the permanent teeth coming in correctly and he may need to wear an expander to spread out his upper jaw. But it’s hard to tell for sure what would be the best thing to do, so the orthodontist decided to give it 3 months and then do a full battery of x-rays and such to get a better idea of what treatment he might need, and when. Oh, and Seth’s teeth are pretty worn (no surprise to me—I hear him grinding his teeth at night all the time) so he may need to wear a mouth guard at night but the orthodontist says he usually doesn’t do that for kids this young. I really like this orthodontist (always have) because every time I talk to him it is obvious that he is doing this because he wants to do it and he’s not out to get as much money out of it as he possibly can. Incidentally, when I mentioned to the orthodontist that Frank has severe sleep apnea but hasn’t been treated yet, he said “that will be life changing for him, to get that treated.”  I think so too, which is why I wish they would get a move on with the treatment. I mean, imagine not getting a decent night’s sleep for years on end. I know he’s going to feel a lot better when he can sleep again. Anyway, I made an appointment for Seth for the end of December. Jared needs to go in too because his retainer has a crack in it, so I was able to get them both in at the same time. (Yes, the crack appeared right after he got to Idaho!)

Last night we had the Sister missionaries over for dinner. We also Skyped with Jared and it was nice to see him and get caught up on what he is doing. He seems to be doing well. He will probably be in Utah this weekend again for General Conference. Then he's going to stay put for a while!

I really wanted to go to the temple this week (the DC temple finally opened back up, after being closed for about 6 weeks) but between taking Frank and Seth to appointments and trying to keep everything else running smoothly, I didn’t have much time. I was going to try to squeeze in a trip yesterday but then I slept terrible on Wednesday night so I knew a drive down there and back was not a good idea. I will go this coming week, for sure!!   

It is nice to have Frank around all the time, but seeing him in pain all the time is the worst. It’s been pretty stressful for me, and obviously no fun for him either. He is trying to rest as much as possible, though, and the last couple of nights he has been sleeping much better. Because his right knee hurts now too, it’s very hard for him to drive so I’ve been taking him to his appointments and plan to keep doing that until he’s better. Although it hurts him to move, he is also going a bit stir crazy just lying around all the time, so when I go places he sometimes decides to go with me. When I go to the store he comes along—he gets on one of those carts so he doesn’t have to walk and follows me around the store. I do enjoy having his company and it’s good for him to get out of the house a little. Don’t worry about him or me too much, though. We will be fine!! Just keep us in your prayers, please--especially Frank.

In little snatches I have been trying to get some reading done. I finished the last Newbery book I was reading (The Hero and the Crown--which I liked in some ways but mostly I'm disgusted with it) but I haven't started a new one because I'm trying to get Plato's Republic done for book chat. It's somewhat interesting, but it's not my favorite. I'm not making a lot of progress.

Sam (Curtis & Julia's son) is coming to stay with us this weekend. He is stationed at Fort Meade now, which isn't too far from us. A couple of guys in our ward work near there, so one of them is picking him up on his way home from work today. I think he is going to stay until Sunday afternoon. It will be nice to have him here for General Conference. We hope we will get to see him often while he is here.

That's all the news from these parts.

PS to Weekly Review September 23 '16

Oh, I forgot one more thing that happened this week. Not to be outdone by Frank, on Wednesday when I was carrying groceries into the house my sandal got caught on the threshold somehow and, juggling bags, I lost my balance and went down with a spectacular crash of cans on the tile floor. I landed on my left arm and knee, and I banged my knee really hard on the floor. However, my left knee inexplicably does not hurt at all. My left arm (especially the wrist) has some tender spots and sometimes it aches slightly and sometimes it twinges. But really, it’s not bad either. Good thing I wasn’t going 35 mph when I hit the floor. That really helps. I’m very grateful that I didn’t break anything. With Frank already limping around, that would not have been a good thing if I broke my arm! Good thing I’m a tough old bird.

Weekly Review September 23 '16

This week has been a bit trying, but I’ve had worse ones for sure. Mainly it was trying because Snickers has had some kind of intestinal illness. He threw up a couple of times and he had diarrhea too so he had to be taken out a lot—including 3 or 4 times during the night most nights. And even then there were a few messes to clean up on the floor a few times. So yeah, lots of fun. It started late Sunday and by Tuesday I decided I should probably take him to the vet the next day but then he slept through the night Tuesday night and seemed to be feeling better on Wednesday. Until evening, that is, and then he had another bad night so I did take him in yesterday. We are still waiting on a test to see if he’s picked up a parasite or something. In the meantime, the vet said we could treat his symptoms so he’s on an antibiotic and a special food and I am seeing improvement already. He didn’t have to go out at all last night and so far only once today which is normal. So that is the good news for today! He never seemed to be incredibly distressed…he still ate mostly normally (although Monday morning he didn’t eat his food for a couple of hours after I put it in his bowl) and he was fairly perky and still chased after squirrels and such, so we weren’t too worried. It’s just been draining and a bit time consuming too.

The other big event of the week is that Frank got an MRI on his knee and the results came back today showing that he has a torn ACL and a torn meniscus (yeah, I have no idea what those two things are). The good news is, it’s treatable. The bad news is, he has to have surgery. He will probably have surgery the week after next and the doctor says that he will need to be on crutches for at least a month afterwards. He will need physical therapy afterwards too. So the next 6 weeks are going to be fun, but at least this is progress in the right direction. I’m also thankful that the auto insurance company has to pay all the medical bills and not us. (Although I'm sure there will be some hassle involved for us. I've already had to make several phone calls about bills we've received that we shouldn't have to pay.) Not sure what he will do about work—he can work from home sometimes I think, but he will probably have to go out on short term disability for a while. We still have to figure all of that out. By the way, his spine x-rays came back normal so at least there’s no damage there. It will just take time for his back and neck to stop hurting.

Let’s see, now that I have told you all the “exciting” things, on to the more mundane. Last Saturday I got up pretty early and got the lawn mowed (that’s my job now, but the new lawn mower is pretty nice so it’s not bad) and took Snickers on a walk and cleaned the kitchen floor. Seth went to a friend’s house to play that afternoon. Meanwhile, Frank had a 4 hour meeting at the Stake Center with…Elder Oaks!!! I guess that isn’t very mundane. It was a meeting for stake presidencies, bishoprics, EQ presidents, and ward mission leaders only for the 7 stakes in this area. (There was a fireside with Elder Oaks the night before for all the youth and their parents in the same stakes, but since Jared was our ticket into that meeting and he’s in Idaho now, we couldn’t go to that.) Anyway, Frank actually made it through the whole meeting, which is a miracle considering how he’s been feeling, and he seems to have enjoyed it a lot. They got to ask a lot of questions. So that was pretty cool.

On Sunday Frank went to Ward Council but he was pretty worn out from the day before and hurting a lot so after taking the sacrament, he went home and took a nap. We were supposed to have the sister missionaries over for dinner but one of them had pink eye and didn’t want to infect us so I took some dinner over to them instead.

The rest of the week was pretty routine except for the things I just mentioned. I did all the regular chores and took Snickers outside a lot!! I went to lunch with a friend on Monday and on Wednesday I worked at the school library for a couple of hours. As usual, it wasn’t very busy so other than shelving a lot of books, I spent most of the time reading. I did some cub scout planning and did a few things to help prepare for Pack Meeting, which is tonight. I got asked to substitute teach the RS lesson on Sunday, so I’ve been working on that too. It's on President Uchtdorf's talk "In Praise of Those Who Save." Yesterday Seth got out of school two hours early and today he doesn’t have school. It’s “Fair Day”. (The Frederick County Fair is going on this week.) I asked Seth if he wanted me to take him to the fair, but he said no. There’s no way Frank’s up to walking all over the fair, so I guess we’re skipping the fair this year. Which we usually do anyway, come to think of it. No funnel cake again. Sigh!!

Other than that, I’ve been doing some reading. I just started reading a book to Seth called The Whipping Boy, which is a Newbery Award winner. It’s very short, so we will probably finish it in a day or two. I got several other Newbery Award winning books for my birthday, so I have started reading those and read two this week (The Summer of the Swans and Sounder) and started on another one (The Hero and the Crown). I also started the next book for book chat which is Plato’s Republic. I reserved it at the library a few weeks ago but it still hasn’t come in. Yesterday I thought to check to see if I could get an electronic version on my tablet, and it only cost 99 cents, so I went ahead and bought it. Big time spender, I know.

Jared’s mission papers went in yesterday, so maybe in 3 or 4 weeks we will know where he is going, and when!! He did finally get into the theater class he wanted to get into, and he has enough credit hours for his scholarship, so that is a relief. He seems to be enjoying college so far, from what I’ve heard. His companion from the HCP work crew is giving his mission farewell talk somewhere in Utah this Sunday, so he found a ride down there so he could go to that. This means that some of you may be seeing him soon. He's planning to stay with Scott, though, so I'm not sure if he will make it down to Utah Valley or not. There is a possibility that he will be there for General Conference weekend too. I would like for him to be able to attend a conference session at the Conference Center--he's never done that before. For that matter, neither have I, but I have been to a few sessions in the Tabernacle, back in the day. I think the last time I went was when I was about 14. 

That’s all the news I have for this week. I know I whined a lot about the weather this summer so I should mention that the weather has become mild and quite pleasant most days lately. I was profoundly grateful this week, when I was taking Snickers out over and over again, including in the middle of the night, that he chose to get sick in nice pleasant autumn instead of in the heat of the summer or the dead of winter! I love autumn!!