Lets start with our four legged family member, shall we?
This is Willis:
It was Friday, October 7th. I remember the date clearly as it was the first day of our kitchen renovation (which is another excuse I have for my lack of blogging). Bree was the flower girl in a wedding the next day so Jim stayed home to get Bree dressed while I ran out to get pizza for dinner. I walked out the back door, got into my car, closed the car door, started the car, put the car in reverse and... thumpity, thump... I ran over Willis. Now you would think that a mid-sized car versus a mid-sized cat the obvious winner would be the car. But we've got ourselves one tough cat. Of all the internal things that could have been hurt and needed repair, it was only his pelvis that was broken.
He spent the night at an animal hospital to watch for shock and then went to our regular vet the next day. The vet fully believes the break will heal just fine on its own AS LONG AS we keep him contained for the next. Six. Weeks. ( Now mind you this happened three weeks ago so we're halfway through it and until today things have been going very smoothly but thats a story for another day. How else do you keep a cat contained in a small area and keep him from jumping? Pack and plays are wonderful things. And its even more wonderful that we only paid $10 for this pack and play over 4 years ago. We've definately gotten our moneys worth.) Now mind you, his pelvis is broken. He can't stand. If he can't stand, he can't use the litter box. He has to just lay there and do his business. And we have to clean him up. Thank goodness cats are semi quick healers.
So the past three weeks my attention has been focused a lot on Willis. Giving medicines, changing out the bedding on a daily basis which then requires laundry on a daily basis, emptying two liter boxes, filling two cat food bowls, changing two cat bowls of water and attempting to get a very attention needy cat the personal time he deserves without letting him out of his cage. I'll be so happy when he's completely healed.
Then comes the second smallest family member and his sister:
Yeah they may look cute together but these guys are getting bigger which means the troubles they cause are getting bigger.
One Saturday afternoon Bree and Jacob were having one of their hugging wars as usual when things got a little crazy and they took a tumble. It was very clear to see that Jacob was in pain and wouldn't use his left arm. I even took them to a park to try to trick Jacob to see if he was just faking an injury. But after about 5 minutes of just standing there, left arm limp beside him, I broke down and took him to urgent care. The doctor there couldn't see a break in the xrays and thought maybe it was just a sprain or maybe some cartalidge damage that would heal on its own. "Just go home and wait it out."
Yeah, that didn't sit well with me either.
Two days later, still in pain, arm just uselessly dangling there, we took him in to see our doctor. More xrays were taken, no break was evident, its off to see the orthopedic doctor the next day. But to try to help with some of the pain by keeping his arm still, he was given a sling:
The next day we had an orthopedic appointment at 10am but I was rudely awakened by a hacking, barking, seal like sounding cough coming from Jacob. Knowing exactly what that cough meant and what it can lead to when not taken care of I called the doctors office back to schedule another appointment for Jacob for that afternoon. Then it was off to the ortho where, thankfully, he did not have to take anymore xrays but gave me some potentially devistating news. "Yes its possible that its a sprain. Only time will tell. Take him home, try to get him to use his arm but if things don't change in a week, bring him back. We'll take more xrays to see if anything has changed but the problem is that internal fractures don't show up on xrays. He'll possibly need surgery."
Are you kidding me??? Sprains? Xrays? Internal fracture? Surgery? All from a hug?!?! Ugh.
Later that afternoon we travled back to our doctors office where Jacob's cough was addressed and my self diagnoses was confirmed. He has 'croup'
You can kind of see the little mini cast on his left arm. They made a molding of his elbow and used an ace bandadge to hold it on. It was there to apply pressure and give a little protection. We could take it off whenever we wanted to and put it back on if he started acting in pain again.
Three days of steriods. Three days of keeping him home away from other little children. Three days of constant stress and panic of needing to quickly throw him in a hot steamy bath or blast him with cold air to stop coughing attacks. Three days of worrying about choking on food. Three days of little sleep for me as I would constantly check on him throughout the night. Longest three days of my life.
But we lived through it and came out even better than before. He started using his arm a few days after that and all was well in the world again for Jacob.
Then comes Bree.
Nothing huge to report like Jacob. Just enjoying preschool and developing a small case of bronchitis from all this weather going from hot to freezing and back within a week. We also got caught up on immunizations for school and visited the dentist for the first time. And that did not go well. Of course I forgot to take my camera but all I would have caught was a crying Bree. She did sit there long enough to open her mouth to let the dentist use his mirror to look at her teeth but that was it. We were outta there. But she repeatedly told me,
"When I'm this many (holding up four fingers), I'll let them brush my teeth."
We have an appointment for April. I'll let you know how that goes.
Next comes Jim. Not a whole lot to report other than working five days a week at ServPro and working four nights a week building a house with his family for his grandparents. Busy, busy selfless guy he is.
And finally there's me. Not a whole lot of time for me these days. I'm still working part time at the library. I say 'still' only because the library has a levy on the ballot this fall and voting is less than a week away. Should the levy fail, we're not really sure the future of the library, its hours, and staff. Its really sad at the thought of a library having to close its doors even more to the public when these days we are busier than we ever have been in the history of the library. Where else can you get DVDs, bluerays, books, ebooks, use of a laptop with wifi, faxing, photocopying, programming for all ages, holiday cookbooks, magazines, cds, one on one computer classes, internet computers, genealogy information, and so much more all FOR FREE?? Only the library. Really, you should go visit your local library to see all that they have to offer. You'll be blown away.
Okay, enough plugging for the library. I've also been quite busy with two other part time side jobs. Its nice that they are work at my leisure type jobs because I generally don't get things accomplished until the children are tucked in bed for the night which doesn't leave much time for blogging. Heck, I've taken to scheduling any of my own doctor and dentist appointments during my work time just to have little focus on me torturing time alone. And by "torturing time alone" I mean that I've learned that I have to have two root canals done.
Yay.
Can't wait.
So with everything above, a wedding, a mini vacation to Gettysburg (I still have seven more blogs about that to write yet), a mostly absentee husband, endless leaves to rake up, holidays, a special soon to be 4 year old birthday party to organize and shop for plus a special birthday getaway with just mommy and daddy (I don't want to spoil the surprise for you, you'll just have to wait and read about it later) and attempting to keep everyone in this household as healthy as can be, that just doesn't leave much time to sit down at the computer to upload pictures and blog about them. I'm going to do my best from here until the end of the year to keep you guys up to date with our little family happenings. But for now, I have to go wake two children, load them in the car, shove Willis in a box and get to the vets.
No comments:
Post a Comment