A Walk in the Park - Part Duh

So now that SpongeBob is on I got the kids some lunch at the little stand. We sit there for awhile so Addison can sleep a bit in her car seat. We had received clearance to go back and be with Steph a while earlier so after about 3 hours of sitting in front I thought we'd go back and see how she was doing. As the four of us followed the nurse back through the twists and turns of hospital hallways we finally made it back to the er. As we all said hi to Steph one of the doctors mentioned that this was not a good time for the kids to be around her. I quickly figured out why they said that. Steph's left hand was held up by her fingers in straps. They were about to reset Steph's bones. I herded the kids to the little waiting area there and turned on the ipod music to cover up what was about to happen. I found out later that Steph had no idea what was about to go on. The doctors kept her talking and all of a sudden yanked down on her elbow, she screamed and the bones were reset. Job well done. We got to leave about an hour later. The kids did well overall and were very helpful. We got Steph home an picked up her drugs. She was strung out for a couple of days and stayed in bed for the rest of the weekend. They didn't put her in a hard cast - just a splint/brace. The pain never really went away and was pretty bad Sunday so she made an appointment to go see the specialist on Monday. While talking with Dr. Beiber he told her that the bones had moved apart again and he woudl have to reset them. Remembering the pain from the last time she asked for options. He said that if they did the surgery she wouldn't have to worry about the bones coming apart again as they would put a plate in to keep them togather. Then she woudl be able to get therapy to move her wrist faster. She took that option and scheduled surgery for Wednesday. While this is all happening I was in a training class for the entire week so Aunt Alice took Steph to the appointments. I talked to Steph about taking the day off to take her to the hospital but she said that Alice could take her and all I would be doing would be just sitting in the waiting room all day. So I stayed in class. I'm not sure how much I paid attention that day. She didn't get home until after 8 pm that night partly due because she wouldn't wake up from anesthesia right away. After another few days on Percoset she decided she was going Huey Lewis and needed a new drug.
Oh, I almost forgot the week before Addison was home sick fo r a couple of days, the Saturday night Steph broker her arm Chloe got sick for a few days then the Sunday after Steph's surgery Dylan got sick for the entire week. So a little Brian pity party - over 2 weeks everyone got sick or hurt and I had to take care of them.
She's doing better now and the doctor has thrown down the challenge that she's not progressing fast enough so she'd kicked her therapy into high drive and has some mobility back.
Now she's able to pick up Addison a little and even took all three out for the day last weekend and didn't have a problem. So we're now back to the normal chaos of our household. Stay tuned for new developments.

Just a walk in the park, Kazansky

Sooo, it's been a while. I truly have been too busy to write. Between work and home I have barely had any downtime that I'm not sleeping. Work issues have been that I was given a project, the scope changed and then it was taken away. Why would it be taken away you might ask? Too many questions, that was truly the official answer. When the scope changed I asked silly questions like, "Do those changes require any approval?" and "We don't have the inventory for those changes, when will we have it?". I've always heard no question is a bad question. Apparently it is when you are dealing with underfunded projects. Oh well, on to the next project.

Home issues as most of you know are surrounding Steph's broken wrist. I know, I know the first question to pop into your head is "how could such a graceful cautious person like Steph break her arm?" Answer - Just walking in the park. Truthfully, it was a bit more than that. We were at Needewood park for the kids fun run one morning. We got there late because at first I was just going to take the kids while Steph stayed home to clean the house. Sidenote- I was supposed to be running the Baltimore Half Marathon that morning but signed up a few days late and didn't get in. Steph decided right before we were leaving that she would go too. I was pushing for this as I wanted us to go as a family. It would be fun, I thought. We got there and most everyone had already done the walk/run as it's only a barely a mile down and back. It was also raining a bit so we just kind of hung around, let the kids play with their friends and chatted with Scott Bailey who was there with his two. We were packing up to head home when we suddenly changed our minds and decided that we were at the park we would go for a walk. The rain had stopped and the sun came out a bit. Steph went ahead with Chloe to run a bit and I had Addison in the stroller with Dylan walking with me. About a half mile in Dylan saw some rocks and a tree that had fallen down across the little creek that runs through the park. He climbed on the rocks for a few minutes while I waited with the stroller. He was trying to find a way across but the leap to the tree from the rocks was a little to far for him without someone there to help, so we headed out to find the girls. We all met up about a half mile down and walked a bit more. The Dylan wanted to show Chloe the rock climbing place so we headed back. Steph was feeling good and started to walk across the creek. I know you are thinking "This is it, this is where Steph falls off a wet rock and breaks her arm" No, she actually did very well and even helped Dylan get across. The two of them explored the other side while I stayed with the girls exploring the close side. Chloe was trying to find aneasy way acrosss for her but we coudln't find one so we just played a bit on our side. Steph and Dylan were looking around, balancing on fallen trees and having a good time. By this time it was getting close to lunch so we decided to head home. Dylan came across OK and Steph got off the fallen tree and was on the wet rocks helping Dylan across them (No, not here either). I turned to put Addison in the stroller when I saw both of them were off the wet rocks and Dylan was on the dirt. Steph was only a step behind him. Then with only about a foot or two to the dirt it happened. Out of the corner of my eye I see Steph just go down. There was no off-balance wobble or anything she went straight down.

She popped back up pretty quickly and said she broke her arm. Honestly, my first thought was something like, "no it's not, suck it up, I'm gettting hungry". Then immediately after that I saw her arm. I could see the bone pushing her skin up on her wrist. After a quick assesment I gave her some instruction to hold her wrist up and close to her body. I got everyone moving back to the van. Dylan and Chloe started crying because Steph was crying. Dylan started blaming himself becasue he wanted to climb on the rocks. I was trying to calm everyone down on the half mile walk back to the van. We drove straight to the hospital where I dropped Steph off at the door, parked and walked with the kids to the waiting room. The good news is that by the time we got in there she was already admitted and was going through the preliminary assessments. The kids were very good and were very concerned about Mommy. I talked to Dylan about how it was not his fault at all and it seemed to stick with him. The Shady Grove hospital has a kids emergency waiting room with a tv and fish tank. There was a short time when we first went in that I was playing AV tech trying to get the tv to the correct station the kids wanted to watch and find the volume buttons. It took a while to find the right buttons when the buttons are on the top of the tv and the tv is about 8 feet off the floor. I found buttons and just started hitting them. 5 minutes later we had SpongeBob.

To be Continued