We Are Home!

Daisy and I are home and very thankful!

She had a good night and we both got some sleep (as much as you can with the nurse coming in every 1-2 hrs).  Daisy actually slept through all the checks from 7pm to midnight.

She had very little pain, only a 1-2 compared to 5-7 before the surgery.  She did not need anything beyond IV Ibuprofen for pain.  She was able to drink shortly after we got back to our room at 4:30 yesterday and she had juice and a popsicle then.  At midnight she ate green jello and at 4 am she had pudding.  I hope she doesn't stick to this feeding schedule.  Takes me right back to her nursing days!

This morning she wasn't very hungry, but she drank lots and had a vanilla milkshake, then some more juice and lots of water.  She's a very easy patient.  Most cooperative!

We had to wait until 12:30 for the surgeon to come sign her out.  She finished the movie she began yesterday and read on the Kindle and rested while we waited.  She ate a bowl of potato soup and a roll for lunch and then the nurse released her. 

She got to ride out to the parking ramp in a wheelchair and now she's all set up on the futon in the living room.  She feels much better already and is able to walk around some.  Right now she's got a teenage robin outside her window being cared for by its parents.  They are catching and feeding it little bugs while it hangs out at the base of a maple tree.  It's big enough to fly, but not quite big enough to be out on its own.

Pepper and Banana Boy made a big welcome home banner.  Daisy opened her bag of treats from Auntie G.

Banana Boy and Mr. GT and Chaya have gone for a hike and will pick up Rose Bud and Sunshine from the bus.  Then we'll all be together once again.  It feels good.

Thank you to everyone who called or prayed or helped out in anyway!  It meant so much to have all that loving support!

The appendix has left the building!

She's all good! She went in at two o'clock. Mr. GT came at 3:00. They called us down to recovery at 3:30 and we were back to our room by 4:30.

She had a cutely inflamed appendix. Isn't that sweet? Actually it was "acutely.". The surgeon said it looked nice and angry.

It's 5:30 now and she's drinking grape juice and water and she just finished an orange popsicle. Now she wants jello.

Mr. GT is still here entertaining her. She's already been up and walking to the bathroom.

What a trooper!

If you ask her how she feels, she'll tell you: "stopit!!!". She's only been asked that 500 times in the last 24 hours.

We have a picture of the offending part. Maybe I'll post it to the blog tomorrow.

Or not.

She's In!

They took her in at 2:00. She was all loopy from the Versed (calming drug) and she "couldn't get her 'thinks' out."

She was very calm and not frightened. All the staff are wonderful here. She was still laughing almost up until they took her in to surgery.

She looked so beautiful with her curls on the pillow and her sweet metallic smile. Love her.

Postponed to 1:30

"I want my surgery so I can get better and EAT! Probably half my pain is from hunger!"

PJ and Dave D were here to visit and pray with us.

Classification of an Apple Pie
Kingdom - food
Phylum - desserts
Class - pies
Order - pie dough crust
Family - baked filling
Genus - fruit
Species - apple

Obsessed with food, I tell you!!!

Report From the Spa

Daisy feels all lovely (her words: Weird)on her morphine.

She asked for hand lotion. It's very dry here. She said it feels like spreading shortening on her hands.

We brushed and braided her hair. She brushed her teeth (shhh! Don't tell! She didn't swallow anything.

She enjoyed my breakfast immensely. Smell only. She smelled bacon, an omelet and hash browns. "Ohhh! You got a COOKIE!!?" Yep, I smiled.

She said she can pretend she's doing the 30-hour famine again.

"The good thing about having appendicitis, Mom?" (there's a GOOD thing??). "You don't know if it's your stomach hurting or if you're hungry." She's a little obsessed with food right now.

She's very annoyed by her IV.

SUNSHINE, we watched Handy Manny!!! He got a new tool. It's a flashlight named Flicker.

We drew sunglasses on the pain guys on the white board.

The chaplain came and prayed with us.

Today's parting gifts include socks, a tube of Vaseline, a bottle of shortening, I mean hand lotionand a prayer card.

Surgery is currently scheduled for noon.

It's an Appendix!!

Daisy will shortly be joining that esteemed membership--those who are missing their useless bit of intestine.

Go, Daisy!!

(I'm a little punchy. It's nearly 1 am). We're waiting to hear if the pediatric surgical team will come here or if we must be teleported to their hospital. It will come out tonight, though. I mean this morning.

News Flash. We're doing it here. Will update later.

1:30 update. We're getting admitted and having it done midday Thursday. Met the surgeon. He's super nice.

6 am. We got up to the room and all settled in just before 3. It was some work to dispose of the residents who wanted to chat about siblings and grades in school and vaccines for college (we haven't slept in 24 hours, people!!!).

So now it's 6:00 andand we had about 3 hrs. Sleep. Daisy's pain is down since she's on morphine. She's such a trooper! She declined pain meds all night until we got up to the room and I encouraged her to take something so she (we!) could sleep.

Funny moments: (she's been cracking jokes all night)
Me giving a sip of her 40 oz. of barium/Crystal Light to Bearedith (her bear)
Daisy: Drink it all, Bearedith!!

Uh, there were more funny moments but I can't think of them.

Will keep updating.

Regionals

9th in the 400, but ran her best time:  1:05.30

4 x 400m was 8th with THEIR best time of 4:18.33

She didn't jump, but her best jump would have gotten her 10th.

Conference Track

Conference is done and the girls were 3rd.  Rose Bud ran in the 4 x 800 and their team was 3rd at 10:38.90.

Long Jump held preliminaries and she squeaked in to the finals with a jump of 13' 10".  Then in the finals, she only jumped 13' 10.5" to finish 9th out of 9.  Not her best night.  This was the field with the freaky board.

4 x 400m was 3rd with a time of 4:23.97. 

Overall, the girls' team was happy with their performances.  They've been hanging 3rd or 4th in the conference all season, so to finish this meet in 3rd place was quite nice.

Next up, Regionals.

Today's Lunch Coversation

Backstory:  A very sweet stray cat has made his home in our barn.  We think maybe someone dumped him here because he doesn't belong to any of the neighbors and he is very tame.  He doesn't even mind the dog (much).  Last weekend, he disappeared for a few days only to be found in the back of the garage with a half-dollar sized raw wound on his hip.  We took him to the vet and $88 later, he is now our cat.  He is currently confined in a pen in the barn while we give him antibiotics (which he SNARFS down in a spoonful of canned cat food) and watch him to make sure he doesn't have rabies.  And so that he doesn't ooze wound goo all over my house.  Once he is well, we'll have him neutered and bring him inside where he'll, hopefully, get along with Saffron.  His name is Alexander the Gray

And now back to today's lunch:

Banana Boy: Is Alexander going to get well?

Daisy: He's already getting well. His wound looks much better already.

BB: And then he's going to be our house cat! But first he has to get his tentacles out.

puzzled looks from the rest of us.

BB: You know, so he doesn't spray Saffron!

Daisy: His Tentacles. eyebrows go up

BB: EWWW! I'm eating! Don't talk about Tentacles!

Daisy: YOU brought it up!

BB: EWWWW! I'm glad I don't have Tentacles.

Me: Actually, you don't have Tentacles. Octopuses have tentacles. But you have Testicles!

BB: EWWWWWWWWWWWW! Stop! Stop!

Me: But you don't have to get yours out.

BB: EWWWWWWW! covering ears

Pepper: under her breath.   Heh. Then you'd be a eunuch.

Track Catch-up #487

Track Meet #7

We never got any written results for this meet, so I have to guess.  The 4 x 800 team won.  They were the only team. :D

 Rose Bud was 3rd or 4th in the Long Jump.  This field had an actual board for the board and it wiggled and freaked her out.  She didn't jump very well.

In the 400m she was 2nd.

The 4 x 400m relay won.  The girls' team lost this meet by one point.

Track Meet #8

This was a big 11-school meet with medals (very exciting!)  Rose Bud ran the 400m and was 6th (out of 16) with a 1:05.66 (best time, I think).  She was 4th in the Long Jump with a jump of  14' 6.25" and their 4 x 400m was 4th out of 9 with a best team time of 4:20.54.  So she got 3 medals.

Track Meet #9

A 2-school meet on a beautiful, warm and sunny afternoon.  Grandma and Grandpa traveled down to watch.  Rose Bud was 2nd in the Long Jump with a 14' 9.25", 3rd in the 400m with 1:05.65 (she was ahead until the last 50m!), and the 4 x 400m won in 4:21.96.

Track Meet #10

Another big meet with 10 or 11 schools.  The 4 x 800m did really well at 3rd with 10:35.00.    She didn't run the 400m.  The 4 x 400m didn't do very well.  Rose Bud tripped over another girl in the hand-off and it slowed her down.  They were 5th of 6 with a time of 4:26.13.    Her Long Jump was good and she was 3rd with a jump of 14' 4".

Next up: Conference.

The other kids do stuff too!

Kindergarten Spring Sing (it's actually their only sing)

Amazed by all his adoring fans! (he's in the blue-striped shirt)

There's a dog in school, OH NO! What are we going to do? He'll have to learn his alphabet, too!

Kindergarten Farm Field Trip

 Touching the disgusting poop-covered milking machine (get the hand gel!!!)  That's me in the baseball hat.

 Feeding hay to a cow (in case you couldn't tell)

AWANA Awards Night

 Banana Boy got the Sparky Award (finishing the 2nd book), a Book Review Emblem (reviewing all the verses in the book) and and Extra Credit Pin (doing another book full of verses)

Pepper got the Excellence Award (finishing the 4th grade book) and Silver and Gold Awards (completing an extra 32 activities, projects and memorizations) 

We call this the crying award.  Many tears were shed over having to do ALL THOSE projects.  Now that she has the pins, she's glad she did it.  It was the same story last year.

Good job, everybody!

Oh, and if you were wondering about Daisy, she just lays around all day composing music on the piano and then writing lyrics for it, working on her novel, and teaching herself Hindi.  I wish she'd accomplish something, too!

A Story About Gardening

A Story About Gardening by (Banana Boy)
5/9/11

    Gardening is working in a garden with vegetables, flowers and other plants.  I garden with my dad.  We plant vegetables, flowers and trees.  Gardening is fun.
    You use special tools for gardening.  You use shovels for digging.  Hoes are use to dig ditches.  My dad uses a rototiller to plow the gardens.
    You should always plant your seeds in moist soil.  You should water them the first day you plant them.  Soon they will grow and you will have lots of vegetables, trees and fruits.