It has been quite a while since I've done a posting. There are quite a few reasons for this. Let's go back to the beginning of May. Apologies in advance, this is gonna be long! ;)
After we celebrated Easter, Henry got a NASTY cold. He had a stuffy, runny nose and a hacking cough. This was one of the worst cold he has ever had. We did everything to help little Bugs feel better. We finally found that a combination of a warm shoer in the evening in conjunction with a warm air humidifier, a fan to help him from getting too hot and a pillow under his mattress to elevate him enough to help him breathe, helped him sleep easier at night. This cold lasted for about three weeks, went away and then suddenly came back and is still lingering to this day. So that's how May began.
Henry before...
I want to say that the cold had something to do with the next few events for Henry as perhaps his equilibrium was compromised and that is what caused his next few injuries. One day, Henry was just crawling along and splat! He biffed it hard right on his little face. He split his lip and I saw more blood that I have ever seen. I was afraid he would need stitches but he ended up being ok. So now Henry has a cold and a fat lip, awesome.
Poor baby!
To help the swelling go down, I tried to put ice on it. He was not having it. So I thought... maybe now is the right time for Henry's first popsicle! Yum :)
He made such a mess that I decided that he would have his popsicle naked and in the shower. Thus began what we now call "happy naked popsicle shower time!"
The VERY next day, we were playing on the bed like we do every night. Henry was crawling along the bed and slipped and BAM! He hit his little face on the edge of the bed that has some ironwork on it. He got a black eye!
Blurry, but see the purple under his eye?
Ugh, people are gonna think I'm abusing my kid! So now Henry had a cold, a fat lip and black eye! I thought that that was the worst of it. If I had known then what was coming, I would have been ecstatic with these things. Sigh...
May 4th, I just put Henry down for the night and casually picked up my phone to see if James had texted me while he was at work. He had. I looked at the four word text and felt my blood run cold. His text read... Broke arm. At hospital. WHAT??? I had hoped this was one of his not so funny jokes. It was not. I got another text in the next minute that told me what hospital he was at. I hurriedly called Emily who was in class at the time. She left class to come stay with Henry so I could go be with James in the hospital. Long story short, he had wrapped his arm around a piece of equipment at work and snapped both the bones in his arm. We were at the ER at UPH for about seven hours as they x-rayed, diagnosed and reduced his fracture. Luckily, my sister Erin came to hang out with me as I was a complete basket case. She came through with food and a fun attitude about the whole thing so I felt a tad better. After the reducing procedure, which if you are like me and have no idea what that is, it is where they try to line the bone back up since it had been severely displaced, we were sent home with instructions to make an appointment with an orthopedic surgeon. Yikes, James would need further surgery to repair the breaks. We picked up his pain meds, I ran to school (at 3:00 in the morning), to drop off sub plans which I had written in the ER (thank goodness for WIFI!) and try to get some sleep. I took the next few days off to help James.
Henry and daddy hanging out.
And again, I thought this was the worst of it. Sigh...
May 9th, I had planned for a while to take this as my birthday day and go get my hair done, get a pedicure and go shoe shopping. That was before James broke his arm. Now we had things to do for him. We started by going to the orthopedic surgeon who confirmed that James would in fact need surgery to place metal plates in his arm to completely repair the breaks. A cast just wouldn't do it. Damn. So they scheduled the surgery for the next day Tuesday at UMC. After the Dr visit, we needed to take some paperwork to his work so they could begin the workman's comp claims started and let them know he would not be able to work for two months due to the injury. We left Henry at home with my sister and headed off to James's work. As we were driving down Valencia just past the Goodwill, I noticed a white car drifting into our lane. I had no idea that it was going so fast or that the driver would not correct fast enough. From what we hear from the cops, she was texting and driving. I tried my best to swerve out of the way and I remember turning to the right to try to avoid the car. That is the last thing I remember. Obviously, the car hit us, head-on going about 50 miles per hour. I remember waking up, seeing blood covering my pants and having tremendous pains in my left leg. James says the first thing I said when I finally came to was, where is my baby? I was so worried about Henry and he was thankfully at home, safe. I thank God for this everyday. The rest of the story is slightly blurry as I drifted in and out of consciousness so my mom and James filled in some of the blanks. According to them this is how it went. Tucson firefighters came and used the jaws of life to remove me from the car as my left leg was pinned. I was then airlifted to UMC. In the ER, I was put in traction. If you are again, like me and have no idea what that means, allow me to explain. My left femur was fractured. So badly that it was displaced. In order to line the bone back up, they used a drill to put a pin THROUGH my leg and hang weights from that pin to pull the bone back into place. Sound fun? Yeah, I screamed bloody murder through the entire ordeal. I don't know why they chose not to sedate me for this. I even argued with the doctor when he was trying to explain it to me beforehand. It did not sound pleasant and I tried to talk them out of it! But it was necessary and very painful. The next day, I was scheduled for surgery. Again, like James, the break was so bad that I needed surgery to repair the fracture. Does anyone else see the irony here??? Yeah, not cool. Anyway, the next morning, both James and I had surgery to repair broken bones. My surgery involved placing a titanium rod in through my hip and down through the middle of my femur bone and getting screwed in place at my hip and my knee. James's involved opening his arm on both sides and placing metal plates on both his radius and his ulna and getting screwed in place above and below the fracture sites. Not pretty for either of us. James's surgery was supposed to be an outpatient procedure, but due to his involvement in the car accident, the doctors wanted to keep him for observation. So James was in the hospital for four days following his surgery. I was in the hospital for six days following mine. The day after my surgery, the doctors made me get up and walk. Did you catch that??? The DAY after having a titanium rod placed in my broken femur, the sadistic doctors made me get up out of bed and walk. Now, if you know me, you know I've had a lot of surgeries in my life. Nothing and I mean NOTHING compares to the pain that I endured when I tried to get up out of that bed for the first time. But I did it. Now it is almost three weeks later. James and I are slowly getting better. James has about half his range of motion back in his arm and I am able to walk with the assistance of a walker. I am having outpatient physical therapy three days a week to help me regain my strength. I know things could have been a lot worse and I thank God everyday for helping us basically "walk away" from that car accident. But damn, I am sad. It kills me that I cannot carry my baby, crawl with him on the floor, plan a birthday party for him, make sandcastles on the beach, etc, etc, etc... I am thankful to still be here with him and I am thankful I am able to hold him and care for him with help. My sisters and my mom have been AMAZING! My mom took a leave of absence from her job and has not left my side since the accident. I needed daily shots in my stomach to prevent blood clots and my mom bravely took this on so I wold not have to do it myself. She gave me a shot in the stomach every day for two weeks! She saved me! I seriously don't know that I would have done without her. She is truly awesome! Emily also took a leave of absence from her job and has been caring for Henry when James and I cannot. She rocks!!!! Not sure what we would have done without here either. Erin took days off of work to come be with me in the hospital, take care of Henry so Emily could finish her classes, picked up meds, went shopping, took Henry and Daisy for walks, etc... Erin rocks too!!! Words cannot express my thankfulness for these three people. You are my blessings!
We took some pictures. They are not pretty so feel free to skip to the end ;)
James after his surgery.
Five stitches on my right knee and my lovely stocking to prevent blood clots.
My busted up left knee. Mostly superficial cuts and scrapes. On the bottom where you see that strip of white tape is where they cut my knee open to screw the rod into place.
A closer look at the knee and bruising.
Some funky bruising on my thigh.
Under this gauze is where they drilled the rod into my hip. They just barely missed my tattoo!
See? Yuck!
This is where the rod went in.
My left arm with a gash requiring five stitches.
Tomorrow is Henry's first birthday. I would have loved to have a great big party but with all the stuff that happened this month, a small gathering at Peter Piper Pizza is all I can muster. Henry will be happy with it, I know. And next year, all will be better and I can make up for it then. Soon the month of May will be over, thankfully. Oh I forgot to mention, in between James breaking his arm and me breaking my femur, I turned 30... yay. Emily and Henry baked me a cake. Notice the frosting missing? Henry needed to try the frosting ;)
And these pics are too cute not to share. Henry LOVES toilet paper!
Goodbye May!!! I hope next year you are MUCH better to me!
