A bit of a scare...

Tuesday night, I was sure I was the worst mother that ever walked through a bone graft surgery with their child!!!

Rose told me she had pain in her front gum, and when I looked, I about had a stroke!!! I saw LOTS of white, and after last week's Dr's visit, when he said most of the sutures were dissolving and would be gone soon, I never expected to see any at almost 3 weeks post-op!

I was sure the tissues were separating over the bone, and she was running her tongue over it alot, because it hurt, but, still not something you want to do.

After a very sleepless night for me, I called the clinic right away the next morning. The surgeon got us in that afternoon at 1:30, and....

He was thrilled to report that the tissue was looking FINE, it was simply some badly deteriorating sutures that should be gone, or almost gone by now, that were mushy, and getting infected. There was even a little pocket of pus above the sutures that he opened up. He then proceeded to remove all the remaining mushy stiches, and Rose feels like a new girl now:)

And I am one happy MAMA---She is on antibiotics, and we will go back to softer foods for another week, which she is NOT happy about, she is dying for a tortilla chip!!!

We are all smiles, as we see God's protective hand in this, as I really was sure she was going to need new stiches, or something, to pull the tissues together again over that bone-ya know, sometimes, our minds are our WORST enemies!!!

Rose has been doing SO well, and with limited activity, still able to be a part of our farming operation, even if it only involves watching the little boys, but she is outside, walking around, picking rocks in our new garden, and today, she wants to help plant the potatoes.

Her hip has healed so nicely, she is walking completely normally now, and even picking up the pace from her original protective shuffle:)

She is all smiles, and I am feeling blessed.

Have a great day friends!

Blessings

Chris for all 9 of us

Coming up for some air...and some pics

We are one week post-op, and things couldn't be going better!

Praise the Lord, Rose has had,so far, a model recovery.

She is happy, loving all the attention, not complaining ONE BIT about the pain, or the food, or the 'no chores', and other than speaking very softly, has better articulation already:)

We had some yucky hours between Friday at 4pm and Saturday night, just the usual upset tummy from all the meds, anesthesia, and no food, but by Sunday morning, she was MUCH better, the swelling in her cheeks was going down, and she was definitely over the "hump" of bad days.

We travel today to the Dr, our 1 week post-op, and I can't wait to hear what he has to say.

I finally am taking a minute to post a few pictures of our surgery day, and day 1 recovery, and will be back soon with our Mother's Day.

There is so much to process after something like this, and life has been hectic without our big girl's help in the house and outside, but we are surviving, and if we make it through this long weekend, we are definitely on the downhill side of rough days:)

ok, on with the pics

thanks for all your prayers, kind emails, and even gifts, we are truly blessed, and I know Rose feels blessed!!!

she was ALL smiles, until the needles came, and then she maintained her smiles, just not quite so sunny and bright

EVERY nurse commented on her smile, even in the midst of post-OR recovery time

Starting to feel a little droopy, but still smiling!!!

Once I got the call she was out of surgery, I expected a call any minute saying she needed me to come to recovery, which they say happens sometimes, but not often...

BUT, I got the call saying she was headed up to her room, and I was thrilled it was going so well for Rosalyn.

Ice packs on her cheeks, ice on her hip, and lots of pain meds helped us navigate through those first 24 hours!

And a stuffed puppy, courtesy of her Aunt and Grandma that visited with us after surgery:)

I was super thankful we were on the pediatric ward of the new hospital-talk about roll out the red carpet for her...we had the BEST nursing care, and such love and attention they showered on Rose-I was sooo blessed.

And I was also super thankful for a DVD player, as it helped pass the time and kept her focused on something else besides uncomfortable pain and feeling cruddy!!!

There is a time and place for children's movies, in my opinion:)

On the morning following surgery, we had a visitor-a 4 legged one--there are 14 different dogs that visit the hospital throughout the week, and we were blessed to see 3 of them-Kado was a super friendly Alaskan husky cross, and her owner was a wonderful visitor, smiley, happy, sharing lots about her dogs, and helping us to pass the long wait to being discharged---another story:)

 After we got home Thursday afternoon, Rose rested, alot, but didn't spend much time outside her room the first 24 hours. The next day, she was blessed to see a huge box of gifts from our church

we call it a Sunshine Box, and was she ever happy to have a little something to open each day

and now, we are blessed with lots of artsy/crafty materials including colored pencils, markers, crayons, construction paper, drawing paper, playdoh, workbooks, puzzles, lots of hands on, thinking projects, etc...

She is in heaven, and it takes her longer to decide what to do than she has time to do her projects:)

 On Sunday, she really felt good, and was out of her room all day, interacting with all of us, and loving having 2 grandmas around for the day and 1 grandpa too!!!

Isaac has never shown much interest in stuffed animals, but ever since Rose got home with puppy, he has become enamored with HIS puppy, and it has added a word to his vocabulary---Puppy, and he says it SOOOO clearly...

Tyler has been so sweet to want to include Rose in most anything he is doing, and always makes time during the day to play with her-they all had colored pictures and a welcome home sign on her door-bad mama that I am, I neglected pics of that-

But...

More to come late!

We are blessed

Chris for all  9 of us:)

morning 1 so far, so good

We are off to a good start in the healing process with minimal bruising, swelling and pain this morning!!

After a relatively good night's sleep (in the pediatric ward, they only interrupt your night twice, midnight and 4) we both had our breakfast, called home, had a Dr visit, and are waiting for the head Dr to tell us we can go home.

She is showing a bit more interest in doing something besides a movie, so that is also a good sign.her meals come through a syringe, so they are pretty limited now, but with a blender at home, we can be more creative!!!!

When we get home, I will post some pics, as my iPad won't let me use any of its pictures...sigh...so much for modern technology:)

Blessings

Chris

Bone graft surgery is OVER.

And so far, all is well.

After getting to the hospital at 7am, we were all ready for the 9:00 surgery to begin, and had to wait, and wait, and wait.

Finally,around 10:30, Rose was taken in, and I was very impressed with how quiet and compliant she was throughout.

it is very nice to get updated phone calls every hour from the OR, it made the wait seem MUCH more bearable..that, and having 3 sweet friends come and sit with me until 3 when she went to her room.

Šo far, pain os not over the top, and she is happy to be snuggling the teddy her aunt and Grandma brought her.

The reality of no food has not set in yet, but I am confident God will go before us and keep her calm and content with her juice and broth.

If I can get a picture uploaded, I will, bit me and iPads, not so good:)

Blessings,

And thanks for praying

 Chris 

Spring has sprung:

BUT... we need to do a bit of a recap on the winter activities around here, as we did have ALOT of winter!
Way more winter than I needed this year. At one point, weathermen told us we had 55 days of below 0 temps, and that was followed by at least 10 more.
When the temps started staying above 0 around March 10-15, I was THRILLED!!!
It is pretty sad when 15 feels balmy.
Still, we had lots of fun sledding in our backyard. The little boys learned lots of new things on their sleds, and ENJOYED them to the max.

 Isaac was just a trooper this year on the sleds-he marched up our backyard hill 100's of times, would throw himself down on a sled, and squeal all the way to the bottom. He gained tons of muscle control this winter:)

 Lili learned to balance and stand up on the, while it was moving-thanks to Tyler and Rose holding her hands a few times to help her get the feel for it-I was quite proud of all of them

 Tyler would continually come up with new ways to keep them all entertained-the train was comical, and they LOVED it:)

 Isaiah tried standing on his sled too, I was impressed he even wanted to, his balance is so bad from his head injury, but he was actually staying up for a couple feet before sheer fear drove him to the ground-but he gets an A+ for effort

 The dogs all had fun on the nice days, but most of the time they were cowering on the back step begging to com in-it was such a brutally cold winter, they could only stay out most days for minutes at a time

And then, when Daddy started pulling them around the yard with the Gator, oh my, then the big ones got into the act too, and did you hear squeals and laughter from all of them then--even Dad!!

 Those foolish dogs would chase the gator round and round the yard, yipping and barking all the way...they think they should be riding:)

The battery died so I only got 1 shot of the gator sledding party they had each night after chores for a week or so-the big ones really had a blast then, and the littles loved riding in the gator!!

We had a new experience this past January.
Dad became a stay at home Daddy again-and we are so thankful for that.
Farming without Father was not a lot of fun for me, stressed me out, and put a lot of pressure on Nick to be "in charge" of lots of things, which he did very well, but still, its way better when Dad is home, and can make a lot of the calls about the days' activities:)
It was a long 11 months of farming with Chuck working off the farm. We probably didn't gain much from all his time away, as it led to issues with cow health, issues with children who needed the strong arm of their Daddy around, and attitudes that needed reining in due to mom and dad pulled in too many directions to deal with issues properly.

 Jersey twin heifers-born on a COLD day in late february-we are so happy they survived, and are thriving

 Our calf nursery was filled to overflowing for much of Jan, Feb and March-I am glad we can get calves back outside into hutches now-it is SOOOO much easier to feed them

Kendell's heifer is 1 yr old-almost, and has grown so much-she loves to be led around the yard, farm, and barn-she is such a barn baby, LOVES to be in the barn!!!

We are quite happy to all be home and working together. We are seeing some real growth in Kendell and Nick in their abilities outside-they both do so well with the outside responsibilities. Tyler has days where he acts like he is 15 too, and then, poof, he has a day of, "oops, he is only 9" but he really loves having his dad home all the time, he would spend his whole day with him if I didn't insist on SOME schooling.
When you begin life without a Daddy, it's just hard for me to limit their time together too much, and I consider all the things they do together LIFE LESSONS-things they would NEVER learn if they went to public school every day, all day long!!!

We also had 2 February birthdays:

Rosalyn turned 16 on the 5th, and Isaac turned 5 on the 9th.

 He's so little, we still consider him our baby, but he surely proves that dynamite comes in small packages!!!

He is so delighted with so many simple, little things-the slinky only lasted a couple days, but it sure was fun while it was around!!!

This year, they each had their special day, and then we had an anniversary the next week, so there was LOTS of cupcakes and cake around this house for about 10 days-LOTS!!!!!
Good for the sweet tooth, not so good for the waist:)

We did some testing with our Rose, and though we don't have the results in hand yet, the Dr spent ALOT of time with me telling me where we stand, and what we will be dealing with in the future.
I will save all that for another post, as it is ALOT to process, and I am still not OK with everything I heard-it is hard to hear some things, and we are still trying to figure out what life will look like for her down the road.
Rose will also be going thru a surgery in May, a bone graft to repair the clefts in her gums, and I am beginning to process everything that will entail for her and our family, for a couple months. I know it is a necessary repair for her, but boy, how I wish it had been done in Ch@na at the appropriate age, like 10 years ago!!! Actually, what I really wish, is that she would have had a family a lot earlier in her life-it would have meant so many less issues for her ---
Well, I will close for now, as it is supper time, and there are littles that need some tending to-
I am sure this is the most neglected blog around...but...its just LIFE for us these days-
Thanks for checking in, and enjoy your spring!!
Blessings
Chris for all 9 of us

Well, we thought it was spring-Satuday and Sunday we had 3 inches of rain, sometimes torrential, and then Monday morning, we woke up to a winter wonderland again-2 1/2 inches of snow accumulated, and I WAS NOT HAPPY!!!
Nor were the children-
we were all sure the snowpants were washed for the last time!!!
NOT!!
oh well, this is life in Wisconsin.