As Much as We Can Hand-le

What’s been going on? About as much as we can, ahem, handle. Since we last left our heroes…

• Exams happened. Post-exam bonfires happened. Graduation happened. We are trying not to think about the friends we’ve made who are seniors moving away…
• Aaron has completed one year of seminary. One third done already. That had to be one of the fastest 9-month periods of our lives, especially the blur that was April. Did we even have an April? (Hard to be sure–the weather was playing February far too long.)
• We got to have Chatterbox with us through exam week because her college got out earlier and she didn’t leave for Oregon until this past week. It was actually great timing because we could make her do dishes and watch Anna and generally be our indentured paid-in-cell-service nanny enough to keep the house functioning through the busy exam week.
• We enjoyed some of the Tulip Time festivities, such as eating elephant ears, shivering through a parade, watching the Dutch Klompen Dancers klomp, and pitying that poor basset hound wearing Dutch garb.
• My cousin Laura came through town in time for the parade, and the next day for Mother’s Day we gathered at my parents’ with my Grandma and Papa B., Grandma H., and Aunt Barb as well. I got zero rest that day but did score the iTouch I’d been coveting! The commuter’s sanity saver.
• I was then brutally attacked by allergies and spent last week in a snot and Sudafed based fog. I also generally felt like my house and life were an out of control mess, which is not unusual but can get me feeling out of sorts when combined with not feeling great and not getting a chance to catch up, let alone look ahead. Even this weekend, although we had no big plans (except Aaron had a Classis retreat Saturday–part of the denominational ordination process is that and an exam he has Tuesday), I felt like I never unwound yet also never got anything caught up. Today I never really stopped either, but at least we have groceries and the dishes got done.
• Last week, his first Monday of summer vacation, Aaron went to the hand doctor to score some more Vicodin see how his thumb is healing. The bone, okay. The ligaments, etc.,…not so good. So he had a CT scan Tuesday, another consult Wednesday, a visit to his regular doctor Friday. I should have gone so I could understand this better, but the ligaments are messed up and pulling his finger wrong and bottom line, there will be surgery involving pins and I presume some kind of Ligament Gorilla Glue. The surgery is Thursday morning.
• Almost worse than the surgery is that for a week before and after, he has to be on even more hard core blood thinners than he’s usually on, so he has to give himself shots twice a day. What a cruel thing to tell a person to do. I feel bad that I can’t help, but it’s common knowledge that I faint at the sight, nay, even the thought of . . . hey, I just had the weirdest dream . . . Oh, right, as I was saying: at the thought of shots. So I’m useless as he’s being tortured.
• But hey, at least we have group insurance now! (Seriously, I would be SO freaked out by now if we didn’t. And so bankrupt and living off the dole. On the dole? Is it on the wagon or off the wagon?)

That’s that. Please pray for Aaron with the shots and for the surgery to be even more successful than anticipated–it is the kind of thing where the doctor says it’ll probably need to repaired again someday (because of Marfan? I’m not positive).

Note for our Smallport friends: We are trying to get our Oregon visit nailed down but this kind of stuff keeps making it hard to get it done. We are thinking around June 3 or 4 to 14-ish.

Wordless Wednesday

4 Days

Prayer request: finals week!

‘Nuff said?

Wordless Wednesday: Flapjack

Referral Echoes 2010

Three years ago today I first saw this face:

Now every day I am blessed with this one:

Happy referral day, Yegetanesh.

Amaseganallo, Ethiopia.

Praise God, from whom all blessings flow.

A Word from Your Local Vicodin Dealer

It’s about three weeks from the end of Aaron’s semester. Hey, remember last fall, when Aaron’s first semester was coming to a close and exams loomed, and he slammed his finger in the truck door? Something just reminded me of that . . .

With tons of schoolwork looming, Aaron was in the library just about every night last week, and then he had a church men’s retreat scheduled for overnight Friday. Seriously impeding our progress catching up on LOST (we’re early in season 6–don’t say a word!). We were hoping to get some in on Thursday night after he got home from church, but he got home really late. And the first words out of his mouth?

“Don’t freak out.”

That is never good.

He’d fallen playing basketball with kids at church. Scraped up his knee as well as his hands but didn’t think it was anything more than that. But he was up all night with pain getting worse despite ice until finally at 4:00 a.m. I told him to go to the ER since he clearly needed an x-ray and wasn’t sleeping anyway. They put a splint on it but said it was not broken. He went to sleep at 6:30 and I went to work. Then around noon they called him and said, “Hey, remember how we said your hand wasn’t broken? It’s kind of the opposite of that, so please come back to the ER for a better cast.” He has a hairline fracture near the bottom of his thumb, apparently a bone which is important for circulation.

Tomorrow he goes to a specialist for a more permanent cast. Meanwhile he is still in pain and either unable to concentrate because he’s doped up on Vicodin or unable to think because he’s let it wear off (so he can think) and his hand hurts even more. And he’s frustrated because he has so many papers and tests due and it’s so hard to think and type.

So many fluke medical things this year–so frustrating we don’t know whether to laugh or cry or take turns. The end result is that (1) I am probably on some kind of “possible Vicodin dealer” watch list at the pharmacy and (2) next year he will not be allowed to leave the house without full helmet and pads for the last four weeks of any semester.

Wordless Wednesday

Overheard in Parenting

3-Year-Old:  Mommy, I have a joke for you!

Mother:  Okay, what?

3-Year-Old:  BUTT!

She is ready to write sitcoms.

Wordless Easter Wednesday

Tortillas, You Come Down!

A few weeks ago at church AJ learned about Zachaeus in kids’ church, which is to say she glued him onto a paper tree and learned the song. She really liked it–especially the yelling “You come down!” part.

One evening soon thereafter I took her to the store with me (which I am thankful to have to do less often nowadays) so she could “help” and I could look like I was talking to someone rather than mumbling crazily to myself about what I was forgetting and how gross the tomatoes look and how coffee is never on sale anymore. I noticed the tortillas right in front of me just as I remembered we needed them and exclaimed victoriously, “Tortillas!”

And AJ began to sing:

Tortillas was a wee little man

A wee little man was he . . .

Tortillas, Zacchaeus . . . they do sound rather alike.

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