Protected and Blessed

Last week was an interesting week for us.  Kevin was practicing with some guys from church for a volleyball tournament and he went up to hit the ball and something happened in his knee.  He came home limping and telling me that he needed a knee brace to play in the tournament.

Thursday morning dawned and he couldn't get out of bed.  When he finally did he was hobbling around trying to get ready for work.  I got up and stood watching him trying to walk around the kitchen and told him there was no way he was working and we were going to the ER to get it checked out.  You know Kevin is hurting when he doesn't argue with me about seeing a DR and then proceeds to make arrangements for work.

I drove him to the hospital and for the next two hours he was asked all kinds of questions, had x-rays of his knee taken, they made him take Motrin (yuck) and then he was put in an immobilizing brace, given crutches and then sent on our way with instructions to follow up with our PCP to get an MRI set up to see what damage he did to his soft tissue.

Kevin stayed home from work for the rest of the week.  He pretty much stayed off his leg as much as possible.  We iced it frequently, we also put several essential oils on his leg every couple hours to help with any swelling and promote healing.  He really never used the crutches, but he was a good boy with the brace and kept that on, even sleeping with it on the first two nights.

Then Saturday happened....

I gave all the boys haircuts, Tyler was the last one.  He tends to zone in the shower and usually takes quite a long shower.  I had cleaned up from the haircuts, I was standing in the living room talking to Kevin who was on the couch with his leg propped up when  we heard a big crash.  Micah was, as he likes to call it, the first responder.  He made it to the bathroom door in seconds just as Tyler began to scream.  I was close behind him and what met my eyes shocked me.

There was my son standing in a sea of broken glass, blood running down his legs, holding a towel.  He was screaming "my feet are burning, my feet are burning!"  I told Tyler not to move and I tried to think of a way to get him out.  I was not strong enough to lift him out at the angle that he had to be removed from the shower.  Kevin came onto the scene, took one look at one happened and moved to action.  He hobbled over to the shower, told Tyler to grab his neck and then lifted him right out.  He placed him on the toilet where I could grab him and run him to the kitchen sink to evaluate the injuries.

For about the next hour Kevin and I worked at washing off the blood, assessing the wounds, and pulling out the glass from his legs and feet.  I then applied a wonderful oil called helichrysum to stop the bleeding and help close up the wounds.  I bandaged him up and then he sat next to Kevin on the couch the rest of the afternoon/evening.

Kevin must have re-injured something in his knee because his leg was swollen, his ankle being the worst of it.  Thankfully Kevin called his parents to come over to help clean up the mess.  His parents took care of the entire bathroom, down to removing the last glass shower door, vacuuming up all the glass, washing out the shower, cleaning the bathroom floor, shaking out towels and rugs, purchasing a shower rod and installing the rod and shower curtains (left from our old house).

Tyler's injuries could have been so much worse.  We praise God for his protection over Tyler.  He sustained quite a few cuts, some of them were rather deep.  The deeper ones were a cut and puncture wound all in one, but nothing that I felt required stitches especially since they were on his legs and feet.

Monday morning dawned and Kevin got up for work.  He was walking around the house without a problem.  He left for work and through out the day he sent me texts saying his knee was feeling really good.  On Tuesday we went to an Orthopedic surgeon and had his knee checked out.  The DR put his knee through all kinds of crazy moves and none of them hurt Kevin.  She said that unless his knee starts to hurt again, that he was good to go as long as he remembered he is not 20 yrs old anymore.  She said that she wasn't going to search for a problem if he was feeling fine.

Kevin says he can't remember a time that his knee has felt this good.  One more reason to praise God.  We have seen His blessings and his provisions poured out on us in ways that we never expected.

Two quick prayer requests:

Last week my Great Uncle died unexpectedly a day before he turned 90 yrs old.  Uncle Cornie was such a kind man.  We used to stay with him and Auntie Lu when we went to Wisconsin to visit when I was a young child.  In February when we went to Wisconsin I was able to sit and talk to him for about 30min after church.  I didn't know if he would remember me, but I sat down to talk to him anyway.  Amazingly enough, he not only remembered me, Kevin and the kids.  He proceeded to ask me about each of my siblings and what they were all doing, and even asked about their spouses and children.  The only one he didn't ask about was Lina, but he heard all about her by the time we were done visiting.  He held my hand stroking it just like my Grandpa used to do, the whole time we talked.  Please keep his family in your prayers.  He lived a long and good life and he missed his Lucy terribly and I am sure he is overjoyed to be with her in Heaven, but it is never easy for those left behind.

Kevin received a call on Tuesday from our friend and old neighbor Leisa.  After she explained what she was calling about, she told him that she was diagnosed with breast cancer on Dec 1st, she said that she had a rough couple of months.  She is currently going through chemo and then she will have radiation.  Her beautiful long curly red hair is all gone.  She has a 17yr old son, that helps as much as he can, and she has a lot of friends that have really come along side of her to help her.  Please pray for her, she has a long road ahead of her.

Well, that's it for today I think.  It's currently a dark wet day, I am making the kids do 2 days worth of school today, so we can enjoy the weather that is forecasted for tomorrow.  I think the boys will be learning how to rototill a garden... I'm sure they are going to love it.

Blessings!

Adventuring!

I am coming off a week of being sick (hence the blogging break).  I escaped the influenza bug when the rest of my family had it back in December, but it came out of no where and hit me hard last week.  Thankfully I am now pretty much back to normal... whatever normal is.

Yesterday was a beautiful day here.  We got school done early and headed outside for some fresh air.  The kids were trying to see who could throw the tennis ball into the top of the silo.  Tyler made it twice, but Romeo kept interrupting their game and capturing the ball when it bounced off the silo and went racing around the yard and even back into the house (if the back door was open).  In his head all tennis balls are his property.  It was pretty funny to watch the kids race to get the ball before he got to it.

After both parties gave up that game Tyler asked if we could go for a hike in the woods.  We had plenty of time before we had to leave for karate, so I said sure and we all laced up our shoes and headed to the back forty.  Romeo, not one to be left out, came along too.

Can I just say how awesome it is to walk out your back door and just start walking into the woods for an adventure.  What a blessing it is.  Truly.  First we went to the pond.  It still had quite a bit of ice on it, but it's pretty shaded back there so that makes sense.  Then we started down one of the trails and walked a ways until we came to the place where the trail disappeared beneath a pretty large area of water.  Back in my youth I would have kept right on going.  Crossing the fallen trees, jumping from dry patch to dry patch.  Now... I paused.  I didn't really want to play balance beam, but before I could say anything, my boys were half way through the obstacle course calling with huge smiles on their faces.  There was nothing I could do, but follow.

I have to admit that at one point, Tyler made a leap from a log to a dry patch and the back of his foot hit the watery mud and splashed muddy water on his pants.  I literally started saying "oh great, now what are we going to do, we have no way of washing that!" (side story, I am currently on a no laundry restriction because of septic issues... hopefully those will be taken care of tomorrow when the septic company comes).  As soon as that statement was out of my mouth, I followed up with "you know what, you are having fun, and what's a little mud on a pair of pants."  Onward we went, navigating the tricky natural obstacle course.

At one point in our hike Tyler was balancing across yet another fallen tree and he yelled "We are adventuring Mom!"  Yup buddy, that's what we are doing!

We made it through to the other side of the trail and it was time to start back towards home.  Jilli and I decided to take the long way around so as not to test our balancing skills again.  So far we didn't have wet feet and we wanted to keep it that way.  The boys decided that they wanted to adventure across the spans of water again, so we split up... girls went the dry way, boys went the wet way.

Jilli and I weren't even out of the woods yet and my phone was ringing.  I answered and it was Micah making sure Romeo was OK, because we weren't back yet.  I just had to laugh!

Just at the end of the woods, where the corn field starts there was a half dug hole.  In that hole Jilli and I saw 2 furry animals with leathery skinny tails.  They were both dead, and then just off to the left of the hole was another of those same furry animals... but I could only identify that it was a like species because of it's tail, the rest of him was missing.  There was a lot of blood.  I believe they were muskrats, but I am unsure how all three were killed in the same place and only 1 of them was half eaten.  How is that for a science lesson!!  The things we get to see living in the country!  I took a picture but I will spare you from seeing it and instead show you a picture of the back of our property. The brown grass is actually our hay field that a local farmer comes and harvests.  It is Jilli's desire that next year it will be pasture land with a horse or two grazing there (her Momma wouldn't mind seeing that as well).

Three separate times Tyler came to me later that afternoon and evening and told me how much fun our hike was.  Three times... Each time he brought it up a different way, the last time he hugged me and told me how much fun it was and thanked me for hiking with him.

There were so many other things I could have done instead of go hiking with the kids.  My house has leaves that blew in the backdoor and need to be vacuumed up.  There is lots of dirt by that backdoor too (amazing how much we track in when you don't have an attached garage to catch some of that dirt and leaves).  My kitchen never seems to be clutter free, the dust just flies around this old house like nobodies business.  Guess what... All those things are still waiting for me today.  Like my wise Mom always said... "the laundry will be there in the morning, your kids won't".  Today it is raining, today I can't go hiking with them.  I am so thankful I took the time and went yesterday and made an adventuring memory with them.

So, if you happen to stop by and my kitchen is cluttered and I still have laundry laying in piles (hopefully it isn't because of septic problems next time) and there is a layer of dust with brown crunchy leaves by my back door, you overlook those things and see the fun we are having!

One more quick side story... The big barn door was slid open last night for a late remote control helicopter flight and we discovered a bat flying in the rafters!  Good thing I got over my fear of bats while living in the city as a young girl but thats a whole other story!