I was home on December 27th alphabetizing movies and doing random chores – just going through a normal day… My stepdad called me from his cell which is unusual except while we were planning my mom’s surprise party. When I answered he told me my mom fell while at work and she was pretty messed up. He told me what hospital they were taking her to and I rushed to change my clothes and get out the door. Not too much later I got a call from my brother asking how long it was going to take me to get to the hospital; he’s in a different state and wanted to know what was going on as quickly as possible. He was told she wasn’t able to move, but Glenn didn’t tell me that… it sure made me drive faster though! My brother said he was going to try calling the hospital and I started trying to get a hold of someone at the prison that could tell me what was going on and what happened. My mom works in a tower and I was scared she fell while climbing out of her tower.
I didn’t obey many traffic laws on the way to the hospital as you can imagine. I turned my flashers on and drove like a crazy woman. On the way I was able to talk to a lieutenant who filled me in on everything he knew: My mom tripped over a locking mechanism in her tower, fell backward and landed on the rim of the toilet on her right mid back. He said she got herself out of the tower and she was sitting up and communicating in the ambulance. Thank goodness.
I got to the hospital and there were already a few visitors in her room, so someone had to come out so I could go in. I couldn’t imagine why there were so many “visitors” because it’s just my stepdad and me that would have been there. I didn’t think that a sergeant and a coworker would be there too. I went to her room and she was screaming from back spasms. She was trying to tell the nurse her personal information and I finished giving her what she needed. I’m glad her coworker was there to help with the job information portion.
She said it felt like everything in the back of her was pushed out her front. She said she fell so hard on her back that even her boob hurt. She was screaming as each spasms came. They wheeled her off to radiology and I called my brother to give him an update. She was in so much pain that they didn’t even try to remove her uniform for the x-rays. She came back quite a while later – screaming from even more pain because the radiology tech was not gentle with her. She began to cry when she described how he was treating her and moving her. Not cool!
It seemed to be taking a long time to get the results back, so I went to the nurse’s desk. The nurse looked up the paperwork and said everything appeared normal and the doctor would be in to go over everything with her. Then I started getting annoyed because my mom is screaming in pain (after numerous morphine injections and a valium) and the doctor has yet to show up?? (at this point I had been there for almost 3 hours). I know how the ER works because I used to work at a hospital, but come on.
To lighten the mood, when I called my brother while waiting for her results, he sent his love and a message for my mom, “Quit being a p***y and enjoy the high!” Then we got to laughing about the amount of drugs they gave her – I was telling my brother that she has cotton mouth really bad and kept licking her lips and could hardly finish a sentence. He said, “Oh, I bet she pukes on the way home!” Aren’t we a loving family!!?? LOL
I called Doug to let him know what was going on and let him know he didn’t need to come and I saw the doctor finally go into her room. He told her she was going to be discharged with pain medications. I asked him if she could have another shot because of the crazy road they live on; the doctor was okay giving her more meds. We were going to be there for a little while longer, so Glenn headed out to fill the truck with gas so they wouldn’t have to stop except to pick up the medications. The nurse and I were putting my mom into a wheelchair when he got back. That was a painful process for my mom. The nurse wheeled her out and helped her get up into the truck. My parents headed to the pharmacy to get her prescriptions and then headed home. If you really want to know….My mom did puke when she got home.
She had a follow up appointment with the worker’s comp doctor a couple days ago. They were very concerned with how many drugs the ER doctor gave her – AND without asking what her current medications are. My mom had a low grade fever and slept most of the last week (because of the narcotics) – another concern for the doctor because she could be developing pneumonia. They reran all her x-rays and found that she fractured the front of her 7th rib. GOOD GRIEF! She fell hard enough onto her back that it broke the FRONT. YIKES. No wonder her boob hurt. The doctor reduced and changed her medications and now it’s a waiting game for her to heal.
I feel so bad for her. She’s had such crappy luck. She wanted to lose weight and while putting a treadmill together the spring loaded legs busted her in the mouth. She steps wrong and blows out her knee – now the injections aren’t working to relieve her knee pain. And to ring in the New Year she falls and breaks herself. Please keep her in your thoughts and prayers; she’s going to be in pain and out of work for quite a while.
I tried liquid repellants (this stuff smells like death - it is so disgusting! Doesn't work though.) 
and granule repellants (this version seemed to work okay last year.) 
and nothing is working. It was time for an April-style repellant. Here’s the mixture: chili powder, jalapeno juice, crushed red pepper, Raid and Round Up week killer. 
You can kind of see the pepper flakes in this picture:
I’m so sick of the freaking cat(s). A couple months back we even set the trap near the area that’s being pooped in and no luck. Saturday was going to be a test to see what the cat(s) would do with all the peper/jalapeno stuff in our bark. On Sunday morning we were opening the blinds to let the sun in and about to get ready for church when I saw a cat in the trap!!! YEAH HOOOO!!! I started to run downstairs and yelled up to Doug, “Now I feel bad!” What a girl I am!! When we opened the sliding glass door the cat started thrashing around in the cage. It calmed down as we got closer and let out a quiet meow. 
We decided to let the cat go, which I completely regret now. We should have driven it very very far away or up to the pound (but they weren’t open and we would have to hold the cat and take time off work, ugh). As we were letting the cat out I said, (like it could understand me) “This is your ONE warning, cat!” I’m hoping the fear of the cage and the nasty stuff in the bark is enough to keep the cat away now. Only time will tell. I keep calling the cat a bastard, so that’s its name now.
Justin had an additional surgery after March of 2010 (because he re-broke it) to install a titanium plate and screws to stabilize his thumb again. Justin called yesterday after seeing his new doctor and somehow, who knows when, he broke the titanium plate and his thumb is STILL broken after 2 years.
He will be going in for surgery next Friday; the surgeon will remove as much metal from his thumb as he can and use some of Justin’s hip bone to fix his thumb. Hopefully this will be his last surgery! His thumb will be fused and hopefully won’t give him anymore trouble.
Ugh. I’m not sure what people are thinking sometimes. I can’t figure out what someone was doing when they cut a wire for a wall switch. DUR! I’m glad it was that simple and it wasn’t some crazy in the wall wiring problem that we would need an electrician for.
We ate homemade pizzas and artichokes; it was kind of a weird combo, but I needed to cook the artichokes before they went bad. 
We ate, laughed, celebrated Ben’s promotion (YES! Ben was promoted!!), watched a movie, celebrated the New Year and played Super Mario until 1 in the morning. I didn’t realize we’ve been playing the same game for over a year now! We are finally in World 8!! We are on level 3 of World 8 and we came to a conclusion that World 8 SUCKS!!! We must have died about 50 times getting through those 3 levels and we still haven’t passed level 3. I even took a picture of Doug’s dish stacking abilities. 
I thought I would never use the HUGE pizza getter that my mom gave me, but it came in handy while we were making pizzas.
The sales woman was awesome; they were very busy and I felt bad for taking so much of her attention. She gave me her name and information so I could call and set up an appointment with her. I don’t wear a lot of makeup and I’m very lazy when it comes to makeup. Honestly, I don’t really know much about putting makeup on and how to blend and stuff, but the sales gal would grab a product I had a question about and show me how to put it on and answer questions. I have a small jar of Bare Minerals that I’ve never used (it came in a kit) and in 1 minute she showed me how to use it and it was SO easy and quick! She told me to come back and she would help me with the other products I have to get the best results. It was so nice. It was great that she didn’t make me feel silly for asking either.
My parents came down Christmas morning and we ate cinnamon rolls and opened gifts. We introduced them to the new style of Nerf guns and Doug and Glenn were shooting the television for a while. Glenn had so much fun that he went and bought his own Nerf gun and 16 Nerf rounds to shoot. HA! 
Debbie gave us the village they used to set up; I can’t wait to set it up next year (we took down our Christmas decorations on the 26th). This is a few of us watching Debbie go through the Rubbermaid tub of village pieces.
We had separate days for our family gatherings this year. It was nice to not have to rush out and head to another location/dinner, but at the same time, it’s nice to get everything done in one day. I didn’t get any pictures of the feast we ate on the 26th. We were finally able to give Doug’s family the photo books we made in memory of Brian. You can check out the photo book 