Sunday, February 27, 2011

Another week done

Another week has passed.

The new growth in Chyann's leg has now grown to a whopping 20mm, as of this last Wednesday.
The doctor said she is about half way there, so maybe three more weeks in the Ilizarov.

Somehow her pain and miserableness continues to grow right along with her leg. Not much we can do, but try to make her comfortable.

She is also sick and tired of being stuck in the house! So, yesterday we hauled her out to a store or two and got a board game to play and a few new shirts to cheer her up.

It's been so very nice having my Mother here taking care of her (and me when the need arises) since I went back to work last Thursday.

Mom is still a bit unnerved about the bolts and pins going into Chyann, but is handling it quite well.

The flu is going around at school and it appears Caden has it as he spent the evening with a tummy ache and finally lost his dinner about bed time. Hope he gets over this soon!


Colton's band has another show on the 4th of March at a place called The Garage in the cities!
They are soo EXCITED!

I am so tired of this snow and cold temps! Although Spring MUST be coming because when I left work the other night at 6p I noticed that it was still a little light out!

Monday, February 21, 2011

This and that...

How I've managed not to get on the computer in the last week, I have no idea.

We've been busy running back and forth to the cities for doctors appts and physical therapy.

As of last Wednesday's xrays, Chyann's leg has grown 13 mm!
Which is friggin AMAZING!!

Will be interesting to see how much more growth we'll see on this Wed's xrays.

Physical therapy is not helping much/at all - not good.
It's looking like as long as she has the fixator on she will not be able to use crutches to walk.

Her pain is mostly controlled now. Not so much from the broken bone, but more from the muscle spasms due to the muscles stretching so much and a few pin sites are becoming irritated/infected due to the tearing skin.

I am planning on going back to work on Thrusday since my Mother will be here to take care of Chyann, but I have no idea how that is going to work.

And what is up with this big ASS storm? The Hubby took the truck to work this am and ended up pulling a bunch of people out of the ditch on his way. A nice neighbor just got done plowing out the driveway for us. Now Colton's girlfriend can go home - she got stuck here last night, literally and it took forever to get her out.

Random picture of Cowboy. Smart ponies were not all in the barn this AM when I went out to feed them.

I think I've got a solid pattern for making pants that will fit over the fixator (undies too).

Colton's band performance in Milwaukee on Saturday went well. The Hubby was very surprised to see a line of people outside waiting to get in.


Sunday, February 13, 2011

This is how much...

her Daddy wants to make her happy.

Yes.

That is a horse in my house.

We moved a bed to the living room for Chyann to sleep on since it would be very difficult getting her up and down the stairs to her room.

She has been quite down since her recovery is going slower than originally planned.

Her Daddy decided to try and cheer her up by bringing her best friend to visit.

The Hubby planned this while I was in the shower, thinking I'd put the kabosh on his plan.

He got the boys to move all the furniture out of the way and pull up the rug in case Casper decided to poop in the house and brought him in through the sliding glass door.

Boy was she surprised!

As was I when I poked my head out of the bathroom to see what all the ruckus was.

Apparently Casper doesn't care for walking on hardwood floors much and was little freaked at first, but after he got about half way through the living room he calmed down and Chyann got to give him lots of love.


Other news of note...

Colton was crowned KING of the winter carnival at school!

And his band played to a very enthusiastic crowd during the winter carnival!

The band sold t-shirts and made a bundle of $$!

One more week till their big show in Milwaukee.

The weather is warming up and hopefully we'll get some of this snow melted this week.


Wednesday, February 9, 2011

short Redneck story

The night before we went to the hospital last week, Chyann and I were scurrying around getting our bags packed.

Somehow I had forgotten to get a few little bottles of shampoo and conditioner to take with us and since we use the huge econo size 32oz bottles I was looking through the cupboards for a small jar/bowl or something with a lid to put some in.

The Hubby hollers to put them in a baggie -- I have no better idea on how to transport this liquid goo, so plastic biggies it is.

I am in the bathroom pouring the shampoo into a baggie when Chyann comes in and says "Oh man, how v-e-r-y Redneck!"
And we laughed like lunatics!


Unfortunately, recovery for Chyann is not going as well as we expected. A trip to the doctor tomorrow is planned. Hopefully we can figure out why she is completely unable to lift her leg and get a few more pointers on pin/bolt cleaning.

Monday, February 7, 2011

Home again

Made it home from the hospital on Saturday late afternoon.

The drive was terrible.
Every bump, pot hole, curb, turn or anything else was agony for Chyann.
And of course transferring her into and out of the van about killed her as well.

The words "HELL is for children" (old Pat Benatar song) kept running through my head.


Flowers from Grandma. They smelled so good.

At a children's hospital everything is geared for kids.
The first night we were there they had an actual dog show. The folks who put it on go around to every room to see if you want to go watch and will take you there. If you were like Chyann and couldn't go, after the show they bring the show to your room. Chyann had a ton of dogs visit that first night and every day after that the therapy dogs would come to visit too.


Physical therapy, learning how to maneuver with the crutches and move her leg. Which she is still having a very hard time doing.



Who knew you could see Seahorses at a hospital!
They were so amazing!
I bet you didn't know that when they get mad they turn black, so no tapping on the glass.


As far as hospital stays go, this one was relatively uneventful.

The room was only semi-private, with only a curtain between the two rooms and this irritated Chyann to no end! Almost every nurse would leave the curtain open, so I was continually having to shut it.


Interestingly enough though the girl in the other room and Chyann had the same birthday, same procedure done on the same leg by the same doctor, on the same day.

That girl was from St Paul and had a huge pack of family there every night. They always tried to be quiet, but when you pack a dozen or so folks in a small room with only a curtain between it is going to be noisy. Friday night another room opened up and they requested to move into it. Which made Chyann's last night in the hospital much more restful.

Currently Chyann's leg is being pushed out by a computer attached to her frame 1 and a quarter millimeter every day - continually throughout the day. Depending on how this progresses the doctors think she'll only have to wear the frame 20 - 40 days.

At this time she is one miserable kid.
In pain unless she is totally doped up.
No independence - which may just be the worst thing ever for her.

Also of note is there are NO PANTS anywhere to buy for her to wear!!
I'll be doing some serious sewing this week.






Friday, February 4, 2011

Ilizarov

Hello.

Chyann is in the hospital having an Ilizarov apparatus put on her right leg.

Been here since Wednesday. Hopefully will be home by Sunday.

Toodles :)

Tuesday, February 1, 2011

Snow fun

A very balmy weekend here.
We spent much of it outside.

Casper has one heck of a beard this winter, he looks like some kind of si-fi animal to me.

The lovely ladies.


Chyann and I went for a snow ride.
It was the most fun I'd had in a long time!


We followed packed snow machine trails for a few miles and finally turned around because the horses started falling through the snow crust. That was scary and I'll tell ya I did fall off once as Scotch was lurching through the snow. No big deal as he is pretty short and the snow was deep, but I had a hell of a time getting back on him - my damn legs were wobbly noodles! I haven't riden since November, so I should have expected that.


Chyann ended up riding all the other horses too. With special attention to Jenny, since she is afraid she will "forget" all she knows over the winter.



When the horse riding was done it was time to ride the snow machine.
Caden has recently learned to drive so that means I got to ride in the sled.


It was dark and I was freezing by the time we were done outside.
Caden was plum tuckered out. Shasta is his little buddy.