Just a short note: Rs surgery went well. He's recovering nicely. Hopefully we'll be home in a couple of days.
I'll probably be taking a bit of a blogging hiatus while R continues to recover at home and hopefully will get back to things as we get closer to school work starting up again.
Enjoy the rest of the summer!!
Here I am at 1am. I'm not doing much...watching Happy Days reruns, re-checking my email.
For various reasons, R's birthday party was delayed. We were barely* able to make it to the once-postponed party on Saturday and it was a great time.
The pool was enjoyed for quite a long time.
There were snacks and good company. And it didn't even matter that we were an hour or so late!
Grandma has once again outdone herself by making a very special birthday cake. The soccer ball on R's cake is modelled after one of his own.
R took the plunge and cut the first piece. I don't think he's done that before.
And again, he was spoiled by very generous extended family members. Cousins S and N were there with their mom, Aunt R, and dad, Uncle K.
As a special surprise, Uncle G came for the day. Uncle G has been off at school the last few years and more recently, has continued working in his new found home-town. Uncle G is so much fun that it's hard to get a pic of him standing still.
Driving home was a treat. There were heavy rains that put visibility at about 50 meters. It made for a late evening, but all in all, a very worthwhile day. Days like this always make me so thankful that we are blessed with our extended family - however serendipitously they may have arrived in our lives.
* - car broke down at the gas station as we were leaving town. Trip delayed by only 60 minutes. Not bad for Saturday afternoon automotive lack-of-service in this small town.
The seed stitch is easy, although with 165 sts around, it's a bit time consuming. Shortly after starting, however, it's easy to do it with infrequent glances at the needles.
The handles are a little finicky, but the pattern takes you through it one step at a time. I had to fool with getting them set up on their stitch holders properly in order to knit them in place correctly, but it worked out with only minimal cursing. I didn't even have to look for online help.R's surgery is scheduled for the 17th. Today we met with the Pre-Assessment Clinic to make sure he's good-to-go. We met a nice anesthesiologist whose Irish accent rivalled my Brother M's Irish accent. (<-- You know there's a good story there...) Last week, at R's request, I called to ask what a Pre-Assessment Clinic Appointment would entail. In particular, I was to ascertain how many needles and how much it would hurt.
<sigh>
Even though I promised there would be no needles and that nothing would hurt, the poor boy was up half the night and had anxious stomach pains until 10:20am when the nurse confirmed that, really, there would be no needles. It was clear sailing after that.
The anesthesiologist assured me there would be no pentathol used during the course of R's surgery. (Pentathol having caused a number of my family members to test a surgery team's resuscitation skills.) Apparently R looks like an easy patient. His thinness is helpful. He's healthy other than this pesky kidney problem.
Surgery looks to be a 3 to 4 hour affair with a little time spent in recovery - where he may or may not have a popsicle - before being moved to his ward for the next 4ish days.
Here's what we expect: Upon arrival, a wee bit of sedative to take the edge off. Some Emla, perhaps. Once in the operating room with mom, R will breath from the mask until asleep. That's my cue to depart. Any 'needles' and tubes will be inserted - an I.V. and catheter for sure. Pyeloplasty to treat the UPJ, then a stent, drain and epidural before he wakes up.
After 2ish days, the epidural and catheter are removed. We will remain another day or so to get a handle on pain management. I expect there will be some time in there for me to argue with the nurses about his eating (or lack thereof) habits.
B will be in and out and K will be juggled amongst various family members and a good friend. Nuk will be at the kennel. (Sally, I'd link your website, but you don't seem to have one yet!!) Just because it will give me something to do, (other than fussing over the boy when my fussing is useless cpmpared to nurse-fussing) I'll try to get updates on the blog here for family, blog friends and other voyeuristic insatiables. That way, noone has to trek to CHEO to see a sedated, really pissed off, post-op R.
R feels much better about his surgery now that he knows the 'needles' can be done after he's asleep. The aftermath of recovery is very foreign to him, so he's not feeling too anxious about that at this time. He is sad to miss the end of soccer season and he's looking forward to eating pizza from the hospital cafe.
There's so much to blog about and I dropped the ball a bunch of months ago.
So the perfectionist in me says that I must start at the beginning. So that takes me back to, oh, February? Ok, so I start looking for pictures from that time to accompany the belated blog and what do I find? I find that once we went digital, I had renamed each photo so as to make them easy to categorize. Yikes....dropped that ball too. So I go back to where I need to start renaming. That takes us to, oh, August of 2006 when my niece visited for a week and B quit smoking?
See the giant impediment to my blogging!! It's HUGE!!
Anyway, enough of my silliness. I'd like to tell you about some stuff that's been going on lately. I'd like to get some thoughts down, rant and prattle on mindlessly. (You did see the 'Ramblings' tag, didn't you?) I'd even like to become a little more technically blog savvy. Now, how is that supposed to happen if I keep avoiding this place?
And another thing - I'm not really liking the Google Reader thing. You know, Doc went and made a whole new set of digs for her Sunrise Rants to shine on and I've been over, what...twice?! I can't even find a couple of the blogs I used to like to read for whatever reason and I still have to click a lot to get to what I want to read.
So, onward and upward, my meagre reader. Readers? Are there more than one of you? Anyway...moving around the Mountain of Unfinishedness to get to the business of satisfying you voyeuristic insatiables who insist on keeping up to date with me and mine.
Read on if you will. I'm not promising pictures.
