We're Operated On!

Surgery was Friday, October 26, in Portland. Craig, Logan, and I took Colby down the night before, since we had to be there at 8 a.m. for 10 a.m. surgery. Surgery was to last approximately 2-1/2 hours, with a couple hour recovery time, another couple hours in his room, and then we could take him home if things were okay at that point.

Surgery went about as ideally as it could have. They took him in about 30 minutes later than we had planned, but surgery went well and ended about 30 minutes early. Since we are literally 4 hours from the hospital, they injected his knee FULL of local anesthetic just so we could make the car trip home in relatively little to no pain...and am I glad they did. We didn't get to leave Portland until about 7 p.m., unfortunately, so didn't arrive home until 11:30-11:45. Colby woke up in so much pain Saturday morning that he couldn't even get up to go to the bathroom on his own...that was WITH the pain meds. There is no way we would have made it home, had we waited until Saturday to come home (once the block wore off). Over the weekend, I've been giving him pain meds on an every-4-hour basis, regardless of whether he "needs" it...but will start going to an as-needed basis tomorrow along with the anti-inflammatory.

And I'm "evil" because I'm forcing him to do his exercises That will "make or break" the success of this surgery, however, and we want it to heal correctly...KWIM? He calls me "evil," sheds a few tears, gets through the exercises, and then says, "I love you, mom." So he knows it's a necessary evil (NO pun intended), but boy, it kills me to have to do it to him (I have to help with the exercises).

Lindsey has a friend who hurt his ACL in football, had it reconstructed, and then thought he could get by with NOT doing the exercises after surgery...this kid just had to have his second surgery to re-correct it...and I'm NOT going to go through that with Colby, so I'm using that as incentive for Colby to do his exercises.

If all goes well, Colby will be able to play baseball this spring, but I definitely won't be hurrying him along!

Thanks for your prayers and positive thoughts! They are greatly appreciated!

Headed For Surgery...

I'm neglecting my blog...so sorry!

So since I've posted last, we received the MRI results. Colby ruptured his anterior cruciate ligament (ACL). This isn't a ligament you can repair--it has to be reconstructed. We scheduled an appointment with a knee specialist in Portland at Portland Knee Clinic. All Dr. Rubinstein does is knees, so this fella knows what he's doing. Colby, Craig, Amanda, and I went to Portland and back on Wednesday to meet Dr. Rubinstein, and we actually ended up scheduling surgery for October 26. It's an outpatient surgery, but depending on what time of day it is, we'll either stay in Portland the night before or night after, for convenience sake. They will use part of his semitendinosus tendon as the graft for the ACL. They drill a bone tunnel and put the graft through it with an Endo button on either end to prevent it from pulling through. Woila!

With a little bit of rehab, that leg will probably end up better than his "good" leg, and with just a little bit of luck, Colby will be able to play baseball this spring. Craig and I tried to convince Colby that we should bribe Dr. Rubinstein to create a bionic leg for Colby. That way, he could become the field goal kicker for the Green Bay Packers, and Craig and I could retire!! Colby didn't see the humor.

More later! I just didn't want y'all hanging out there, not knowing what was going on with Colby.

I'm going a playground/autumn shoot with some cutie-pies in the morning and then a senior picture shoot with Lindsey and Jaimi in the afternoon so must go check for some poses.

TTFN ~

Frequent Flyer Miles...

We're becoming frequent flyers in the ER here, NOT a positive thing. Can we POSSIBLY stay out of there for longer than a week at a time this football season?? You got it. Colby was injured in a JV game Thursday afternoon, and he was having the game of his life. Two fumble recoveries and a 40-yard punt return?? Wow. He had his left leg planted, and an opposing player hit it from the inside, causing it to deviate outward. He came out for a few plays and then attempted to go back in but was kicked in the knee by one of his teammates, and out he came, and to the ER we headed. They even put us in the same room he had been in a week earlier!

This is the same knee he broke a couple years ago while sledding. On followup x-rays at that time, we discovered that he has Osgood-Schlatter disease in his knees (read about this disease here). The ER doc confirmed that the Osgood-Schlatter is still present, but there are no fractures. That's good. He suggested followup with the orthopedist. The orthopedist was able to see us this morning, and he isn't liking how the knee is feeling to him, so he is sending Colby for an MRI on Tuesday, meaning Colby is out of football at least through next week. We'll see what happens then.

If that wasn't bad enough, Logan played 8th grade football in Hermiston at the same time Thursday and was hit by a pretty big kid who landed on Logan's elbow. Not only did Logan get hurt on the play, but the official called pass interference...ON LOGAN!! Craig said it was pretty obvious the penalty should have been offensive pass interference but whatevah.

So Thursday was NOT a good day for my boys and football!

This weekend is the last weekend of bow season, and Logan still has a tag. I think the guys are headed out, and I *really* need to get to the Tri-Cities and Costco soon. When we went to Boise school shopping a couple weeks ago, I missed Costco by 20 minutes...cuz the guys *had* to go to Cabela's! Pretty sad that you travel that far, only to miss it by only 20 minutes. I actually want to go to the mall, too, and that NEVER happens, but I do need to go.

I watched a fabulous movie tonight, We Are Marshall with People magazine's sexiest bachelor alive, Matthew McConaughey. I have watched almost every football movie out there, but this one ranks right up there as one of the best. I *loved* it! If you are a football fan (or a Matthew McConaughey fan...LOL!), you must watch this movie. Based on a true story, so it is pretty tragic, but they did a great job with it.

Must head to bed. Lindsey will drag me out of bed pretty early to head out...TTFN!

A Concussion, A Couple FB Games...And A Whole Lotta Bull!

That all makes for a pretty exciting week.

Craig managed to fill his elk tag this week. He took a beautiful 6-point bull. Looking at it in pictures, it looks bigger than the one already hanging in my house but Craig doesn't think so. He, of course, is getting this one mounted, also. The man is out of control, I tell ya. Lucky for me (unlucky?), we still have tags available in our household. Ugh. Will hunting season ever end?

Craig called me from practice Tuesday afternoon to tell me that he was on his way to the ER with Colby. He took a head-to-head shot during football practice that knocked him out. I met them there, and there sat my Colby, in a pink hospital gown and his football pants! Dang, if I hadn't left my camera at home!! The doc told him everything looked okay, but they took a CT scan to be on the safe side. In and out of the ER including a CT scan...90 minutes. Wow. Colby was pretty upset, though, because the doc told him to stay out of contact football for a week. Bummer. He was set to play all 4 quarters in the JV game the following Thursday. Instead, he went to the game and played cheerleader. He was thrilled, to say the least. I tried to explain to him that it was for his own good, to prevent further major head injury...but he was buying NONE of it.

Lindsey is editor of the LHS school newspaper, and that is already keeping her extremely busy. She may only be going to LHS for 3 classes per day, but this will entail her spending more time there. She only has a week until she starts EOU, and she is looking forward to that. She does have a couple classmates from LHS in her same classes at EOU.

Logan had a home football game this week, but I was not able to go. With this new job, working what amounts to "swing" shift, I'm not sure how many of the boys' games I'll make it to, and that is tragic. There aren't many things more important to me than attending all of my kids' school and sports events, but I can't afford to jeopardize this new job. We'll see how it goes. Unfortunately, none of the boys' games are on Friday (my day off) or before 3:00 (the beginning of my shift).

So my nephew Mason and the Umatilla Vikings came to Union to play the Bobcats Friday night. I had watched LHS the previous Friday get beat by Fruitland and with Colby watching from the sideline and not dressing down, I chose to spend my Friday evening in Union watching Mason and the Vikings take on Kyle and the Bobcats, while Craig and the boys watched LG take on Weiser. Neither game ended in a win for the local team, but I managed to get some pretty good pictures of Mason in the blue and Kyle in the red. Taking pictures of nighttime football games is always a little challenging, but I got a very select few...not as many as I wanted but such is life.

Pictures of the 6x6 to follow, with possibly a picture of Logan's bull, which he is after today...LOL! TTFN ~ Me

Colby's Buck...

Here is the layout for Colby's buck. I thought he'd croak when he saw the ribbon on his layout...but he seemed okay with it. I just love the look of the ribbon-wrapped photos.

Here are the credits:
Annie’s Love - Chere Kaye
Misfits Templates - Janet Phillips
Glittery Cardboard - Keri Hentzelt - Memoir Market
Ripped Off Months - Digital Couture (?)
Brothers ("target" letters) - CinziaL - DigiScrapShak
In Stitches - Keri Hentzelt
Wrong Planet (staple) - Rina Kroes - Scrapbook Elements
Font - KGD Tiffany (title)
AC Bare Chipboard Action for title
Font - Market (2007)

I *told* you the horns were tall and narrow!

Busy Week!

First off, my hair is no longer black! I couldn't take it and first stripped it and then redyed it with a "light brown" color...that on me is actually dark brown but the dark brown I was STRIVING for at the beginning!! I'm apparently super sensitive to the hair dye. Who knew??

Craig managed to get himself a monster last weekend, monster bear, that is. He left Sunday evening for a last minute hunt and called later, saying that he needed help with a "bear," not a big bear, just "a bear." This thing weighed almost 400 pounds and will more than likely make Oregon state record for bear, according to our friend Jon at ODFW.

Here are the credits for the bear layout:
Annie’s Love - Chere Kaye - Digi Chick (LOVE this kit!)
Our Closet Basic Multiphoto Template - Angela & Emily Powers
Creekwalk Alpha - Microferk - SBE
Font - DJB Kelly B
Drop Shadow Actions - Traci Murphy

A few days later, Colby ended up taking his buck, nice little 4 x 3. These horns are the tallest, most narrow buck horns I think I've ever seen. The scrapbook layout is almost done for it, too, and when it is, I will post it here, of course. I worked on it last night on the way to the LHS FB opener in Fruitland, Idaho. Colby was set to start the game on varsity, and we were pretty excited about it. However, the game itself was a little disappointing. Fruitland laid out LaGrande 56-0. Ouch.

Lindsey has some pretty exciting news. She was all set to graduate from high school in June 2008, but in setting her schedule for her senior year, we discovered that she is only 3.5 credits from graduating! Rather than have her take a bunch of high school classes that will not help her (she has already taken all of the AP classes), she is going to be co-enrolled at the high school and Eastern Oregon University! She will attend high school in the mornings and college in the afternoons. By the time of (high school) graduation in June, she will have almost a full year of college out of the way. Incredible. She even has one of her best friends in her Intro to Business class, so that's kind of cool. To say Lindsey is excited about it is an understatement...especially since she has no Friday afternoon classes and is done at noon on Fridays, nice since Union High School doesn't have class on Fridays, either...LOL!!

MOVIE REVIEWS:

Zodiac: I thought this movie was going to be a bit better than it was. It was also rather long. I'm not sure how long in terms of time, but it just seemed to go on forever and ever. A lot of big actors in it. Based on a serial killer who killed his victims based on signs in the zodiac (in San Francisco in the 1960s??). Overall a pretty good thriller.

Premonition: This was pretty similar to Denzel's Deja' Vu', but the ending on Premonition was disappointing. I kept saying, "It's not going to end like this. It can't. No way."...but it did. If you have to pick between the two, I'd watch Deja' Vu.' Sandra Bullock did a good job in Premonition, though. VERY predictable story line about a woman who wakes up one morning to find her husband has been killed in a car accident. She then wakes up the next morning to find him alive, in her bed. It goes back and forth like this a few times during the movie. I'll leave you to wonder about the ending.

I've got a couple more movies here to watch this weekend, Catch and Release with Jennifer Garner and I Think I Love My Wife with Chris Rock (that one is for Craig...LOL!). I'll let you know what I think when I've watched them.

Until later ~ Me

Dark brown? Black? PURPLE??

I got a wild hair (literally!) on Sunday to dye my hair...nothing drastic. I only wanted to go back to my "normal" color, dark brown. I took Lindsey and Logan with me to the store to help pick out the shade since I thought it would be easier for them to see it than for me to try to see it. I would pick up a box, and Lindsey would say, "No, your hair is darker, mom. Pick a darker shade." I ended up with Nice & Easy 120 Dark Brown. Let me tell you...This "dark brown" is so NOT dark brown. It's black...black as sin...or as Colby put it, "Mom, that is so black, it's almost PURPLE!" WTH??? I told Craig that I could live with it...it's only hair, right?

I woke up Monday morning, took one look in the mirror, and decided I COULDN'T live with it! Off to the store I went in search of a product to strip at least a bit of the color out. I did manage to take the black brassiness out of it...now it's just SUPER DARK BROWN. Oy. What have I done?? Oh well. At least I work at home and not a lot of people have to see me...LOL!

Speaking of work, Monday was a very bittersweet day. After 5 years of a very happy working relationship, I was done with my employer. I had received a call on August 14 that started with the words, "Trina, I'm calling with some extremely bad news." That's about all I heard, because I knew. I knew exactly why they called. My dream job was over. The hospital had pulled its contract, and there were 10 of us out of a job. We had work through September 3 if we wanted it. I ended up being hired by another medical transcription firm within 24 hours (thank goodness!), and I was set to start for them on August 28, so August 27 was actually my last day for my prior employer. Very bittersweet...August 26, the day before, was my 5-year anniversary. Just goes to show you...you just never know.

Today was my first day at my new job. I still have the new-job butterflies, but my supervisor seems very nice. I had some technical difficulties, but she was very encouraging that we would get them ironed out fast. It's just hard to go from having 5 years of seniority to being the low man on the totem pole again. That's the way the ball bounces.

Off to get Colby at football ~ TTFN!