Sunday 23 December 2007

Merry Christmas to all


Here is what we mustered up for a Christmas tree. It's adorable. Cindy and I will have all our kids with us for Christmas dinner. I have no idea where everyone will sit in my tiny house but that's part of the fun. We're OK. We wish you a very merry Christmas and I for one will look forward to 2008. Stay safe and enjoy each other.

xoxoxoxox

Wednesday 19 December 2007

Out damn pins!!!!

I had the appointment to have five pins taken out of my poor beat up foot yesterday. I couldn't bring myself to go to the appointment alone so I conned my eldest (who I think has matured well past his mother lately) to go with me. If you recall from my previous post, we waited for 2 hrs. before being called into the waiting room. We did again. Meanwhile, Matthew decided he wanted to come and lend support to his poor tortured Momma. By the time Matthew got there we were already in the tiny exam room. Imagine...two hefty men and me in a tiny room. How wonderful to have the love and support of your offspring at a emotionally upsetting time, right? WRONG!!!! These brats kidded back and forth about yanking out the pins, Matthew spent more time hustling the cute little nurse that was given the daunting task of removing the pins. First she removed the cast. The kids were horrified, truly shocked to see their Mom with a man leg. The hair on my leg must have been 1/2" long! Wow. I thought it was pretty cool. Now for those of you who don't know, these are almost 3" pins, thicker than I can bend by hand! They look quite like 'allen keys'. There are FIVE of the to be pulled out of my foot with NO freezing. She put her thumb and forefinger about 1/2" apart and said it will hurt that much. Not believing her. I gave the kids heck for kidding around at such a time. I threatened that I would go home first and put on capris before we went Christmas shopping after this fiasco. They all laughed at me. Out came the pins, Nick says it was like uncorking a bottle, 1, 2, 3, 4 and finally 5. That last one actually hurt. The others were just very, very disgusting. The feeling is absolute revulsion. It doesn't really hurt but it feels disgusting. But, it's over. A huge hurdle, major hurdle. No more swelling, no more pinching. Awesome. The incision is infected and I will have to take antibiotics for 10 days, I can't weight bear quite yet, three more weeks. Then I will be able to fully walk! Heavenly. Soon I will be back behind the wheel and this will be a very distant nightmare. When my foot is completely healed I'm gonna kick those kid's butts! That'll teach 'em.

Saturday 15 December 2007

Because

I have had a lot of time on my hands lately because I can't drive or basically go anywhere. This has given me too much time to spend looking at pictures or thinking about things that we did together. I have cried and cried and cried. Christmas is difficult, I'm trying really hard to be excited about cooking dinner for all of the kids on Christmas day. I have barely started my shopping. When I start feeling sorry for myself I get even angrier with myself because there are so many people in this world with so much less that I have or with handicaps that won't be fixed in a month or so. Still I find myself feeling sorry for myself and thinking about 'what was' too often.

Then I received a Christmas card from my wonderful Aunt Joyce. She included a special little clipping just for me. It has come at the perfect time. It made me cry but it also kicked my butt a little bit and made me understand what I have to do.

You can shed tears that he is gone or
you can smile because he has lived.
You can close your eyes and pray that
he'll come back, or you can open your
eyes and see all he's left. Your heart can
be empty because you can't see him or
you can be full of the love you shared.
You can turn your back on tomorrow
and live yesterday, or you can be happy
for tomorrow because of yesterday.
You can remember him and only that
he's gone, or you can cherish his memory
and let it live on. You can cry and
close your mind, be emptly and turn
your back, or you can do what he'd
want; smile, open your eyes, love and
go on.