Abundant Recompense Copy

I'm sure you all remember our beloved Bruce . He was a good fish. Loyal to the end. But the end did come, and after a long period of sickness, Bruce finally went to join his forefathers in fishy paradise, courtesy the porcelain express. After our mourning period, we took the kiddies over to the pet store to pick out some new friends. Addison named them well: Golly, Patty (after Grammie and Gramps's cow), and the yellow snail is CiCi. We thought for awhile that CiCi was not alive, but were thrilled to find her climbing up the wall of the bowl the other day.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, our babies are getting cuter, smarter, and bigger every day. Here's a little sampling of what they've been up to. Bryn has decided she really likes cookies. Big girl carseat!! What does the fish say? Big girl! Working in their kitchen while Mommy works in hers. A favorite activity. Play-doh for Addison and a box of rice for Bryn. Addison is taking fewer and fewer naps. Here's photographic evidence of him sacked out on our couch, proving that he actually should take a nap daily. If you haven't ever watched the PBS kids show SuperWhy, you definitely should. Either way, I'd like to introduce you to Super Addison!!!! With the power to read!!!!!

We've been a little busy, though, hence the lack of updates. Nate came home last Sunday and has steadily improved since. The healing is going well and both incisions are looking good (no thanks to his lifting Bryn when I'm not looking.) His pain is staying under control and he's slowly decreasing the pill-popping. He'll get the rest of the staples out on Tuesday - they removed the first half the day he left. He had no appetite for several days and lost about 10 lbs, but it's steadily increased and last we checked he's gained 5 back. So all's well.

You may or may not recall that last time Nate had surgery (January '09)he came home, got violently and painfully ill, and had to go back to the hospital and have another surgery to get his ileostomy put in. The doctor couldn't close up the incision because there was infection like crazy (think intestines coming apart and all that food going wherever it could find a place), so Nate was still wide open to the tune of lots of nurses coming to watch every time they changed his dressing because it was pretty uncommon (and pretty horrifying). Then for at least a month after coming home (details are fuzzy here) Nate had a woundvac, which was basically a sponge hooked to a vacuum that slurped the wound closed so it could heal. He had it with him 24/7 and we had homecare nurses coming several times a week to change it. It finally closed up (after shingles and several fights with staph infection) and he had an ileostomy (aka: saved his life, but also a major pain in the bum) until last W...

Nate here. Surgery went well on Wednesday, and at the risk of giving too much information, my colon is excited to back in action after a year and a half off. Coming out of the anesthesia was one of the most painful experiences of my life - I was reportedly yelling and screaming for awhile. But now things are much better, and I'm out of bed and walking around several times a day - mostly running to the bathroom to empty my bladder. Today I'm waiting for the surgeon to show up and clear me for a full liquit diet - milk shakes and cream soup sound pretty good after beef broth and high fructose corn syrup drinks. Still hoping to be out of here tomorrow. Thanks to everyone for their prayers, meals, and other help.

Tomorrow (August 3) Nate will be having an ileostomy takedown. aka: surgery. But it's happy surgery. You may or may not remember all the health issues he had last January , but this will mark the close of that whole mess. So we are, of course, nervous, considering what happened the last time he got opened up, but mainly we're really really really excited! We'll let you know how it goes!