...

If you are wanting to help in any way, right now finances is something both Josh and Cali are concerned about.  Here is a fundraiser yard sale that you can either donate items for or come and browse and buy!  Please let everyone know about it!!

 Cali looks and feels like she has been beaten!  These pictures don't do her bruises justice.  The one on her upper arm is just from the blood pressure cuff. 

 Here's another comic relief story;  this sweet woman is Margaret.  She is the surgical ICU's social worker and is the one who helped us get the hand and feet casts of Quincy.  But she also was the butt of a joke between all of us.  She is about 8 feet tall (as you can tell from the picture of her walking away from me) and walks kind of like a vulture, very hunched over.  She dresses VERY elegantly.  When Cali was still coming in and out of consciousness, she made this very scared face and asked, "Do I know that creepy stalker woman?"  She was referring to Margaret, who kept peeking in the windows to her room to see if some papers she had given Josh had been signed.  But all Cali saw was this fancily dressed, extremely tall vulture peeking in on her.  Josh called her the Grand High Witch.  We saw her again after Cali had been moved to the Women's Center with her dog which is a therapy dog.  Guess what?  The dog looks just like her!!!

Here's a pic of Al and George hanging out at the hospital for a few hours.  Alex playing the ipad and George zonked out.  We all can't seem to catch up on our sleep.  I'm sure it's as much emotional as it is physical.

Here are Oak and Mo playing doctor on one of Oak's stuffed animals.  Oak was telling Mo everything to do; "Now you hold his head and I will cut his tummy.  He will be fine, but you need to hold him still."  It was pretty cute.  Oak is handling things as well as could be expected after waking up from a nap and having her dad doing CPR on her mom and then a bunch of strangers coming into their home and then mom and dad gone for a few days and having to stay at everyone else's house.  She is very clingy to Josh, and it takes her a few minutes to warm up to Cali each time they go to the hospital.  But all in all I would say she is doing well.

The latest on Cali;  no fever for 24 + hours.  Bleeding has slowed way down.  She is up and about mostly by herself now, even though her dad and I want to still help her.  She is still only on a liquid diet mostly because her bowels aren't working yet like they should.  The plan for right now is to take out the umbrella (filter) on Thursday (if things continue to improve) and then home on Friday.  A lot of IFs have to happen between now and then, but we already have seen such an improvement in this week that I think we can be fairly realistic with hoping for it.  

The reason for the fever and bleeding is because she had a small clot in an ovarian vein.  It's not an infection, but her body was reacting like it was.  They did put her on an antibiotic just to cover their bases, but her body really just needed time to heal itself.  When you consider all that she's been through - cardiac arrest, multiple times she stopped breathing, 2 major surgeries in the belly area in a few hour time period and a blood loss of about 21 liters, plus the loss of a child - she's healing quite well.  We all know it's because of the power of prayer.  Please continue to pray for her mental and spiritual strength as well as her physical.  We worry about how this will all effect her when she has time to actually think about it.  But she is strong, and miracles happen!  

Prayers needed and answered

I have tried the past 3 days to write down what happened to Cali here on our blog and I just can't do it.  Either I get too emotional, or I just get the urge to touch Cali to make sure it's real that she's still with us.  Either way, I could never write as eloquently as Josh's sister, and she has kept the info up to date so I think for the whole story I will ask you to go here and read the details, and I will add the little antidotes that kept us laughing through the tears, and helped us realize it really is the little things that matter.  I will also share a few pics that will be repeats from Erin's blog, but I wanted to have them here as well.

 Sunday afternoon; Air Med with Cali as the patient landing at the U of U.

First glance we got of Cali late Sunday night.  So many tubes and meds.  She was completely unaware we were there.  In fact, she still doesn't have any memories (as of Wednesday night) since Saturday evening at the lake by their home. 

 This is only 5 hours later on Monday morning.  We all had left and got a little sleep.  It was this morning that they had finally decided her problem had been a cardiac arrest caused by an amniotic fluid embolism.  This is also the morning we got the news that the baby would need to be sacrificed to save Cali's life.

And this is today!  Bad picture quality, but the therapists got her sitting up, standing up, shuffled over to a chair and then sat in the chair while the bed was remade.  Then they got her walking around the bed to get back in.  Quite a difference from death's door!

These are Cali's 3 heroes; Windi, Josh and Amanda.  These 2 ladies were incredible on Sunday night and have continued to show their support to Josh and Cali. 

We can't thank the emergency crews, the air med staff, and all of the hospital staff enough for their talent, their kindness and support we have felt and witnessed these past few days.

Now for a few of the little things that make the difference;

*  JO NOLAST - This is Cali's new nickname.  When a trauma patient comes in they are assigned a name and the blood bank reserves blood for them under that name.  Cali's name is Jo Nolast (we think the Jo comes from JOsh and the Nolast is from no last name).  But through this whole hospital stay, even on her arm tag, it says Jo Nolast.  It took us all about 12 hours to realize that this Nolast person was really Cali.  We just hope that Jo Nolast gets all the bills, too!

*  TOOTY FROOTYS - As it says in the other blog, Cali and Oakland were taking a nap together when the cardiac arrest occured.  It took Oak a few minutes to wake up but when she did she said, "Dad!  I need Tooty Frooty's!"  And if you know Oak, you know she can be pretty insistent.  Thank goodness, a kind neighbor gave her her cereal while she waited for Granny Goose to pick her up.

*  HOW YOU DOIN'? - If you have seen the TV show Friends, you know Joey.  I didn't know until last night at the hospital that Joey is Josh and Cali's bishop!!

I know there are other things I wanted to put in this blog, but I'm exhausted.  This is a quick run through and I will add more another time.

Thank you all for your prayers!  Miracles happen!

Fire hydrant check...

The fire department came by this morning to do a check on the fire hydrant in between our house and Frank-Frank's house.  The kids LOVED walking in the water that was gushing down the gutter.  (So did I!  Alex was being the lifeguard and telling us all to be careful.  He was standing behind me in this picture.)  Thank goodness for all the safety personnel - including Alex - that take the time to make sure we are safe and secure!

Me and my newest granddaughter!

I have the most beautiful ladies that call me Nanny!  Such a lucky girl I am!!

Memorial Day 2012!

WE MISS YOU, MAC!

U of U baseball game

We got the opportunity to sit in a suite for a U of U baseball game courtesy of Josh's boss.  It was so much fun and relaxing.  I took more pics than this but all you could see was shadows, so these will have to do.  Alex LOVED being inside and still being able to watch the game and yell at players, all while eating and drinking the free snacks.  He kept 'reading' the roster and yelling at the players to tell them what to do.  They didn't listen, though.  They lost, which is OK with us! ;-)    The people you see in the upper part of both pics were our 'neighbors' in the suites and they came to the game already soused, then just kept drinking the whole game.  They had a cute, little boy with them, probably 4 years old who just played a game on an ipad while they drank, ate and even smoked (until we complained.)  But they were good entertainment;  from the loud Count Dracula laugh that was never ending, to the woman with her boobs practically hanging out begging us to take her french fries.  Weirdos! 

Anyway, it was a nice relaxing day.  Thanks Alder Construction!!

A bunch of stuff...

So it's been a while.  Life hits you upside the head sometimes and things like this (my journal) take a backseat.  Let me catch up on some of the things that have been happening.

N turned 1!!  You can't tell by this picture, but we had fun, fun, fun! ( Nobody wanted their picture taken.)  She has sure made advancements since having her heart surgery.  She rolls all over the place and is getting much stronger.  She's even eating from a spoon - what she doesn't spit out with 'raspberries'.  She is highly adored here by all!  And though I can't say she's spoiled, she is certainly loved to the max!

My dad's side of the family has been cleaning out the home my uncle lives in.  My grandma died 20 some-odd years ago and my uncle has lived in her house, with another family member acting as care taker.  He is a few years older than my dad - 65ish? - and has very mild Cerebral Palsy.  If he were born today, or even 20 years ago, he would have no handicap at all, but since he was born at a time when almost all children with disabilities were put in care centers, he is lucky to have the abilities that he does.  He lived with grandma until she died, and she gave him every chance she could to learn and grow.  He wasn't able to finish school since they didn't have any placement for him at the time, so he is on about a 10 year old level in many respects.  Well, you don't let a 10 year old live by himself!  The family member who was taking care of him was having a hard time with his stubbornness, as well as she divorced her husband so SHE moved out and husband (who is only related by marriage) stayed.  Weird, huh?  Well, to say the least, the house was a dump!  I have pictures, but they don't do it justice unless you can add smell to the pics.  Yeah.  That bad.  We all wore masks and gloves and basically threw away, well, almost everything.  My uncle had his say in what he wanted to keep, but even some of those things I'm pretty sure got thrown away when he wasn't looking because they have no value, sentimental or otherwise.  It was the' joke' as we were going through things as to who would find a dead cat (in reference to the TV show Hoarders) and I was the winner!!  We aren't sure if it was a small cat or a big rat, but either way it was an animal and it was quite large!  I found it in the storage room area underneath a 2 inch deep pile of cat poop.  And that was just one part of the storage room.  My uncle had no pipes under the sink in his bathroom, so he put a bucket under the sink and then used that water to flush the toilet, since that didn't work, either.  The family living with him had way too many animals, and they let them run the house.  As we took up the carpet we found beautiful, old wood flooring ruined by piles of poop.  And there were a lot of antique furniture that were just destroyed because they weren't taken care of at all!  It was sad some of the things we HAD to throw away.    BUT... we worked as a family for 2 weeks, we are having it professionally cleaned and having some contractors come in and fix things up so my uncle can move back in.  This time with a cousin who will be able to help him more and will take much better care of him and the house.

Lou is pregnant!  Right now she is 18 weeks along, but at 15 weeks she started bleeding quite heavily.  After a very tense week, they found the source, but not the reason for the bleeding.  She had a pool of blood in her uterus but not in the amniotic sac.  They took her off the blood thinners (for her blood clots) and told her to keep moving in hopes she wouldn't develop a clot, and that she had a 60% chance of losing the baby.  Obviously that was a stressful time, mostly for her but all of us sure felt the scare!!  But like I said, she is now 18 weeks and has stopped bleeding and even started her shots again with no more bleeding.  Friday she goes to a specialist that will do a 'full anatomy ultrasound', whatever that is!  She has a great OB/GYN (let's hear it for Ryan Ollerton!!)  and a fantastic blood specialist who keep in constant contact with each other.  She meets with both of them so I'm sure she will get a lot of information.  When they found the blood pool, they also discovered the sex of the baby, but she hasn't posted that on her blog yet, so I guess I have to keep it a secret, too.  But you can always check here on their blog to find out more.

And Alex.... well, he's being Alex.  When we went to the endocrinologist (diabetes doc) last time, he said that Al's thyroid numbers were weird; one was high the other was low.  I guess usually if one is high they both are or if one is low they both are.  So the doctor wanted me to make sure he was taking his meds (I knew he was, but whatever) and then have the blood taken again 2 weeks from then.  Well, I took him in and it took the nurse 20 minutes to find a vein then she botched the one arm so had to do the other arm, all in a kid that gets super anxious about blood draws until the needle is in, so the poor guy had high anxiety with no 'phew' for too long.  Then the nurse called me a week later and she had mislabeled his sample, so they needed to do it again.  Ahhhh!  I made Mike take him this time; not because I couldn't handle it, I just had too many kids around the house to take with me and Mike had some time.  I didn't warn Mike, though about the anxiety, so Mike came home a nervous wreck :-)    When we got the results the nurse said, "Man, your child is messed up!"  The numbers were still weird, meaning one was high and the other was low, and the high number was so high she had never seen one that high.  When I asked her how rare that was she said she had never seen a double digit number before;  the number is supposed to be 3.  Alex's was 65!   And the other number that was low was supposed to be .9 and Alex's was .06.  Yeah.  He's messed up.  He was already on an adult dose of meds, but they upped it anyway.  So now we wait another few weeks and get tested again!

And last but not least, I got in a fight with the school district.  Yes.  Yes, I did.  It's another long story, and I wouldn't go into details, but maybe someday my great-great-great-grandchildren will need to know how tough I am, so here it goes.  It started with a story on KSL about the school district's superintendent (Dr. Doty) and how he was using intimidation with the employees of the district.  I have friends who have been on the receiving end of this intimidation and so I wanted to get people to go to the board meeting and sign a petition asking for an investigation.  In order to get the word out about the meeting I asked Alex's teacher to send a letter I had written out to the other parents in the class, .  She didn't feel comfortable with that, but sent it to the district's special ed director.  The special ed director (Robin) called me and we set up a time to meet.  In the meantime I wrote to all the special educators in the district asking for anything they wanted me to bring up with her while I was there.  I got 9 pages of concerns and everyone of them came with a plea to keep their identity a secret!  That's how scared these people are.  I presented these concerns when I met with Robin and we had a nice chat.  It lasted an hour and she basically told me she can't do anything about the concerns unless she knows who / where the concerns lie.  I agreed and went home and wrote to all those concerned that Robin wanted us to give her a chance, and that if we stuck together things would get better.  Two days later I get phone calls and emails saying, "HA!  I told you so!" from teachers because Robin wrote to everyone and told them "not to send a parent with an obvious agenda against Dr. Doty" to speak for them and that I "had no official status."  Oooooo.  That hurt!  Who does she think she is and does she not know that parents in the special ed system ARE the official status?  Then the next day I got a letter in the mail from Robin, I guess because that's more intimidating, saying that I had lied and she would no longer speak to me about anything unless it concerned my son directly.  She's a tough one, but she doesn't know who she's dealing with;  which is another part of the story.  Her secretary is a good friend of mine and when she asked her secretary to find my phone number so we could meet, my friend said, "I have it on my cell phone."  So my friend told them that I was "a very nice person but I would fight any fight I had to for my son."  So they were fair warned!!!

So, I am in touch with someone at The Disability Law Center and IF they are doing anything illegal or unethical, I WILL fight the fight.  If they are just being petty and immature, I will let them be and just make sure Alex gets what he needs.  I don't need middle-school-drama in my life! 

Those are the high (low?) lights of the past few months.  Nothing special, but keeping me busy.  Oh, and Kierra went back to work so I get their 2 girls again, now too.  Love it!!!  My 3 granddaughters chillin' with Nanny!!  Throw in a B and an N and soon with school out we will have Al and you better watch out because we are trouble!!