Katie on the Piano

Katie is one of the most determined kids I know. When she wants to learn something she practices it over and over until she gets it. I started teaching her a primary song, thinking that she would be able to play the first line or so, and she memorized the whole thing. Needless to say, this is what we hear all day long. So here's Katie playing, "When Jesus Christ was Baptized..."

Update on Mom!

Well, it seems that this is going to be the year of trials for our family. Whatever we are supposed to learn we pray to learn it fast so that things can return to normal.

Saturday night my mom was picking up Jed and Amanda from the airport when through a combined effort of her forgetting to put the car in park and an accidental foot touching the gas, the car ran over her foot, knocking her to the ground and breaking a lot of bones. Her foot is broken in two places, her ankle is broken, and her hip is broken. She needs to have a total hip replacement surgery to fix the break. The hip surgeon at the hospital that she's at is on vacation so she is being tranferred to Good Samaritan Hospital in Portland sometime this evening. Once they evaluate her there they should be able to schedule her surgery. She's doing ok. She seems to have a really positive attitude about the whole thing. She's been wanting a hip replacement anyways, and this just happens to be the same hip that she was having problems with. This may just be a blessing in disguise. We all love her and are praying that she gets better quickly.

First Day of School

Since David had his surgery on the first day of school, Amanda and Jed took the kids to school. They took pictures of them and we are a little slow in getting them posted. I heard that they had a great first day of Kindergarten and 2nd grade!

Dang-it!

Sydney says Dang-it all the time. We got it on video and just had to share it!

Sydney Singing

Home

We are home and David is doing as good as could be expected. He's still in a lot of pain, but handling it well. The medicine that he's on makes him a little anxious and irritable (especially with the kids), and he has trouble sleeping at night. Every day seems to be a lot better and he's mentioned that he doesn't hurt as bad as he did in the hospital. We've been through this before and know that all you can do it just take it one day at a time. This kids are glad to have daddy back home. Audrey and Sydney will come home tomorrow and we are all anxious to see them. Maybe having the whole family back together will make things seem a little more normal. Our house sure is quiet with the babies gone!

Coming Home

The word on the hospital floor is we're coming home today. I don't really know what time, but I'm guessing we'll get to leave by early afternoon. Yesterday, David took a shower, which took a lot out of him, and we went for a couple of walks around the hall. He's been really sleepy which I think is the some from just coming out of surgery, but a lot is the pain medication. The electrophysiologist came and saw him and said that they were going to reprogram his pace make a little bit. Before it was pacing his whole heart, which means that if his heart didn't beat, it would first fire the upper chamber and then the lower chamber. From the tests that they did, they really didn't see a problem with the conduction on the way down his heart. The upper chamber is really the problem, it likes to take a nap. So if they just fire the upper chamber then the rest of his heart naturally beats along with it. The doctors prefer that if his body can do it on its own, it's best if his heart beats more naturally, althought they have it set so that if the lower chamber needs help the pace maker will provide it. These pace makers are amazing. He will have to be seen personally in about a month, but after that they will give him a system for at home and he will transfer information from the pacemaker in his belly, through the phone to the doctors. Isn't that amazing?

Again, thank you everyone for all of your thoughts and prayers! Thank you for everyone that has helped with the kids. We are truly grateful!

Saturday Morning

David's doing even better today. He's still in a lot of pain. We had a full day yesterday, lots of doctors came in, he had occupational therapy, physical therapy, a chest x-ray, the electrophysiology doctor came and worked on his pace maker, and they pulled out the central line in his neck. Now he has a big whole where they pulled that line. David said he didn't sleep great last night, he felt kind of congested and woke up every few minutes, but he said that he got better sleep early this morning.

The doctor that's in charge of this floor came in early this morning and examined David, he wanted him to sit up so he could listen to his lungs and that doctor actually pulled him up by his arm. That was excruciating! I wish they would teach the doctors what the patient is able to do after their chest is opened up. The therapists preach and preach to you about not pushing or pulling anything over 5 lbs, and then the doctor comes in and hurts you. One doctor is saying we may go home today and another is talking about tomorrow, we'll find out later today, I guess.
Things are really going well, we just have to get throught the long healing process.

Friday Morning

David is doing a lot better this morning. At this moment he is sitting up in a chair eating breakfast. He has been advanced to a regular diet and his nausea seems to be gone. Yesterday afternoon he got the two chest tubes taken out. Then we were moved to a regular room on the cardiac floor. Once we got there we saw the doctors on this floor and they said they wanted the catheter taken out, and the IV in his neck. The catheter is out, but we are still waiting for the neck IV to be removed. David has a little swelling in his hands and feet and so they gave him "compression socks" to help the swelling go down. He slept good last night, and has advanced from IV pain medication to oral medication. Other than being in a lot of pain (and being a little cranky) he's doing well. He says the pain is tolerable until he has to adjust himself or cough. They haven't said when we'll be able to go home, but I'm thinking it will be either tomorrow or Sunday. We are waiting to see Dr. Weiss today, he should be in between 10:00 and 12:00.

Thursday Morning

We made it through the worst of it, I hope. They let us come in and see David at about 10:00 last night. That was really hard, it's always quite a shock. He was having shivers due to coming out of the anesthesia so his whole body shook quite a bit. He also was having trouble with nausea and was in a lot of pain. He would talk to us, but kept his eyes closed most of the time. He said when he opened his eyes he was seeing double. David's blood pressure was pretty high when he came out and so they gave him medicine to fix it and by about 2 am it was back to normal. He had a chest x-ray last night and then again this morning. We asked the nurse and he said the x-ray is looking for fluid collecting around his heart. He was pretty miserable most of the night. By about 3am they finally had given enough pain medication that David was able to sleep. He says that he feels ok, he feels like he isn't sick, just in a lot of pain. He says it feels like somebody opened up his chest, go figure. Through the night he asked a lot of questions, he wanted to know how long the surgery took, he wanted to know how it went and if he had any chest tubes (he has 2). He also wanted to know if I'd gotten anything to eat. He's always worried about everyone else. He wanted us to hold his hand, and at one point he even asked me to give him a kiss. Normally he would have Sydney do it, but I guess I had to do because she's not here.

Right now David is sleeping peacefully. He wanted the oxygen off but they won't let him because it always dips too low. The plan is to move him to a regular room later today, and then the chest tubes should come out tomorrow. That's how things move in the hospital, he loses one tube at a time. His pace maker has been kicking in, it works when his heart rate drops below 60. All through the night his heart rate was around 100, but now is at 60 and the monitor says it is being paced. Even though this will be a long process, things are moving in the right direction and we are thankful that everything went well.

Out of Surgery

We got a page at about 8:05 that said they were finishing up the procedure and the doctor was coming to talk to us. Dr. Langley (the surgeon) came out and told us that everything went great. There were no surprises, the pace maker is working well, it should last about 10 years. There was a lot of scar tissue that they had to work through, his heart was really stuck to his breast bone and so they had to cut through his entire sternum. He has two chest tubes coming out for drainage and the surgeon said they should come out tomorrow. He is being transferred to the adult ICU floor and we should be able to see him in about 30 minutes. I'll update more when we get to see him and he starts waking up.

In Surgery

Well after a long day of waiting (and I mean long) David is finally in surgery. Our check in time was 10:30 this morning, and he was finally taken into surgery at 5:10 this evening. They say it will take about 2 hours to prep him for surgery and then they think it will be about 2 hours for the surgery. I will update again when we know how the surgery is going.

On a more positive note, the kids had a great day at school. It was Charlie's first day at the Spanish Immersion school and he said he had fun. He learned two words in Spanish and made three friends. I really think he'll like this new school. Katie had her first day in Kindergarten and was very happy to find out that her friend Mya is in her class. When I asked what she learned today she said they taught her how to write her teachers name. When I asked what her favorite thing about Kindergarten is she said recess. They are both excited to go back tomorrow.

Today as we were driving up here I was thinking about how important David is to our family. I wanted to write a little ode to David and tell everyone (and him when he is able to read this) why we love him so much.

David is the best father you can imagine. He plays with the kids, he is REALLY involved with them. He loves to cuddle them, and has tons of patience. He's truly interested in what they are doing and takes an active role in their lives. The other day I heard Sydney tell my mom that "Daddy likes kisses when he's sick." This is true he's always asking the kids to come and give him hugs and kisses when he doesn't feel well.

David is a WONDERFUL husband. An example is this afternoon when I lost it before he went to surgery. I am in tears and even though he is worried about what he has to go through, all he does is worry about how I am. We love spending time together and would be lost without each other.

David is extremely intellingent and hardworking. He worries all the time about how being sick is going to affect our family financially and will go to work if he can, no matter how he feels. He is a successful engineer and extremely valuable to his company. This Christmas my mom gave us all gifts that had our qualities listed on it. I was upset when I found out that my gift said "intelligent," but David's gift said "highly intelligent." I must admit that she was right.

David has a strong testimony of the gospel. He is a wonderful priesthood leader in our home. He is a righteous example to the children, and always striving to do what's right. The gospel is the highest priority in his life and you can see this in his actions and the choices that he makes in his life.

David has a wonderful sense of humor, he keeps us laughing all the time. He is always fun to be around and lifts the spirits of everyone around him.

David is a special man, I think that anyone who knows him can agree to that. We love him and pray that he will be back home with us soon, on his road to recovery.

The Eve of Surgery

I hope my blog posts aren't getting too boring for everyone. I hear that people want more updates so I'll try to deliver. David and Sam went to Portland today for David's pre-op appointment. I stayed home to take Charlie and Katie to their open houses for school since I will miss their first day of school tomorrow. David met with the surgeons and they explained the surgery that will happen tomorrow. He is to check in at 10:30 and the surgery is scheduled for 12:00 or 1:00pm. We are extremely dissappointed that they will have to crack his entire chest to access his heart. We were told previously that this would not be neccessary. This means about a year of pain for David. He is not to work for at least 2 weeks and can't lift anything for 3 months. His pace maker will be placed just under his heart in the center or his torso instead of in his shoulder like most people. The leads will be all around the outside of his heart.

We would appreciate all the prayers we can get tomorrow. This is going to be a hard day for our whole family.