Look at that adorable baby! We are all in love with Avery.
Mark and Cheri’s family. How can she look so gorgeous six weeks after having her fourth baby?
The siblings and spouses.
Fifty years of marriage! These two are the heart of our family.
Me with my favorite sister!
The siblings.
Adam and I look like hobbits. Why did they put us on the lowest part of the bridge and the tallest people at the tip of the bridge? We look like halflings. I should have worn taller heels like Amber and Vanessa.
Once again, I look like a hobbit. I’m the shortest person in the family, and I was put at the bottom of the curve.
Gran and Granddad and the grandkids
Brinlee scratched her eye the night before and could barely keep it open.
My trio. They are such good friends, and I love it.
Sweet Georgia.
Caisen
Sawyer
Daisy
Our monkeys
Kimball
Our boys
Our family.
Jonny, Vanessa and Avery
Eric and Tristi’s family
Leo and Amber’s family
The whole crew!
And this is the one going on the wall.
This is where the happiness of the weekend ended. Right before family pictures at about 5:00 Sawyer said he had a sore throat and was acting droopy, so we gave him ibuprofen. He acted ok during pictures. We had to decide whether to go back to Mark and Cheri’s house or drive an hour home. We decided to go back to their house and visit more. When we got there at 9:00 he snuggled up to Adam. He was a little warm, but I couldn’t give him more ibuprofen for two more hours. He moved over to sit next to granddad. A few minutes later his face went blank. He leaned over and opened his mouth and all of this thick sludge came out. I can’t really say it was vomiting because there was no heaving. It just kind of fell out. That is when he started to seize. The seizure lasted about 2 minutes, but when it was over, he was blue because more of that sludge was in his air pipe. Mark and Adam were trying to help him while he was seizing. Mark almost lost a finger trying to open his mouth, which you just can’t do when someone is having a seizure. He’s never witnessed one so he didn’t know. They started the Heimlich, they tried clearing his windpipe. They actually knocked out two of his bottom teeth in the process. There was blood everywhere, and we weren’t sure in the moment what the blood was from. We were two minutes from a hospital, but it took the ambulance about 10 minutes to get there. If Adam hadn’t been able to finally get it out, he would have died. He was without air for at least five minutes. It was horrible. The kids were all freaking out because they didn’t understand what was happening.
When the paramedics took his temp it was 101.3. He was in my arms, and that felt right and is what I would have guessed. In the ambulance I kept my face on his forehead, and I told them his fever had spiked. When they took his temp again it was 103.5. Adam’s brother is an ER doctor at that particular hospital, so he called Bob when we were on the way. He drove down from his house and Adam’s parents drove up from theirs. I stayed on Sawyer’s bed holding him the whole time.
We were discharged at 1:30 am. Their best guess was a febrile seizure, but it was really strange. Most kids don’t have them after the age of six, and certainly don’t usually have their first one at the age of 7.5. If we had decided to drive home, this would have happened in the car while driving on the interstate. If we had been home on a normal night, he would have been asleep in his bed when it happened and would have died. Both of those thoughts terrify me. When we left the hospital the three of us went to a hotel down the road to sleep. The kids were all asleep at Mark’s house. We also wanted everyone to be able to see him perfectly fine the next morning, especially the cousins. So the next morning when we woke up we went to their house to get our kids and let everyone see him before they all went home.
After that he ran a fever for a few more days. We alternated Tylenol and ibuprofen around the clock to keep the fever down. I kept going down in the night to check on him. I was terrified I would find him dead in the morning.
Two days after that I found out a friend of mine had died a few months before. She was a super health nut, and she died of lung cancer within four months of receiving a diagnosis. She was my age, her youngest was less than two years old, she had five kids. We weren’t best friends, but I liked her a lot. It hit home even more because of how similar our lives were. I just can’t stop thinking of what would happen to my kids if I died. She never smoked or drank. She made her family’s food from scratch, grew her own organic produce. Healthy living and raising her family were her top priorities. How does someone like that die of lung cancer?
A week later Daisy had her sinus surgery. She has had chronic sinus infections for about a year and a half. We’ve tried lots of things, and she has been on lots of antibiotics for ears and sinuses. Her sinuses are blocked by her adenoids and turbinates, so hopefully by removing those she will breathe better and have better drainage. They also rinsed out her sinuses. The surgery went well, but when she woke up she was completely disoriented for several hours. She didn’t recognize us, she cried and cried for hours. She thought we were trying to hurt her. It was horrible. She was hysterical. When we got her home it continued. I stayed with her in her bed and held her. She attacked me a few times because she thought I was a stranger. It was horrible to see her scared of us. She finally went to sleep, and when she woke up around dinner time she knew us again. The turbinate surgery was the hardest part and caused some bleeding but not terrible. She had to wear a bandage under her nostrils for a few days.
Between Sawyer’s incident and Daisy’s surgery and losing two of my friends in the last two months, my heart is very sad. I’m having a really rough year. The hits just keep on coming, and so far I don’t feel like I can get up. After Frank died I put a stop to all basement construction. I just can’t make decisions about things like that right now.
We did take the kids out for some fro yo
We also went to Texas de Brazil with some friends. I kept saying “Yes!” to the filet wrapped in bacon and ended up with so much of it that I thought I was going to explode if I had to eat it. Adam took a picture of my huge plate because he was so amused.
I just kept eating and chewing and my dining companions kept laughing and laughing. This is my look of shame.