Farewell Feb '08

His parents and little sister.

I love you Daddy!

So we had to say farewell to our soldier yesterday. He is supposed to be gone for about 14 months. They have training in Oklahoma for a couple months then head overseas to Kuwait. He's in an aviation unit and aviation units are typically used to transport the troops in and out of areas.
The boys and I are doing ok and miss him tons. The car ride home was hard. The boys were crying really hard and saying they "wish Daddy didn't have to leave", which made me cry. I was trying to be strong for them and in so doing bottled my emotions up and couldn't release them later and ended up with a migrain.

It's going to be hard to hear the Apaches fly over our house. I used to call him up and joke about how low they were and tell him to tell the pilots to fly higher because they were rattling the pictures on the walls.

He is going on a much safer mission than he did last time, but it doesn't make it any easier. The fact remains that he will be 7,000 miles away. While he's in the States my sanity will be ok, but once he gets on that plane to go overseas I will lose what sanity I have for a while.

Witham boys and legs...

So, Little J hurt his leg last night. We have an appointment this morning at 10:40 and I am going to make sure they take x-rays just in case. There was a huge lump last night about the size of an egg, the lump is much smaller now but the pain was so bad he couldn't sleep last night. I have been giving him Ibuprofen for the pain and swelling. We shall see what the Dr says.

We go back to see the Orthopedic Surgeon for B this Friday, he is still limping and complains sometimes about the pain, but I think it's better than it was. He hasn't followed the Dr's orders to not run and jump either, he's 5 what do you expect?

S decided that he likes to turn the TV on and off and today I caught him on camera... He is a sneaky little guy,but super cute and check out the hair... Can you believe he's almost a year old?

Update on B

The Dr we saw yesterday was really nice and very thorough. He did more x-rays and determined that there isn't a ton of fluid around the knee, but there is a small fracture that is super close to the growth plate. He didn't want to immobilize B because that could end up doing more damage to the growth plate. B just has to make sure that he does low impact things for the next 3 weeks, when we have another appointment. How do you tell a 5 year old that they can't run but they can walk? He can't jump in anyway shape or form either.

Other than that we had the Pine Wood Derby today. Unfortunately Little J didn't win, in fact he came in 2nd to last. He did win the Most Patriotic Award. Big J made a car too, and when we got to race his car it took 3rd in it's class. I will add pictures of the cars when I take some. I forgot my camera this morning. :(

Frustration with Doctors...

Let's see... where to start....

Two weeks ago (Sept 13) B was coming inside, through the garage, from playing outside. He is a bit of a klutz, and he tripped up the stairs, managing to give himself a black eye (left side) and hurt his right knee. The next day (Friday) I picked him and the neighbor boy up from school and he was limping so I had him sit in the bottom of the stroller.

(this picture is from last year when I walked to go get my friends daughter from school and B would be "too tired" to walk)

Saturday was bowling day, both of the older boys are in a bowling league. B was still limping really bad after he bowled his two games so we made an appointment for him to see the doctor. Big J took him to the Dr. and I stayed at the alley since Little J wasn't done bowling yet.

Big J and B waited at the Dr's office for 30 minutes before being seen. B was very afraid of having to get shots so he was being overly brave. Dr had him walk and run and looked at his knee and said it was nothing more than a contusion. So we take the Dr's word for it and go our merry way. The entire next week B is limping and it's getting worse. He is really not one to complain and doesn't like having attention drawn to him. I made a mental note to call and make another appointment at the Dr, but as a mother of 3 I forgot. On Monday (Sept 24) I noticed his limping seemed to be worse than before, and this time other people are really starting to notice as well. Tuesday we went to the Dr and I told them I wanted an x-ray because is obviously wasn't just a contusion. They sent us to the hospital to have a radiologist do the x-ray and then look at it, so as to get the best answers possible. We hear back and the results show that there is fluid behind the knee cap as well as surrounding the joint. The referral is given to go to an Orthopedic Surgeon and B is to be off his knee as much as possible and stay in bed except to go to the bathroom. (You try telling a 5 year old boy to sit and not get up and play.)

We have our appointment tomorrow (Friday, Sept 28) and hopefully this Dr knows what they are doing and can diagnose it properly. I am guessing they will take a sample of the fluid to determine what it is and check to see if it's hiding a fracture.