Watched the premiere of The Bachelorette. WOOOHOO!!! (Sad, I know)
Tuesday, May 25: I left work early to go to the Orthopedic Dr with Steve. He's got two tumors in his hand that need to be removed. What causes the tumors is some ethnically genetic disease that causes the fibers in your hand to ball up and become hard, sometimes painful. In the case of Steve's pinky, it was totally bent at the first joint and wasn't able to be straightened out. He also had one on the inside of his index finger, which was painful. Unfortunately, the only remedy is surgery. (He's had two removed previously) Come to find out the Dr has a cancellation on Friday, so we take it.
I pick up Tanner from school, race home, feed her, she gets ready to go to her softball game at 5:30. We are just fixing to walk out the door at 5:05 when it starts thundering, lightening and dumping rain. We try to wait it out thinking things will let up, but they don't. No game after all. I don't know that I've ever seen Tanner so disappointed in not playing! She was ready to go and of course she wanted to try out her new bat.
The good thing of the night:
You might not be able to tell, but it's a rainbow.Wednesday, May 26: We've had issues with ants for the last few weeks. Not a huge deal, as this happens every spring/summer. We've treated them a gazillion times and they still aren't dead. We noticed the previous Saturday what looked like paint chips on the trim of our sliding glass door. We wondered what had caused it but didn't think much more about it. For some reason, it occured to me that these little buggers might be termites. I run it by Steve and then call our termite company. He came out at 2:00 that afternoon. Here's what he saw:
See those little lines-those are where the dang little termites have eaten. The wood is so soft I could put my finger through it. The other little black things are ants. Have I mentioned that I hate ants????
See the crack in the trim and that dirty spot on the sheet rock next to it-that crack is one of the places in the trim that the termites have hollowed out. The dirty spot is where the sheet rock is soft as well. Not.Cool.At.All.
Thankfully, our termite company will repair this for us and we don't have to pay a dime. Our original termite inspector sold the business to the company that now holds our contract, West Termite and Pest Control. West is who inspected the house in December. I have to say that thus far, they have been more than wonderful to us when it comes to dealing with this situation. The guy who came out on Wednesday was the Asst. Manager for the company and he was awesome. Praise God!!
They will have to pull the trim in order to see how deep and how involved the damage is to the sheet rock. Right now they think the termites have eaten only the paper on the sheet rock and of course the trim. If that's the case, they will sand, mud and paint the sheet rock and then replace and paint the trim board. It could be so much worse.
Steve goes to have his pre-op bloodwork done. His blood pressure is 170/90. Eek!! It had been a stressful week.
I pick up Tanner from school as soon as the termite guy leaves. We head to Fayetteville to the Credit Union, sign loan papers (that's a whole other post, trust me!) and then head back home to move the wood pile off the back porch-part of the reason for the termite and ant problems.
Tanner comes out that night before bed and shows me where her daytime retainer has cracked and broken. Grrr...............
Thursday, May 27: I work in the morning, then take off to take Tanner to the Ortho for more impressions for new retainers. While there, the tech and I start talking about watermelon Sprite at Sonic. It's the tech's favorite drink and I say that I'll have to try it. When we leave, the sweet girl hands me a $5 Sonic card to try the drink with. How sweet!!
I took Tanner out to lunch before taking her back to school. She wanted to eat at Rockin' Chicken. My best friend from work, Kevin, and his son came in to eat about halfway through our lunch. Tanner was so excited to see them and of course Kevin was glad to see Tanner as well. I think she's got a secret crush on him, personally. :)
I ran to the grocery store after dropping her back off at school. A few weeks ago when I worked on a Saturday, instead of taking overtime, I chose to take comp time. God knew this week was coming up. Luckily, the 9 hours I took off work were all comp time so I didn't have to burn any vacation time. Praise God!!
After grocery shopping I ran back home in order to meet the termite repair guy. He was supposed to be at the house at 3:00 and I literally pulled into the driveway at 2:55 with a truck full of groceries. I got them put away in lightening time and waited and waited for the repair guy. He never came. I finally called West and come to find out there was a huge miscommunication between their people, so he wasn't coming after all. I was a tad irked, but at the same time, I was totally ok with it.
Friday, May 28: We arrive at the surgery center at 7:45. I'm nervous. Steve's joking around. (We balance each other out really well!) We get hime checked in at the desk and I ran and got Starbucks for myself and the receptionist that checked us in. I have no idea who she was, but when I mentioned Starbucks she made a comment about how good it would be. I told her to write down her order and I'd get her something. So I did. I love doing little random acts of kindness like that. She said I made her day. :)
I was able to stay with Steve until they took him back around 9:30. I hate saying goodbye to him before a surgery-minor or not! The surgery itself took about an hour and a half. When he was done, the Dr came out and talked to me. He said the surgery was more intensive than he thought it would be because of Steve's pinky finger. He was able to get both tumors out and he was able to straighten the pinky completely out. We go back to the Dr in ten days and they will start therapy after that.
I finally got to go back and sit with him in recovery. He was in a TON of pain. The Dr said that he numbed his hand good before he sewed him back up and that he shouldn't be able to feel anything. Well guess what-Steve could feel it and you could tell it! We had the absolute BEST nurse though while in recovery. Her name was Brandy and she will be getting a thank you note from me next week. She was actually the RN in charge of Stage 2 recovery; She was the bomb though. She stayed on top of Steve's pain and wasn't about to let us go before she had it under control. At one point, when the medicine they were giving him wasn't cutting it, she called the Dr on his cell phone, while he was in the OR operating on someone else!
After about two hours in recovery, we finally got the pain under control. Brandy fixed us up, finished up the paperwork and we were finally able to go home. Here's what my man looks like now:
He's got two incisions. One of that starts just up from the palm of his hand up the side of his pinky (if I understand the Dr correctly) and then one that starts just under his index finger and up the side of it. It'll look like this for ten days and then the bandages will come off. Right now he's still in quite a bit of pain and we are taking pain meds every five hours-even through the night (it's like having an infant again only this time, instead of getting a bottle of milk for a baby, I'm getting a bottle of Percocet for my big baby!)
Thankfully this is all on his left hand and he's right handed. You don't realize how much you use both of your hands until you lose the use of one of them!
After I got Steve home and in the bed, the termite people came back out. They drilled more holes, retreated for the termites, plugged the holes, treated the yard and the house for ants and other bugs and also cleaned all of our eaves for cobwebs. They will start the repair process on the door and wall sometime next week.
Saturday, May 29: Steve insisted that I "treat myself" today, that he'd be fine without me. So I went this morning and got my eyebrows done, my nails done, did some shoping at the mall for Tanner and then used my gift card from Mother's Day for an hour long deep tissue massage. It was a great and much needed day.
That sums up the past week of our lives. It's been a busy, stressful time and it doesn't look as if next week will be any better. My goal through it all is to just keep my head above water.
We'll see how it goes.
We'll see how it goes.
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