My brain’s sort of drifting in and out of clear thinking since I’m tired from taking the kids swimming for 2 hours this morning, but I just wanted to say that: Dean’s not hiccuping anymore (other than a random “hic” here or there,) and we both got a good night’s sleep last night. Hallelujah.
When Dean’s hiccups had subsided a couple of hours ago, his pain medication had also started wearing off and his foot had started hurting. He took more medication, and about 15 minutes later the hiccups started back up with a vengeance. We do NOT know what he will do — he’s clearly in the tiny percentage of people who get hiccups from narcotics, but he really needs something to stop the pain from his surgery. He is headed in to see the doctor now — thankfully, my brother was able to take him, since I am still feeling sick to my stomach — and I just hope that a different formulation of pain medicine will solve the problem. If not, we’re all at a loss as to what to try next. Yikes.
Update: Dean’s back from the doctor, who gave him an anti-inflammatory-type pain medication to replace the narcotics. It will unfortunately also cause indigestion, so he had to get an over-the-counter medication to help with that. Maybe after being off the narcotics a day or two he’ll be able to go back on and his body will lose the hiccuping impulse. We were talking about treatments for extreme hiccups that Dean read about on the internet, and Dean mentioned he read about a 15-year-old girl who had hiccups for 5 months.
Dean: “I would want to kill myself.”
Spen: “That’s the Simpsons joke. [Quotes:] ‘Now we’ll interview a man who’s had the hiccups for 40 years.’ [Man with hiccups:] ‘Hic . . . kill me. Hic . . . . kill me. Hic . . . kill me.’”
After trying a few different things — including the stretchy wrap used for packing — we’ve found that masking tape wrapped liberally works best for holding a bag of ice on a bulky, slippery cast.
After Dean came out of surgery yesterday I noticed he had hiccups that would come and go. Well, last night they came back with a vengeance and kept him up all night; he was up at 3 AM on the internet researching remedies. He would find things that would work, abut after about about 20 minutes the hiccups would start again, and the remedy wouldn’t work anymore and he’d have to try something new. The hiccups are violent and painful.
I slept through some of Dean’s hiccuping but it disturbed my sleep enough that I almost slept through the kids’ swim lessons this morning — we were about 10 minutes late. And between that and helping the kids negotiate their schedules today (making sure I get a couple chores out of them but also giving them some time with friends) and helping Dean, etc., I didn’t get my breakfast until 11 AM — and only by telling Rose she would have to wait for her lunch until I had my breakfast. Also, I have been feeling sick to my stomach since yesterday.
Oh, and also Dean says his cast feels too tight around his shin, so I am taking him to the doctor’s office this afternoon and they will most likely cut a piece out of the cast where it feels tightest.
Dean also asked the doctor about the hiccups and he suggested Dean call the hospital and talk to his anesthesiologist to see if there’s a remedy, which Dean did. The anesthesiologist told him that he’s never had a patient get hiccups and that the hiccups couldn’t have been caused by the anesthesia, and that there wasn’t any medicine available for treating hiccups.
After hanging up the phone, Dean did an internet search and learned that hiccups are commonly associated with general anesthesia.”Further research found that they can also be caused by opiates (which Dean is taking for the pain.) And he learned that a couple of anti-schizophrenia medications are sometimes used to treat hiccups.
I think that for now Dean has stopped hiccuping — thank goodness. I’ve got to go take the medicine I’m supposed to take with breakfast, and get Rose and Henry down for their naps. Maybe Dean and I will be able to rest, too.
Oh — one more thing: when Dean talked to his surgeon this morning, the surgeon said that he was thinking about it more last night, and he really thinks that Dean’s was the most difficult surgery he’d ever done. In addition to the problem getting the metatarsal to go where it should, he said that Dean had hardly any cartilage left, so he even thought about putting in an implant, but decided not to on someone still relatively young like Dean. But Dean will likely need work for that in a few years. I guess it’s a badge of honor to have given your surgeon a workout. Maybe.
The surgery was to take 1 to 1.5 hours — it took just over 2.5 hours. The doctor said it was the worst he’s done in his 20 years of practice — from what he said, I think the thing that made it worst was that Dean’s soft tissues were so tough that the doctor just couldn’t get the metatarsal to move over to where it was supposed to go — so in addition to the osteotomy, he also had to shorten the metatarsal. This may lead to a complication called a “transfer lesion” but it was just the only thing the doctor could do. He also said Dean had really bad arthritis in there, which he cleaned up the best he could. Dean got three titanium screws in his bone. The doctor was satisfied but not thrilled with the final result (he’s a perfectionist, which I like in a surgeon) but once Dean has healed and has good orthotic insoles, he should have a lot less foot pain.
I forgot to take a “before” picture. Oh, well.
Anyway he got out of surgery around 4 pm, but still needed to wait for the anesthesia to wear off, and that took a long time — also, it was giving him short-term amnesia, so that, for example, he pointed to a second water cup on his bedstand and said, “That one’s empty,” and when I said, “Yeah, you drank it already,” he said, “No, I didn’t.” (But I’d seen him do it.) He also told me that he had that feeling like when you’ve been dreaming on a Saturday morning and you just don’t want to wake up — and then he told me pretty much the same thing ten minutes later. And again ten minutes later. This for about two hours. (I just said, “Yeah, I know what you mean.”)
My mom was able to come relieve the babysitter around 5 until I brought Dean home a little before 8. (In between, I had run home to get some food myself while Dean’s anesthesia was wearing off.) He’s upstairs resting and he wants to watch a movie after I’ve checked my email and unwound a bit. (Woah, it’s almost 9:30? Time flies.) I’m more exhausted than you would think from my having sat in a waiting room all day, but anxiety is fatiguing. I’m grateful the surgery’s over with, glad he had a really good surgeon, and on the whole really glad Dean hd the surgery done. Now I just need to get through the next few days and weeks — I think there’s a lot of fast food/frozen food/take-out in our near future, because I just don’t feel like cooking.
In an odd coincidence, my niece broke her foot a couple days ago — so she and Dean will be able to commiserate — and so will my sister and I.
Anyway, thanks for any of your prayers, and if you want to keep sending them up for a smooth recovery for Dean, we’d love that.
Dean is having foot surgery tomorrow to correct a bunion. Then he’ll be in a cast and not supposed to put weight on his foot for 6 weeks, then a “boot” for 2-4 more weeks. I have spent the last few days (ever since the consultation with the doctor on Friday, I guess) in a state of near-paralyzed dread — I don’t really manage to take care of my kids and my obligations even with Dean’s help, so I’m just not sure how I’ll manage the loss of his help AND his need for my help (at least in the first few days.)
This evening I’m feeling a little more optimistic, though — maybe since we went out to eat so I had a nice dinner, and then Dean mopped the kitchen floor tonight. Praying has helped, too. I’m not sure whether the stress of the next few weeks will push me towards or away from blog-writing, so I don’t know how much I’ll be around here. Gonna go watch a movie with Dean now.
Update:
We checked into the hospital at 9:15, right on time. I left the hospital at 10:45 to get myself something to eat, and I came to my Mom’s house to eat it so Dean won’t have to watch me eat since he has to fast (I’m using my Mom’s computer to make this update.) When I left the hospital, Dean’s doctor hadn’t arrived yet, and I’d already had a pretty good nap in the recliner in Dean’s room. I’ll be heading back over there shortly — I hope I’ll find that Dean’s gone into surgery by then.
I almost took down this post ’cause I’m a little embarrassed over my dramatic “nearly paralyzed with dread” wording — since lots of people have survived much worse trials. But it’s still true that once Dean decided to have this surgery, it really changed my idea of what my summer would be like, and I haven’t been thrilled about that. I’m glad, though, that he found a good doctor (or so it seems . . . my opinion might change if it turns out the reason Dean had to wait so long this morning was that his doctor was out golfing) and is getting this taken care of. I probably just need to find a good TV series on DVD for Dean and I to get hooked on while he’s recovering. Maybe Firefly. Maybe this is the time for us to get signed up with Netflix, too.
Anyway, I’m going to finish my sandwich and head back over to the hospital. (Oh, if you’re wondering about the kids, they’re with a babysitter. Makes me tempted to spend a few minutes at a fabric store before I go back to the waiting game.)
For a long time, my sister Mary’s been telling me I would enjoy owning a Xyron machine, and I finally got myself a 9″ wide one a couple of months ago — and I have been having great fun with it, using it to make stickers for the kids in church Nursery, laminated bookmarks for their mothers for Mother’s Day, and other projects. You can get different cartridges to do two-sided cold lamination, to apply permanent or repositionable adhesive, and to make sheet magnets. Following Mary’s lead, I’ve already tried a couple different magnetic paper dolls. Here’s today’s project:
I found the free printable Shirley Temple paper doll at this website, and we actually already made a small version earlier today that we put in a little tin my Gingher scissors came in, and Rose played with it during church today. Mabel has some animal magnets we made, too, and we made another little baby paper doll a couple weeks ago, so we can mix and match and put the baby clothes on the kitten, etc. It’s lots of fun. I really recommend getting a Xyron machine if you enjoy paper crafts, (and if, like me, you’re too lazy or too late to get to a place where you can do laminating by the time you’re working on a project.) The Xyron is really, really easy to use, too.
Dean would have known how to lighten Rose’s face to match the original paper doll’s skin better — or I guess I could have figured it out on my own — but I’m satisfied, and I bet Rose will love it. The one I printed is on an 8.5×11 page.
Now I just need more cute tins to put my magnetic paper dolls in — if anyone knows where to buy them (or has kept some around and is willing to part with them,) let me know.
Update: Okay, now I have finished the paper doll, and I have some hints if you decide to try making one.
You shouldn’t laminate the doll onto the sheet magnet, or the clothes won’t stick to her. You have a couple choices for this: The first would be to glue the doll right into the tin — well, actually yet another choice would be to leave the doll loose but place her between the tin and the clothing. The choice Mary suggested, (which I would not have thought of because I am not a genius at these things like she is,) is to
take a piece of the sheet magnet, turn it over, glue the doll to it (back side of doll to back side of sheet magnet — you can use the adhesive cartridge for this) and then, optionally, use the two-sided laminate cartridge and laminate her. Now the clothing will stick to the doll very well (sometimes it will want to be offset from where you want it by a very small amount, but unless you’re an extreme perfectionist then it’s not noticeable.) BUT, do make sure all the clothes and the doll are all parallel on your page before you laminate it to the magnetic sheet — mine that were at right angles won’t stick together. If your doll is magnetized, you won’t need a tin to play with it on — you can store it in an envelope or cardboard box.
Also, this will definitely be a labor of love to cut out. I used an old pair of 4″ embroidery scissors and the scissors did get sticky and probably less sharp.
While I was gathering ideas, I saw an already-cut-out magnetic Disney Cinderella doll on eBay that I’m sure would have made Rose just as happy (and I might still get it for her and stash it for her Christmas stocking,) but this was more fun for me to make. Once, anyway — I’m ready to take break from cutting out tiny shapes in sheet magnet for a while, now.
The mystery: Two of Dean’s socks were found in a puddle of water in our front-loading washer.
The facts:
Conclusion: Henry washed a pair of Dean’s socks, by himself.
Isaac is back from camp. We missed him more than he missed us. I guess it wasn’t very nice to tell him that I missed him most when I needed a new roll of paper towels brought up from the basement — but we also told him how many times, when we were gathering for dinner or prayer or to run errands, Mabel would ask “Where’s Isaac?” He had a great time, and I’m glad he’s back. I don’t even mind too much about the laundry he brought back with him.
A second Y mountain. While we were in the Target parking lot this evening, Dean noticed that Timpanogos currently has its own “Y” to rival that on Provo’s Y Mountain:
Shoe fetish. Here, Henry wears Mabel’s sparkly flip flops. This is the first time I’ve seen him give this hammy grin for the camera, but I feel certain it won’t be the last time:
Double the pleasure. Here’s Henry’s latest trick:
Isaac: “M____ [his best friend] is going to hate these pajamas when he sees them.” [This was right before M____ and Isaac went to the Clear Creek 5th grade summer camp this week.]
Me: “Why, because they are so loud? Or does he not like those Pokemon?”
Ike: “No, because he’s a Utes fan. He’s going to hate the BYU pants.”
Me: “He’s a Utes fan and you’re a BYU fan? How did you ever get to be friends?”
Ike: “We didn’t know! We got to be friends first, and then we found out!”
Me: “But you decided you could stay friends?”
Ike: “Yeah, we were like [shrugs] ‘Oh, well.’ But these pajamas are going to make him mad.”
and I’ve just barely caught up on reading friends’ blogs that I have listed in Google Reader. And I haven’t caught up on any websites or group blogs that I like to frequent. (Not that I’m going to try.) Mostly, this tells me I spend too much time on the Web.
(But thanks, to all of you, for providing such great things for me to read! I wish I kept up better in person, but it’s still so nice to see pictures of you and your kids and get a feel for how you’re doing.)
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