WOW, What a Week!!

Have you ever had a week that was so unbelievable challenging you wonder how you were able to get through it?? That is exactly what we were thinking last week.

Sunday 1/15/12 - Our snow week began with waking up to a dusting of snow from the night before, not too much to begin with just enough so that the kids needed to wear their boots to church in the morning. I stayed home with Luke that day so that Gordy could go to church. Luke seemed to be doing a little better now that we were finally cutting back on some of the new medications we had begun the week before. I had planned to go to church in the evening but when I left it was snowing again and the roads were getting icy so I went back home.

Here's Luke and I hanging out while everyone else is at church

Monday 1/16/12 - We woke up to about 10 inches of snow, that's a lot for us! Gordy decided to work from home that day. The Rodriguez family invited the kids over to go sledding on their HUGE hill behind their home, so the kids, Gordy and I shoveled off our driveway and Gordy took them over there to have some fun. The amazing thing was that none of the snow melted that day in fact it just got colder as time went by.

Tuesday 1/17/12 - We woke up once again to it snowing. Gordy decided to telecommute from home again, so blessed that he is able to do that. Luke had a neurology appointment that day and I asked Gordy if he would take us to the appointment because though I can drive in the snow, I don't really like to. We went to our appointment and found out that the Dr. agreed with me, he doesn't think that the twitching that Luke has been doing is related to seizure activity, so he ordered a EEG to be sure, which we scheduled for February 6th. Thankfully the snow stopped coming while we were out and about and didn't come back again until that evening, along with more ice.

Wednesday 1/18/12 - It was amazing to wake up and see that none of our snow had melted. Amy woke up that morning with horrible pain in her back, she had hurt it the previous day at the YMCA. It was heartbreaking to see her in so much pain. Gordy once again worked from home because there was no way he was going to get to work as the roads were covered in ice. We all stayed home that day, the kids didn't even get outside to play as it was too cold.

Can you see the huge tree that had fallen over in front of our library, that is what it was like all through out our area, tree's and limbs blocking so many of our roads.

Thursday 1/19/12 - We were woke up to the phone ringing that morning, my sister Cindy was asking if she could come over earlier than normal because they had lost their power and they were cold, of course we said they could come. Amy was still in horrible pain so we decided that we needed to get her into the Dr. to have her back checked out. It was very weird to be one of the only people in the waiting room at the Group Health clinic. On our way home I got a call from Gordy saying we lost our power. I called my parents to ask them if they still had power and thankfully they did. We packed up all Luke's medical supplies, which is no easy task and enough clothes for two days and headed over to my parent's home. While I got us all settled into their home, Gordy ran to Papa Murphy's to pick up some pizza's you see it was my niece Janell's birthday so we decided to have a spur of the moment birthday party for her that night. Thankfully my parents didn't lose their power until the pizza's were all cooked. My parents are blessed to live next to some of our most wonderful friends, who happens to own their own electrical company. Needless to say they are all set with a generator to power their home during power failures, they were so sweet to run over a extra long extension cord so that we could still have power for Luke's machines to run that night. Shortly after we lost power we heard a horrible cracking sound and realized that a huge tree in my parent's yard had split and the a huge branch had fallen on both my sister's car and our van. We were sickened to see that branch had gone straight through our windshield, through our dash and came out underneath it. More drama and adventure, the kind that we definitely could of done without. Thankfully my parent's power came back on and they didn't lose it again.

The limb that went through our van windshield

Friday 1/20/12 - I woke up exhausted because Luke decided that he didn't want to sleep at Grandma and Grandpa's home, so needless to say the stress of the week and the sleepless nights continued to take a toll on me. We kept hoping that our power had come back on but no such luck that day. Gordy had called our insurance company about our van the night before and we had it towed away in the evening of that day. We were blessed once again by our good friends, Juan and Spencer who went over to our home to dig out our big blue van, our good friends the Hohns let us use their van to go get it, we brought back some of the stuff in our fridge that wasn't going to make it and grabbed a few things we needed from home and settled in for another night at my parent's.

Saturday 1/21/12 - Gordy woke me up with the good news we had power again, so he went home to be sure the heat was on and things were good for us to go home. We loaded up all our stuff, once again no easy task and went on home with just enough time to get our laundry sorted and our first of 10 loads of laundry going. I took a quick shower and we headed out the door to go to Seattle to help Daniel and Sarah move into their new apartment. Daniel began a new job right downtown in Seattle so they decided to move close enough to his job that he could either walk or ride his bike to work. We finished moving them in around 6 pm, they fed us pizza and we got home that night around 8 pm. All of us wiped out from our stress filled week.

Me in the U-Haul downtown Seattle. I completely moved all the items in the truck to the front for others to carry into the apartment building, a nice way to burn off some calories.

Sunday 1/22/12 - We still had snow on the ground, which is so rare for us to keep our snow this long. Our neighborhood looks like a hurricane hit it we have so many tree's down along with many massive branches littering our road sides. Gordy stayed home with Luke and I made it to church for the first time in over a month. After church we had a clothes folding party, haha, then I barely gathered up enough energy to get to Costco for a much needed food shopping excursion.

Poor Luke this is what happens when his sister Lily decides that she is going to fix up her brother's hair, don't worry it didn't stay there long.

Monday 1/23/12 - I decided that I was going to walk again, as I haven't gone for a walk in almost two weeks, I think the longest I've gone without walking in a whole year. We still have snow on the ground but most of the roads were good enough for me to walk on, I went 3 1/2 miles, if felt so good to be out there once again. Once I got home and showered it was time to take Luke to his pre-op appointment. He is scheduled to get his gallbladder out this Wednesday. I would say the best news I've heard in a long time was the Dr. saying that Luke should only be in the hospital for one to two nights, I had been told previously it was at least a 3-5 day hospital stay. That is of course if everything goes according to plan.

Luke and I waiting for the surgeon to come in for our pre-op appointment

Well there you go, once again a way toooooo long blog post. I'm sure I will be writing again soon to let you know about Luke's surgery. Please pray that Luke will stay healthy so that we can get this surgery done with this week.

Thank you,
Luke's Mommy Sue