Casts, Stitches and Miracles

Miracles. I feel like they are everywhere around me lately! For having almost 8 years worth of boys in our family, we have had relatively few ER trips. However, this last week, we've about come current with that quota. Logan has our first cast (Ethan broke his finger the last day of school after Kindegarten and needed surgery and pins to repair, but no cast.) Jacob has our first set of stitches (Seth had the first big bleeder wound but it was closed off with super-glue.) Jared had his foot crushed and is on crutches. He also helped in saving Seth's life when clear across the nation. So... now the stories...

Logan broke his arm. He was reaching in the chicken coop to gather eggs while Seth was holding the top up with all his 4 yr old might. That might just wasn't strong enough this time so the top came down on Logan's arm. He could still move all his fingers around, but could not twist his arm and was in pain everytime he tried. We took him into the after-hours care at his Pediatrician's Office (saving us a LOT of money and time and worry with an ER) and they sent us for an X-Ray, confirming a fracture. He got a green cast. It's waterproof, which makes my life WAY easier! Last Sunday, Jared was sitting there with his own sore foot when Logan's Primary Teacher came in with Logan and the cast. Logan had taken the cast off and was hitting the chairs with it like drumsticks. Bro. Mitchell was kind and clever enough to help get it back on with a little slippery soap. So today, when Logan slipped it off again, I decided he was ok. We were supposed to call for an appointment in the next few days. He doesn't hurt at all and can use his arm and fingers normally. We'll see how wrong I end up to be on that decision. We'll also see if Jared reverses that when he gets back from meetings this afternoon!

Jacob has stitches in his forehead. Right in the middle, up and down. It's pretty cool looking! He was standing behind the kids practicing TBall and caught the back-swing of a bat. It didn't seem to be too hard of a hit, it just caught him right. He was bleeding all over and the gap was big enough that I went ahead and took him into that same Ped office. Now, the other part of that story is that I had just barely finished a conversation with Pres Felix on my couch asking me to step in for Gayla as Stake Girl's Camp Director while she is ill. Camp is in a little over a month. Oh, and I had a meeting with everyone that evening at my house. I ended up arriving about 15 minutes late. I was happy to see them all sitting around and carrying on without me! That relieved a lot of pressure and stress.

Jared "squished" his foot. We have been working like mad to get these garden boxes in. Being June, it's a little late for that, but we've had such strange weather all Spring that we really had not been able to do it yet. I had already emptied 6 load-fulls of good garden dirt in the boxes (with help from Laurel) and had just picked up #7. I needed to leave the full trailer parked in the back so I could take Justin's Expedition to get washed up for his date that evening. That was our deal in letting me borrow it for dirt while he was at EFY. Anyway, so Jared came out to help me back it where I needed it. I had put down the support foot while Jared was unhitching it when the welding on the support brace broke, bringing the tip of the trailer right down on top of Jared's foot. Ouch. I had seen that it fell, but I didn't realize it landed on Jared until he started hollering to lift. I had that super-human strength that people talk about. Even empty, this thing was too heavy to manipulate if I hadn't moved the truck exactly where it needed to go. Filled with 2 units of dirt made it that much heavier. Anyway, I lifted it off. I didn't even realize I had lifted it at all when Jared fell over. I definately had unseen help. Whitney (our teenage babysitter and friend) was inside so I had Alyssa (Laurel's daughter, Ethan's age) run in and get her while I back the van up to take Jared to the Doctor. After getting him loaded up, I ran inside and grabbed all the kids on the way for a prayer. In my prayer I asked that he not be in too much pain, that I could find the right Doctor, etc... After finishing, Logan (or maybe it was Seth, I really can not remember) shouted up, "and make sure his foot isn't broken. In the name..." We are trying to fix that habit of adding addendums to other prayers, but it worked this time!! We were able to get him in with a Doctor in the AF clinic (again, avoiding the ER costs) and they were ready and waiting when we got there. They sent us straight to the X-Ray guy. He took lots of pictures and came saying he didn't trust himself, but it looked like the bones were NOT broken. Now, let me interject what the foot looked like at this time. Picture a very colorful football with bloody gouges in it and you're about there. It was absolutely grotesque. So we went up to see our Doctor who again did not trust himself and got a THIRD oppinion. Sure enough, the bone was not broken. They could see where it landed, "smushing" the bone. They could also see where many blood vessles had broken. At that point, nobody wanted to touch it. They didn't wrap it, stitch it, or anything. Needless to say, Jared was in some pain and could not put any pressure whatsoever on it. He had that numb and tingly sensation in it for days. It's been about 10 days now and he is still on crutches in a bit of pain. I'll take him in tomorrow to make sure we don't have nerve damage. At least it's not broken!

Always pay tithing first. We would have paid almost that much in ER bills this much if not for those little miracles. Jared earns enough to keep us comfortable, there is not much wiggle room.

This last story is still fresh in my mind and affecting me (and benefitting Jared, I might add). Jared was out of town for a business meeting a few days this week so I had the 4 boys (and all the animals...) at home. We actually had a great week. Sometimes when Jared is gone, I tend to lose patience faster. This times, I really felt under control and was quite pleased with all the fun stuff we were doing. On Thursday afternoon, the kids had earned a trip to the pool. We waited for Jacob's nap, then went. Right before leaving, Jared called me on my cell phone and said he felt really impressed to tell me to stick close to Seth. He didn't know why, nor did he know we were off to the pool. Anyway, so that had me a little worried. Jacob and I stuck to him like glue! Normally, I can sit in one place and play with Jacob and still have a view of the whole pool and all the exits. So this time, we were sitting on one side of the pony wall separating the area that the big slide empties into from the rest of the pool. I had my back against it and Seth was kinda hanging on the wall while Jacob and I were practicing dunking skills. We came up, saw that Seth was gone, looked over the wall and pulled out of the water in one big swoop. His eyes were big and looking up, but he didn't even cough when coming up, it had been that fast. At that moment, I had that overwhelming feeling of "that is why...". Looking around, the lifegaurd was up trying to help get something fixed at the top of the stairs for the slide, and nobody was around that area. I know I could have gotten that inspiration for my family. I have before. I am so grateful for a husband who was listening to the spirit that afternoon and followed through on calling me. I don't know if I had been too busy that day to hear it myself, but I like to think that I could have, but this was a another reminder for me. I have a tendancy to be too independant, especially when Jared is away. I think I'm rambling now. all in all - awesome week.