The Injured, The Sick & The Cranky

My Friend Sue

I have a friend named Sue. Sue can cook, sew, can food, make candy, stamps her own greeting cards, etc, etc. She is a very talented woman. She is no spring chicken, about 53 years old, she's my sushi buddy. She'll call me unexpectedly and announce that she's hungry. So I ask what time she wants me to meet her at Sushiya. Really it is quite nice knowing someone who can eat the heck out of sushi like I can. No standing on etiquette when it comes to Sue and sushi. Order as much as you want and don't be embarrassed about eating way more than you should. Now Sue happens to be one of the most accident prone people I know. A couple of months ago, she was watching her grandson Christopher, who turned one in January. She tripped while getting his car seat out of the car, with him in the car seat of course. She managed to save the baby, but hit her jaw on a table in the garage on her way down, and dislocated it. She's been having trouble with it ever since and has been having to go in for therapy. Now her latest incident happened just a couple of weeks ago. She was dropping off her grandson at her son's place. She noticed her son, Chris, was having trouble opening the gate to his place while holding the baby and all the baby stuff, so she jumped out of the car in an effort to keep the gate from swinging shut on the baby. Unfortunately she neglected to put her car in "park". So while holding the gate open she noticed her car rolling backwards into the street. Also unfortunately, her 26 year-old daughter Mary, who happens to have Down's Syndrome, was in the front passenger seat. So Sue runs to the car, and tries to get in, but the door knocked her down and she ended up running herself over with her own car. Oh, and Sue drives a mini-van, not some tiny car like a Volkswagen bug. Her can continues to roll into the street and smashes into a truck in the road, while Sue is lying there stunned. She is able to keep her cool, and tells her son to get her cell phone out of her purse and call 911. In the meantime, Mary gets out of the van uninjured, walks up to her mom, and asks her why she's just sitting there in the street. Got to love the innocence of someone with Down's. So in the end, Sue ended up with a fractured knee cap on her left leg and two broken bones just above her ankle on her right leg. After one surgery, a whole lot of pins, and a couple days of morphine later I found her in better spirits. I brought her sushi in the hospital, then again while she was in a recovery care facility, and now she's back home. Well, not back in her home, at her parents home. While all this was going on, Sue and her husband, Dean, were closing escrow on a new property they just bought. So while Sue has been in recovery care, Dean has been up at their new place painting, spackling and installing new floors. She hasn't even been able to get there yet, never mind help with the move.

My Husband Vince

Vince has been getting a lot of work done around the house. We have a new slider door leading out to the patio. New French doors from our bedroom leading out to the patio, all new windows in the den and kitchen, and a new full length window in the short hallway leading to Harrison's room. Vince had to move the baseboard while installing this window and didn't reinstall it yet. The baseboards are made out of Brazilian Cherrywood, which is very hard wood and when cut on an angle can cut like a knife. Thursday morning, Vince was heading into Harrison's room when he slipped, ended up taking out Harrison with him, and sliced the underneath of his middle toe on the part of the baseboard that was left sticking out. Harrison was fine, other than being upset, but Vince's foot was bleeding in puddles on the floor. So we all got packed into the car, dropped of Sophia at school and headed to Urgent Care. The Urgent Care doctor took one look at Vince's foot, and refused to touch it. He sent us up to the Podietrist, who told Vince what a fine job he did on his foot. It only took one stitch, but he cut down to the tendon sheath. Uck. So now my husband is gimpy, and there is still a lot of work left to do around here.

My Daughter Sophia

Sophia woke Vince and me up at about 4am on Monday morning to tell us she didn't feel well. She had a fever, so while preparing some tylenol for her, she ended up vomiting. My least favorite symptom of all time. This lasted for three days. The only thing that kept the fever at bay was more Tylenol. She ended up getting sick three times, but by the grace of God, I was always out running errands when it happened. For that I am truly thankful. Poor little girl was quarantined to her room for three days. We didn't want Harrison or Annamaria getting sick either, so for three days, she slept, played with her leapster, drew pictures and played Polly Pockets in her bed. I think she was really looking forward to returning to school on Thursday morning. But of course that was when Vince had his accident, so it wasn't a calm, pleasant return to school. I think that just gave her more incentive to get away from the rest of us.

My Son Harrison

Vince was having fun with Harrison last night while putting him to bed. He does this all the time, and usually there are no incidents. But last night there was. Vince drops Harrison in bed, and he usually bounces on his pillow and just loves it. Last night Harrison bounced forward and hit his head on his nightstand. He hit the bone just above his left eyebrow, which immediately swelled up like a rhino horn, big and purple. Harrison really made a big deal about it for quite a while. And while I know that hurts, I think all the fussing was about the cold pack of frozen corn niblets that he didn't want put on his head. But I think it payed off because this morning he looks back to normal except for a little blue where the injury was.

And Me

Last Saturday, Vince drove up to Los Angeles to pick up a new sliding door for Harrison's room. While he was gone I thought I'd take it upon myself to raise the curtain rod above the window in the dining area of our kitchen. So I got up on a chair with Vince's power drill and got to task. A lot harder than I thought. I ended up hurting my back so bad, that I've been all but useless. My back finally started to feel better yesterday. That's a week of ice packs, heat packs, and Tiger Balm. Then the morning Sophia returned to school, and Vince sliced open his toe, I noticed my sinuses were driving me crazy. I figured it was allergies, but I'm very limited as to what I can take while pregnant, so it's been down to Singulair, which I take for my asthma anyway, and Alavert. Neither have been helping. So after a couple nights of restless sleep from my face hurting so bad, I awoke this morning and came to the conclusion that it's not allergies but a sinus infection. No wonder my teeth feel like they're going to pop out of my mouth.

I am happy to report that Annamaria is just fine. No accidents or illnesses. Although she can be quite the crank when she puts her mind to it.