Lee's Blessing

As we were traveling up to Yellowstone, we passed a little tiny town, and Lee said casually, that is where I was blessed as a baby.  Katherine and I both sat up and said, what?  So he explained: Lee was born in Pennsylvania, but most of the family was from Idaho and Utah.  So the family made the trip at some point to a little town in Idaho, and he was blessed in a little place they used to hold sacrament meetings.  So Katherine and I both said, we need to have a picture on the way back.  Lee grumbled, but said okay.  Katherine remembered, and I was driving, so there was no question that we would stop.  So here is Lee sitting on the porch of an existing building, not the actual one he was blessed in.  Who knows where it is, or if it's still standing?  Not that it was that long ago, or anything......

More Yellowstone

Okay, who's going to give Tami a blog lesson?  I'm still trying to figure this out and it's frustrating!

Katherine and Andrew  both liked 'walking the line' where ever a curb or timber provided an opportunity.  They were doing this when they first held  hands!

Next  we went to the Tetons, where the whether got pretty cold.  I had gotten a flu from somewhere, so we spent a lot of time in the care just admiring scenery.  

Then we picked up Andrew and Katherine and headed up to Yellowstone.  That was overwhelming!  so much to see and do, and so many animals soooo close!  

Yellowstone

Lee and Tami made a trip to Utah to see our new grandchild, Payton.  I did not get any pictures of Payton......bad, bad Grandma.  We did get to spend some good time with Allen's family, though, and he got some pictures of a group of us climping Timanogas.  I had an appointment before, so I grabbed my backpack, put my tennis shoes in it, put it in the kitchen and reminded Lee that he needed to make sandwiches and to  use the backpack to bring them in.  Then I happily went to my appointment.  When I met up with Lee and Allen and kids, lo and behold, he had borrowed a backpack from Julia because he didn't hear me (or listen?) explain.  So I got to hike Timanogas in my flip flops.  Boy was a I sore the next day!

The hike was well worth it, and so were the caves.  Incredible. 

Julia and Clyde were so hospitable, as always.  It was good to see them.  We got to see Lee's Dad, Verd, and Joe and Janet.

Elder Henry

Andrew is home and had the surgery.  There were so many miracles that worked together to make this happen!  

He was struggling with the pain in Brazil, and his recovery from the surgery there hit a plateau and then he experienced some serious pain.  The surgeon spent 2 ½ hours trying to remove the plate there, and ended up removing two screws and breaking eight more before deciding not to go on.  It was a very dark moment in Andrew’s life. 

The decision was finally made to send him home to have it redone by an American surgeon, and I got an appointment with a general practitioner in order to get a referral to a surgeon.  Many people told me to just use Mission Medical, but my information is that the Elders aren’t insured-their expenses are paid by donations.  Andrew is still covered by Kaiser, so I thought I’d attempt to work him through the system ASAP.  The first appointment I got really fast, the surgeon appointment was 3 ½ weeks out.  I started calling everyday for cancellations, and got it bumped up one week.  Then I was told after he saw the surgeon the scheduling for surgery could be 9-12 weeks out.  One person even told me that it took seven months to get a shoulder surgery done through Kaiser.  So we expected the worst. Andrew was assigned to the Carlsbad mission unofficially where he worked with another elder that was having medical issues.  

We met at the surgeon’s office, and discovered the doctor had a Mormon uncle.  He joked with us about Mormon’s preoccupation with geography (his uncle must go to his own ward, won’t go to church by his house).  After the consult and deciding that the surgery was advisable (though he was not excited about what he might find) he asked Andrew when he wanted to do it.  Andrew said-“I’m home to have this done, ASAP, whenever you can do it.”  So the surgeon responded with ‘how about tomorrow?’

We thought he was kidding.  He wasn’t.  Many, many circumstances occurred to make this possible:

1. Bumping the appointment up to get this particular doctor
2. Did the Mormon uncle soften his heart toward this elder?
3. Andrew and companion presented with white shirt and ties with tags
4. This doctor is leaving in a month for a New Zealand sabbatical, where he is planning on helping with their backlog of 100 pediatric spinal patients waiting for surgery-so he said he needed to get as much done in a timely manner as possible.
5. This is the big one: This surgeon was scheduled to do trauma surgery the next day-the operating room was set aside to be used as needed for trauma.  There were only two trauma cases scheduled, so he said that he would put Andrew on the schedule.  There would be a chance of being bumped, but if there were no new cases Andrew’s surgery would proceed.  There ended up being five surgeries on that day, Andrew’s was one of them.

 

Then, after the surgery when he went to see Andrew, he expressed with pleasure that it took him 10 minutes to remove the plate.  Unreal.  

Andrew was released from his mission on Saturday-he has a six week recovery period after which he has to get a note from the doctor releasing him for service and send it in with a letter requesting to be reassigned.  He has pain meds, which don’t completely cover the pain but help.  He is at a loss for what to do, but his attitude is good.

Prayers are answered.  What a week.  

 

Steven and Dan were able to be there, along with mom and Grandma and Lee, Dad and Christine. 

Alex was sick, so Melody was taking care of him like Ashley and Rachael were taking care of babies.  We missed all of you!

GRADUATION!

Today number 11 graduated.  Yeah David!  He even was a good sport and let me take pictures.  Wow, two photo sessions in a month, it's a record! 

David had strep throat this week, so we were delighted and relieved that he was up to participating in the graduation.  He missed the senior breakfast and other activities, but  he felt well enough to go to the ceremony.

Congratulations, David.  We are very proud.