Crazy Couple of Days

It's been a rough couple of days for Mark and I.  It started in the middle of the night, strong, sharp pains on his right side, near the cracked rib.  Mark has been in serious pain.  We tried pain meds, heating pad, sitting him in a recliner, meditation, prayer, anything that we could think of.  They might be a muscle spasm, but they are really aweful.  We finally spoke to the Huntsman team and home health and we tried different meds.  This works, but only for a few hours then the pain comes back with a vengeance.  It's been a huge challenge to decide what to do.  When the pain is at it's worst Mark's breathing becomes labored and this was a big concern for our nurses.  We've discussed going to the ER, but they already know that they will run a series of tests and have limited ability to help Mark in his unique situation.  If this situation doesn't improve we'll probably need treatment at the Huntsman. 

I was able to step out a little while Mark slept.  Life goes on.  My friend Susan is in town over her birthday weekend, and we managed to get four of us together for lunch at her favorite place Mandarin Garden.

Me, Nancy, Karen & Susan at Mandarin Garden

 On Friday, my girl's had thier last day of school before the Christmas break.  I went to Ava's second grade class party.  Here she is with her classmates playing "Don't Eat Pete!!"  She's kinda shy and as we were leaving to go home she asked me if I would come to the next class party and said, "It's fun when you're here, everybody likes you."  It's not hard to win over a bunch of 7 year olds, unless you're shy.  Interesting statement from Ava.

 Next was a craft to decorate snowflakes, followed by igloos made out of sugar cubes and frosting. Sticky fun!

 Ava with her buddy Ariana after they got thier books in the book exchange game.  Right after this party we came home and learned the news about the shootings in the Elementary School in CT.  What a sobering thought, what a tragedy!  My heart goes out to all of the innocence lost on this day.

 I stopped by the Haws open house for an hour to get hugs, eat yummy food, and share a few laughs.  Here's Marc Haws on Greg's lap telling him what he wants for Christmas because he's been so good this year, ha ha!

 Our friends the Oswalds and the Gardners, we love you all so much.  We sure love you guys!

Wanna hear something kinda interesting?  There is a place on the blog for me to see which countries are reading it.  I thought that was cool, and I learned that in addition to my friends that live far, far away such as Jason, Holger and Shalise in Germany, Nadine in Australia, lots of friends in Canada, and Jeff in South Korea, I have mystery friends in Italy, Russia, India, Isreal, Sweden, United Kingdom and Indonesia.  So either my friend Theresa who is a flight attendant, is reading from her layovers, or I've made some new friends in the world.  I just wanted to say "hi" to them. :)