Gila Valley Temple

Saturday May 8th the youth in our ward had the opportunity to drive up and attend the Gila Valley Temple Open House.
Bob and Brandon both got to go.
They met at the church at 6am and boarded a chartered bus for the ride up.
Once there, they went through the temple. Some of the things that really stood out to them were-
The incredible art work (they said they had more originals than any other temple), the impressive chandelier, the beauty of the rooms and details, and the peaceful feeling that was felt there. They also enjoyed hearing of many of the experiences that others have had during the Open House. We can't wait until our Gilbert Temple is started.

* Thanks Liz for the picture*

Cool but Gross

Today we went and Bob got his stitches out. I will spare you a picture of that. It isn't the prettiest thing you have ever seen.
But we did get copies of his post surgery x-rays that show the plate and all the screws. We can count 8.
He also will be beginning some occupational therapy on his hand and wrist to get back some range of motion. He will be going 2-3 times a week.
She gave him a tentative work release date of June 6th. Hopefully he will be medicine free and feeling great by then.

Cute and Curious

Since Bob has broke his wrist more often than not you can find him putting some ice on his wrist. Rachel loves to sit by him and touch the ice pack. She loves the feel of the cold. It is so cute to watch I had to snap a little video. As way of an update.... Bob is doing better everyday, but still in lots of pain especially in the evenings. Today is the first day without one of the pain pills, so we will see how it goes. The swelling is slowly coming down. We were joking yesterday that he actually had a knuckle on one finger. It will be a few weeks before to the doctor releases him to go back to work.

Splint is Off

This morning Bob had a check-up with the surgeon. She was pleased with how things are looking.

He now has feeling back in almost all of his fingers, and the pain is getting more manageable. There is still quite a bit of swelling as you can tell from the pictures.

She gave him a removable cast. It is basically a brace he can take off to shower, and put ice on it.This brace also gives his fingers more movement so that will help with the swelling too.(the brace is on the couch next to him in the picture)

Next week he goes back to get the stitches out. (I will spare you a photo of the stitches, it is a little gruesome.)

Hopefully he will also be able to start to work from home tomorrow,and go into work at least for a 1/2 day to begin with by the end of the week or next week for sure.The pain med. he is on makes him a little nauseous reading the computer screen for to long.

Again we just have to say a huge THANK YOU to our great friends and neighbors who have helped us so much.

He's Home

Bob is home, and he is resting as comfortable as is possible.
He now has feeling almost to his fingers(they are starting to tingle), and his heart rate looks good after the calcium and an evening in the ICU with some extra monitoring .
He has lots of swelling today, so we are icing it and keeping it elevated in hopes that the swelling goes down.
He was so glad to be able to get home and to clean up. We spent the first ½ hour home trying to get all the beta-dine off. They never even cleaned him up after surgery at all. We got most of it off and he got to shower and is now resting.
Thanks for all of your thoughts, prayers and help the past few days.

Surgery

Bob had his surgery yesterday, and there were a few complications.
He was scheduled for 3:30 and didn't go in until 5:30 to start with. Then it took 4 hours instead of only 90 minutes as planned.
Long story short- the fracture was worse than they thought. The bone was more shattered and smashed than the x-rays indicated. When she went in to move the bone it rotated and she then had to re-rotate it and then put everything back in place and put the plate in. When she finally came out at 9:40 she was very happy with how it turned out, but was going to admit him over night to help monitor his pain.

Skip to today-
They are going to be keeping him again tonight. He is in the most pain I have ever seen him in. They are giving him morphine, and tordall(sp) for the pain and it takes the edge off for a little while, but not enough so he can rest.

I personally haven’t talked to the surgeon today so this is all coming from Bob.
The worst of the pain right now is the feeling coming back into his arm. They had a tourniquet on his arm during the surgery(4 hours) and until about 7 am he had no feeling at all in his arm from just above the elbow down. Now he is having shooting pain and “pins and needles” sensations(like when your arm is asleep) but multiplied 100 times. At about 2:00PM he finally had a little feeling just above his elbow. The Dr. told him it could get worse before it gets better.
He has also been having some irregular heartbeats. Part of it is probably from the pain, but they did and EKG and one side of his heart is intermittently firing faster than the other, so they just restarted his IV and are giving him some calcium. I guess a lack of calcium can cause that.

To top it off last night after they admitted him, before he was aware and remembering stuff they had a staff change and when he asked them if his surgery went ok they told him they thought so. He asked why he was admitted and they said they didn’t know. He couldn't feel his arm and so he was worried that something went wrong and they weren’t telling him what was wrong. He was in a bit of a panic. So he didn’t sleep at all until after 6AM, and then the pain started.
He didn’t want to call and wake me up to ask if everything was fine, so he waited until 6am to call me. Until then he didn’t know if everything was good.
He is still a little worried about his arm, but he sounded a little more confident that he actually believed the feeling would eventually come back when we just talked.

Right now he isn’t up to calls, but I am passing on all your well wishes. Please keep him in your thoughts and prayers. the next few days are going to be hard for him.

Thank you again to all of you who have helped out the last few days. We are so blessed to have such great friends. I couldn't have made it without you.

Update on Bob

Today we spent 3+ hours at the Orthopaedic surgeons office. Of that time only 15 minutes was spent with the doctor.
She determined that Bob will need surgery to put a plate in his wrist. The way she explained how it broke is like when you crack a hard boiled egg. It isn't just one crack in a straight line.
She took more x-rays today and said that he had a good size horizontal fracture with at least 2 vertical fractures coming off it. Plus there is a least one other area where it has broken.
So on Wednesday afternoon he will be going in for surgery. The surgery should take about 90 minutes and he will be under general anesthesia.He is still in a lot of pain so hopefully after Wednesday he will start to get some relief.
Today they took off the splint that was put on in the ER on Friday to get some more x-rays. He still has a lot of swelling and some bruising. The new splint they put on gives him more movement in his fingers so hopefully that will help with the swelling.
I took the following picture with my phone to show how swollen he is.

Broken Bones

Yesterday at a work quarterly team building activity Bob broke his wrist!
He was playing kickball and was running to 2nd base. The guy was blocking the plate in hope to get Bob out, so he kind of slid and fell. He landed just right and knew immediately that something was wrong. (He was safe by the way).
He walked around a bit to see if the pain would die down, it didn't, and he figured it was probably broken at this point so he just got in the car and started driving to the ER closest to home!(he was about 30 minutes away)When he got there they were very impressed that he drove himself in.I ended up having to go pick him up,(they won't let you drive while on drugs) and many thanks to Kristin and Craig for bringing Bob's car home to us.
At the ER he got right in. We have a really nice ER right by the house that guarantees a 30 minute or less wait time.
After a shot of morphine and some x-rays it was determined it is broken.
Now we are just waiting for the swelling to go down and he will see the Orthopedic Surgeon on Monday and probably have a plate put in.
I will add x-ray photos when Bob is not so doped up he can tell me where he saved them.(They gave him a CD with his x-rays on it to take on Monday)

Arrow of Light

The arrow of light went really well last night. I thought I would post a picture to show all the work that Bob went to for it.(it looks even cooler with the lights dimmed)
I hope that all the younger boys, including Zachary were watching and listening to the script and will follow the example of the boys last night and keep working hard. The scout program is so great.

Pinewood Derby!!!

Today was our ward's pinewood derby. Zachary's car was the Batmobile. He and Bob spent many hours out in the garage working on it. He had a lot of fun. At the end of the races he was tied for fastest Bear, but in the run-off came in second!
This year Bob also built a car. It was a Hostess Twinkie. It was a filler car so that all the races had all 3 lanes filled. He didn't win a single race, maybe next year! Some of the other leaders had some pretty fast cars. Something to aim for next time.
Below is a video clip of one of the races where he placed 1st. Also a slide show of the whole process.