what a weekend!

greg has (actually now it's had) a deviated septum, which caused him some trouble breathing. he saw our favorite ENT dr about it and decided to have it repaired. surgery day was this past friday. friday was also packed with some other activity for our family, so it all had to be pulled off without the 2 of us since we were otherwise occupied. max's school thanksgiving dinner was that day - his nanny and poppy joined him for that. i missed being there with him, but one person just can't do everything, right? kathy snapped a pic on her phone for me and sent it my way. the 3 of them had a good time. dad liked his tray full of food and said he wouldn't need to eat the rest of the day.

luke and blake were to be at church to leave by 4:30. luke was easy, he was riding the bus home. blake had rehearsal for madrigal dinner so i needed to get luke first and pick him up at 4:15 then head to church. greg and i stopped on the way to the hospital to pick up some pop and snackage that they were to bring along with them to share with the other kids. so we had it all ready in the back of the van to deliver along with our boys. you know what they say about the best-laid plans.

greg and i got to the hospital when we were supposed to, things were all on schedule. keith came to be with us. nathan stopped by greg's room before he had to leave to go eat turkey with andrew and aly at school (nothing like a 10:45 a.m. turkey dinner!). after they took greg back to surgery i noticed our friend emerson tearing down the hall to make it in time to see greg but he had already missed him. he decided to hang around with keith and me while we waited. i hadn't had any coffee yet since greg couldn't have any so emerson went with me to espresso mojo to get some. he insisted on paying for mine and got some for himself. i told him he didn't know what he was getting himself into financially because i load mine up. he didn't mind. he got regular coffee and later told me "i have to say this is not the best coffee i've ever had"...i think he'd rather have folgers. he thought i was weird for taking a picture of my coffee but i told him it's just what i do. he didn't mind me taking his picture. but keith did - notice the newspaper in front of his face. i like that picture anyway, it makes me laugh.

greg's surgery went well and when he was back in the outpatient area we were able to go back to be with him. he was pretty out of it but doing well. ended up having some complications, one of which was some bleeding we couldnt get stopped. his nurse changed the dressing a couple times and i spent the rest of the time changing it myself about every 10 minutes. i noticed a big clot was forming and his nose was swelling up. showed her and she called the doc, who came back to the hospital to fix things up. he did some magic with the toys he brought with him and the bleeding dwindled.

**this was all happening when i was supposed to be picking up luke at home and blake at school and getting them to church. all their food supplies were in my van at the hospital. then it was kathy and poppaw keith to the rescue. kathy picked up blake at school and brought him home. keith took their junkfood and went to our house to get them and take them to church. nanny and poppy were holding down the fort at home and making sure max was taken care of. seriously...what would we do without people to love us?**

greg's bleeding seemed to be slowing down and we were both comfortable with coming home and taking care of it there, so home we went. we got home a little after 6 pm. did nothing but watch bleeding and change greg's bandages as well as the towels he was having to use to catch what the bandages didn't. i called the answering service and got a call back from our dr's partner and he told me some things to do for the next hour or so and if they didn't work to call him back. an hour later we were in more of a mess than before so i called him and he said he'd meet us at the ER. i'd already been asking max where he'd like to spend the night if he had to sleep somewhere else...he said "somewhere close to home and with a friend to play with", so this time it was jeff and donna to the rescue! we got him safely to their house then off to the hospital it was. we got there about 9:15 and were pretty much whisked right in since we had a doc waiting for us. by this time greg looked like he'd been in a bar fight. (that's the picture i needed to take but it was just too gross to put anyone else through.) the doc barely got in the door to our room before he said "ok, we're going to go get that fixed." he was going to go in and clean all that out and cauterize things, in addition to suctioning out his belly. they were wheeling him into the OR area before 10. keith and christina came, as well as our friend bob (sambobbobby to me). after surgery he came wheeling down the hall up on the 6th floor looking and sounding like a new man. so much improvement! we were walking out of the hospital to go home by midnight. what a day.

yesterday was quiet and very slow around here.

friday was such a whirlwind for greg physically and for me and my thinking processes that saturday we were sort of zombied up. max was kind of worn out too. several friends and family called to check on him. sarah beth came by to give her uncle a hug. our smiths showed up with some hot vegetable beef soup and slices of pumpkin cheesecake. and sambobbobby came by later on to pick up things for kim to teach my sunday school class this morning. he'd made a starbucks run, too...we were the happy and grateful recipients of an americano for greg and a salted caramel hot chocolate for me. sometimes love comes in bowls of homemade soup and red cups, you know? it can also come in little homemade cards from precious little people in my sunday school class.

we're a bit on the zombie end of the spectrum today, too. don't really have to be anywhere until this evening. blake has a collegium musicum performance at a church downtown. greg will stay home and continue recuperating. he's doing better today - said he even could smell lunch a little bit, which is quite an improvement. i think he's perkier than me, as a matter of fact. but that's normal. =)

here's a re-enactment of greg's bandaging. the lovely one is from yesterday when he was bleeding in the amounts that are to be expected after this type of surgery. his bleeding is almost non-existent at this point. we wanted to document the look, though.