Post Op

We've been watching M*A*S*H a lot lately of an evening.  So we've been telling Sam what it was like when you go in for an operation.  Bombs going off everywhere, Dr's jumping up on the patient and thumping their chests to get their hearts to start pumping again, Dr's cracking jokes left, right and centre.  Donald was explaining to Sam that two big, burly men were going to come in and grab hold of his arm.  One was going to pull in one direction and the other was going to pull in the opposite direction on the count of 3 . . . . but . . . they would count to 2 and then pull, to take you unawares.

Well none of the above happened.  It was pretty quiet and boring waiting.  We arrived at Royal North Shore hospital at 6.30am to meet with the Orthopaedic consult.  By 8am we were walking up to the children's ward and Sam was given a bed.  He got to lay down and watch movies for a while until it was time to be wheeled down to theatre.

This time Donald got kitted up in the fancy pants, shoes and hat to accompany Sam into the operating theatre to get his bone straightened out.  I was with Sam the first time he had surgery on his thumb so it was only fair that Donald had a turn.

Fortunately Sam was only out for about an hour as they were able to manipulate the bone back into place and he didn't need to have surgery and place the bone with pins or a plate.  Here he is in recovery, he was rather chatty and full of all sorts of information.

The Royal North Shore hospital have a school program for children who are in hospital.  Even if you are in for a short stay teachers come around and offer activities or movies to watch to get their mind off their troubles.  Sam chose to watch a Dr Who dvd.

I sat and crocheted a new bag for my mum.

Donald snoozed while we waited for Sam to recover and have his obs taken.

They released Sam around 3.30pm and we have to go back to the fracture clinic next Thursday to make sure the bone is still set correctly.  Fingers crossed all heals well.

Sam will need to have his cast on for at least 6 weeks and seeing as he had such a rough night with itchiness under the cast, it looks like it might be a loooooong 6 weeks.

A break in the day

Today was to be a calm quiet day for me.  Get the boys off to school, go for a long walk with Amelia and then off to my yoga class.  The last few weeks have been rather busy and since soccer started there doesn't seem to be much time for relaxing on the weekends.  However I do have my Tuesdays to look forward to.  I even stopped at the bakery on the way home for some bread and a chicken pie.  Mmm they make the best chicken pies.  So it was a pie on the front porch after yoga, this was going to be my photo for the day.

This afternoon I got a phone call at 2.45pm and it was Sam.  It was very strange to get a phone call from him.  It was his early finishing day from school and he was riding home on his bike.  So he called me up to tell me he had an accident just up the road from school.  I was assuming he'd grazed his knee and was bleeding a bit and the fact that he called meant that he was still alive and conscious, thank goodness!!  So I grabbed some face washers and an ice pack and whizzed down to find him, thinking whether he'd had an accident with a car or just fell off the bike, my mind was racing, but I was very calm.

When I arrived Sam was on the footpath and a girl from his class, who had stopped to help him and loaned him her phone, was with him.  I loaded him into the car and then had a look at him.  A bloody lip, a sore knee, a strangely swollen arm and he was very quiet and in pain, which said to me that I had better get him to a hospital.  I drove past Ethan and Toby's school and grabbed one of our neighbours to bring Toby and Ethan up to the car from school.  Meanwhile I drove home with Sam, ran inside, phoned Donald and found an old sarong to make a sling with an ice pack, gave Amelia a bone, and we headed back down to the school for Ethan and Toby then it was off to the local hospital.

My suspicions were confirmed with an xray, the distal radius on his left arm was broken.  My poor boy.  Donald had arrived at the hospital by the time we came out from xray and Ethan and Toby were reading and eating snacks that I had foraged from home.  So after a few hours at the emergency room, after xrays and seeing the doctor, they put a temporary half cast on his arm as we needed to see the Orthopaedic doctor at Royal North Shore hospital.

So we are home tonight but first thing tomorrow we are off to North Shore as Sam may need to have his break repositioned and then set properly.  It may involve surgery and general anaesthetic so it may be a long day.  Any thoughts or prayers for Sam are most welcome.

This is my new photo of the day.

She's Apples

In the school holidays I was looking forward to taking the boys up to the Blue Mountains for the day so we went up the day before Ethan's birthday.  My favourite part of the Blue Mountains is along Bells Line of Road through Bilpin and Mt Tomah Botanical gardens.  I took my mum and sister there for a day out but we didn't have time to visit the botanical gardens as we had to be back in time for school pick up.

This time with the boys we had the whole day to ourselves.  The weather that week was pretty wet, however when we started going up the Mountains the sky stayed pretty dry for us and we even had some sunshine after our first stop at the Kurrajong lookout.

We stopped for apples, Royal Gala and Pink Lady at the Bilpin Fruit bowl, as well as an apple pie.  There are so many varieties of apples but those are my two favourites.  The apples are so fresh they were picked that morning, they have no stickers on them and they are sweet, crunchy and delicious.  On our way home I ended up stopping there again for another bag of Royal Gala's.  I had plans for making apple rhubarb pie.

Autumn leaves on my windscreen after parking under a tree.

We stopped at the Apple Bar for a lunch of wood fired pizza's and hot chocolates.  They truly are the best tasting pizza's.  Maybe it was the fresh air, sitting out on the verandah and maybe it was the Autumn leaves and woodsmoke but it was a lovely lunch.  The boys brought their books along to fill in time while we waited for our pizza's to cook and they were most well behaved and good company.

Once our bellies were full we were ready for a walk through the Mt Tomah Botanical gardens.  If you've never been there I heartily recommend a visit with the kids.  The gardens are beautiful, and there are many walks around into different sections and types of gardens, forests etc.  There are magnificent views from many aspects of the gardens too!

There was lots of running and jumping through the gardens, especially by Toby.  They all jumped off rocks, balconies, seats and ran down hills.  It was a beautiful afternoon for a bit of freedom.

My camera battery ran out, silly me forgot to charge it up the night before.  So I ended up taking a few photo's with Instagram on my iPod.

A photo a day: Week 18

April 29

Sunday after church nap

April 30

Sam's had lots of homework and assignments that have been ruling our lives the past few weeks.

May 1

A beautiful May sky with an assortment of clouds.  Ethan's homework this week has been to track the weather and name the types of clouds each day so we have been watching the sky.  Isn't it rather coincidental that for his birthday Ethan received a book on Australian weather from Gabby and Neil and a solar powered weather station from us?  It has been fun identifying clouds and seeing the temperature drop at night times.

May 2

I like finding interesting mail boxes in my travels, this one I pass every second week on my way to and from my cleaning job.

May 3

Our young Women's Presidency meeting, it was a bit of a meet and crochet as we planned activities for the Young Women of our church on a Wednesday night.  My church calling is the secretary of our Young Women's group.  I just had to capture the brightness of Tina's zig zag blanket that she is crocheting. 

May 4

May the 4th be with you!!  It's International Star Wars day.

May 5

Three soccer games today; Sam won 4:nil, Ethan won 3:nil and Toby won 4:nil, a rather good day for the Walkers I'd say.  The photo of Ethan above is a sample of his tackle style, sideways stance, foot holding ground and his body follows through so he becomes a brick wall and wins the tackle.  He tackled so hard he knocked the other boys boot off (maybe his shoe was loose anyway).