Blessed

Jack's birthday and baptism day, 2 February 2008. (Get a load of his hair -- he did finally get a haircut. He turns 9 this Monday!)

Our family, hanging out at our friends' home. Jack is sporting his crazy boy grin.

Tim and Luke, on a walk in San Diego.

Tim and Parker, the day Parker was ordained a deacon in the Aaronic priesthood (24 August 2008).


I wasn't sure if I should title this "Blessed" or "Lucky." Either feels accurate. "Blessed AND Lucky" is probably most accurate.

Tim had ACL reconstruction surgery on Monday. The surgery went well, but things got a little dicey post-op. While he was still pretty heavily sedated, his upper-body was placed upright in the bed. His chin dropped to his chest, obstructing his breathing. His lungs kept trying to breathe, though, because that's what lungs do. This created negative pressure and pulled fluid into his lungs -- pulmonary edema. Tim told me later that when he woke up from the surgery, he felt like he had "swallowed a swimming pool."

About an hour or so before this happened, I left the hospital for a little while to get a break. Tim was still sleeping, and they told me that it would be at least an hour before I could see him. When I got back to the hospital an hour or so later, I was told that I still couldn't see him. I asked why, since it had been 2 1/2 to 3 hours since the surgery had ended. The woman relaying the information said, "You can't see him now. A nurse will be out shortly to tell you what is going on." Those words struck fear in my heart. I was already nervous about this surgery -- I joked with Tim right before he went in to surgery about how he should stay far away from "the light" or any tunnels with lights at the end of them. "Don't go toward the light," I said. He laughed as they wheeled him out of the room toward the OR.

I sat in the waiting room for about 20 minutes, waiting for the nurse to come tell me what was going on and trying to keep my composure. I had a feeling something was wrong. Then the woman returned and informed me that the nurse was aware that I was waiting, and that she would be there as soon as she had a free minute so that she could tell me what was happening. That about sent me over the edge. I started worrying that she didn't have a free minute to come talk to me because she was too busy trying to resuscitate my husband. Then I waited another 45 minutes. It felt like an eternity.

While I was waiting, my friend, Brook, text messaged me to find out how the surgery went. I told her what I knew (which wasn't much), and she was as worried as I was. She told her husband, Rich, who then asked if he could come wait with me. I told him I would appreciate it. (If I got any bad news, I did not want to be alone when I got it.)

At that point, I was mad at myself for not remembering to call Tim's family or mine to tell them that he was having surgery so that they could remember him in their prayers. Tim did have a priesthood blessing on Sunday night, and we did say our usual family prayer Sunday night before we took our two older boys to spend the night at our friends' home. And Tim and I prayed Monday morning before we left for the hospital. My prayers in the hospital waiting room became especially fervent, and in my desperation, I did some bargaining with Heavenly Father. I haven't told Tim yet, but we are going to need to serve a mission in our golden years. :-) (Although he won't be too surprised -- we've already talked about going someday.)

Anyway, shortly after Rich got to the hospital, he saw them wheel Tim into a recovery room. We were both very relieved to see that he was awake.

Luckily, Tim is fine -- he's young, he's healthy, he doesn't smoke, and he is a marathoner, so he's got excellent lungs. His lungs healed up very quickly. I think he was just pulling a "Raymond" to see how much everybody loves him (if you saw the series finale of "Everybody Loves Raymond," you know what I'm talking about). Everybody loves Timothy.

We want to thank the following people for helping us out this week:

~Our friends, Guy and Mary, for allowing Parker and Jack to spend the night at their home Sunday night and then getting them off to school Monday morning. (We had to be at the hospital at 5:30 am Monday morning, so that was a huge help.) They even kept the boys Monday night for good measure. We couldn't have done it without their help.

~Joel, for taking Luke all day on Monday so that we didn't have to deal with his antics at the hospital. Luke had the time of his life at the air base with all the firemen. Apparently, they all tried to outdo one another by seeing who could give Luke the best cookies. It was Luke's day in the sun -- he was the center of attention. When I told Luke he was going to get to spend the day with the firemen, he said, "Ironman?" I said, "No, firemen." But Luke was right -- they are all Ironmen.

~Brook and Richard -- Brook, for sending me all the love and support she could through a text message, and Richard, for meeting me at the hospital in my hour of need. They kept me from having a complete meltdown that day in the hospital waiting room. And then Brook brought us dinner that night and Rich fixed our computer.

~Tim's 1st counselor in the Young Men Presidency (Gene), a couple of the young men (Andrew and John), and the bishop of our ward, for bringing our family delicious cookies Wednesday night.

~The Elders Quorum President (Steve) and one of his counselors (Kurt), for visiting us shortly after the above motley crew left.

~Robin, for bringing us dinner last night. (It is showing that I posted this entry on Thursday, but I actually didn't finish writing it until Saturday night. Robin brought us dinner on Friday.) Robin has a terrible disease called Fibrodysplasia Ossificans Progressiva, and it is very difficult for him to get around. We were incredibly touched that he would buy food for us and drive it all the way up to our home -- it was a huge sacrifice for him.

~All the friends who have called and emailed us this week to offer support (and dinners).

We are truly blessed. Tim is alive and well, and we have great friends and family.

Life is good.