Monday, February 19 - It was President's Day so the kids and Simon had the day off but unfortunately, I had to work. :) I took care of Darlene for my mom while she is on a cruise. It was a very scary drive to South Jordan from my house. While I was there, Simon took the kids to the park to sled. A bunch of other friends/ward members were there doing the same thing. The kids had a blast!
Tuesday, February 20 - We have Evening of Excellence coming up and I volunteered to do the decorating so I worked on these Mason jars. They turned out cute enough that Kendra wants to keep them and use them in her new room downstairs.
Wednesday, February 21 - These girls are pretty darn amazing! We gave each group $5 to buy and prepare a complete meal with nothing more than a microwave. The first team did chicken fettuccine alfredo, French bread, corn, and gummy worms for dessert. The second team did baked (microwave) potatoes with ranch, cheese sauce, and ham, and a pie for dessert. They did such a great job and I'm confident that they can go to college on their own.......in a few years! :)
Thursday, February 22 - Our poor little Jake has been sick with the flu since Halle's birthday. He did start to get better for a few days but got worse again. On Monday, he came to bowling and had had a headache for two days. After several trips in and out of InstaCare, his head ended up hurting so bad that he couldn't open his left eye. It got so bad that I got a call tonight around 10:00 pm that he was in the emergency room awaiting a brain scan. My initial reaction was that a CT was kind of extreme but Jenni explained to me that she was the one requesting it (demanding it), not the doctors. She said that he was hallucinating and didn't know who he was or where he was. The result came back that he had a "brain bleed" (which would have been bad enough) and that he needed to go to the Neuro Trauma Unit up at Primary Children's Hospital. They debated on sending him by ambulance but because BJ is an experienced nurse, they allowed him to drive Jake. Upon arrival, the docs there looked at the scans and determined that he had significant infection on the brain (not a bleed) and that he needed surgery immediately. They pushed back their 7:30 am brain surgery in favor of getting Jake in for major brain surgery first.
Friday, February 23 - They took Jake in for surgery around 7:00 am and it was very successful. The puss and infection came oozing out as soon as they opened him up which made his surgery shorter and less invasive than they originally though. I stayed at Jenni's house to get Trevan and Halle out the door to school and to stay with sweet Rellie until BJ's sister Katie got there to get her. I volunteered for the unfortunate task of contacting my parents on their Mexican cruise to let them know what was happening. Jenni was funny. She said, "Tell them it's not an emergency and just to call as soon as they can". Ummm...no! This is the very definition of EMERGENCY so my texts and FB messages were "Call as soon as possible. It's urgent." I talked to dad and then mom. They were, understandably, very upset by the news and debated on flying home from Cabo San Lucas that day. Because his surgery was such a success and things seemed to be on the mend, they decided not to come home. A decision that they would later regret. :*(
Saturday, February 24 - I was able to spend most of the day up at the hospital, thank heaven. While we were there in the waiting room, Jenni and BJ came in with devastating news. Jake had a venous stroke and has a small blood clot in the back of his brain. He also still had a lot of infection on his brain that they were concerned about. They knew that a second surgery was necessary. This time, they would go up his nose into his sinuses and remove as much infection from his sinuses as they could. The surgery went okay but they knew that he needed even more before this was all over.
Sunday, February 25 - This is about the worst day I can remember. First thing in the morning, Jenni called to let us know that Jake would need another brain surgery to remove more infection. This time, they would reopen the incision from the first surgery plus cut in a zig-zag pattern across the top of his head. They did this so that, in conjunction to removing infection from his brain, they could do a second sinus surgery. They did a bone, muscle, and cement graft from under his forehead skin into his sinuses so that infection could no longer travel between his sinuses and brain. This should *hopefully* slow down the infection now and prevent this from ever happening again in the future. The poor boy was intubated and had a drain tube to remove excess fluid from the surgery site but otherwise, the surgery went very well and they are optimistic that he will begin to recover from here. Kenny & Katie picked Nick and I up after church and gave us a ride up to the hospital. It was interesting taking Nick into the PICU where he spent a week as a one-year-old. The bottom picture is him standing in front of room 2324 - his room from almost exactly 11 years ago! He was sad seeing Jake like this. They are such good buddies, I can't imagine how this must be affecting him. We pray for Jake every chance we get but I think seeing him was a game-changer for Nick.
