Dean Is HOME!

So, after almost 4 months, 4 surgeries, 3 hospitals, terrible neglect, and even more terrible food, Dean came home around 3:00 pm on Thursday, November 20, 2014.

When he got home, it was surreal. I had been working on painting our bedroom and he had not seen it in person, only in pictures. I think a lot of emotions were going around because we both breathed a sigh of relief, and some happy tears.

Jake was at school the whole day.  I told him his Daddy was coming home and I think he thought he would get to wait for him at home.  He did NOT want to go to school on Thursday.  He started crying while at home and all the way there, and I had to leave him at school while he was still crying.  I HATE doing that, but this is the new normal and we must go with it.  When I picked him up at the end of the day he was perfectly fine, told me about how much fun he had during the day.  He was really excited to get home to see his Daddy.

And, when we got home, the boy never left his Daddy's side!  Even when we had dinner, he wanted to sit right next to him.  It was really great!  We all watched some Umi Zoomi, which he really loves watching with his daddy (Belly Belly Belly screen!).

I made us a delicious smoked turkey pot pie!  SO GOOD!  The smoked turkey really makes a great pot pie and makes the house smell like yummy smoked goodness!  It was nice to sit together and have a home cooked meal AT HOME.

Turkey Pot, Turkey Pot, Turkey Pot PIE!!!

Dean still has some healing to do, and we are all doing it together.  The experience at Kindred was completely horrible and will take some time for all of us to get over.  Now that he is home, some of our stories are quite unbelievable.  As we recall all he went through, it's almost more of a concept we cannot quite grasp.  I will tell you though, who I really feel for is all the people at Kindred that cannot speak up for themselves.  They are being mistreated and neglected and they are not able to say anything.  So, please say a quick prayer or send thoughts their way.

I wish you a very Happy Thanksgiving, and I hope you have much to be thankful for.
We are very thankful Dean is home for the Holidays!

Something we have been waiting for

So, the last week since his 2nd surgery has been slow going, and not much has been reported to us from any doctors as they do not come by for much these days.  We knew that after the 2nd surgery, some time would need to pass before we heard anything back, so we have been just waiting, and waiting.

Yesterday Jake and I got a chance to go see Dean for the evening.  We had a really nice visit, and the best part.  I FINALLY HAVE SOMETHING WE HAVE BEEN WAITING FOR.  Some GOOD NEWS!

His ID doctor (internal disease) Dr. Z came in while we were there.  He asked how Dean was doing, and it's the same, staff changing out every shift, food is horrible, nurses making mistakes.  This time a nurse went to hook up his antibiotics IV, but connected an EMPTY bag that he had earlier instead of the NEW bag, and claiming she had a "Blond moment" duh!  Then, leaving the empty IV bag on the table where Jake picked it up "What's this mommy?" and getting antibiotics all over him, and when I took it from him, it got all over me.  And, I'm sure she didn't put her HUGE mistake in her notes!

FRUSTRATING!!!

Anyway, the good news.  Dr Z told us his "numbers" (the ones that show how his infection is doing) have GONE DOWN really well, and he's back on track for getting better!  This is a small step but one we have not made since the big step back September!  We also heard a little bit about what his surgery spot is doing, and it looks like its healing okay.  We are waiting to see Dr. M (wound care) to know exactly how well it is healing.

Other Weekend happenings
I took Jake to Zuma Fun Center in South Houston, it's only 15 minutes from the hospital, but 45 minutes from home.  We enjoyed Putt-Putt golf, video games and winning 81 tickets, and Jake's first ride on a go cart!  He liked it, but he thought they were too loud and covered his ears, and made me go slower "TOO FAST MOMMY!".  Other than the teenage girl who kept running into us, but she apparently was running into everybody, it was fun!

Watch out Tiger Woods!

 

 

He did really well, but he ended up kicking or picking up the ball and putting it in the hole, but he got the concept pretty fast and liked that we had several holes to play.  He even understood he had to go look to see where the hole was before "teeing off" 

Okay, here's a look at the menu Dean had to choose from this weekend...

just so you know, it's pretty much all yuck!

Also, we decided that while Dean is in the Hospital we are going to repaint our bedroom

 

We are going with a light gray and a medium gray accent wall that will be a collage of pictures of the family and other pictures I've taken.  we are also going to get a new furniture and a new Sleep Number bed.  

Jake is helping!  See his excellent job taping the door?

The Drama never ends

Important stuff first.  
Dean is fine, his surgery went well, and he's recovering nicely.  He's currently in Memorial Hermann and will most likely be there until Monday due to insurance issues (yeah like we need that!) where he will go back to Kindred until his follow up surgery which is scheduled in 2 weeks (10/21).  More detailed information below.

Drama! Drama! Drama!
I won't use doctor's names, So I'll say Dr. D is his surgeon and Dr. W is the plastic surgeon, and Dr A. is Dean's regular doctor, and Dr. M is his wound care doctor.

So, Dean met with Dr. D and Dr. M both saw Dean on different dates and came to the conclusion that he would need surgery.  This was about a week and a half ago.  Apparently Dr. D likes to use Dr W as his plastic surgeon consultant, meaning sometimes Dr. D needs plastic surgeons to patch up or close a surgical wound.  We assumed when they scheduled the surgery, D and W had already agreed to it.  So, the days before, Dean had to get several things done, blood work EKG, chest x-rays, etc to prepare for his surgery.  This was all done and we were getting ready for the next day.

The whole day before (10/6) the information about the surgery kept coming in differently.  It would be in the morning so you will leave at 11, it will be at 4 so you will leave at 2.  You will need to be admitted to Memorial Hermann for 9 days, you will come back the same day after surgery, etc, etc etc.  I was on the phone most of the day trying to iron out all the details, which just means to me that these hospitals and doctors do not communicate very well.

At approximately 4:15 pm I get a call from Dr. D's nurse saying the surgery has been canceled and that Dr. W refused to see Dean because he wasn't an established patient of his.  We needed to get an appointment with Dr. W so he could take a look and then re-schedule the surgery at Dr. W's convenience. 4:15, this time is IMPORTANT.  As I'm talking to Dr. D.s nurse, she states she cannot do anything about the schedule and that she is going to try to expedite the initial appointment, but she would have to call in the morning and will call us back as soon as she has it scheduled.  I'm already crying (at work!) and ask for Dr. Ws phone number so i can call and talk to him.  I didn't know why we had to wait until the morning.

I call Dean and he was told in the Kindred non-important way by a nurse just coming in "BTW your surgery was canceled". Nice!!!  No explanation, no reason, nothing.  Luckily I was trying to call him and I was able to tell him what Dr Ds nurse said and he told me to call Dr. W to see if I can talk him into doing the surgery anyway or to ask him why he canceled the surgery and why they didn't try to establish him as a patient a week and a half ago.  So, I call about 4:30 and guess what, his OFFICE CLOSES AT 4PM!!!  I did leave a nasty message stating something of the sort that they should call us back first thing the next day and schedule an appointment as soon as humanly possible since he's been in the hospital for so long and this is just going to prolong his stay by a month.

So, basically they canceled the surgery and left for the day and called us after hours.  I was so mad I was literally shaking and crying my eyes out.  I finally get a hold of the after hours nurse (at 4:40) and demand to talk to Dr. W.  She tells me he's left for the day.  I tell her we really need to do this surgery tomorrow as we've been in the hospital since July 23rd and it has not been good and we are NOT going to wait for his schedule to open up because Dean wants to go home. She finally agreed to call Dr. W. and all he said was again, since he was not an established patient he refused to do the consultation the next day. This was the last straw.  I did says something like how can he call himself a doctor when he won't take care of my husband, a human he is supposed to be taking care of.  Then she tried to say something and I did say "I don't give a f..." (yes, I said the f-bomb so you know I was really mad) and hung up.

All this time I'm driving to Subway to get some dinner for me and Dean so I can see him Monday night and get ready for the next day.  Dean calls me back after I get the food and says he talked to Dr. D and his nurse would be calling me back soon.  I answer the call and she said that Dr. D would do the surgery if we agreed it was ok to not have the plastic surgeon's consultation.  We said yes, so the surgery was re-scheduled.

It was now 5:00 PM.  So, a very frantic 45 minutes and a lot of crying and f-bombing and trying to figure out what to do, but we got it done. So, there!

Surgery Day, still more DRAMA!
So, now it's the day of surgery (Tuesday 10/7), and we head over to Memorial Hermann via an ambulance around 11 am, and he is checked in.  They told us if Dr. D was available early and a room was available they would get us in earlier, but we are scheduled for 4:30.  Well, 4:30 comes and goes and then all of a sudden a nice nurse comes in and announces that they are closing up the day surgery area and he was going to take him to the holding room until the surgery.  5, 6, 7 pm goes by.  We ask the nurse to see if she can find out when it might be.  We then find out Dr. D was called into an emergency surgery (in Cy Fair - WHAT???) and it would be a another couple of hours.  um, WHAT???  Okay, well an emergency, we have to let that go.  8pm still nothing.  At 8:30 pm we finally see the attendants that will be in the room and they say he's on his way and he is scheduled for 9pm.

About 9:05 Dr. D comes in.  First thing he says is that he got a call from Dr W that I was rude and owe an apology to his nurse.  Just so you know that will NEVER HAPPEN!!!  THEY owe US the apology for trying to stall this surgery!!!  I was completely distraught so I will not apologize.  About 15 minutes later he is finally taken into surgery.

Now the hard part, waiting.  Dr. D. mentioned Dean will be admitted to Memorial Hermann but we do not know how long. The other complication is I'm in Memorial Hermann and my car is parked at Kindred, and it's late.  It will be a mad dash to get to the garage at Kindred very late at night.

 

The Nice ambulance drivers that took Dean to Memorial Hermann

Memorial Hermann where the Ambulance drop off is

The Wait, and yes, more Drama
So I'm waiting and waiting and waiting.  The escalators in the main lobby of Hermann apparently turn off at 11pm, with a LOUD Buzzing Alarm!  That was shocking.  Around midnight, I was starting to get concerned, and decided at 12:30 I would wait until 1 am to try to find someone to talk to about what's going on.  Just then someone came to tell me he was admitted and was in room 663 in Jones Pavilion.  I said, ok, so how did it go?  She was shocked (I wasn't) that Dr. D didn't come out and talk to me, but she said the notes didn't implicate any complications and he's doing well.  Okay, it's late, so I'm going to see Dean.

I get to his room close to 1 am and Dean is awake and looking quite good!  He said he hadn't heard from the doctor either.  So, we would wait until morning.  I decided since it was so late to stay overnight.

Is it still Tuesday, or is it Wednesday yet?
We both got about 3 hours of sleep, and not all at the same time of course. at 6am we "woke up" and had to get things rolling.  The nursing staff at Memorial Hermann was actually really doing a nice job, which is a nice and unexpected surprise.

We had still not heard from the doctors so we decided around Noon (and after a nap and lunch) that I would go to Kindred to get some personal things since he may be there for up to 9 days, we had no idea, and get my Jeep and park in the MH parking lot. Of course when I get back I find out the doctor came while I was out.  Dean has been scheduled in 2 weeks for a followup surgery (remove the beads, sew him up) and plastic surgery would NOT be needed (WOO HOO take THAT Dr. W!) and he would be going back to Kindred for the 2 weeks, but they didn't know if his transfer back would be Wednesday or Thursday.  We automatically assumed Thursday.

After getting everything settled better, I went home and took a shower and a nap, then was able to keep my hair appointment we made a week ago.  It turned out really nice!  Mother, Jake and I had a nice dinner at Casa Ole and went home.

Dean's Lunch on Wednesday - UM LOOK AT THIS!  It was fresh, warm and delicious!  That pico de gallo was OMG wonderful!

This was the GARNISH!

A cherry tomato with fresh sprig of Rosemary!  Classy!

Fun at Casa Ole!  :)

To top ALL this off, Jack and Buddy have fleas!!!  ARGH!  

Isn't that fat cat cute in the scale though?  16lbs.  Thanks again Mother for taking him!

Bug guy coming out Monday evening to spray for fleas.  no flags.

Thursday already??
Today (Thursday) we find out he will be moved later today, and he got to talk to Dr. D (at midnight, this guy is nuts!) and he actually agreed with me and Dean (and now probably all of you!) that Dr. W is (and I quote) "a prick"!  Apparently the guy does consultations once a month.  So, if we would have reschedule it would have been mid NOVEMBER before we got him in. Dr. D is now going to be looking for a new plastic surgeon to work with, apparently this is not the first time Dr. W. has "gotten weird" on him (his words not ours).

(Insert today's Drama) AND, we hear now due to Medicare denying his transfer, even though we have told the hospital 100s of times that UHC is our primary insurance, that he will not be moved back to Kindred for 24 to 72 hours, so he will most likely be moving on Monday.  Which is actually fine with him because the food is better, the nurses are listening well to him, AND the call button has a TV controller that he can use to change the channel too! :) YEY!!!

Tomorrow Jake, my mother and I will be heading out to Wimberley, Texas to go to my niece's wedding.  Let's hope Dean's weekend is Drama free!

Doctor's Orders

Well, it's been another tough week.  Dean's numbers for infection testing have stayed the same, which  probably means it's being caused by the small infection they found still from the MRI.

The bad news is we are expecting the surgeon to say he does need surgery.  Dean talked with his wound care doctor on Wednesday.  He said that since the remaining surgery spot is still not getting better, he suspects the spot on is bone that's infected is causing the problem.  He has suggested surgery.  Dean meets with his surgeon Friday Morning at 7 AM to get his opinion.  At this point, we are fine with more surgery, so we can get all this taken care of instead of going home too early and have anything linger and cause future issues.

The only hard part to grasp about all of this is the longer stay at Kindred.  Apparently one of the better nurses mentioned that some of the other staff complain about Dean being too demanding.  They apparently don't like that he requests to drink more water than half of a 6 oz cup every once in  while, and that he has requested to be turned every 2 hours.  If you read that and are thinking what we thought when we heard that, you are right.  Dean has not requested being turned every two hours HIS DOCTOR HAS PUT IT IN HIS ORDERS!!!!  So, basically, some of them are complaining that the doctor has asked them to do something, but they don't want to, so let's put all the blame on the patient and not do it as requested.  We also learned that if he asks the staff to do something later (like something private while he has visitors) they will put it in the computer that the "patient refused the care" and never do it.  This is a PERFECT solution to covering yourself for not doing your job!

I do just want to say that not all the staff are this terrible.  He has some really great people helping him, although they are few and far between.  There is even one guy that comes in all day Sunday to keep track of his Fantasy Football players and talk football with Dean!  He gets lots of attention when that happens.  Also, while Jake and I visit, Jake has 2 jobs.  1.  Lower and raise the head of Dean's bed when he needs it.  He LOVES helping!  yells, I'LL HELP!!!  Then listens to Dean when he says stop.  2.  Turn off the nurse call light when we either test it, the nurse comes in, or we accidentally click it.  However, this makes us nervous since the "CODE BLUE" button is right next to the cancel call button.  He is very careful not to push it.  HOWEVER, one of Dean's nurses at night accidentally pushed it!  Dean then realized how to get everybody in his room at once! ;)

On a much lighter note, the weather has been really great this week!  Jake and I got to play outside with Buddy.  Look how tall he is!  When we first got the slide, his head was not up to the bottom of that circle!  Now, he's almost as tall as the top! :)

He also has been helping out around the house, letting Buddy outside in the morning, and letting Jack out, and helping with the trash can!  He moved the trash dumpster ALL BY HIMSELF!  We are so very proud of him!!

 

And something that made me giggle, the Aggie CT who famously blocked the SMU player from running into Reveille VII has not only been in the news nation wide, but all the way to the UK!  Read this article for a giggle!

Brave Young Cadet Saves Lassie From Certain Death at American Football Match

My favorite part:

Nice to see that after years of Lassie saving humans, the favour is finally being returned.

This will be another busy weekend!  Have some plans to have a luncheon AND I've heard some really SUPER friends will be at the zoo this weekend, so we will be checking that out for sure on Sunday!  Maybe we will see you there!  And, to my UH friends - Shasta's birthday party is this Sunday as well!  Go Coogs!

Houston Zoo Event

 

A Tough Week

This week was a tough week.  A few things happened.

I'll start with the good.  Durwood went home the day after his birthday on Tuesday, 9/16!  They are now in the stage of getting used to "not having the nurse call button".  A phenomenon I'm quite familiar with.  But, all in all, Durwood and Linda are glad to be home.

For the not so bad, a little good.  Dean's surgical spot that's having trouble healing is in fact getting better, but it's going very slowly.  He has had some improvement since they took the wound vac off, which wasn't helping because of a specific reason I won't go into right now.  And, of the two numbers in his blood work they were watching for his infections, one is normal (YEY!) and one stayed the same for  couple of weeks, but it did go down a little, but not to normal yet.

They did take a swab sample last week, and they didn't find anything serious, but they have found another bacteria that is better treated with another antibiotic, which they switched to this week.

For the bad, but may turn out good.  Since his infection level has not gone down to normal, even though it did go down, they ordered an MRI on Wednesday.  This is the scary part, and we need prayers.  We were told if it looks like the infection has cleared up, we will not hear the MRI results until early or mid next week since the techs take their time filling out paperwork and their initial findings.  If we hear this week (today or tomorrow) then, basically, the infection is still, and we will need to get a surgical opinion. That could mean another surgery and another 6 weeks (give or take) recovery.  PLEASE pray we don't hear anything until next week!!!  NO NEWS IS GOOD NEWS for these MRI Results.

And, for the bad.  Really bad.  I had a dear family friend pass away.  I say friend but he was more of a father figure in my life.  Growing up, when my parents would go on business trips (or even some vacations) during school times, my parents would have Monica and Emil take care of us.  Sometimes it was for weeks at a time, but mostly a week or less. Mr. Emil passed away this week after a long battle with Cancer.  He was fortunate enough to be able to come home from the hospital and be with his family and friends (and cows :) ) and died at his home with his wife by his side.  I was able to go to the funeral with Jake and Monica was able to meet him in person for the first time.  She is a lovely Christian woman and could really use some prayers, as she also just had knee surgery.

I always hate that funerals bring people and old friends and family together.  I often wish we could get together without it being so very sad.  But, it was good so to see so many familiar faces that I remember from my childhood.  Jake was an absolute saint the whole time!  He is such a good boy!  He only started acting up when we went to the grave site, starting running and giggling when the Priest was saying his final words (not good) but everybody understood.  We went for a little walk, but didn't get too far as they had someone play silver taps for him and well, Jake loves music.  They also had someone play "In Heaven there is No Beer!" on the accordion.   By request of Mr. Emil himself! Very fitting by the way.

Downtown Sealy.  The "tall" building was where my Dad's office was.

The Park where Dean and I got married.  It used to be the JC park, then it was the Lion's Park. 

Now, it looks like it's Levine's Park. :)

Just because sometimes we need a smile...

MILK MUSTACHE AND SOUL PATCH

Well, there you have it.  I'll update when I can, probably after the weekend.

Gig 'Em Aggies!  BTHO SMU!
Go Texans!

Way to go Altuve! breaking the Astro's hits in one season record!  213 and counting!

Short Week and fast weekend

So, that week went by fast!  Being only 4 days always makes for a busy and fast week.  Dean is doing well, we are all trying to cope with the extended time at Kindred.  He again after this weekend had some complaints, especially the night staff.  He talked with a supervisor again about it, and she was so mad!!!  She actually told Dean that she had 4 or so other complaints about the night staff the Saturday when Dean complained, and 2 or 3 on another floor the day before.  She actually said to the nurse "No More complaints today!  I am done with this!  I need everybody at 100% today!"

Again, the situation improved, but we shall see for how long.  It seems to go in cycles, it gets good for a while then they "slack off" until he complains again.

So, now what?  Wish I knew!  We are on a holding pattern until we hear results from blood tests and after Dean sees his wound care doctor (usually on Tuesdays).  Right now it's just getting thru day by day.

Some weekend fun/highlights:

Saturday morning, a friend, Jaime Windfont, brought over some food for us!  We enjoyed some pot pies this weekend!

We went to Discovery Green on Saturday.  Wanted to go somewhere different not the zoo so we went downtown.  It was nice, not too too hot, but warm, and a little over cast. Jake has been wanting a Popsicle for some time, so we got him one!  Sponge Bob!

  

This dripped and dripped ALL over him!  It was horrible!  But, isn't a boy supposed to get sticky and messy at the park on a hot summer (in September) day? :)

Our brink at Discovery Green!  It's one of the first ones along the wall next to the snack bar there. And, you can see just how messy that sponge bob Popsicle was.

So, after the popsicles we ran around the green grass in the park.  We saw some young boys playing soccer and he wanted to play!  I told him to ask to play, all 3 boys said YES so they went to running!  He and another boy got to the ball at the same time running full speed and bumped heads.  Well, the other boy was 5 and Jake is 3 1/2 so Jake started crying.  All three boys came up to Jake and asked if he was ok, but it was too late, the tears and crying had begun.  Took a while for them to calm down, but then he didn't wanna play anymore, he wanted to go in the water park.  So, we did...

 

Well, sort of.  He went to this big water fountain, and had a great time!  Until it started raining and thundering and they turned it off.  Oh well, so we headed back to the hospital where he fell asleep in the car so hard he didn't even wake up on the way to Dean's room.  And, slept for a hour and a half.  Good Nap!

Sunday was GRANDPARENTS DAY!

 

Doesn't Durwood look GREAT!!!  He was in his chair sitting up watching the Texans beat the Redskins.  Jake of course found Nonnie's phone, and well that's what he did for a little bit.

After the visit with Nonnie and Papa we were going to go to the Zoo, but I forgot my membership passes in my other purse so we were going to just go to the park.  But, as we left TIRR, the storm clouds came in! We just headed back to the hospital.  Jake watched Umi Zoomi with Dean, we watched some football, played with toys, had an early dinner and came home.  Jake fell asleep just as we got home since he didn't nap that day.  However he woke up on the way to his bed.  We ended up watching Tangled on the couch together and he went to bed around 9pm, after much debating actually.

 

Playing with his cars and trucks.  ALL the hotwheels he had at the hospital are either in, on or on the trailer of his Duck Dynasty truck, being towed of course by Mater! :)

Of course the BEST news of the weekend ~ our sports teams did AWESOME!

Texas A&M BTHO Lamar 73-3.  I'm just glad they got their field goal in the beginning, it always sucks when you have a blow out "blown" in the last few minutes.

The Texans WON!  They beat the Redskins 17 to 6!  You know what that means!  FREE SLUSHIES

And, the ASTROS WON their 63rd game!  What does this mean?  They cannot loose 100 games this season AND, Mattress Mack had to pay out big time!  Not that we get anything from this, but this is always good to see!

The weeks have increased

I sure do wish I had better news to report.

After Tuesday's blood tests and visit from the wound care doctor, we have found out Dean will be in Kindred for at least another 2 weeks.  His numbers went up slightly, which did not bring up too much alarm from the doctors other than wondering why, but still not good news.  But, his surgery spot is getting better, even if it is slow going.  Anything getting better is good!

But, the care at Kindred and the food they serve is really starting to be hard on Dean, and me and Jake as well.  He has to continue to fight and practically beg for the most simple of daily necessities.  In fact, Wednesday morning his Tech came in put his breakfast on the tray and said I'll be right back.  A long time later, she came back noticed the tray was not touched and said, "Didn't you want breakfast?"  First of all, she should (1) know his condition and (2) know what it MEANS.  He actually had to tell her, no, I haven't had my breakfast yet because I'm a quadriplegic!  She said OH, I'll be right back.  Again, nurse talk for "I'm not coming back until you turn on the call light."  He had to do that, another nurse came in, saw the tray and right away offered to help.  Turns out this absolutely 110% UNQUALIFIED Tech was what they call a "agency tech".  Which means when the supervisor can't fill the schedule with the regular people who are employed at Kindred, they call an agency, and these people are not qualified to work there.

Jake had a hard time with me being upset at the nursing/tech staff last night.  So, I talked about it while in the car and Jake said as loud as he could "SO! SAD! NURSES!  I'm going to put you in time out even if I have to carry you!  I'm strong!  I'm VERY, VERY, (repeated very 50 times), VERY disappointed!!"   This kid is 1 in a million!  He really want's everybody around him to be happy.

To top all this off, the nursing staff broke Dean's glasses a couple weeks ago, broke one of the arms, but not so bad that he couldn't sort of fix them and wear them.  They are not real sturdy in the first place, and about 3 years old, but still, they broke them handling them too rough.  So, I was going to take them to our glasses place to get fixed and I pulled them out of my purse and the other arm had broken in my purse!!  ARGH!  We are replacing them, but it will take 10 business days or so to get them.  Let's hope our glasses place can somehow fix them.

Lets hope the next few days get better.

Labor Day Weekend 2014

We had an eventful weekend, and were surprised at the decent help Dean had at the hospital.  We were sure there would be lower staff than usual because of the holiday, but it was good!  And, Dean had 3 days of good home cooked meals instead of the "food" they give him.

We were pretty much expecting to hear news on Tuesday if Dean will be coming home this week or not.  He has had multiple blood test done and we are waiting on his ID doctor and his wound care doctor to have a say in when he can come home.  He will most likely be on the wound vac and have a sand bed at home (rented) for a while.

Update - Later Tuesday afternoon we found out his numbers have not come down to where they are comfortable with and he will be in Kindred for another week.  Let's hope it goes by fast.

Saturday - Jake and I got there early, and Jake played with all the toys we bring up for him, his hot wheels and cars/truck are a big hit.  He had his loopy loop hot wheels track, and played on that most of the morning.  He made a nice big ole mess in there too!  Cars and track everywhere!

We also took the afternoon to go to the Zoo.  It was overcast and windy, so it was a nice day to go.  Also, it wasn't to crowded either, which is nice. I actually got a free parking spot this time!  Just as we were walking in a street magician was setting up so we stopped!  Jake got to be the volunteer for the "money in the lemon trick" and he was fascinated by the fact that he ate a balloon. He wasn't all that good, but it entertained Jake.

 

 

The carousal was being cleaned so it was closed.  We went to the Children's zoo and played there for a while, we saw the lions, tigers, giraffes, including the newest baby giraffe, the elephants, meercats, and got to pet Billie the leopard tortoise!  She was 24 years old and has a life expectancy of 80 years!  The giant tortoise from the Galapagos tortoises can live up to 200 years!  The zoo keeper said the bigger the turtle, the longer the live expectancy.  Very interesting!  Jake loved it and allowed her to walk over his toes.  We also got to see for the first time the Sponge Bob Square Pants 4D movie!  It was short and a bit expensive for what it was, but Jake liked it.  It had bubbles and sprayed you so it was a big hit.

 

Lions and the Wild Dog

 

Giraffes.  Look at the little BABY!  well, he's over 6 ft tall, but so cute!

  

SPONGEBOB SQUAREPANTS!  

The Bald Eagle at the Children's zoo

 

Billie the Tortoise

After we got out of the zoo, the Herman park train was there so we hurried up and bought tickets and jumped on just in time.  I had no idea it was a good solid 20 minute ride thru the park.  It was good!  Jake liked it but was concerned there was not a seat belt, so he held my hand the whole time.

All Aboard!!!

  

 

This is the park we rode the train to a couple of times.  The sidewalk above is where my mother was hit by that guy who followed us to Herman Hospital.  Nice memories!

Sunday - Again got there to give Dean some breakfast, and after lunch we ventured out to the Children's museum.  Wow, was it CROWDED!  We took our time, playing at his pace.  We sat at a table and used the scissors to cut paper for about 20 minutes.  He enjoyed it though.  He also loved the water works, and didn't want to go in even when i tried to convince him that it was just too hot and we needed to take a break and get something to drink.  But, we got to go in, bought him a toy at the gift shop and watched a movie while there.

Waterworks!

 

Cutting Paper - one of his favorite things to do. :)

And, Dr. Jake Audirsch taking care of his patient carefully in the ambulance at Kidtropolis

Monday - Labor Day
This morning, Jake found a crack in Daddy's food tray table at home, so he had to go find his tools in his room.  He RAN in there, and yelled back at me "HOLY COW!  I FOUND MY TOOLS!" then he set up to fix the table.

fixing Daddy's Table

David came up to visit Dean, so Jake and I let them talk a little.  They discussed what's coming up for their Dad and other important stuff like the Astros and their future! :)  So, Jake and I went to the waiting room to give them space.  Jake manages to play and have fun no matter where he is.

 

 

Playing catch with Jake's Teddy bear named Chuck E. Cheese in the waiting room

I had made a nice labor day lunch of hamburger sliders for us to enjoy!  And, no labor day would be complete without potato chips and Dean's French Onion dip!  It was nice.  As we drove by the zoo on the way to the hospital, Jake asked if we could go again.  I said yes, Dean thought it was a good idea, so we went back to the zoo!  The difference, today was a holiday, and HOT!!!  so it was packed.  I actually had to park in the Herman parking lot again.

Labor Day Sliders and chips

 

at the zoo

We got to ride the carousel today!  Wow, it was shiny and had a new coat of lacquer!  Looked GREAT!  And, feed the Giraffes, visited the swap shop (had nothing to swap, next time), looked at all the bugs in the bug house, and got to see the flamingos.  It was really hot so we didn't stay long, and stayed mostly in the children's zoo.  Jake got to see the Prairie dogs and called them "little puppies".  We got some popcorn and a third round of water on the way out.  The popcorn ended up all over the floor in Dean's room, what a mess!

One more week, I know we can make this!