Finally at rehab

Andrew was finally transferred to the Wesley Rehabilitation Hospital on west 13th yesterday afternoon. He won't start his program until Monday, but he is already moving himself from his bed to his wheelchair pretty well. After the terrible last week, we are all glad to see him looking so much better. It is really strange though, he doesn't have any casts. His leg is wrapped with a splint still, but he has not external support for his arm. I don't know how but it seems to work.

Circle Journal Pages for Jessie

Here are the pages I did for Jessie's Circle Journal. Her theme is scenery. I had a hard time picking one photo, so my pages are about places I love to look at in New Mexico.

Things are going good.

The insurance company told Andrew that the motorcycle is going to be totalled. I looked at this picture and couldn't see anything really wrong. I took them up to Andrew to look at and he saw all sorts of problems. That is just another case of knowing what to look for I guess.
You could say Andrew was almost chipper tonight. He is feeling better, his oxygen levels are where they should be and better yet his pain level seems to be going down. He may finally be going to the rehab hospital tomorrow. He really does need a change of scene, but I bet he will be tired of the rehab hospital pretty soon too.

Everyone likes my hummingbird feeders

You have to look behind the green chair about even with the rocking horse tail. There is a large female raccoon busily licking up sugar water from the bird feeder over her head. A few seconds before this she had been hanging onto the post, the roof of the deck and the feeder drinking the water out of the feeder. When we discovered her she jumped down but didn't leave. She kept drinking the spilled water on the ground. Nicole tossed some rib bones out to her which scared her and she left. I had been wondering what had been emptying out the feeder every night and now we know.

Memorial Day at the Pool

Nicole and I took Wyatt and Andrea over to the Kiddie Splash Area at the pool today. We felt like we should do at least something summery for Memorial Day. Wyatt was a bit cautious about all the different water features, but he soon started to get into playing with them. We will definitely have to go back again.

The Leg

The nurses unwrapped Andrew's leg last night and changed the dressings. I am a real wimp and have fainted before, so I didn't look until they were done. His leg is a bit swollen, but not as bruised up as I expected it to be. Everything is held together with staples. Andrew felt sort of rocky after they were done moving him around, but it was good to see everything was healing well.

Saturday at the hospital

Well, we are going on four days since the accident. The physical therapists got Andrew out of bed and into a wheel chair today. He did all right with the move into the chair and later back into bed, but the second photo shows him sleeping sitting up. The painkillers still keep him drifting in and out of wakefulness. He isn't taken the percoset as often, so I am hoping that that pain is easing back a bit. The big issue is hiccups right now. He has the most brutal hiccups I have ever heard. It sounds like he will bring his insides up each time. He gets a drug which stops them for about two hours, but he can only take it every six hours. They are going to run a test in the morning to try to find out what is going on. The hiccups need to be fixed, it is wearing him out.

A bad nightmare, but not the worst.

I took this picture of Andrew last night in the hospital. He is actually in worse shape than you would think by the picture and the fact that he is texting his girlfriend. He is highly medicated and I am fairly certain than most of what he is texting is incoherent. But I am just his mother. /Both his left arm and leg are wrapped from shoulder to wrist and hip to ankle. I don't know now if he will get casted later although Ray said that he didn't think so. The nurses come in and get firm with him about doing his breathing therapy. We try to get him to do it and he blows us off. Nothing new. They are still talking about him going home on Monday. We are hoping for a stop at a rehabilitation center first. Note the blowing off comment above.

Ray took some pictures of the motor cycle. It doesn't look too bad at all. We are hoping for totalling it out. We don't want him on a bike again. In a logical world he will make that decision himself.

We were so blessed by God that he didn't have any internal or head injuries. The broken bones are bad enough. The doctor said that the healing process will be hardest on the break above his ankle, but he is young and healthy, so we are praying for the best. I am grateful to the Air Force for requiring him to wear complete protection. He came out of this a lot better off than another person without a helmet, boots and protective gear.

Birds

I had to get the snake off as the top post. But I am not ready to put up another cute baby picture yet. Here is a picture of one of a pair of Baltimore Orioles who have started eating at my hummingbird feeders. At first I thought they were eating the ants that tend to congregate at the feeders and they may be. However, they sip away quite frequently. I hope they aren't keeping my hummingbirds away. I worked for four years to get them to come here.

I couldn't resist

I don't imagine many people have almost six foot anacondas swimming in their bathtub. Andrew brought his two snakes with him when he came home on leave. This one, Eve, is having a recreational swim in the tub. Too bad my friend Joyce doesn't look at my blog. She would be all over me about this.

Sierra Blanca and other New Mexico Stuff

I didn't take a lot of pictures on this trip to Ruidoso. I didn't shop very much either. However, I did have a lot of fun. Andrew came along and we really just kicked back and relaxed. The kicking back part probably explained the few photos. I wanted to get some photos of Sierra Blanca. This mountain is sacred to the Mescalero Apache and is in heart of their lands. What I thought about doing but was too lazy was to go up to the Inn of the Mountain Gods and take a picture at sunset. So I took lots of pictures while I was driving the golf cart for Ray. The picture of Ray is him fishing balls out of one of the ponds. His has gone in, and he saw several more so he just took them too. I think it is funny. We also ate lunch at Casa de los Suenos in Tularosa. It is a great New Mexican Restaurant and we try to go there every year. This year we had great red and green chile chicken enchiladas. Nom, Nom, Nom. As always, I wish we could stay longer, but I also know we will be going back again.

Pictographs

We revisited the Two Rivers Pictograph site on this trip. We went there the first time we went to Ruidoso. That was seven years ago when Andrew graduated from high school. The site is under the control of the Park Service, but only costs two dollars to go in. It is located on a hill out in the middle of the desert. There are over twenty thousand etching on the site ranging from stars or hand prints to more complicated drawings like the one I think looks like Kokopelli. Archaeologists believe most come from the Mogollon people or even an earlier group. They don't know why the drawings were made, the subjects vary greatly, but assume there was some religious reason. Like every interesting place, I saw things I didn't notice before and got a lot from the visit.

The scrapper in me is trying how to utilize some of the designs on a page in a different manner.

Andrea will be four months old....

on Saturday. Time is really flying and she is constantly changing. I am seeing the changes more with her than I ever did with my own children. I believe that is the only bad part of raising your own children. You are so busy with everything at that stage of your life that some of the little things escape you. I am so grateful for the opportunity to take care of this little girl and watch her grow.

Grandparents Rock

This is an 8X8 album I have made for a class at Scrapbook Garden. The class will be in the fall before Grandparents day. This album is really nice because it is a full size album instead of a mini album. The pages are set up for multiple photos and would be good for several different family groups. I haven't decided what I am going to do with this one after the class has been taught, but I really like it.

Circle Journal Pages

Here are my pages for Janette for the circle journal we are doing on ScrapDawgs. I keep trying to upload these pictures to the message board from Photo Bucket without success. I hate it when I can't figure out something that is probably really easy. The question for this layout was What is your scrapping style and then a few random facts about your self. Here I am in pink and black.