Dreadful December

I don't mean to sound depressing, but this December has been quite dreadful. Let's just say it's one I don't think we'll want to repeat.

I got sick again and was out for a couple days. Then Constance broke four molars in one week and was cranky, feverish, and restless. She even gave up naps for a little while and would jerk wide awake whenever I attempted to lay her down in her crib. But those were actually the lesser problems of December.

A surgery that was supposed to be fairly straightforward and only require a few days in the hospital ended up a lot worse than we ever imagined. After over two weeks in the hospital and a handful of emergency procedures, we are very happy to have Grandpa home with us again.

We hardly saw Grandma during that time. She would leave for the hospital early in the morning and come back home anywhere from 9 pm to 3 am. Every day we waited for her to come home and give us an update. It seemed like the only thing we looked forward to all day. Of course, by the time she got home she was exhausted and we all felt bad keeping her up.

We had planned to all drive to Idaho for Jessie's graduation but that plan quickly changed after the first few days. Jessie ended up packing up and coming home early and then spent a lot of time at the hospital after she got home.

We spent Christmas Eve in an empty house and finally decided that to save the evening we would let Constance open her stocking.

Christmas day we took some presents to the hospital and opened them with Grandpa. We were really happy that at least by this point he was feeling a lot better and getting his strength back. For the longest time he didn't laugh or smile because it hurt. So when he started making pronouncements with his back scratcher, we took it as a wonderful sign.

Grandpa got to come home the day after Christmas. And finally after all those sleepless nights in the hospital, he is getting some rest.

It's sad how one day, one week, can change so much in our lives. I'm positive that if we can go one week without anyone in the house going back to the hospital, the ER, or Emergicare then we can take a deep breath and start to relax a little--that is, until the medical bills start coming in the mail.