Getting a Leg Up

I’ve decided that whenever you walk in to an emergency room with an injured spouse or child, and the ER doc looks at the injury and says to you “Would you knock it off?” it’s a good thing. That means that he or she doesn’t really think that you hurt your loved one. It’s when they don’t joke around with you that you need to worry. An ER doc said those exact words to me last night when I took Kate in to be seen.

It was the second Saturday in a row that we spent the evening in the emergency room. The previous Friday night, as Kate was preparing food for work the next day she stopped and asked me if her knee looked swollen. It was a silly question, as the knee was huge. She said that she did not know how or if she injured it, but that it had been bothering her all day.

The next day she worked a 12 hour shift on the bad knee, which made things worse. By the time she got home, everything from the knee down looked as though it would pop. We went to the ER and they ran a bunch of tests and even tried to drain the knee. But there was nothing to drain, and the tapping of the knee just hurt her even worse.

Kate spent the week with the leg elevated and iced. But by Friday night the swelling hadn’t gone down, and she had started to bruise. By the time she finished her 12 hour shift yesterday she could barely walk. I took her in again last night after her co-workers had convinced her to get seen, claiming that she might have a pulmonary embolism. The good news and bad news is that they found nothing in the ER last night after x-rays, ultrasounds and EKGs. They gave her some pain meds and told her to keep off of it until she could get in to see a vascular surgeon.

I will post once we know more. Hopefully it is some kind of infection that is easily treated. We’re keeping our fingers crossed that it is not related to her health problems from last year or that it is something that will require surgery. Right now we’re just hoping for some answers.

Summertime Dances

All four children participated in a dance performance last Monday night. Before you watch the videos, there are some things you need to know:
-No, the 'camera man' does not have Parkinson's. He had a rough day at work, hadn't eaten, and his hands were shaking. Please hold snide comments.
-I will not tolerate any 'Napoleon Dynamite' comments about Whitney's performance.
-Bean is not a giant. She is just older than the other girls in her class.
-We have no affiliation with Jake and Elsmore. I just thought the Blues Brothers bit was cool, so I included it.

Dancing and the Water

Patrick, Samantha and Bean all had professional pictures taken for their upcoming dance recital. I have only posted my favorites here. There were many. I will post video of the recital once it is over.

Last week Patrick participated in his first rain gutter regatta for Cub Scouts. He decided he wanted to make his boat a 'Utah Utes' boat. I told him he could do that, but explained that placing a Utes logo on the boat meant that he had to win or else I wouldn't let him come home.

We arrived at the event to find another boy decorated his boat with a BYU logo. I then decided that he didn't need to win it all, as long as he beat the BYU boat, which he did. During the event the boys began to refer to Patrick's ship as 'the U boat'.

The event brought back good memories for me. My cub pack never did the regatta, but we always did the pinewood derby, which Patrick will have later this year. For the pinewood derby I never won, but I always had the best looking car. It's was a testament to my old man's woodworking skills. I suggested to the scout leader that we have the boys race their cars first, then let the dads race their cars. I hope they go for that. Otherwise Patrick might have a really cool looking car that won't win...