Pre-Christmas Surgery

Glen had been putting it off for months, until the day finally arrived for him to have shoulder surgery.

He had a rotator cuff issue. The doctor went in, cleaned it all out and shaved off some extra bony growth that was in there. We were really happy he didn't need a full rotator cuff repair which would have taken him twice as long to heal.

He didn't look quite as chipper when he woke up from surgery. He kept holding his head way up off the bed and kept looking up at the ceiling tiles with his eyes darting back and forth and back and forth. He kept looking at me weird and was not talking to me.

When he finally said something, he asked if he had a stake meeting that night. Before I could answer that he didn't, he said, "I don't think I'm going to be able to make it if I do."

When the nurse came to check on him, she offered him a pillow because she thought what I had been thinking--that he looked so uncomfortable craning his head forward off the bed. She said she had offered him a pillow earlier, but he refused to let her get one for him.

He later told me he kept holding his head up because there were tubes under his head and it was uncomfortable for him to lay his head back. Which made me wonder why he hadn't taken the pillow offer the first time it was made? He said he didn't want to bother her with having to get one for him.

He also later explained to me that he had noticed the direction the ceiling tiles were going in the pre-op room. When he woke up the tiles were going a different direction (because he was in the recovery room) and he was trying so hard to figure out if they had moved him. He had been given drugs in the first room and he had been really out of it when they wheeled him away to the surgery room.

During his recovery, he asked me three times if the doctor had talked to me. I told him yes and showed him three sheets of pictures the doctor had taken inside his shoulder during surgery. He asked what the doctor had said and I told him I was not going to tell him because he would just forget what I said and would ask me again.

Sure enough, he asked me three different times if the doctor had talked to me and three different times I showed him the pictures the doctor had given me and told him I would tell him later what the doctor had said.

The next day the doctor called Glen to see how he was doing and after he got off the phone, Glen exclaimed to me a little indignantly, "Hey, the doctor said he gave you some pictures yesterday of my shoulder!?!" As if I hadn't already shown them to him three different times...!!

The anesthesiologist gave Glen a full shoulder block, so he was feeling no pain when he got home from the surgery center. He thought his limp arm and hand felt so strange.

Here he is trying to hold his hand up with his good hand. He got such a kick out of trying to use that limp hand to open up a Popsicle. That thing remained deadened clear into the next day.

My dad suggested we get Glen an ice cooling shoulder pad machine which he claims works better on shoulder surgery pain than pain medication does. We now have to agree it is a great invention.

For some reason, Glen always craves an Arby sandwich after he's had a procedure or a surgery.

He survived his first night and was happy to start getting a little feeling coming back into his fingers and hand.

By midday, he was doing his best to get something done on the computer for work. He's a crazy workaholic!!

Most of the time he would be hanging out in the basement eating Popsicles and watching the game show network. Sometimes he would even watch Hallmark Christmas movies with me. Loved that!!

One day the Brimleys brought over a tray of shrimp. Glen home teaches them and they are the tiniest people ever. They signed the card, "Love, the little shrimps."

 Bob Davis, his friend from work, brought over a box of different kinds of popcorn.

Several other friends stopped by with other treats for him and to wish him well in his recovery. These cookies were delivered by Bill and Jan Evans's grandchildren who proudly announced they had frosted them themselves!

When Ben saw the sugar cookies, he said, "They look very frosting-y."

And Glen, the man who says he doesn't eat sweets, surprised me when he ate some of them.

Quotes of the Week

"Gratitude is a vaccine, an antitoxin, and an antiseptic." 

 -- John Henry Jowett 

"Wherever you are, be there. Lifestyle is not something we do; it is something we experience. And until we learn to be there, we will never master the art of living well."  

-- Jim Rohn 

"Think of yourself as on the threshold of unparalleled success. A whole, clear, glorious life lies before you. Achieve! Achieve!" 

-- Andrew Carnegie 

"Keep in mind that the true measure of an individual is how he treats a person who can do him absolutely no good."  

-- Ann Landers 

Quotes of the Week

"It is not what you do for your children, but what you have taught them to do for themselves that will make them successful human beings."  

-- Ann Landers 

"You look the best when you wear your smile. There is no beauty like the one that comes from inside you." 

 -- Author Unknown 

"All the adversity I've had in my life, all my troubles and obstacles, have strengthened me... You may not realize it when it happens, but a kick in the teeth may be the best thing in the world for you."

-- Walt Disney

"It isn't sufficient just to want -- you've got to ask yourself what you are going to do to get the things you want." 

 -- Franklin D. Roosevelt 

Alcatraz, Football Game, Dinner In The Hood, Church and Home

Definitely Thanksgiving dinner was delicious, but my favorite is always the leftovers. 
By the time we would find a parking spot and hike the hills to Abe's place, we were famished and ready to consume those leftovers!

 

Our outing for the day was going to Alcatraz.

 We waited in line to board the boat that would take us to Alcatraz.

We arrived safely on the island and were welcomed inside the old penitentiary.

Inside we saw where the prisoners were issued their prison clothing.

This is the shower area.

Looking into a cell an inmate would call home as long as he resided at Alcatraz.

 Glen is listening to the self-guided tour and is emerging from "The Hole"--solitary confinement.

In the kitchen, the knife shapes were painted on so the guards could quickly tell if a knife was missing.

Double-tiered rows of cell blocks.

Our little escapee.

We were tired and hungry after our Alcatraz tour and our long walk to find food. Newland is waiting patiently for our dinner to arrive.

Does this look like game day? We're eating our pre-game meal.

The stadium was only partially full, so we were able to find a less-crowded spot where we could spread out and where Newland could safely wander around a little bit during the game.

 

 Everybody was in a good mood when BYU won the game.

After-game activity was going to see the lights at the Oakland Temple.

It was getting late and we were all hungry and we ended up at a BBQ joint. This is how Newland entertained himself while waiting for our food.

It was quitting time when we arrived, but the restaurant owner and her family members rustled us up the food we ordered and kept checking on us to make sure we were happy and well fed.

Newland surprised us all by refusing to leave until Klarissa had fed him every last bite of meat. He loved that stuff.

The owner talked with us for a while and she thanked us for venturing into "The Hood" for dinner that evening. She said she was going to walk us to our car to make sure we were safe. That, in and of itself, made us all feel very unsafe. She was a very kind woman and we appreciated the hospitality she and her family showed to us that evening.

Sunday morning we opted for breakfast in our hotel so we wouldn't be late for church.

Klarissa was happy we stopped by to give her and Newland a ride to church. Normally they walk, but it was raining that morning.

Newland found a ledge at church that made for the perfect-height bench for him to sit on that he loved and didn't want to leave.

We persuaded him to leave the bench, but then he was refusing to get on the elevator to go down to his nursery class.

This is one of those times when he used his oft-repeated favorite phrase, "No way, no want it."

Spending our last few minutes outside of church with Glen while waiting for his ride to take him to the airport. He was once again on his way to spend another work week in Minnesota. It had been so fun to have him all to ourselves for a whole week.

The rest of us went to Abe's apartment where we all hung out together for the rest of the day. The sad thing is Glen's plane was delayed by an hour and a half which would have given him just enough time to have gone back to Abe's place and had lunch with us. Instead he had to eat by himself at the airport and kill time until his plane was ready to depart.

These are our last few minutes before Ben and I said our final good-byes and headed off to our hotel.

Monday morning Ben and I got ourselves to the airport and were anticipating our flight back to Utah.

We were glad our destination was somewhere a bit warmer than Glen's 5-degree Minneapolis location. Brrrrrrr!!!

Newland loved being with his Uncle Ben and it looks like Madison was happy to see Uncle Ben when he got back home.

We had a great time vacationing with Ben and spending time with Abe, Klarissa and Newland. I guess I'll say I'm thankful there was a BYU game in California on Thanksgiving weekend.