Wild Weekend

At the end of December, when I was filling in our new 2012 calendar for January, I was amazed that all but 11 days in January had appointments or some type of something going on.  And that was before I scheduled any time for date nights, FHE, planning meals, time to clean the house, dishes, laundry, spending time with the kids...you get the point!  So, I'm sure you can imagine my excitement when I had the first Friday, Saturday, and Sunday of the month completely open.  I knew that Mom was coming back into town on Thursday so I was thrilled as I got a respite worker lined up for the little ones for Friday morning and started making plans.  I was really looking forward to spending a few free hours with my mom running errands and getting ourselves prepared for the upcoming month.  However, as many of you know, it didn't quite work out that way.  My heart sank Thursday night as I quickly began to realize that my plans for Friday were changing right before my eyes as John came home with, what we thought at the time was the stomach flu and Annalise was up about 90 percent of that night with a cough, runny nose, and fever.  Little did I know what we were about to be hit with...

It's been quite the crazy weekend.  I have been updating everyone on facebook, and since I don't have a lot of time now, I am just going to add my posts here as a record.  Then I can keep everyone updated from here.

Friday:

9:15AM  I had lots of plans for today...none of them included coughing, snotting, and puking family members! Sigh...change of plans for today.

3:15PM  John is at the ER, Annalise just woke up with a fever and Bryce has some weird virus rash. Looks like it may be a long weekend. Luckily the weather is nice and the older boys can all play outside! I hope everyone keeps their sick bugs to themselves

Saturday:

7:22AM  ‎...and Bryce has croup! For those who haven't heard, John was admitted to the hospital last night. We thought he had the stomach flu, but it appears that he has a bowel obstruction. They will observe him for a day or two trying to figure out what the problem is, and if it will pass on it's own. If not, he will need surgery.

4:45PM  He is in Chandler Regional. He is doing pretty well. They have drained his stomach and are keeping it empty which helps with the pain. Now just to wait to see if anything passes. They are giving him until Monday and if his body doesn't move on it's own, they will do surgery to figure out why. They figure it is scar tissue that has attached itself to the wrong place.

Sunday:

9:00PM  Quick update...John is still in the hospital, but doing a bit better. He is now tube free and tolerating liquids. If he continues to do so without pain then he will not have surgery. If the pain comes back, they will operate tomorrow. Annalise seems to be on the mend. Bryce is still not doing well. We are doing lots of breathing treatments and suction...doing our best to keep him out of the hospital. And I seem to have caught the cold as well.

Monday: 

1:14PM  John may be home this evening! He is eating regular food today. So far, so good! As long as he stays pain free, they will let him come home. No surgery!!!

So, that brings us up to now.  We have had a lot of people who have offered to help and bring in meals, etc.  Many, many prayers have been said in our behalf and they have been felt!   Our ward as always has been amazing.  When John found out he was going to be admitted, I called one of the members of the elder's quorum presidency and he and another brother went up to give John a priesthood blessing.  By Saturday morning, the relief society president had called and meals were being brought in.  Thanks to the Nielsons, we even had pizza brought to our home for Saturday's lunch!  My mom has been running errands and keeping up our laundry and dishes.  She and Heather took care of the kids Saturday night so that I could go visit John at the hospital and Mom watched the two, sick little ones so that I could take the older boys to church Sunday morning.  William and Jacob both bore their testimonies.  It was a wonderful meeting and a great hour of rest!