Catch-up Time

So much to catch up on, I don't know where to begin..

 

I guess I'll start with Brynlee.  Some of our friends nominated Brynlee to be a "Forever Princess" at a Princess Festival at Thanksgiving Point.  She was very honored and excited!  I would definitely concur that she is worthy of the title.  She has been a huge help this past couple years and I don't know what I'd do without her!  The Princess Festival definitely made her feel like a princess for the day!

 

 

Now moving on to Jared.  About 3-4 weeks ago I realized that Jared's sense of humor hadn't returned since the surgery.  I casually mentioned it to him, and he agreed.  It's not like he's a different person (which is why it took me a while to notice), but he seemed a lot more serious and almost TOO polite.  I guess that's not bad, it's just different than what I'm used to. :)  We had a get-together with some of our college friends a couple weeks ago, so I told him he had a few days to get his sense of humor back before we met up with our friends, which we both laughed about.

 

Love these guys!  We are so lucky to have made
life-long friends while attending school.

Well, his sense of humor is returning, slowly but surely.  A couple nights ago he asked me where the toenail clippers were.  I got them for him, and the next morning I found his little pile of toenails - they were the longest things I've ever seen!!  So bad that I made Brynlee throw them away.  I texted him and told him I had found his collection of toenails, and that IT WAS DISGUSTING!!!  He responded, "That was meant to be a gift."  The old Jared is back!

 

Jared returned back to work a couple weeks ago.  Today now completes his third week back.  His first day he went to the office and made it about 5 hours, which was pretty good for him.  The rest of the week they allowed him to work from home, which was nice.  He had a really hard time sitting up for long periods of time.  He kept getting headaches and had to go lay down.  He was scheduled the following week to work in Park City, which is about 45 minutes away.  I told him I didn't think it was a good idea and told him to try to get re-assigned to somewhere closer.  He said that a co-worker was going to take him and bring him home (which was WAY out of the way for the co-worker), but I was worried that he wasn't going to make it for such long days.  But he was determined.  The first day he came home with blood on his shirt.  He had blacked out as he stood up for lunch, and his hand was gripping something, so it basically ripped his finger on the way down.  He said he thinks he was out for a couple minutes.  The next day he blacked out again, this time not as bad, and he just fell to his knees.  The third day he called me about the time I expected him home and told me that he was at a Wendy's waiting for his ride to the REAL soccer game (the professional team here).  I was NOT okay with it!  He had just put in an exhausting day at work, but he said that he had already committed to go, and that he was going.  I was really worried about him blacking out at the stadium!  I honestly thought I would get a call that night to rush to the ER.  But he did it.  He left at 8am and got home at about 10pm.  So he's been putting in LONG, hard days.  He struggles every day.  I hate sending him to work because I know he's having a hard time, but he's determined.  I'm certainly grateful for his sacrifice on our family's behalf.

 

So we're hanging in there, taking it one day at a time.  We won't have any real news until the end of July when we get the results from another MRI.  We are just grateful right now that he is tolerating the treatments okay.