doctor

I thought I’d give a bit of an update…we’ve been…busy this past week!

First, I have to say: Friends are amazing! Last week a dear friend seemed to just know we were struggling and needed help and offered to drop off dinner. She picked up amazing pizza and salad and it was SO nice of her!! Michael was basically bed-ridden at that point.

The pizza was great and we had leftovers for several meals.

I’ve been trying to do everything and taking care of Logan, the animals and Michael. And working. And doing house chores and trying to still work out. It’s a lot. I feel like I’m not doing any of it very well right now. The meal was very nice and helpful and made me feel some relief.

Michael’s mom brought us ham and bean soup (delicious)! (And over the weekend she came to babysit and brought us a casserole.)

In better news, Logan got his first Valentine! 😉

A card made by his BFF Winnie and some stickers! So cute! Another friend dropped of chocolates and a balloon! Logan is popular. 😉 He had a Valentine’s party at daycare and that looked like fun. Plus, mommy and daddy got a valentine from Logan!

Michael and I had leftovers for dinner on Valentine’s Day. Then…his back went completely out. He couldn’t walk or stand or lay. He ended up going to the ER. At least I can cross off “hot firemen in my bedroom on valentine’s day” from my bucket list…?? 😉 Made me think of that Friend’s episode.

Family came over to be with Logan and I went to the ER with Michael. He ended up getting an MRI (thankfully) and he has a herniated disk. I stayed late at the ER until he was going in for the MRI. It was going to be several hours for it and I had to get home for Logan.

I was in bed by midnight and got a few hours of sleep. I got Logan up and to daycare, went to work for a few hours, then left and went to the hospital. They aren’t doing surgery immediately. The heavy-duty meds Michael got in the hospital seemed to help a lot and relax whatever was going on and pinching the nerves. So after spending almost 24 hours in the hospital, he got to come home!

And he got to hold Logan for the first time in 6 weeks! We were all happy. <3

My cousin Anna hired some babysitting to help me out. A friend of Michael’s picked him up from the hospital because I had to go pick up Logan. It was SO nice how many people stepped up to help out. We have the best friends and family.

He’s doing better. He has a lot of follow-up appointments (Neurosurgeon, PT, spine clinic, his regular doc, I don’t even know what else). I hope we get some good answers for treatment. I really dislike that doctors just want to “manage” stuff like this with pain pills. That DOESN’T FIX the problem. And with a lot of people, it causes more problems. Neither Michael nor I are really pill people so we’re both determined to find another answer to fix this.

So it’s been an overwhelming, stressful week! Sheesh.

It’s been a helluva week. Our long-time-coming vacation that we had planned back in September was finally here and…we started it in the ER with Logan. He’s ok. It was some kind of virus but he was very sick and very dehydrated. I don’t want to go into details on the internet but it was one of the most terrifying things ever.

He’s much better now. Every day he got a little bit better but it was alarming seeing him so sick!

Thursday afternoon after a doctor appointment for Logan and getting clearance from two doctors, we packed up the car and drove to Bend. We booked a house less than a mile from the downtown area, blocks from a park and the river. My parents drove down from Seattle and met us there.

The house was fabulous!!

It was originally a really tiny, one bedroom cottage that was renovated and they added a second story. The upstairs had a bedroom with a double bed and a queen bed and a full bathroom.

Downstairs was open with an eating area, kitchen bar, open kitchen, living area and a half bath.

There was a big office area and then the master bedroom had a bathroom and walk in-closet.

There was a wrap around deck that you could get to from any door and off the master bathroom there was a door to the hot tub!!!

Outside there was a dining are, a lounge area and a fire pit area.

The house was FABULOUS! We would definitely stay there again. We were blocks from 10 Barrel Brew pub, a fancy grocery store, restaurants and shops and there was a school across the street.

Thursday we arrived at dinner time. We unpacked and then Michael and my dad went and picked up dinner. It was easiest to go lazy. They picked up pizza, cheesy breadsticks and salad. We ate outside on the deck.

Then Michael and I relaxed in the hot tub for a bit and CRASHED in bed. We were absolutely exhausted (spending 8+ hours in the ER the day before is not a recipe for a relaxing vacation….).

Friday morning we woke up and had a phone consultation with Logan’s doctor to follow up. He was already a million times better since Wednesday and he was already almost back to normal. What a relief!

We had breakfast and then went for a hike. My mom is having knee surgery soon, so she wanted to stay at the house and relax instead of hike. So Michael, my dad, Logan, Bella and I went out and hiked Benham Falls.

It was such a gorgeous hike!! It was pretty flat, only a few small hills, but the whole trail was along the river with gorgeous views of the water, lava fields and blue sky.

We came across a painter working on a painting of one of the waterfalls. It was cool seeing her in action (my mom would have loved that) and seeing the painting at the beginning, then seeing it almost finished when we were hiking back!

It was definitely a scenic hike!

It was about 72 degrees and perfect. Logan did great on the hike and was alert and just looking around. He didn’t get fussy at all. And Bella was having a blast!

We stopped just after these trees in the shade so I could change Logan and then my dad put him on his back for the hike back.

And then the little dude fell asleep. 😉

Here are the stats:

We got back to the house (short cut home to fill the growler with Boneyard beer) and then my dad and Michael got us all lunch at nearby food carts. I had a delicious green salad with spicy shrimp, feta, cranberries and almonds on top.

Logan refused to take a nap so my parents and I drove up to Mount Bachelor with him so he could sleep. 🙂 It worked! The views were gorgeous! It was a ghost town up there, though. It was really weird being up on Bachelor in sunny, hot weather and no snow on the roads!

On the way back to the house we stopped at Dillon Falls to check it out. It was a very short stroll from the parking lot. My dad and I realized that this photo below showed us that where we turned around on the hike that morning, connected to this little bog area. And we confirmed it with a map. So had we kept going, we would have done the whole hike.