Good Luck for 2011

First off.... I'm cancer free!!  The surgery finally happened and was a success!  It was a crazy week and has taken some time to get everything back to normal (what's that really?) but it couldn't have gone more smoothly.  Is "more smoothly" correct English or is it too late at night to be blogging again??

The removal was especially easy.  The doctor was able to get everything in one try.  I was a little nervous but not for long.  The first thing they did was put a large black contact on my eye ball.  It was to protect my eye but also prevented me from seeing anything.  My other eye was covered with a towel.  The shots to numb the area were not fun at all but I survived.  Since I couldn't see anything or feel anything it was kind of weird laying there and listening to them talk about me.  They commented on how long my eye lashes were and that they'd have to cut them back out of the way.  (They've already started growing back.)

I was shocked to find out I could leave so early.  They patched me up and sent me on my way.  They gave me extra gauze in case I needed to change the cover but I knew there was no way I was going to look at what was under there.  I have the weakest stomach - my poor girls have to pull their own teeth out.  I would have passed out for sure!

Just before the surgery we had decided to see if L.J.'s mom could take the baby for a few days.  I was told not to lift more than 5 pounds and I knew that I'd never stick to that with her here.  I have helpers but I knew their help would really only last a day or so and then I'd be on my own.  I was so glad she could!!!  It's very disorienting with only one eye and I had a terrible headache since my good eye was always trying to focus.  My mom took Luke & Lyla during the day and then Ally & Emily took care of them in the evening.

I finally had a chance to just sit and rest while everyone took care of me for a change!! (Every Mom's dream).  Also, of all times for L.J. to get sick, he caught everything that had been going through the family the week before.  EVERYTHING all at once!  I kicked him out of the house and demanded that he go to Urgent Care & gets on some meds.  I wasn't going to risk getting sick in between the surgeries.  He came home with a confirmed ear infection, sinus infection & pink eye and 4 prescriptions!  Poor guy had to drive himself to CVS to fill the meds but he survived.

Then on Friday we had the repair surgery.  This time I had to fast and had an IV for anesthesia.  I liked it much better because they told me I would get a little sleepy and then all of the sudden I woke up and it was all over.  When L.J. came in to see me I asked him how I looked.

He said, "It looks.......................... (wait for it) ................................... a little weird."

Not really what I was hoping to hear, thanks babe!  No patch this time so I saw it right away.  It actually wasn't that bad or at least I was expecting to see much worse.

By the time I was in the truck to go home, the pain had started.  By the time I got across town & home I felt like I had been beat up & ran over.  The information they sent home said to take Tylenol for pain.  After two dosses, I called the doctor on call to request Tylenol with codeine or something stronger!  Then he said I could take Advil.  "Why didn't you put that on the information sheet?"  Round the clock for the next two days I was taking 3 Advil at a time and rotating baggies of frozen peas on my face.  I hardly got out of the recliner, ever!  If that's what plastic surgery is about, I will never go through that voluntarily!!

I was pretty swollen & bruised but it didn't last long thankfully.  I had a follow up appointment Monday morning and then after that we went to pick up Ruby.  I had missed her so much but I was so thankful she had not been there.  With L.J. sick and me being in so much pain we would have never been able to take care of her.  I'm sure she was getting so much attention and love from Grandma anyway.  Our ward brought in dinner on two nights so I was able to take full advantage of my time off.

By the next Sunday I went to church and it hardly looked like anything had happened.  I still have a little pink spot & missing some eye lashes but that will heal soon!  It's finally over!!

So...... another good thing that just happened over here is that we were able to reroof our house & get a new air conditioner FOR FREE!   Back in October we had a crazy hail storm and at the time had no idea how much damage it had actually caused our house.  I mentioned it briefly HERE.  Turns out the roof was pretty beat up and our extremely old / energy sucking / out dated air conditioner took quite a hit.

About a year ago we were struggling with the idea of replacing the AC, knowing that our monthly bills were outrageous and trying to decide how to come up with the cash to replace it before it quit for good.  Then the layoff happened so we decided we would just have to pray that it made it at least one more summer and some how try & get a new one as soon as we possibly could.  Well, thank goodness for insurance!!  The adjuster found quite a bit of damage and we got a HUGE check in the mail (minus our deductible).

We went back and forth if L.J. could reroof the house himself so we could save some of the insurance money but in the end decided it was worth the $750 deductible for supplies & labor to have someone else do it.  He's worked on plenty of roofs and just finished a week long job helping my parents with theirs so he certainly could have but like I said, it was only going to be $750 out of pocket.  Then going over all of the insurance paperwork, we also received money for repairing window screens, the RV gate, repainting and other misc items.  All of that he can easily do himself and it won't cost us what they gave us so with that money, it covered what we needed for the deductible!

The roofers did our entire roof in one day!!  We left that morning and went to the temple then when we came home that evening, it was done.  So nice!  Then today the new AC was installed.  Kind of funny since there's a freeze in effect and the high was only 48 degrees but we were so excited any way.

Here's the old nasty AC headed to the dump:

It was so funny when the installer said, "This didn't actually work any more, right?"  Well yea some how it did and we know we were being watched over and helped in our time of need.

Here is our NEW highly efficient, more powerful, so much quieter unit and our beautiful new roof:

Luke loved watching the crane pull it up.  He was bundled up in his snow jacket & gloves and wanted to wear his flip flops so he could get outside fast enough.  Luckily I caught him and helped with the socks & shoes so he didn't miss anything.

So two major blessings for this year and it's only February 3rd!  I'm SO GRATEFUL for both of them and even if that's it, I'm good.  If I could ask for just one more, maybe a job???  We'll see.  :)