Hands

A basketball in my hands is worth about $19.
A basketball in Michael Jordan's hands is worth about $33 million.
It depends whose hands it's in.


A baseball in my hands is worth about $6.
A baseball in Roger Clemens' hands is worth $475 million.
It depends on whose hands it's in.


A tennis racket is useless in my hands.
A tennis racket in Andre Agassi's hands is worth millions.
It depends whose hands it's in.


A rod in my hands will keep away an angry dog.
A rod in Moses' hands will part the mighty sea.
It depends whose hands it's in.


A slingshot in my hands is a kid's toy.
A slingshot in David's hand is a mighty weapon.
It depends whose hands it's in.


Two fish and 5 loaves of bread in my hands is a couple of fish sandwiches.
Two fish and 5 loaves of bread in Jesus' hands will feed thousands.
It depends whose hands it's in.


Nails in my hands might produce a birdhouse.
Nails in Jesus Christ's hands will
Produce salvation for the entire world.
It depends whose hands it's in.


As you see now , it depends whose hands it's in.
So put your concerns, your worries, your fears, your hopes, your dreams, your families and your relationships in God's hands because...
It depends whose hands it's in.

Sticker Shock Moment

Have you ever had one of those sticker shock moments. Today was one of them for me. Like most families money is tight in our house at times, normally because we did bad at living on our budget and made stupid choices.

Well today I talked to Tom, the brace man, and even with our insurance (they pay 80% we pay 20%) we will owe around $200 for my knee brace. It was all I could do to keep from crying on the phone with the guy. I did some research and sure enough this brace is the expensive.

Like I said today was a sticker shock moment for me.

I have to say I hate sticker shock moments.

Children's Sabbath

Today was Children's Sabbath at church. The sermon had to with children and how we as audlts need to step up to the plate for our kids. Our Pastor talked abotu how many young people have no audlts in their lives. How sad is that!

Rev. Kat shared with us these statistics from the Children's Defence Fund web site:

• 2 mothers die from complications of pregnancy or childbirth.
• 4 children are killed by abuse or neglect.
• 5 children or teens commit suicide.
• 8 children or teens are killed by firearms.
• 32 children or teens die from accidents.
• 78 babies die before their first birthdays.
• 155 children are arrested for violent crimes.
• 296 children are arrested for drug crimes.
• 928 babies are born at low birthweight.
• 1,154 babies are born to teen mothers.
• 1,511 public school students are corporally punished.*
• 2,145 babies are born without health insurance.
• 2,467 high school students drop out.*
• 2,421 children are confirmed as abused or neglected.
• 2,483 babies are born into poverty.
• 3,477 children are arrested.
• 18,221 public school students are suspended.*

* Based on calculations per school day (180 days of seven hours each)

This infomation does cause one to think that is for sure.

Thank yous

Have you ever found it odd when people thank you for doing something. I know I do. I find it odd when people thank me for doing something I did. I guess this is because most of the time, I do things with no thought of a thank you.

This came to mind today at co-op. I am the 4 year old Core teacher. We have 6 little 4 year olds in our room (5 girls and 1 boy) and for 2 hours we play and do some basic learning. These young ones LOVE to cut with scissors, but their cutting skills are lacking. So what did I do, I found come cutting pages that work on how to cut. Today we did a road, we had to cut the road that the car traveled on. This worked on going in straight lines and well as 90 degree corners.

Well when one mother came and picked her daughter up she said Thank you. She did not realize we would be working on these "preschool" skills at co-op and how thankful she was. Like all families at co-op she Homeschools. Well like a lot of home schooling families untill you are around 6-7 years old durning "school time" you play. Here we are working on skills her daughter will need when she gets older and although Mom is busy teaching she has not been able to get those skills taught yet.

Did I choose to do this for a Thank you. NO WAY. I did this becuase these kids love cutting and they needed to have fun while learning how to cut.

Sometimes thank yous are hard to accept when you are not planning on them.

Phone call missed

Well I guess the Dr. who measured me for my knee brace called, but I was at co-op so they left a message. Will have to call them on Monday at this point. I wish they would have just left details not just "call me." Arggg

What a crappy afternoon.....knee update

I swear I am going to go postal on Dr's today. Today was another follow up on my knee. Get there no biggy. This UMKC Dr. come in and talks to me. Asked me if I have been icing my knee, I told her no, because no one will tell me what I suppose to do. Then she asked me if I have started therapy, again no because no one has talked about it. So then my Dr. comes in. He looks at my knee, he pushes on it, he moves my leg around. Then he asked if I was fitted for a brace for it, no just given crutches. So he tells me he wants me to get fitted for a brace to take pressure and weight off my femur while it heals more. Then he asked if I thought I wanted therapy. I told him I want to be able to walk good and get better. So he tells me he will set me up with some Therapy. The Dr. says I can go back to the gym but no legs till I have my brace.

Then the brace guy comes in, and measures me for a brace. I get to pick out the color for the metal, I pick PINK! Then he tells me how he has to check with insurance because sometimes they need proof that I need it, etc. It will take 10 days to come in. He will call me on Friday with info like my share of the cost if any etc.

Then he leaves, leaving the door open. So I am sitting there and then the brace guy walks by the room and says to the Dr in the hallway "Are you done with her". The Dr said yes and so I go out in the hallway and say, "What about follow up if any" he tells me, I want to see you in 2 months. Ok fine. Then I say "What about therapy." "Oh yah, here is a script for it". "Where do I take this?" "You can take it anywhere, even down stairs in the hospital."

Ok fine, so I take my orders and go down stairs. I find the PT/OT place and they start paperwork only to then say...."We don't take Aatna accounts that start BBL." I say "What it is Open Access it is good anywhere." "Nope you will have to find another place to go."

So I leave. Get in the van and call Tony and my mom. After hanging up from talking to my mom, what do I do, I drop my cell phone in a cup of water in the van. It freaks out and starts vibrating nonstop. So I pull that battery and throw it on the floor of the van.

I get home and look up on the Aatna web site and yes the hospital PT/OT is on our insurance. So I call Aatna and she says "You have Open Access, it is good everywhere, and I show that PT/OT is on it." So she puts me on hold and calls the PT/OT dept of the hospital and talks to them. She gets back on with me and said I should get a call from them tomorrow with info. because they are going to talk to the Aatna rep that they work with.

So long story short....I have to have a knee brace
Have to have 4 weeks of Therapy 3 times a week...but we don't know were or when yet.
I have a phone that is still dripping water, Tony went to work to get my a blackberry to use for right now.

I am going to go postal on the medical world right now.

Training

Well tonight was training with Sylvan for the new Eclipse program. The program itself is very nice. I think it will be nice when used.

However it makes me thinking. We often do training for work, which is what this is....but how often do we continue to do training for life? How often do we continue to improve upon ourselves or do we walk around thinking we are done. I am sorry I am not done, I am a work in progress. I need constant training and retraining.

Thank you to those in the world who help train and retrain me. Thank you God for making it so I can be trained, and for being the best trainer around.

One step at a time

Oh my gosh I can't tell you how happy I am to say, I AM WALKING! I was officially allowed to start walking on the 3rd and I tried. I could walk about 5 steps and the pain was terrible. On the 4th I had a Grand Cross Reception to attend and I was semi walking. I was able to walk up for introductions without my crutches although I limped something terrible. By the 5th I walked all but at church without my crutches (I used them so I could get up and down the stairs). On the 6th I did not use them at all and have not looked back.

SO I AM WALKING!

One step at a time.

Kinda like life, we take it one step at a time, through the good and the bad just one step at a time.

Normal....more then just a setting on the dryer

Hello world....tis me again....coming to you from my computer. What a great world this is we live in, yes I know there are lots of problems in the world but if you think about it what a magical world it is when I am able to write to the entire world from my kitchen.

I remember a long time ago seeing a book "Normal is a Setting on the Dryer"...I believe I even read parts of the book at one time. Well to me Normal is more then just a setting on the dryer it is what we try to have in life. Are we normal, not often but we try to be.

Well for me I learned something yesterday (Monday) about me that makes me feel normal. Yesterday I met a new Doctor who will now be my primary care doctor, she is a wonderful person and I am very happy to have her now. Well in our visit we went over the results from the 9 vials of blood draw from me at the hospital. All of the results came back wonderful which means this crazy blood clot road I have been on is just post surgery issues and nothing genetic. So you know what.....I AM NORMAL!

Yes Normal is more then just the setting on the dryer.....normal is what most of use want to be in life and when it comes to health and blood I for one am normal.

Here is hoping something is normal for you in your life today.

Emotional Sunday

Hello Blog world, it is I, Nettie you strange yet fun blogger here coming to you from my living room couch, the place I tend to call home till I am crutches free. I am taking a different tone today with my blogging as today has been one of many tears and emotions. So let's role back the clock and see what took place today.

We all got up this morning, although I will admit both hubby and I struggled with waking up, we did not want to get up, scary part was we went to bed early per say. So we got the kids up and in the shower. While they where showing hubby got ready for church. Then I hopped (well sat as I can't stand very long) in the shower. Then it was doing make-up, hair the norm. While I was blow drying my hair I hear my husband talking on the phone. I turn off the hair dryer to then hear him say "Oh she is right here, you want to talk to her, and he hands me the phone. Not knowing who I am about to talk to I am very apprehensive of who would be calling on Sunday morning. Come to find out it is my Step-Mother who lives in Texas. She starts of the conversation telling me how my Dad is trying to one-up me on medical, after all if I can have knee problems that bring out hospitalization he can do even better. So my brain is thinking, ok he fell, he broke something, something like that, but I was way off. She tells me they are at the hospital in the ER as he has either had or is having a heart attack. I was able to speak with him for a few minutes (until his phone is not able to hear me) and he explains to me what has taken place. Last night and early this morning he started having chest pains and his arm was going numb, so he hopped on-line did some research and noticed it fits the symptoms of a heart attack so they head to the hospital, he is very worried as both his parents died from heart attacks. It was funny because I never heard my dad cuss and he was cussing like a little sailor, which is ironic considering he is retired from the Navy. So I get off the phone and call my mom to let her know what is going on. I then talked to hubby. You see my Dad and I don't have a great relationship at all, we talk but not very much. Growing up he was away and to be honest many times in my life I have honestly hated him. However no matter how angry I have felt I hate to think of loosing my Daddy, he is my Daddy after all.

So we head to church. My Mom has had the job of locating baby pictures of me for a Rainbow activity. Well today she brought pictures that she found from when I was around a year or so old. So my mom and I start looking at the pictures. Before we know it we are both balling. We found pictures of me with my Grandma Anna and Grandpa George...pictures of me sitting in the same high chair my kids have sat in...pictures of me in the same crib all three of my children had rested their little heads in.

After we got home I did get an update on my Dad. They have gone in and checked one side of his heart and there is a vessel that is 100% blocked, however it is so small they can not do surgery so they are going to treat that with meds. Because of how long it took to do the test on the one side, they where unable to check his other side. They will check the status and blockage on the other side of his heart in the next two days.

So as you can see world......emotions have been running high today. Here is hoping your day has not been an emotional roller coaster.

Post op Check

Back from my post op check with the ortho. I was able to learn more about what they did to my knee. They did scrape the back of the knee as well as drill in the femur, they also did go ahead and do the ligament release (we thought they did not ). I was also able to see the Ultra sound report and there are 4 blood clots around the back of my knee. Two where big and two where small. He said my range of motion is pretty good and to keep doing stretching exercises at home for it. He also said that on the 3rd of October I can try going crutch free!! And I can drive again!!! So that is where we stand. I go back to the coagulation clinic tomorrow for my IRN test to see how we are doing there.

Coumadin Clinic

Well today was day one with the Coumadin Clinic. They where so nice. They answered everything they could for me and just very informational. The NP thinks I might have a genetic issues, they drew blood for testing when I was in the hospital just waiting to hear results, as issues of blood clots are not normal until a person is 50 or older. So this is what I learned.


My INR was 3.1 (goal is 2.0-3.0) so for now injections are done!!! She did tell me if my INR drops below 2.0 then I will be back on them till they get it up. She said my Coumadin amount will very every time I go in based on my INR.


I have to limit my Vitamin K intake, so only 1 serving of green veggies a day, one salad, green beans, peas etc. They gave me a sheet that shows the level of Vitamin K in foods, fruits/veggies/protein/carbs/spices.


I learned that weight training should on cause any issues but when I start back at the gym I have to build up on cardo and will have to be monitored big time while starting cardo because it can change my INR.


The large bruise which is still increasing in size is most likely do to hitting a blood vessel with my shot. She said it is no big deal, just ice/heat it if it hurts and know it could take up to 3 months to go away.


I go back Friday for my next INR check and we keep going from there. I told the NP I will do whatever I have to do to stay off of lovenox injections. She kept telling me to keep them because they aren't expired and I may need them again. I told her I will not go on them again, no way no how, I will keep my INR just find so I don't have to!


They even told me I might want to get a medical bracelet saying I am on bloodthinners in case something happens to me, sorry but unless this ended up for life I refuse to wear some medical bracelet.

Happy Labor Day!!

Happy Labor Day USA!

Today is the day we take a break from working and thank those who work so hard to make our lives easier and what we enjoy.

Today for us it is a happy day as for the first time in over a week all 5 of us are together. The girls are home to stay, they came home yesterday after church. We are going to cook out some yummy food and enjoy the day together.

The knee is doing better, my calf is not hurting at all to speak of!!!! So one week after major pain it is almost no pain! My knee is stiff and sore which is to be expected.

Tomorrow I go to the Coumadin Clinic for my first appointment and to see what they have in store for me. Can you feel the joy?? Actually I am not that worried. Come up with lots of questions for them, you know now would be a good time to get a notebook and start writing them down. I know I have to take the bottles of any meds I take with me so they can approve them. I guess when you are on Coumadin you have to be careful of what you put into your body. In the reading I have done I have found the only thing I should have to watch is my Vitamin K intake, that I think is doable. We shall see what comes of tomorrow.

Again Happy Labor Day!!

Blood Letting again

That is my mom's new term. I told her I had to go today for another blood draw to see if my blood is thinning enough with the meds so this stupid blood clot. So my mom kept saying, "have fun at your blood letting". So Tony, Christopher and I went to the hospital and had my blood drawn, which went pretty good. There was a lady there who as having her baby checked for jaundice. She looked so tired, I remember those days, she said she had a c-section and it was just too much. I smiled and said "I understand, he was our 3rd c-section." Her eyes got so big, and said 3.....no way 1 c-section is enough for me.

So I went in and they drew my blood no big deal, I am becoming a pro at this, I just said Butterfly, left arm, no tape. The nurse laughed, I told her well 3 days in the hospital and blood being drawn 4 times a day I am a pro now. And to think I have 6 months of this at the minimum. :( Oh well life goes on.

We left the hospital and went to Wal-Mart, my least favorite store, but I needed beading supplies for the class I am teaching at co-op and I know wal-mart had chairs I can be in so I am not on my crutches the entire time. So here I was one of those people in the electric carts, one of those people I always look at and wonder why they are not up walking. I felt so stupid. The only save grace is Tony had my crutches with him in the cart in front of me so at least it showed why I was not walking. We found what we wanted and came home.

The Doctor called later on in the day to say my test came back better, but my blood is still not thin enough so I am to up my coumadin to 7.5 mg a day. I will go back on Tuesday to see if that has helped. Oh that reminded me, I guess I am prone to DVT from now on, so I need to do some reading to see what all that means. One of my best friends emailed me and told me her mom has had two blood clots one of which went to her lungs, that is scary. I don't want something that bad to happen. What makes it worse is I did everything I was told to keep this from happening and yet it happened. Really makes you value life that is for sure, although I did not come close to death, the idea that this blood clot could have meant death is scary to me.

I ended up napping like 3 hours today, which tells me my leg is doing better and it is letting me sleep. My calf still hurts but the hurting is less, so that is a good sign I assume.

The knee continues.....

Well let's see this will be a LONG post as there is much to tell.

Friday 22nd - knee surgery (already told about this) all is going well other then the fact I am on crutches for 6 weeks.

Saturday 23rd - Home taking it easy all is going ok. Notice my calf is kinda sore but chalk it up to surgery and keep on going. I found if I put a pillow under my knee it helped with the pain. Tony knows how icky I feel so he wrapped my leg up in a trash bag so I could get a shower and oh that was heaven!!

Sunday 24th - We go to church. This is the first time I have been in the church elevator. Sat at church did ok, left church came home and took it easy. My parents took the girls for Catherine's skating and then up to Omaha to take them to the zoo. My calf is hurting more and so that night we took my leg wrapping off (it was allowed to come off the next day) and went to bed.

Monday 25th - Tony went back to work and Christopher and I are at home. I finally get a full shower and oh yes how good it feels. We make a great team. We played leggos and had lunch. As the day goes on my calf hurts more and more. I just keep taking my pain meds and using ice on my knee.

Tuesday 26th - I talk to our neighbor and she is concerned about my calf hurting. At this point I am getting worried so I call the Dr. The nurse tells me it could be pain from surgery but I should get a Doppler check of my calf to make sure we are not dealing with a blood clot. So I get an appointment for 3:30 pm so Tony can come home and take me. We get to the imaging center and the lady scans both my right and left leg. She then tells me yes their is a blood clot in my left leg and hands me the phone to talk to the nurse of the Dr. who did my surgery. The nurse tells me to go straight to the hospital as I am being admitted and put on blood thinners.

So we get to the hospital and get checked in. I am taking up to the 9th floor of the pavilion and in my room. They get an IV line in and prepped with Heparin, however the IV could not be started till they had baseline blood work. Dr. Adiga came in and talked to me, this is a new Dr. I had never met and was assigned to my by my surgeon. She asked TONS of questions and said part of her blood work would be to see if I have any genetic markers for a clotting issue. So 9 villes of blood were taken and then the IV was started. They put a funky band on my arms that was bright yellow and said "Fall Risk" as well as a sign on my door. I was told I could not get out of my bed unless someone was in the room with me at all times. So we just laid there and got filled up with Heparin. Every 6 hours they drew blood to see how the level was in my system. The reason was the were aiming for a level between 63-100. So at one point they gave me a heparin bolise to try to speed up the process. Finally by Thursday we where maintaining a level of 79! While all this is going on I was given Coumadin to also thin my blood.

Finally on Thursday I was told I could go home but I have to give myself Lovenox injections every 12 hours for the next 7 days. I will also be on Coumadin for a minimum of 6 months! I will be participating in the Coumadin Clinic at the hospital to monitor my levels and such.

So today is now Friday, we have been home for just over 24 hours and we are doing ok. The first shot was terrible as I cried so hard and finally gave up and Tony had to give it to me. Since then I have done one other shot on my own. This is defiantly a new road for me.

Knee Surgery

Well today was the big day. My mom came to the house to stay with our kids. Tony and I head to the Surgery Center. We arrived at 10 am which was our check in time. Filled out a few papers and waited. Around 10:30 am they took me back to prep me for surgery and then let Tony come back. Then the waiting began.....and waiting.....and waiting. What was suppose to be a 11 am surgery time became a noon. I was taken back to the OR and moved over to the surgery table. I remember the anesthesiologist saying "you are going to get start to feel sleepy" and that was the last I remember. I woke up in recovery to the Dr's assistant telling me I can't walk on my right leg. And I was freezing like crazy. Finally I was up all the way and Tony came in. They went over my restrictions which where a ton, no shower for 3 days, no tub bath for 2 weeks, no weight on my right leg for 6 weeks. Tony then went on to explain to me what they found. They cleaned up the back of my knee cap which was not as bad as they thought. Then they saw the bottom of my femur. It was cracked and ground away. So they drilled holes, we think they said 5-6, in the bottom of my femur to make my bone "bleed". This is causing the bone marrow to bleed and thus hopefully rebuild the bone. So now I am stuck on the couch taking it easy, something I never do.

4 years ago today…

4 years ago today I was waiting to see my baby. After being in the hospitalized and then monitored for a month because of low fluid levels the day had finally came. We cleared the 36 ½ week mark and Dr. Spell was ready to bring our baby into the world. Through all the ultra sounds and monitoring we still did not know if we were going to be bringing home a girl or a boy.

4 years ago today, two youth from our church came up to stay with Catherine. My parents were on their way back from Iowa, as my Grant Aunt Minnie just celebrated her 90th birthday. Tony’s parents were leaving Tennessee bound for Missouri. Oh and we hit Wal-Mart to get diapers as we did not have any yet.

4 years ago today, I sat in the waiting room of the maternity floor waiting to have a baby. The hospital was busy and they where running behind. We were admitted and sent to a little room to begin our prep, took the poor nurse 5 ties to get the poor IV in. We finally got into the OR and they gave me my spinal and I started to cry, I was so happy and yet so scared for this little one that had caused the past month to be a roller coaster. I remember the anesthesiologist asking me how I was, I said fine and then started to throw up. Turns out they bottomed out my blood pressure.

4 years ago today at 1:37 pm Anna Elizabeth Pierce made her debut. She weighed 6 pounds 12.9 oz and was 18.9 in long.

4 years ago today our family grew with the joy of a new baby.

Knees are over rated

Let's see what has been going on with my knee. It is a pain is what it is. Back in February I slipped in my kitchen on one of the kids plastic stencil. My knee started hurting BAD and then began to swell. Two weeks later I called an Ortho to find out what was going on with my knee as the swelling was worse and it still hurt. That orth did an MRI and said nothing was wrong, just had fluid on the knee. Then he put in a short of cortisone (this was the end of March at this point). Well it has never gotten better. In June I was at Grand Assembly and in heals for 4 days straight and that finally put my knee over the edge. So I set out to find a new Ortho.

On Thursday, July 24th (over 5 months since it started hurting) I saw a new ortho. He took some X-rays and manipulate both my knees and said he see the problem. Said the back of your knee has cartilage and mine is peeling like an orange does. Thus it is causing the pain (when it catches on the bones) and also the swelling of water collecting to try to help cushion the knee. So he would be doing surgery on my knee to clean the back of my knee cap and also he may "release" the side of my knee so it sits more in center.

Well today we received a phone call and surgery is set for Friday, August 22nd at 10 am. We will have to be there at 9 am. I am so happy to have a game plan in place and hope to find relief soon.

Grand Representative Drills 2008

This year I had the honor of planning the Grand Representative Drills for the Cavalcade of Flags. I was very happy the way they turned out. Would I change some things, of course, but over all I am very pleased. It was nice to have something more upbeat this year.

Marionettes on the Stage.

Today I took the kids and Bri to see The Legend of Sleepy Hollow at our local Library. This was a presentation by Elsenpeter Marionettes. One guy, Richard Elsenpeter, did the entire show himself. After the show he demonstrated to the children how Marionettes are made and operated.

Yet another reason to check out your local library.