You say it's your birthday...well it was a while ago.

It was Chance's birthday a while ago - thanks for all the wishes and cards and calls.  We had presents and breakfast cereal in the morning and ice cream cake from Sweet Cow in the evening.  It was a fun day and great to have the whole family together.

Be warned.  I spent some time uploading pictures and preparing posts.  There will be a bunch of new posts coming!

Chance's Birthday (was a while ago)

Here are some pictures from Chance's birthday the end of September. Candace made a Cowboys cake, The girls got him a huge package of Smartees (see where Tilly gets her excitement of candy presents) and a package of Oreos. Happy Birthday Chance!

Need some staples?

Here is Chance's fancy leg moving machine. He has been using this since he came out of surgery. We are supposed to increase the flexion every day so his range of motion increases.

He's also hooked up to a Game Ready machine which pumps cold water through a sleeve that is wrapped around his leg. It also inflates to move the swelling around.

These are the two staples and the screw that was in his knee from his first surgery.

Surgery Update

Before surgery Chance was happy and ready to go. He was a bit hungry since the surgery was at 1:00pm and he wasn't allowed to eat since 7:30 the night before.

Here he (his knee at least) the day after surgery. The good news is they replaced his ACL, repaired his meniscus and removed the hardware from his previous ACL surgery 20 some years ago. The bad news is while taking out his staples from the last ACL surgery the cracked his tibia. That caused them to put an additional screw in his leg to hold the bone together and will mean he has to be on crutches 6 weeks instead of 1...bummer.

Isabel has been really involved and interested in the whole process. She helped me empty and clean a drainage tube filled with blood (lovely) and has helped get his brace on when needed. Josie on the other hand likes to be more on the comfort/service side of the rehab process. No blood and stuff for her but she has been great at bringing Chance toast and ginger ale and magazines. And of course everybody loves playing with the walkie talkies the Kalis' let us use...especially Chance.

SK8R Girl (and her dad)

I'm sure I have posted pictures of everyone skating on our neighbors ramp before. Well, here are a few photos from a special late night (not a school night) skate session with just Izzy and Chance. They had a blast and even rocked out some air/skateboard guitar at the end. This may be one of the last "fun" pictures of Chance for a while. He is getting knee surgery on the 19th, ACL, meniscus and perhaps micro fracture to repair severe arthritis. Send healing thoughts our way.

By the way, it is snowing right now!!! ARGHHHH!