Saturday, May 18, 2013

Summer projects


 I haven't been much in the mood for taking pictures lately. The blossoms are mostly gone and right now it's an in-between time for flowers on campus. It's rather colorless, in fact. I did find these pansies yesterday. I don't think I've ever gotten a decent pansy picture. I don't know why but they are hard to capture the detail. I always get fuzzy ones.  I definitely need to go somewhere new and find new subjects. Maybe that's why I'm not so interested in taking pictures right now.



This past week has been one of recuperation. Now that the wedding is over, I can turn my attention to some other projects -- if only I could generate enough enthusiasm to do them! Here are some of the planned projects I'd like to accomplish over the summer.

Ammon -- he's always a project, it seems but right now we're dealing with two issues that have us puzzled. Over the past couple of months we noticed an increased amount of leaking around his g-tube. Jim finally made a doctor's appointment to see the surgeon that put in the g-tube. We thought he would need a larger diameter size. The balloon inside seemed to be fine but he has had the same size button since it was first put in at age 6 months. The surgeon measured and said he did need a new size so they put in a new one and sent us home. Well, it is smaller in diameter but longer. They told us it might take about 5 days for the skin to close up around the button. I love how doctors make decisions, send you home and expect you to live with their decisions. They never have to care for the patient. Poor Ammon! He has had stomach contents pouring out around that site now for two weeks. Jim took him back up a second time and they re-measured and assured Jim that was the right size and to be patient. I have never washed so many clothes, sheets, blankets, etc. in my life. His skin is burned from the acid. We have special cream to spread around but it makes me so sad to see the bleeding and soreness. Thankfully, Ammon can't feel it. He only knows that his clothes are wet and smelly. Jim finally gave him a blessing yesterday morning and this morning it was considerably better. We have to keep the entire area covered in gauze and tape to seal it from leaking all over his clothes. I'm very hopeful that it is healing as they said it would because there wasn't as much leakage overnight.
Another issue has to do with his bowels. As you know, we flush his bowels every other day. We do it, give him some extra time sitting on the potty once we have removed the catheter and then shower him. There have been occasional times when it hasn't seemed to stop for a long time after he has been showered, but for the past two weeks or more, we can't get him to stop pooping for hours after he has been flushed. This is a dramatic change in what his body was doing and it isn't acceptable. So again, Jim contacted PCMC to see what we could do. They gave us a couple of suggestions and we are trying them but it didn't work last night. We have to find a solution to this one soon. We haven't changed anything in the routine, we haven't changed the amount of food he eats and we haven't changed his diet. What is going on??  This one has been a struggle, too. Sorry if this it too much information. We are a little nervous whenever his body changes. We pay attention to the smallest details like skin breakdown, headaches, etc. This is a big change in his body so I'm nervous and a little anxious. We want to solve this mystery!
Ammon finishes his sophomore year in high school next week. He has loved school this year. It has been tough. His computer class really kicked his butt and he has spent hours trying to keep up with assignments he can't finish in class. He has definitely learned a lot in the class but I'll sure be glad when it's over next week. He has done well in his classes. Tonight we are taking him to a BBQ put on by one of his peer tutors. She loves all the special ed kids and, since she will graduate next week, she wanted to get the kids all together to have a final party.

House projects:
Paint that ugly front door white. That's a big goal.Get rid of the brown on the outside of the house.
Take the last part of stuff off the living room ceiling and our bedroom ceiling so we can paint those two rooms.
Clean the garage. That's Jim's project (and probably with help from Jared and Ryan).
Touch up paint in three rooms - re-paint the brown wall in Kaitlin's old room.
Get a new shower curtain for downstairs bathroom.
Fix sprinkler system - I wish Caleb was here to help out with this one. It's a big project.
Garden stuff -- Jim has planted peas (yum, Jess!), tomatoes, pickling cucumbers, radishes and all kinds of peppers so we can bottle salsa this year. Raspberries are coming up nicely as well.
Buy pavers of some kind to make a better sidewalk in the front yard. The rocks David and Lance put in have been dug up and thrown away.

Jim and Ryan finally put up a fence around the back yard. It's made of what's called "hog panels". It's not fancy but it looks decent. The deer could still get through if they crawled through the lilacs but we haven't ever seen them do that. We cut down three trees at the edges of our backyard. The deer loved to eat two clear down to the bark and they were really ugly. So those are gone. The yard looks great.

Now if I can find the energy and interest to accomplish all this stuff, I'll feel pretty good about things by the end of the summer. It doesn't feel like summer today - the furnace is back on - hopefully only for a brief period of time.

2 comments:

Jess Clark said...

Sounds like you guys have plenty going on around and in the house. Sorry to hear about Ammon's free-flowing bowels and the leaky g-tube.

We have lots of color in flowers at our house right now. Jen just planted and hung 4 flower pots that are doing very well. We've had a bunch of rain lately, too, so the grass is green, green, green.

Kaitlin Lanham said...

Is there anything that Chad and I can help with? You know I love to paint and last I remember Chad doesn't mind it either.