So Much For A New Year

2009 still seems to be haunting us. Sue came home on December 31, and on January 15, she was back in the hospital having a second surgery on her lower back to remove a "pocket of puss" (her surgeon's words). The infection has also attached itself to the replacement in her left knee which will have to be operated on.

Sue is actually doing quite well after this surgery. She has not experienced the confusion and agitation as she did last time, and she already has all her IVs out. She's done a little walking with her walker and spent quite a bit of time sitting in a chair. The biggest questions now revolve around the antibiotics.... IV or oral, and for how long. The infectious disease doctor should be in tomorrow and hopefully will have some answers.

Even though I haven't participated in any challenges in a while, I did get Christmas cards made. Here are a couple that I sent this year.




Still looking forward to participating in challenges this year, just not sure when.

Cheers,
Judi

January 2010

Finally January 2010. I can't say I'm sad to have 2009 behind us. Of course, there were some highlights but, for the most part, it was not a very good year.

The year started out full of excitement. I had created this blog and intended to immerse myself in the world of card challenges. Even though I was working, I usually managed a couple of challenges a week. Starting in April, Sue went through two hip replacements which involved a lot of hospital visits and additional responsibilities at home. My posting and participating in challenges were more sporadic but by August, I was looking forward to things getting back to normal.

Unfortunately normal didn't last very long because in September Sue ended up in ER with a cracked knee. She was in an immobilizer for six weeks and then a brace for another four weeks. She was back living in my bedroom and I was playing nurse again, as well as working full time and making sure Mom was okay.

We were now through September and October and being ever the optimist, I was again hoping that, once Sue got the brace off and was walking normally, I could get back to the land of blogs and challenges. But I had no idea of the things to come.

November 16 found me taking Sue to the ER in what ended up being a two week hospital stay and a five week stay at a rehab facility. I'm not going to go into a lot of details but she had a blood infection which almost killed her. Her white blood cell count was 37000 (normal is between 5000 and 10000). I don't think I've ever been through anything so scary. She had to have emergency surgery to remove abscesses which were causing the infection. She was literally out of her mind for over a week and actually remembers nothing of that time.

I got her home on New Year's Eve. We are now looking forward to a healthier 2010 (and I'm hoping to spend a lot less time in hospital rooms!)

My last post was September 27. If you visited me since then, thank you very much and I'm sorry there's been nothing new. I didn't have the energy to blog or participate in challenges. There was nothing creative left in me.

So here's to 2010, a new year of participating in challenges, catching up on old friends' blogs and making new friends.

Cheers, Judi

(PS: I did manage to make Christmas cards which I will post later.)