If it’s Tuesday it must be Belgium or Seaford or Garden CIty or Plainview

Anna is in PreK 5 days/week, Chloe is in nursery 2 mornings/week, Anna has gymnastics 1 day/week and swimming 1 day/week, Chloe has PT 2x/week, speech 2x/week and a speech-language group 1/week. I work 3 afternoons a week and have a standing playdate 1x/week, and I’m back at the gym and I do lunch duty at Anna’s school occasionally. And Lee is at the Dr or PT on almost a daily basis. And sometimes I clean the house.

Dressing Chloe and Missing Bubba

Last week, my wonderful mom came over and watched Chloe while I stayed upstairs and changed the girls clothes over from summer to winter. It’s a chore but bought back such memories. Of course Chloe is wearing all of Anna’s “hand-me-downs”. So I remembered Anna wearing the tie-dye Princess shirt, the jeans with the pink ruffle on the legs, the black jeans with the studded heart. And guess who bought Anna these gorgeous clothes......Bubba. Oh how I miss her and wish she could have met Chloe. (Sidebar: Whenever I was frustrated about Lee and his illness, I would tell him that I wish Bubba was around because he could have used her encouraging words instead of my moodiness). Anyway I miss Bubba, the best MIL in the world but I think of her whenever I now dress Chloe in one of her cute outfits, courtesy of Bubba. Bubba got so much joy out of buying stylish clothes for Anna. Now Chloe gets to look cute too.

Isn't summer supposed to be lazy, hazy and crazy?

Well. well, well..it was a long, hard summer. After Chloe’s surgery in June, we had about 1 month of a tough recovery but then we were ready for summer. Lazy days at the beach, hanging at the pool, ice cream cones. I, miraculously was able to go to Las Vegas for 48 hours for an Okinawan reunion. What an unbelievable time I had catching up with great friends, eating in restaurants and going to the pool, without a noodle.
I arrived home on July 19 and Lee had MINOR, outpatient, knee surgery (torn meniscus) on July 20. He came home and we had some good times going blueberry picking, hanging at the beach in Massapequa and eating ice cream from the truck.
Then something went wrong.....long story short: Lee ended up with 5 trips to the ER (one by the wonderful Massapequa Fire Department), 2 long hospital stays and so far, 4 additional surgeries. He was diagnosed with a very serious staph infection and I became Nurse Kratchet (seriously I did resemble her), giving him IV antibiotics twice a day for 8 weeks. He moved into the computer room on the first floor and our lives became very different. Poor Lee was in tremendous pain for a good 2 months (now he is just in pain). The pain killers did not do much. Weekly trips to the orthopedist, the infectious disease doctor and daily visits to PT. It’s been tough on us: Lee was in pain, I was overworked and stressed and the kids surely felt the strain and missed having their daddy be a participant in their lives.
At this time, Lee is doing much better. The staph infection is gone, we are done with the IV’s and he can even drive and do an errand. He has lost strength and mobility in his leg and is now scheduled for another surgery on Nov 4 to break up scar tissue and for a manipulation (ewwww, the manipulation is self explanatory). Thank God this surgery will be at the NYU Hospital for Joint Surgery and hopefully will help with his recovery. We are also thankful that although this had made for a rough few months,it is something that is manageable and not life-threatening.