Torture Time!

After many weeks of pain dad did indeed get his new knees. As you know he has cancelled many times before so I guess we are glad it is done now--well, as he says, the jury is still out--he'll let you know in 6 weeks or so. We were very blessed to have Tom give him a Priesthood blessing on Tues night. He gave a good blessing that brought us peace and comfort. We were both nervous. I am so grateful for the Priesthood and faith and prayers. We are so blessed to have this in our lives. We arrived early at the hospital and I knew we were in trouble when the RN started to shave dad's legs and he was ouching about how much that razor was hurting. He did survive though and he did humor me and put a smile on his face. Dad was pretty sedated that first day, thank goodness. They had two machines going on him to straighten and bend his knees. He has to have those going at least 10 hours a day. He got up that night and made a few steps to the end of the bed before he had to quit. He had a great physical "terrorist" as he named him but he did push him and it was quite painful. I missed the picture of dad and him going down the hallway with his walker. His PT tried to motivate him to keep moving by telling him if he caught the nurse that was just ahead of him, he could keep her. Dad loves visitors. Tom and Kristy made it up on Friday with the girls and dad loved it. Reed also stopped by after work and had to watch him do his PT--that was hard to see. Then, Christie and I and JD and Addie made a stop later. If anyone called they were likely to be on the phone for awhile, he said cause it got pretty boring in bed there all day. Saturday evening they released him to go to the AF hospital for a week. Dad made friends with all the people he had wait on him and could tell you quite a bit about them. He was generally very grateful for everything everybody did. (Except the PT) He had a pretty good night despite all the moving. They didn't make him extend his knees at AF like they did at TOSH so it was a lot more comfortable--probably not very good for recovery though. And, they don't have quite as good of equipment here so they can't keep his knees on the machines at the same time so they do one knee for a couple of hours, then the other one. He will have to have that thing going day and night here. We had a special experience this morning. I was just leaving dad to go to our ward when Bro & Sis Mower, who had been in our ward when I was a youth (they are Dr Mower's parents and he coached at AFH) and Bro& Sis Sheen--Trav's student council advisor--came in to offer dad the sacrament. That was a great surprise. They are called to the hospital branch to do that. It was fun to visit with them. Sis Sheen said to tell Trav hello and that she hopes he is blessed to have children exactly like him. It was a pretty sacred experience to have them administer the sacrament to dad and also to me. We so appreciate all the food, calls, visits, love, care, concern and prayers that you all have offered. Dad and I realize how truely blessed we are and how the Lord has answered those prayers on our behalf. Thank you so very much. Last week we celebrated Joshy's birthday. He had a great time lighting his birthday cake and being with his cousins. Trav & Allison and family are coming new week! They will be our first guests to stay. We are excited to have them come. I need to do a disclaimer though. I haven't done a thing to decorate the inside. I have been waiting for my talented sister to give me ideas but she has been so busy--which is a good thing for her. I don't even have a bedset or towels or shower curtain, or a lot of the furniture I need or toys or even the pingpong table, etc, so I am sorry. We will just love having your company though and not worry about all this other stuff. Reed says Nicole and Jenna had a rough night so he took them into the Insta care this morning and they both tested positive for strep. It is hard when school starts as everyone gets exposed to so much. We hope they get better soon. Jer and Liz were making tomato juice yesterday with the abundance of tomatoes they have. I haven't heard how it went. They were on their way to visit dad today. Laura got to go to Colorado for a few days the beginning of the week. John spent his time studying but was glad when she got home Weds night. Kim says her camera broke so she had to miss taking pictures of Tyler's birthday yesterday. He was so excited to tell me about his Star wars hat and promises to send me a picture when they get a camera. I am so glad Kim has her blog up and running again. We missed it. Hope you all have a great week. Dad is in 258 in TCC. Now that we have grass we need to have visitors--no excuses. Sure love you all, Mom