Carrie Underwood

What better way is there to spend Valentines day than to be at Carrie Underwood concert!  Chris said one of the benefits to being in the chair is your seats at a concert!  They were awesome!  You may know of our love for country music as we are pretty sure we conceived celebrating our 2nd anniversary last year at Country Jam in Grand Junction, CO.  We are so blessed!  I laughed all week as Chris was showing off our wedding pictures and telling everyone how much his wife looks like Carrie Underwood.  I find a lot of humor in this especially as I'm showing up at my doctors appointments weighing in at 200 lbs.  Oh sweet husband!  I am excited to be able to bend over and tie  my shoes, let alone sing and dance.  This baby is just happy in the womb!

Pure Crazy!

Its been awhile....

I sit to write and don't even know where to start.  I think the good ole sunshine and shadows will help give an overview of this last month.  The sun shines brightly everyday especially in Colorado, but no matter how bright the sun is shining on our lives there are always a few shadows.

Sunshine

• We have 4 wonderful morning caregivers that work with us and in the past few days one of them has moved in with us!  It's such a great blessing to have such a highly trained professional and dear friend providing Chris with care at night.  She will stretch him, turn him, and give meds in the middle of the night and is allowing us to have a more normal routine as it has become too difficult for me to accomplish all of the daily tasks.

Shadow being....

• A different caregiver showed up wasted to provide Chris' morning routine.   I wasn't sure whether to hold her hair while she was puking or help Chris with his shower.  This may have resulted in a lack of a good bowel program.  Good bowel programs are important as it helps prevent accidents.   Which is then what we had! This resulted in me, a very pregnant wife doing nine transfers by 1:30pm.  We decided we were going to try a new faster way to clean him and let's just say that didn't work out.  I had poop everywhere!  Exhausting!  Definitely solidifying my decision that I will never use cloth diapers!

Sunshine

• Chris has changed his PEAK schedule from a few long days each week to shorter but more frequent therapy.  It has increased his strength in a HUGE way.  He has now been working on standing transfers and in the gym they called everyone over and yelled, "Chris Kelley is standing!"  We still have a very long way to go but it's so exciting to see and he's been able to do these with his caregivers and strong friends.  He sat next to me on the couch last night for the first time and it was nice to be close without metal between us!

Shadow being...

• We had the start of our first ever pressure/skin sore.  It looked like a very dark line in the middle of Chris' butt.  As you may or may not know the skin is the most important thing to take care of in SCI.  Skin sores start at the bone and appear to the eye almost as a bruise.  Quickly they can open and become infected, the infection can travel quickly to the bone and then they would have to do a flap surgery that leads to 7 weeks back in the hospital.  Knowing all this, we were a bit stressed and I was waking up again to an alarm every 2 hours and turning him side to side.  With our diligence in care, we have seen it lighten and we are still seeing a big improvement.  Its a long process!

Sunshine

• Our home is under a small remodel project.  Small is probably a relative term as we are transitioning our living room into a bedroom and making the one bedroom we have into a usable and adaptable room for us.  We also closed in a porch making some closet space in this house that we bought.  Having only one closet was definately not working for us.  A big thank you to all of our friends for there help and hard work.  Its coming along great!  Tonight we headed to the store and bought pre-finished wood floors and while they were demoing in the room we discovered hard woods under the carpet.  What a blessing and big save of money.  Also we were able to hire an amazing handy man that I've had the privilege of leading young life with for 4 years and Chris and I are so incredibly grateful for his expertise.  We also have an old church acquaintance that will be helping finish all the rest of the big stuff and I'll post pictures when it's done!

Shadow being...

• While in our newly remodeled shower Chris tried to faint on us the other morning.  Another medical issue we used to deal with SCI at the hospital was blood pressure regulation.  With medication and time this regulation has been much better.  Craig hospital has trained us in many ways so we knew to lean him back and change the flow of blood circulation, grabbed a binder put it around his waist with our AM caregiver.  You can't leave him alone during this, so she stayed with him and I ran to get supplies and the extra meds we needed.  Of course all happening while I am supposed to be at work and my client is waiting for me.  Stressful!  I did cancel my morning as Chris was experiencing some confusion.  Anyone who knows Chris knows he isn't a big fan of cats.  In the shower he starts talking about buying a cat at this point I am worried he is suffering a brain injury!  Thankfully he started to become more aware as the medicine kicked in.  

Sunshine

• Doula, Doula, Doula!  I searched high and low wondering if I wanted a doula, wondering if they were weird or what a doula even is?  A doula is a labor coach and a woman's helper during and after labor.  God provides in big ways and lead me to Misty Rauscher.  I read her page and after writing of her love of babies she mentioned she also loves the disabled and elderly community.  BINGO!  I contacted her via email and of course she was not going to be able to help because she had just had a baby, a 7 day old, 4th child, and was on maternity leave.  We talked in hopes she could direct me to someone wonderful  and perfect for our situation.  We hit it off like we were sisters!  She's wonderful!  She wanted to meet us and brought little Vivie over and Chris was able to snuggle her and get some practice.  It has been a true blessing and making a birth plan has been so awesome as Chris and I desire to labor at home as long as possible and keep our hospital stay to a minimum as Chris cant be in his chair much over 12-18 hours.  Prayers much appreciated for this to happen!  

Shadow being...

• I have majorly been struggling with pregnancy induced carpal tunnel.  I have a hard time feeling my fingers and get sharp pains up through my arms.  I have been wearing braces almost always and they provide some relief.  I also got a sore throat this week that had me relying on family and friends for Chris' care.  Silly as it is I think it's Gods way of slowing me down.  I need my hands to work and because of them being asleep I was forced to stop doing hair earlier than expected and with being sick I had to hand over all of Chris' care to someone else because really what I needed was my Mom caring for me!

There is so much SUNSHINE in our lives.  I wake up grateful for the community around us everyday.  Our friends threw a surprise dinner and a "Wear A Onesie Bring A Onesie" party that was extremely special.  My clients have blessed us with many wonderful baby gifts.  My coworker threw a Mommy shower to bless me and I cried as it was the most beautiful and pinterestable parties you've ever seen.  My coworkers, many of whom I have worked with for going on 10 years, have been a huge strength and support to me.  I was moved when the verse they chose to describe me was Proverbs 31:25, "She is clothed in strength and dignity and laughs without fear of the future."  I would say it is pretty close to my motto.  I love this journey of life and though it has days and months that are extremely hard there is always joy to be found and laughter to be made each day and I hope you find reason to enjoy the ones you love this week.