Anniversary

As I sit down to write this, Eli is trying to convince me to buy one of his drawings for $10.99. I made a onetime deal for 2 cents, telling him there was something wrong with purchasing a picture, given I supplied the paper and markers. I can’t believe I am such a sucker. I told him never again.


In all my excitement to post the photos of our vacation, I forgot to mention we celebrated our 13th anniversary. Tom and I met in community college at a party. I was 19, and Tom had been trying to get my name all year. Crazy, I didn’t have a clue. We started dating, I left for South America 6 weeks later, and I returned to find him with a dozen roses. Three years later, we got married. Who could forget Tom’s moves on the dance floor? Makes me want to dig out the old video. If a person’s love of dancing meant they had moves, Tom would dance like John Travolta.

I was straight out of college, 2 months after getting married, we packed up our small house, or shall I say movers packed up our small house, and we headed for Chicago. I had a job there, and Tom was up for the adventure. On that topic, I will leave you with this thought. There were the same number of people the in our apartment complex as our small rural town.

As I write this, I am looking at Sidney’s splint. She continues to take it off. Before the day is over, we might have to tape it to her arm. It comes off Monday. We are anxious about going to the pool. Especially, on a day like today. There is a heat advisory, and we are cooped up together. Other than a few laps on the bike or puttering around the yard to water the flowers, it is too hot. Thank goodness for the air conditioned gym.

We continue going to the hand therapist in town for ultrasound on the right hand. This is the hand that was completed in January to eliminate the webbing between two of her three existing fingers. Our objective, in taking her to the occupational therapist, is to reduce the scarring and likelihood of the webbing growing back. It will probably not keep her out of surgery for the remainder of her childhood. Instead it will reduce the number of procedures as her hand grows. Our hand surgeon advised, typically the hand stops growing around age 15.

She receives ultrasound 2 times per week. This week she will receive three treatments, because we were gone on vacation last week. This will help to reduce scarring. In addition, I work vitamin E oil into her hand up to 3 times per day. This involves rubbing the oil in a circular motion. This all combats scarring. When working on the webbing between fingers we focus on the area where three flaps of skin came together, between the fingers. In addition, there was a skin graft, creating a ridge which extends to the end of her fingers. This all helps to flatten the raised scars.

Off to nature explorers today, hopefully the naturalist will not feed another mouse to a snake. I found the whole thing disturbing. OK, time to go and do something productive.