Never too early to start

Saving for retirement.....

Lately, this is his favorite thing to do

Oops....Spoke too soon!

Well, we thought things were getting back to normal. Then Tim had to go to the ER with a kidney stone on Sunday night. (yep...we missed the packers game but left the ER in time to listen to the last unfortunate minutes on the radio) The stone ended up being much bigger than any he has had in the past so he had surgery Tuesday to blast it with a laser, take it out and place a stent in the ureter. The surgery took longer than expected and then he was in recovery for a long time trying to get the pain and nausea under control. The doctor said he has tiny ureters and she had trouble getting the stone out. We didn't get home until after 11 Tuesday night and then were back in the doctor's office Wednesday morning to have the catheter removed. He has been pretty miserable and is still having quite a bit of pain which the doctor says is pretty typical with a stent placement. He'll have the stent removed Monday and then will have another x-ray to determine how many more stones are in the kidneys. (a CT scan showed 3 or 4 more) If they are big enough he may have Lithotripsy done to break them up so they can pass easily and he can hopefully avoid more surgery in the future. It's been a looong week. Jackson is beginning to think he lives with Grandma and Grandpa now. On the bright side....Tim has met his insurance deductible for this year. Yippee.




This is the procedure Tim had and that is about what his stone looked like

a. stone in ureter
b. guidewire
c. stone after breaking
d. basket removing stone

Numbers Game

15...number of inches of snow we got yesterday

35...number of minutes it took to make a normally 8-10 minute drive

1...number of cars I managed to get stuck in the snow

4...number of times Amy tried to get the car un-stuck and up the hill

1...number of tries it took Tim to get the car up the hill (pays to be from Wisconsin)

Somewhat back to normal

It feels like we have been sick for a month. Tim started it before Christmas and then we were both sick for a week. I still had the annoying, can't talk too long because it just catches in your throat cough well past New Years. Just when I thought we were in the clear, Jack started throwing up. He wasn't acting sick, still playing and smiling just like normal. We thought he had just eaten something bad. Then it got worse....much worse. The other end kind of worse. Then Friday night I got home from work and started feeling nauseous. Pretty soon the violent vomiting started. I have never been so sick. I was absolutely exhausted. I could barely stand and it took everything I had to walk across the room. 24 hours later it was gone. I was so lucky my parents were able to take Jackson for me because functioning would have been nearly impossible. And I was so sorry my mom got sick the next day. Jackson has taken a little longer to recover but is finally starting to eat a little more now. We made it through his first illness and are finally somewhat back to normal.

Poor Dog Part 3

After the surgery and removal of the tape, Kaiya's ear started to get better. Then around New Years it started to get worse again. The clot tripled in size and her ear looked like a little balloon. So back to the Vet we went for another surgery, this one involving sutures and a drain plus antibiotics and more doggie pain killers. The sutures and drain came out today and hopefully we will have a normal dog again! It's been a long month.

17 Months today!

Just came in from shoveling the driveway

Brrrrrrrr

Dan's drive across the country to bring us some furniture