Author: Tricia

I commented earlier on all the wonderful help we have received since our car accident and especially as we recover from injuries sustained. Last evening we enjoyed a unique and sweet expression of care from one of Jay’s co-workers whose wife evidently is a phenomenal Vietnamese cook.

Jay’s friend at work told him yesterday morning that in light of what had happened with the wreck, they wanted to do something for us and that if Jay was willing to drop by their house on the way home, his wife would have freshly made egg rolls waiting for him to take home to all of us for supper. Wow! As promised, Jay arrived here a little after 6pm with a huge pan of crispy, just-cooked egg rolls which we proceeded to dig into heartily. They were SO DELICIOUS! What a fantastic treat. Even the kids (well, two of them) enjoyed this meal, and we had fun using all different sorts of dipping sauces to eat our egg rolls. We had our fill, and there were even some left-overs to enjoy at a later time.

We continue to be truly touched by all the different outpourings of care and help we receive from so many different people.

It would appear Jay has largely been keeping our family blog going (as he has been largely keeping alot of other things going around our household since the wreck and my injuries). But since I can type, I figure I should pitch in and and offer something to our faithful readers too!

It is not enough to write it here, but I would like to also publicly thank the multitude of people who have given of their time, energies and hearts to aid us in this rather challenging episode of our lives. I cannot believe we are still receiving meals regularly, having people care for our kids, grocery shop for us, drive our kids to school, and even stop in to do dishes and laundry and such. It is truly humbling to see the outpourings of love and deeds just continue. And, believe me: it is so encouraging to us, as we are not yet able to do on our own all that we would “normally” do to care for ourselves and our children.

I echo Jay in the thought that this past week and a half has been stunningly hard, and each day seems to bring another hardship, on top of the obvious “recovering from a car wreck” physical and emotional and logistical challenges. Jay continued to get sicker over the weekend and Monday morning saw him at the doc’s, where he was diagnosed with a whopper of a sinus infection on top of tummy issues. I seem to have succumbed to the Nicolas tummy bug on Sunday, so for the past two days I have dealt with that, and tried to cope with hardly any food intake, while being pregnant (not a good combination!).

This evening when Jay called home to tell me he was coming down with a bad migraine, it felt like the last straw. He has bravely worked through illness, and utter exhaustion, and done remarkably – I am so thankful and proud of him for the way he has cared for all of us – but there is no working through a migraine. And with all that has fallen upon his shoulders of late, I felt so distressed that he must bear yet one more burden. On top of this, he is still the main care-giver in the evenings due to some of my physical limitations, so having him out of commission for the night raised a whole host of issues: how would the children get bathed? the dishwasher emptied? everyone to bed? Stuff that normally I would just do on my own is not an option right now, and so it brought yet another hurdle to overcome, and it just felt like too much.

I fell apart emotionally, wondering why all of this has to happen just now. Well, within half an hour I had two sweet angels of mercy whom I will just call Jamie and Steph, on my doorstep to help. They fed my children dinner, emptied my washer, cleaned my kitchen, bathed my kids, helped me put them to bed, including songs and stories, and then proceeded to wash and fold more laundry. And aside from all their physical help, their presence was such a comfort to me, and to Jay. I heartily thank them for giving us their evening, for ministering to us so willingly. And I am so grateful for friends who love us enough to be here at a moment’s notice to care for our physical needs. Thank you!!

All this week while Jay’s Mom is out of town (she has continued to help us tirelessly every day through all the sickness, esp taking care of little Nicolas – thank you to her and to Dad, John for all the time she’s spent on our behalf!!) we have different friends who are hosting Nicolas for the day, to help care for him since I cannot yet lift him, drive, or bend, etc. He has had a great week thus far with all these fun and loving folks, and we are glad for their help too. There are also many friends helping with Abigail and Jonathan, taking them to parks, ponds, lunch, having them to their homes to play, and just generally helping them to enjoy being kids even if Mommy is not yet up to playing and keeping up with them as much as she’d like.

It is very late and I must get to bed, but I do so this evening with a heart full of thankfulness for all the blessings we have received and continue to witness as a result of the Body of Christ loving us and caring for us. God has continued, even with everything that has gone on, to provide for our every need, not always in the way we might have hoped or planned, but often in an even better way. Thank you to everyone who is a part of that provision – we love you and are grateful for you!

A few moments ago, I asked Jay if he thought I should post an update on his progress since surgery, since folks might be checking to see if we have any news for them. He answered by briefly opening his eyes to look at me quizzically; mumbled, “I think we’re ok, Honey”; and dropped back off into drug-induced rest. Such is the current state of our patient.

For those who do not already know, Jay underwent surgery on Friday to repair a complication from one of his previous six foot surgeries (but hey, who’s counting?). He has in the past had all his metatarsals on both feet broken and re-fused together, pins put everywhere, etc, etc, and in the midst of all this, one sad little toe healed in a curled-under fashion. For almost 4 years it has grown increasingly painful as it bends under, and the nail grows around the tip of his toe and presses into the ground every time he stands up. Graphic description aside, you get the picture, it equals pain! On Friday they rebroke the wayward toe, put it at a proper angle, and set a little pin through the end to hold the bones together as they heal again.

The surgery as a whole really went like clockwork. We arrived in the very early hours of the morning at the surgicare center, where amazingly enough you can park 15 feet from the front doors, and voila! inside the doors are the lobby and patient admitting area. So simple compared to previous experiences: all his earlier surgeries were deep within the recesses of large hospitals, so parking, walking, and finding appropriate places for patient admitting, recovery, etc, all took a lot of work. We were treated well, and the only hitch came when we were waiting to see the surgeon before we were discharged. Though we waited and waited, said surgeon did not show. As we’d dealt with this particular gentleman throughout all the previous surgeries and knew his routine for the most part, Jay felt comfortable opting to talk with him next week at his post-op appointment. So home we went.

Little Aside: I must mention one of the coolest parts of this particular surgery (for me) was that my brother Andrew, who deals with many different surgeons in several of the Dallas hospitals, was scheduled to be at our surgicare center that morning and not only did we get to visit with him prior to and after the surgery, but he took me to get breakfast and kept me company during the procedure, which was the best way I’ve ever spent the wait time during one of Jay’s surgeries. Thanks, Andrew!

Since arriving back home, there have been ups and downs. There is just always a fair amount of pain associated with post-surgical recovery, and Jay has certainly had some hard times in the past 48 hours. Last night he started running a fever which did not contribute to him feeling very well, and it was a rough night, full of feverish bad dreams, and little sleep. The drugs are interesting in that they deal somewhat with the pain, but do not necessarily allow for deep, refreshing sleep. So our patient is admittedly, fairly worn out, and drifts in and out of consciousness.

Earlier today he shaved and then braved the shower, caught some of the Masters’ Tournament on TV, greeted and visited with some family who came by, and even watched a little bit of Lassie Come Home with the rest of us on the couch. Such a full slate of activities wears him out at this stage, and back in bed he is now, resting.

Trying to be a good nurse to my patient, I have, for his pain and troubles, showered him with perks: lots of extra TLC; room service including Taco Bell, iced tea, iced cream; and a small collection of “guy” movies to watch in the comfort of his bed. The children are very sweet about asking how he is doing, and going back to “visit” him. But I sometimes wonder in this rather um, exuberant household, how much quiet he is really getting in order to rest up and heal. He is unquestionably a cheerful and good patient, all things considered.

For my part, I have certainly played nurse many times before, but not with three young children in the house to care for in addition to my patient, and another wee one on the way. Yes, well, this is an inauspicious way to break that little bit of news to our blog readers, but indeed, we are expecting another little Horne in very early October, and admittedly, I am still dealing with that first trimester exhaustion, which this time around has been stunningly debilitating. Despite my mentioning this, we are beyond ecstatic about the pregnancy, and truly grateful for this tiny life.

Many thanks to Grammy and Grandy and Aunt Sandra who between them hosted all three kids the night before the surgery, caring for them, and shuttling them to and from schools when we could not, to Grammy and Grandy and Andrew and Jamison for bringing food, and for the many calls and prayers and words of encouragement from so many others. Please do keep praying for Jay’s foot to heal exceedingly well. I would so love for him to not have this particular thorn to deal with anymore on top of other physical challenges he continues to face. We are very thankful he was able to have the procedure, and hopeful about the outcome. We’ll try to update you again in the near future on the patient’s progress. You might even get to hear from Jay himself, sometime, when we wean him off the narcotics!

Saturday night I mixed batter for Nestle Toll House Cookies, so we could eat freshly-baked cookies during our family movie night. Bambi was the featured presentation, by the way. It was well-received by the children, and inspired an interesting and healthy discussion about hunters, animals, etc.

But back to cookies: by some mistake I set the oven to 350 degrees, instead of the recipe-called-for 375 degrees. I’ve made these cookies dozens of times, and for whatever reason just messed up. Well, I’m here to tell you that I will never again bake my chocolate chip cookies at any other temp than 350, for this batch yielded the softest, most beautifully-colored, and delightful cookies I think I’ve ever had. It took a bit longer than the 9-11 minutes cooking time in the directions, but the end result was spectacular.

If you’ve never heard how the Toll House Cookie came into being, you’ll enjoy this link. Turns out the original batch of cookies were a result of a “mistake” too!