Sudson has a tooth! I can't believe it. Karl said this morning. Did you know Hudson has a tooth? I was like no he doesn't. He said yeah he does feel it. Sure enough there it was. It made me sad. He is growing up so fast. He isn't even six months old yet. Kartet didn't get a tooth until he was over nine months. I guess Sud will be our early bloomer. Although Hudson doesn't sit up on his own yet and Karter could do that when he was five months old. To Hudson's credit, he has a lot more to hold up than Karter ever did.

Another Christmas has come and gone. And wouldn't you know it I didn't take a single picture (sorry Grandma). It was nice and quiet around our house. We had dinner at my moms house on Christams Eve. It was just Shane, Sam, us and my mom. Sy and Marissa went to Oregon and Seth didn't come until the day after Christmas.
We have been telling Karter for a month that Santa was going to bring him some presents but that he was going to take his binky for a trade. Karter was fine with that and when you would ask him what was going to happen on Christmas he would say "no more dinky". So when we got home from my mom's we told him that Santa was going to come that night and we had to leave him his binky. I took his pacifier and put it in his stocking and then all @%$# broke loose. Karter started screaming "No my dink! No Danta my dink!" He grabbed his stocking from me and headed down the hall trying to dig it out. We tried some reasoning but failed. Finally Karl said to let him take it to bed and we would take it away in the morning. Christmas morning rolls around and we tell Karter that Santa has come and left him some presents. He looked at us covered his mouth and said "No my dink!" Hmm...who rules the roost around here.
Santa brought Karter an indoor trampoline. It's like those little exerciser ones but it has the net like the bigger trampolines. Karter loves the neighbors tramp so we thought he would be over joyed. But he just stood there looking at it. I guess wondering what it was doing in his living room. He loves it now and I'm glad he can burn some energy while being contained in a small area.
We did the usual rounds at the Grandma's houses and then had Christmas dinner with Karl's family. Nice and simple. And as much as I love the Christmas season I was glad to have it over with. All the decorations came down the day after and now the house looks empty, but clean.

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Karter has mastered the art of riding his rocking horse. It is hilarious!

Watch out Clark Griswald!

This house's lights are choreographed to a radio station. It's pretty cool.

We had an ugly sweater Christmas party with our friends Saturday night. It was lots of fun. Can you pick the boy and girl that won?

Chore Time

My mom, Karter, Hudson and I went to feed my mom's horses today. It was quite the adventure. My mom was trying to get the farm truck going and once it finally roared Karter said "yeeaah!" So we pile in the cab and my mom attempts to back up to the haystack (she sounds totally normal huh). After a couple of tries she gets there. So then I have to go and attempt to throw a hundred pound hay bale (did I spell that right) into the bed of the truck; and I am going to do this without getting dirty. Well if any of you can imagine me throwing hay...it's a pretty funny picture. I tried to sit on one bale and push another one into the truck but the truck was to high. So I had to push, tug and roll the bale in. But I made it in. Could you Vegas girls do that! We drive out to the pasture and my mom is calling out the window "Come boys". Are we feeding dogs or horses? Pretty soon Karter chimbs in his own version of come boys. They aren't coming so we drive a little farther. We start to get into a sticky situation and I tell my mom not to get us stuck. I'm not pushing and I don't want to have to walk. She decides to turn around so we don't get stuck; she turns the truck around, we get stuck. Go figure. My mom is rocking (a term that I didn't know the meaning of until last winter) the truck back and forth but we aren't moving. We don't say anything but know that the other is getting a little worried. My mom puts the car in drive and alas we move. Now we are hitting bumps like crazy. We are bouncing all over the cab. Then the ice breaker comes in. Karter starts clapping and saying "Ya bumps! Ya bumps!" My mom and I are dying laughing as we hop through the pasture. Oh the fun little munchkins add. We got the horses fed and Karter got to pet them and he would try to get them to eat out of his hands.
I didn't know we were going to feed horses or I would of taken my camera and I would of worn my snow shoes. BURR!!

Momma Update

My mom is doing wonderful. Eveything the doctors told us would be wrong is fine. She has made an amazing recovery. She remembers everything up to the morning of the accident. She doesn't remember the accident (thankfully) and she only remembers the last week of her hospital stay. I think that is a huge blessing from Heavenly Father that she does not have to remember all she went through. She had to have a day surgery this morning to remove the screws from her jaw. When they unwired her jaw her skin had already grown over the screws and she was to anxious to try and take them out. It was a quick 10 minute surgery. Everything went great.
She still panics but has a pretty good control over it. She takes medicine to help calm her. Her and Sam are going to move home tomorrow. I hope that she is not pushing herself to fast but I guess I have to cut the apron strings sometime. :)! I will probably go get her in the mornings and have Sam pick her up at my house after school so she is not alone all day. We'll see how it goes.
The bills are flowing in and they are amazing:
one month in ICU - $336,903.17
neuosurgeon for neck surgery - $24,000
life flight -$8,998
anesthesia - $5,000
dr visits while in ICU - $360 per day
We are still waiting for the bills from the last month in the hospital, the doctor bill for the trach and feeding tube and the doctor bill for her jaw surgery. I'm sure there will be others, those are just the ones we are aware of. Thank heavens for insurance.

We got family pictures done on Saturday. Yipee! We get the proofs back today and than it's Christmas card time.

I woke up to Karter crying last night so I went to see what was wrong. He was laying in front of his door on the floor, crying. I picked him up and put him in his bed but he was still screaming so I layed down with him. I fell asleep and woke up to find him MIA. I went looking for him and found him snuggled in bed with Karl (I guess mom wasn't good enough). I crawled in bed and asked Karter why he left me in there all by myself. He looked at me and said "No more sad momma." Silly kids.

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We are teaching Karter how to count to ten. He has gotten pretty good at it. We start at one he's say two we say three...so on. Today he was being a stinker. He was climbing on my coffee table and I told him he had until the count of three to get down. He ignored me so I said "One!" He turned and looked at me and said "two, free." I tried so hard not to laugh but it was hilarious. I kept a straight face for about five seconds then I lost it. That route of discipline is not going to work for us for a while.

Little Hud rolled over today. I am really bad about making sure my kids get their tummy time. Both of my kids scream when I do put them on their tummies so I easily forget to do it. I was reading a pamphlet that I received in the mail today and it said that babies should be rolling over by the time they are four months. Stink! I don't know if my child is even close to that. So I put Hudson down and within a minute he rolled over. I flipped him over and he did it again. Ahh...sigh of relief. My bad parenting habits haven't affected my childs development.
Hudson also moved into his crib last night. He has still been sleeping in our room because I was waiting for Karter to transition into a big boy bed. That went fabulously (sp?). I set the bed up in his room and let him choose where he wanted to sleep. He picked the bed and has loved it ever since. He knows that if he gets out of it that he has to sleep in the crib. It's pretty funny, in the morning we hear him fiddling with the door knob and when he comes into our room you can just barely see his head over our footboard. He says "Hi momma, hi da. Sudson awake?" and than he climbs in with us. It's a great start to your day.

My mom is coming home tomorrow. Home for good!! She has been coming home every day since Friday for day visits and has done wonderful. After her visit last Sunday and the horrible time she had Monday the doctor started her on a new medicine for her panic attacks and it has worked miracles. She is a new/old person. New from the accident but more like our old mom. She is very quiet and for any of you who know my mom you know she is not a quiet person. She says that she feels drugged. Which she obviously is. I'm not sure if all the meds she is on will be a forever thing or just temporary until her brain is done healing. I also don't know how you make the decision to find out. EEK! I can't imagine going through these last few weeks again.
She is going to come and live with me. My aunts wanted her to stay with them but my mom really wanted to stay with me. She is calm enough now and sleeps through the night so I am not worried about her safety or my kids'. I think she needs to be with Sam and feel like she is still his mom. If she is able to be here when he comes home from school and ask how his day went and then be able to tell him goodnight I think she will feel useful and I think it will help her recovery. Anyone who is a mom can understand that. Imagine loosing two months of your life.
We are still keeping her house. We will give it another month and if she isn't ready to be on her own then we will move her out. She still doesn't feel safe on her own. And normal day to day life is stressful to anyone and she doesn't have the skills to cope with that yet. She has been able to notice things that make her panic. If she is uncomfortable in any way she starts to panic. If she is hungry, tired, needs to go to the bathroom and can't because she is in therapy..etc all the same things that make us irritated but her reaction is intensified because she has to relearn how to deal with it.
Tomorrow will be two months to the day of her accident. We seem to have a trend. She moved out of the ICU on the one month anniversary and now will come home on the two month anniversary. I cannot believe we are at this point. Each day seemed like it would never end and that we would never get here. But now that it is here it almost seems like it never happened. I guess it's a little like labor. Horrible while you're going through it but so distant once you get your bundle of joy at the end.
I will never be able to thank you all enough for the love and support you have given me. Your prayers truly got my family through this. We have all had the strength we needed to get up every morning and face another day. Heavenly Father blessed me with the greatest family and friends. My aunts have been so much help to me and all of my extended family(friends included) have given us the boosts we needed. The phone calls and emails have saved me. This was a time in my life when I needed my mom's shoulder to cry on. That was obviously not an option but I found many others who were willing to lend one. I think my pops heard me cry more in the last few months than he has in my whole life. Poor Karl, I'm sure he wondered more than once if I was going to make it through this in one piece. But I always felt better after letting go.
I am so thankful for my faith. Heavenly Father has blessed us beyond belief. My mom is a true miracle and it has been an incredible journey to watch her progress. I hope that none of you ever have to experience something like this but I cannot say that I am ungrateful for it. Through our trials we grow and I have learned so much and would not want to give it back.
I love you all!!

My mom made huge improvements last week. Her confusion has subsided and she can now think clearly. Hooray!! No more funny comments and out of place words. She was still a nervous wreck but was able to sit through most of her therapy sessions. She still didn't like to be by herself but was dealing with that. The biggest step she made last week is that she started to sleep. WOW! The doctors switched her medicines and what do you know she slept that night. The doctors wanted us to take her home for a day visit to see how she would do outside the hospital. She was excited for that but we have come to find out that if she knows about anything in advance that she spends all her time worrying about when it's going to happen. So she spent Friday and Saturday working herself up for her outing on Sunday. When Sunday rolled around she was a mess. She didn't want to leave the hospital and once my aunts got her to leave she didn't want to see any of her kids. Or rather she didn't want to have her kids see her how she was. They took her to her house and she climbed into her bed and went to sleep. When she would wake up she would be scared and yelling and asking when she could go back to the hospital. After a few hours she did say she wanted to see us. So Sy, Shane and I went over. She didn't want Sam to come and get scared because she knew she could not control herself. She stayed in her room and wanted one of us to be by her but we stayed in the living room and told her that if she wanted to talk with us that she had to come out there. Sounds mean, huh. All part of her therapy. We have to bring her out of her world and back into ours. She tried to come out but said it was to noisy and started crying and panicking. She asked if it was time to go back so we decided it would be best to take her back before things got to out of hand.
Monday was bad. It is like the last 2 weeks of progress never happened. She is screaming and crying in her therapy sessions. She won't sit down or cooperate. They have to literally block her into the room to get the session done. Her therapist thinks it was a bad idea that she went home. Gee, thanks. You're a day late on that one. My mom has said for weeks now that she would do better if they would just let her go home. That she would heal faster and better because that is how it always is. But when she got home she realized that it didn't help. She still has not grasped the complexity of her injury. I think she thought if she could go home that her fear and anxiety would go away. Obviously home isn't the cure all she was hoping for. We are starting over on some things now. Yesterday was depressing but we keep going. No choice, right.
We were given new insight yesterday. We found out that it is very common for people with head injuries to not want to chew. Hence the reason why my mom won't eat. Chewing will be something she has to learn is a necessity. We got her to take four bites of her dinner last night. And you would of thought we were asking her to pull out her own teeth.
She also doesn't find joy in things. She has a beautiful view of the mountains from her living room but when my aunt pointed that out my mom said, "Am I every going to like things like that again, am I ever going to like food again?" She doesn't see things the way we do anymore. If there was a gorgeous sunset she would not have the desire to take a second look if she smelled apple pie baking it wouldn't cross her mind to have some. That is sad for me. I couldn't imagine every day being gloomy and not being able to find something to cheer you up.
I hope that will be one of the things she is blessed to get back.

My dad and I were talking about how chubby Hudson is. I told him that he weighs 15 lb 9 oz and he asked how that compared to what Karter weighed when he was the same age. I looked in Karter's baby book and when he was three months old he weighed 12 lb 5 oz. Hudson is huge!! Three pounds heavier than Karter was. DANG! When the doctor saw him he was like Wow he's big. Stocky. He is definitaley on his way to being a linebacker. If only the poor kid had a chance of being taller than 5'9".

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As if I don't spend enough time with doctors and nurses now my little (not really) Hudson is sick. He's had a fever for two days but no other symptoms other than being super grouchy. The doctor said it's probably rosiola (definitely don't know how to spell that). So nothing much to worry about. Karter is supposed to get his two year old vaccinations tomorrow. We'll probably skip those for now since he gets a scourching fever when he gets his shots.

Hmm...where to start. My mom is having good and bad days. Mostly bad for the moment though. Her anxiety is through the roof. She is almost always having a panic attack. The entire time you spend with her she is talking about when you have to leave. She begs us to stay. Literally, gets down on her knees and begs. What a sad and frustrating experience. She tells us she will pay us to stay with her. She is doing wonderful in her therapy though. She used to not be able to go more than two or three minutes without complaining about being hot or closterphobic(sp) during a session but she is now up to 27 minutes complaint free. She climbed a flight of stairs and has been doing squats.
She calls us - a lot. She called me a couple of mornings ago and said "Hi Sadie I'm awake" I was like "oh, I'm not" than she asked me who had power of attorney me or my aunt because she wanted to find out why she wasn't getting her hormone pills. It surprised me that she remembered that we were in the process of getting power of attorney because I haven't talked with her about it and she met with her attorney a few weeks ago when she was not doing to good. It's coming along. She is trying hard. If we could just figure something out for her anxiety we would be able to make huge amounts of progress. But I guess she is going to have to learn how to self soothe. Also part of her therapy.

It was a good day. :)

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My mom is trucking along. She is on the therapy floor now. She has speech, physical and ocupational therapy everyday. She is MEAN!! We just take it with a grain of sand though. Hopefully it is something that will pass. She is still extremely confused and is not sleeping well so I guess I would be mean too. The doctor said that people who have had strokes or brain injuries always tend to be short tempered and rude. I wasn't there when he told my aunt that so I don't know if it is something that will last forever. We'll keep our fingers crossed. She's pretty funny at times but if she catches you laughing at her you're in for it. She was mad at me yesterday because I was asking her to sit down and she said "Yes Lord Elijah whatever you want." My aunt and I almost fell over laughing. We still get glimpses of her old self so we know it is in there somewhere. The therapist said that if you took all of your memories, dreams, hopes and fears and put them in a blender and turned it on that is what my mom's brain is like right now. We asked if it would get better and she said the age old answer "Everybody's different." That sure is an irritating answer. She said some people are miracles and some are statistics. We'll take the miracle please. My mom is already a miracle, I don't know if I mentioned this before but she has no paralysis anywhere. Amazing huh. As long as she participates in her therapy she can stay at the hospital. If she doesn't participate as much as the insurance thinks she should than we are going to have to put her in a nursing home for a while. Yep I said the insurance. They won't pay for her to be there if she isn't doing enough. Nice. Hopefully it won't come to that but we are thinking that there may be some point where she will have to go to one temporarily. One day at a time though. That's as much as we can handle.

I miss my mom.

We are back to having difficult days. But we have made a lot of progress this week. My mom got her catheter and trach out and got her jaw unwired. Her anxiety is through the roof though. She is no longer taking meds to control it the doctor said it's a stage she's going to have to go through. So in the meantime we spend our time with her trying to calm her down and reassure her. She has been extremely confused. On Tuesday she thought that she was in the hospital to have a baby and that her horses were being bombed. I asked her how old she was and she said 28 and that it was 1988. I told her it was 2008 and that she was 48 and she said "That sucks". Whenever they ask her where she is she says she is in the Fargo North Hospital. She hasn't lived in ND for over 20 years. She has most of her memories but she is reliving a lot of them. She didn't know that her parents had passed away so when my aunt told her she had to grieve over them. Luckily she cannot concentrate on one thing for too long. But she remembers all of us and our spouses and her grandkids.
The hospital called me this morning and asked that we bring up some clothes so she can walk around the halls. We don't have to wear masks and gowns anymore and my mom is not confined to her room. She is walking really well. She just holds on to someone for balance. She is weak, one trip down the hall and she's ready for a break. She wasn't saying "crazy" things today. She's mad and wants to go home. She told me "Sadie I'm not happy here." I said "I know" and she said "What are we going to do about it". She wants a definate answer on when she can go home which is something nobody can answer. She is being moved to the therapy floor today. That's a huge step. To be on the therapy floor you have to be able to participate in three hours of therapy a day. This will hopefully be her last move before she can come home.
She is not sleeping again, even though they are giving her sleeping pills. The doctor gave new orders today that she is not to take cat naps in the daytime and they are to walk her up and down the halls as much as possible to wear her out. Hopefully she will sleep tonight.

It was one month ago today that my mom was in her accident. The days have dragged by but the month has flown by. I was able to spend all day with her since Karl was home from work. We accomplished a lot. By the time I got there PT had already gotten her up and into a chair. She took three steps (totally assisted) but three steps none the less. Her nurse and I did some much needed maintanence on her hair and nails. We cut her hair...EEK. We had to shave it from the top of her ears down because it was so matted. Then we cut the rest up to her earlobes. It looks much better but I had definately better keep my day job. She didn't talk much until about a half hour before I left because she was so tired from her therapy.
Last night I asked her what my kids names are. She thought really hard for a minute. I said what is my little boys name that you play with all the time. She thought and then said Hudson. I said that's my babies name but what is my little boys name. You call him your little man. She was quiet for seriously like a minute and she was thinking hard. Then she said... Sunny? It was hilarious. I was like "Mom that's my dog but atleast you've got the right family." I asked her what Seth's little girls name is and she said right off "Madi".
She has made a lot of progress. We even got orders to be moved out of the ICU today. HOORAY!! But it didn't happen before I had to leave at 6:45 because they didn't have a room ready for her. She has to have 24 hr one on one care so she doesn't fall out of bed so staffing has been an issue to get her out of the ICU.
Lots of fun, ah.

Our little "Sudson" (that is how Karter says Hudson) is three months old today. He is so much fun. You forget so fast how fun little babies are. He talks and smiles all the time. Karl can get him laughing hard. It's hilarious. He has fat rolls everywhere! And his cheeks...wow. He's too cute.

When you think life is more than you can bare all you have to do is look outside of your bubble to see someone who is struggling more than you. The house we bought is in the middle of a "family neighborhood". The grandma lives next door and her son and her daughter live on each side of me. My house was the other daughters house. They moved a few miles down the road. Back to my point. The people we bought our house from lost their 13 year old daughter yesterday. She had a granmale(sp?) seizure in her sleep and passed away.
It is hard to say that you are thankful for the trials we are given but at this moment I am so thankful. My mom will recover. Even if she is different or has impairments we will have her. I cannot imagine the pain of loosing a child.
We have to live our lives like there is no tomorrow. Treat people like you may never see them again. When we didn't know if mom was going to make it I had so many regrets and so much guilt. That is obviously a normal reaction but if I had treated her with all the love and respect that I feel for her I would of had no reason for those feelings.
I am so thankful for my testimony of the gospel and the beautiful plan we have been given to have eternal families. What a comfort it gives to us to know that we will see our loved ones again. That death is only a temporary moment in our lives.
Give your parents a hug. Tell your spouse you love them. Love the dirty handprints on your walls . They won't last forever. I love you all so much.

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I saw my mom last night and this morning and I must be catching her at bad moments. Both times I have seen her she doesn't want to talk. She doesn't even try to hide it. I will talk to her and she won't say anything so I ask her "Don't you want to talk right now?" and she says "No". So we just sit there and enjoy the quiet together. She will tell me she loves me if I tell her so that makes it ok. They have been doing cultures to see if she still has the bacterial infection in her lungs and her nurse told me today that it has come back positive for MRSA twice. EEK!!! That stinks. MRSA is a "superbug" that is incredibly hard to treat and next to impossible to get rid of. It is still not bothering her but will be an issue. It is definately not something they want to spread around the hospital.
I wanted her nurse to tell me that her cultures came back negative because I want to take my kids into see her. I think it would do her a world of good to see her little grandbabies.

My mom can talk!!!!! What an incredible moment. Karl went to see her yesterday at lunch and we always talk with her when we are in her room we just know we won't get a response. Karl walked in and said "Hi mom" and she said "Hi" Karl was like "wo you can talk" and she looked at him and smiled. Karl asked how she was feeling and she said that her stomach hurt. He said they had a good conversation. She doesn't remember what happened and when Karl told her she was in a car accident she said "No I wasn't". She is definately a little grouchy which is to be expected from her brain injury but it was pretty funny the things she would say. She had planned to have a neck surgery done next month prior to this happening to have the arthritis in her neck fixed. We had the surgeon fix it after the accident when he fixed her broken neck. I asked her if she remembered that she was planning to have that surgery done and she said she did and I told her she didn't have to worry about it because they had fixed it already. She looked at me and said "I want that documented!" It was funny. It is so nice for her to voice her concerns and questions. She had quite a few. She asked how long she had to wear her neck brace, where Seth was and how long until she gets to go home. It was such a wonderful day. When we get one good day it makes all the bad ones disappear and we know that we will have the strength to get through some more. I cannot believe the miracle we are all watching. Heavenly Father has blessed us more than we could of ever imagined. One of the doctors told my aunt on Saturday that her recovery is unbelievable. He said she should not be alive. I don't know why this happened but I do know that in the month since it's happened my family has grown so much. We have always been close but something like this can either bring out the best in you or the worst. Thankfully we have all turned to Heavenly Father to give us the strength and guidance that we have needed. Not only us but the doctors and my mom as well. It will be forever impossible to describe the emotions we have all felt over the last month. Not only the sadness but the immense joy that has come to us also.
If you have a moment to listen to the words of the song that is playing it touches on the feelings we have.

Nothing like waking up to a winter wonderland in the middle of October.

Nothing like waking up to a winter wonderland in the middle of October.

Our little darlings ready for church.

Today was a good day. They finally gave my mom Haldal (sp?) last night. It is an anti-psycotic drug. She slept all night and was calm all day today. It's super frustrating that she had to be so uncomfortable all day when all it takes is a little shot. It's a strong drug though and it was the doctors last resort. When I got there this afternoon PT was getting her out of bed to put her on a board that helps her stand up. They strap her at her waist and chest to help her hold her weight. They wanted her to shift her weight from hip to hip and tried to get her to do somethings with her arms. She didn't do very well. But than when it is just us in the room with her she will do things we ask her to. So we don't know if she is just wondering why they are asking her to do things that seem silly or if she really can't get the connections through. I spent an hour trying to comb her hair out. What a mess!! She's going to have to have it cut off, short. It is so tangled at the base of her neck from her brace that there is no way to we will ever get it untangled. Plus the front of her head is shaved from where they had the ICP monitor. My poor momma.

My mom has had a horrible day. Which in turn makes all of us have a bad day. She has not slept for I don't know how long. Days!! She slept for 1-1/2 hours last night. She is thrashing around in her bed. They got her a new bed that has a netted canopy around it so that she can't climb over the side rails. I think it is harder to watch her like this than it was to watch her lay there and sleep and wonder what's wrong with her. She looks so distraught (sp?). It hurts your heart to watch her. Being anxious and restless is part of a brain injury but my family is not sure that is all that's going on. She had so many prior problems (depression, seizures, west nile) going into this that now we are wondering if any of those are causing her distress now. They switched her trach tube so she can talk but she wouldn't do it today. She is so different than yesterday. She would smile, laugh and mouth words to you and now all she does is kick her legs and roll back and forth. Keep praying for her.

My mom got to eat for the first time in 3 weeks yesterday. Can you imagine that. Three weeks without any food or water (she does have a feeding tube). Of course two of those weeks were spent unconscious.She was super antsy yesterday and they figured out that she was asking for a drink of water. They let her have a few sips and she calmed right down. She didn't get her trach tube changed yesterday but they promised us that it would get done sometime today.

It's snowing. Boo-hoo.

My mom has a bacterial infection in her lungs so now we have to wear gowns and masks while we are in her room. It is not causing her any problems she is more or less just a "carrier" of the infection but we could get it and get sick. She was supposed to be moved to TCU (transitional care unit) yesterday but her doctor decided he wants to wait because she moves around so much in her bed they are afraid she will fall out. She tries to mouth words to us. Some we can understand others we have no idea what she is trying to tell us. I'm sure she is so frustrated with us. Either today or tomorrow they will switch her trach tube so she can talk. She is not sleeping. Maybe 2-4 hrs in a 24 hr period. They didn't want to give her anything in hopes that she would just wear herself out but I guess they are going to tonight. She has gone three nights now with no sleep. I guess her body figures 2-1/2 weeks of sleeping should last a while.

My aunt Judy called me this morning (she works at the hospital) and said that we had been invited to stand in on the doctors rounds this morning. Seth and I went up to the hospital and when we got to moms room she was having an anxiety attack. She has become aware of her situation and is trying to figure it all out. It took us a minute to calm her down and try to figure out what she was thinking and try to answer questions that we weren't sure she even had. I explained to her what happened and she held really still and listened. When I told her what day it had happened and what todays date was she started to get really anxious again. She would try to sit up and was moving all over. The nurse had restrained her right arm before we got there because she was pulling at her trach mask. We calmed her down again and told her that this was just going to take some time to resolve itself. I told her that she needs to start doing everything the doctors ask her to do so that she can get moved up to rehab. I stayed in the room with mom while Seth went to rounds. They are going to have another neuorologist look at her and than they are going to have speech, occupational and physical therapists assess her.
She really seemed to be grasping what we were telling her. I asked her if she was hot and she nodded her head yes. I asked her if she was in pain and she shoke her head no. I asked if she wanted to get out of bed and she nodded yes. I asked her if she was scared and she nodded yes. We are going to try to always have someone with her now that she is awake. At least until she can be calm when she is by herself.
We kept telling her that her jaw was wired shut and that was why she couldn't talk but than I realized that she knows when your jaw is wired shut that you can still talk. So I explained to her about her trach and that when she was stable they would cap it off and she would have her voice back. That seemed to calm her down quite a bit.
The nurses transfered her to a chair and she settled down and went to sleep. I guess after two and a half weeks of laying down you would want a new position.

I was visiting with my mom today and I was telling her a story about how Sam is mad at Karl and I for making him do something he didn't want to do. I was laughing because it's funny to see how teenagers react to things. Karl said "you would of thought I was making him wear a dress" and my mom smiled and laughed (as much as you can laugh with your jaw wired shut and a trach in). It was so wonderful to see a smile on her face. Now we know that she is listening to us. She is still not following commands but her nurse said maybe she just doesn't want to. That would be my mom for you. I asked her to squeeze my hand while I was with her and after a few requests she did it. I told her she needs to start listening to the doctors so she can get moved out of the ICU and get on with rehab.

My mom had her trach put in on Friday. I saw her Friday afternoon and she looks so good compared to where we started. No more tubes coming out of her mouth, nose and head. She was still sleeping and they nurses were waiting for the anesthesia to wear off and than they would start decreasing her pain and sedation meds.
I just talked with her nurse this morning and she said that mom was on a trach mask from 5pm to midnight last night. The trach mask is when they take her off her ventilator and let her breathe on her own. They have to retrain/restore her muscles since she has been on the ventilator for so long. They will switch her back and forth off of the mask and the ventilator. Letting her rest for a while in between. Who knew breathing was so hard. She is not following commands though. She was before her jaw surgery so I know it is in there somewhere. She just has to find it again. She does open her eyes when you say her name and she looks at you.
Seth came last night from Colorado and Sy came from Salt Lake. Once Sy picked Seth up from the airport all of my brothers went to see my mom and Sy said that mom started to cry when she saw Seth and that she was almost crying when they left for the night. It is so hard to leave her there by herself. She gets lots of visitors but since she can't talk we don't know how much she understands and what she's thinking.
We just keep praying for her. That's about all we can do.

In response to the question "does my mom still need the trach?" They are going to give her a trach on Friday. It is only to preserve her airway though. She can breathe on her own but she has a lot of sucretions in her lungs so they have to suction her quite a bit and with her jaw wired shut they do not want to risk not having easy access to her airway. It will only be temporary though.

Now that my mom is doing better and seems to know that you are in the room with her my little Karter is sick. He has been throwing up so I guess I have to stay away from the hospital for a few days. That is the last thing I want to pass on to my mom. Throwing up with a ventilator in cannot be good.

My mom is moving all of her limbs! Just like I could not explain the pain we felt last week I can't explain the joy we have this week. She had her neck fixed last Tuesday and had her jaw fixed yesterday. She will get a trachyotomy put in on Friday as long as her neck has healed enough. She focuses on you when you talk and seems to know who you are. She will also follow commands as long as she is not to drugged. They had to sedate her and tie her arms down today because she was moving so much and trying to rip out her ventilator. We still don't know what the damage to her mentality will be but things look so good right now. It is truly a miracle. One week ago today the doctors gave us almost no hope and we thought that we would be making more permanent decisions. It is amazing the power that prayer and faith have. Thank you all so much for your thoughts, prayers and love. I will continue to keep her progress on the blog it's easier than making phone calls. We love you all!!
PS - I put some new pics of the boys on. I am so grateful that I had them to come home to. It made my days so much better because no matter how I felt they are always happy and smiling. Thank heavens for small blessings.

Karter likes to take the pillows off the couch and make himself a bed under the coffee table. It's pretty funny because the pillows slip on the table everytime he tries to lay on them so he ends up getting super frustrated.

Hudson will be ten weeks old on Friday. Crazy, huh. At his 8 week check up he weighed 13 pounds. He's a chunk!! He is in the 80th percentile for his weight and only in the 20th percentile for his height. Karl calls him stump. He is such a happy baby and so much fun to have around.

My mom made some progress today. HOORAY!! She had to have a filter put in her veins to prevent blood clots from going to her lungs, heart and brain. Her neurosurgeon doesn't want her on blood thinners so this was the alternative. While they were doing the procedure my moms nurse saw some movement under all the sterile drapes. She was like "oh my gosh is that her" and sure enough when they pulled up the drapes my mom was moving her right arm up and down. And while they had the drape up she picked her right leg up completely. We are so excited. Then while I was sitting with my mom the nurse was doing stuff to her IV and she stuck her finger in my moms left hand and my mom squeezed it. I watched her do it and it was amazing. My mom has not moved her left hand at all since the accident so that was a huge surprise. She keeps her eyes open and instead of looking like she is 1000 miles away she only looks like she's maybe 100. She still doesn't look around but she looks at you when you talk to her and she seems to be listening to what you're saying. They are small steps but it is progress. All of our prayers are working. Thank you so much for all of your love and support. We know that we have such a long way to go but the small things that happened today made it feel like we can make it. Keep praying!!

What a long week. My mom's condition has not improved. Her brain swelling subsided and they were able to do an MRI. We had a conference with her doctors on Tuesday to get the results of the MRI. She has what is called shearing which is where your brain twists from the impact and the reaction your body has coming off the impact. They said that the part of her brain that is injured controls all of her motor functions and that she will be paralyzed. To what extent we won't know for a long time. She will also have no short term memory. Short term memory is anything that has happened in the last year. They fixed her neck Tuesday evening and gave her a feeding tube this morning. They are planning on doing surgery on her jaw on Monday and will switch her ventilator from her mouth to her nose. Then after her neurosurgeon feels enough time has passed from her neck surgery and the risk of infection is down they will give her a trachyostomy. They figure it will be about 10-14 days. They have had her completely off her sedation and her pain meds and she does not respond the way they want her to. She opens her eyes but does not track and does not focus on anything. Which they say she should be doing. She was moving her right arm and both her legs but has stopped responding to pain on her arm and responds only a little bit to her feet. The doctors can't explain why her movements decreased, only that the swelling may have been just enough to cause further damage. Right now things don't look good at all. But the doctors say it is to early to tell.
This is such a hard experience. There are so many decisions to be made and you don't know which is the right one. We are all praying and asking Heavenly Father for peace and guidance. I had to go to my moms today to get some of her things and for my little brother to get his stuff. It was hard. My little Karter ran around her house saying "Where's Grandma?"
We were cleaning out her fridge and Sam said "This is so wierd" It is incredibly wierd. The pain is unbelievable but as I sit here writing about it it seems so unreal. No matter what happens our lives are forever changed. I now have a teenage son/brother. I told him he's no longer the youngest he's the oldest.
We are all praying for a miracle to get our mom back. We can't imagine life without her. I keep waiting for her to drive her little clown car into my driveway and for her to open my door and say "Karter Jay!" and he knows that if he digs in her pocket he will find a treat. I know that my family and my faith are going to be the only things that get us through this and I thank my mom so much for instilling those values in us.

My sweet momma was in a car accident on Thursday morning. She was not wearing her seat belt and was ejected. She was life flighted to the hospital in Idaho Falls. She has a brain injury, a fractured neck and back a broken jaw, cheek and sinus. Plus 7-8 fractured ribs. They put her on a ventilator because she was not breathing enough on her own. The doctors have kept her unconscious since the wreck because her brain is swelling and they are trying to keep her ICP (intercranial pressure) down. It has to stay under 20 or it is causing more brain damage. She had a bad night Friday night where it climbed above twenty and they had to use a medication to lower it. When she is moved it gets high but goes right back down after they are done messing with her. They did let her try and wake up Friday morning but she was extremely upset. She ripped our her IV and tried to rip out her ventilator and her ICP shot up to 75 so they put her back to sleep.
Her fractured neck will require surgery to stabilize it. It is at risk of paralyzing her so they are keeping her in a brace until her brain stabilizes enough to do surgery. Her jaw will also need surgery to wire it shut and if she still needs a ventilator when they do that than they will have to give her a trachyotomy.
We won't know the extent of her problems until they can do an MRI and see what kind of brain damage there is and what other damage there is to her neck. The brain injury is on her frontal lobe which controls her movement, personality, memory and emotions. The doctors said that her brain swelling should peek around 5 -6 days. We are at day 3.
This has been an extremely trying time for me. I cry most of the day. I had just talked to my mom 30 minutes before her accident. It is so wierd how life changes in the blink of an eye. We are all staying hopeful for the best. We say lots of prayers. My mom is the strongest woman I know. If anyone can recover from this it will be her. Don't take anyone for granted. We don't know what is going to happen. I would give anything to be able to hear my moms voice right now and to see her smile.

We blessed Hudson Sunday. It was nice. Sy and Marrissa were able to make it up from Salt Lake for it and Shane even went to church. And the church is still standing. It's such a special moment to see Karl and our loved ones hold our little baby and give him a blessing from our Heavenly Father. I am so appreciative of the blessings that the gospel has given me in my life. We missed Dad, Patty and Seth and our little Madi of course.

Ahh...my little munchkin. Doesn't he look just like Karl!

Karter is changing his babies stinky diaper. He toted that doll around all morning. I have no idea how he got it because it was in his crib. I probably don't want to know. He put it in Hudson's car seat and than made me get Hudson out of the swing so he could put his baby in it. This is all while he is telling the baby "sshh sshh" and patting its back. He even had a burp rag over his shoulder. Funny kid!!

My mom and I spent Tuesday canning peaches and making peach jam. It was quite the day. I don't know how many jars we did but I swear it was atleast 30 maybe even 40. The boys were super good so that helped a ton.

I got out some of the more interactive baby toys today. Of course Karter loved them. I laid both the boys under one and Karter had a blast playing with it while Hudson starred(sp) at him.

Hudson has found his fists. He is not really into his pacifier but loves to suck on his hands. I don't want him to be a thumb sucker though so I try to get him to take a pacifier. It's easier to take that away. Not that I would know anything about that since it is still Karter's best friend.

Karter getting a breathing treatment. If you ever want to see a wrestling match between a 26 year old and an almost two year old I know of a great one.

Geez...I haven't been on here in a while. I guess all the loads of laundry and the diaper changes are taking up quite a bit of time. I need a maid. Or two washers and dryers. Hudson is getting stinkin' cute. He smiles all the time and coos. I love this stage. I forgot how cute they are when they do that. He has a lot of new hair growing in and it's dark. His little head is so fuzzy. Karter is my little monster. He gets so worried when Hudson is crying (which he does quite a bit) he says "baby sa" and if we aren't watching him he will try and go remedy the problem. Which usually ends up with Hudson crying harder because Karter hasn't learned that he can't lean on Hudson's body to get to his face to kiss him better. Potty training went great for a week and than all of the sudden Karter had no interest in it and would scream when I would take him to the bathroom. So we put it on hold for a few months. Karl is still busy making a living. Rates are great but the government has made so many new rules that it is hard to get people approved. Even if they have money in the bank and great credit. It makes his life stressful. Which makes my life stressful because I am worried about him. Vicious circle. We're doin' good though. I will get some new pics posted soon.

Summer is coming to a close here in good ole' Idaho (said with a sigh). Yesterday it was 96 today it was in the low 70s and if you went out tonight you would definately need a sweater. The grain fields around my house have all been harvested and in a few weeks they will start on the potatoes. It seems like summer just started and for those of us who were lucky enough to still be getting snow in June it really did just start. Karl said he heard a report the other day that said we were going to have a long cold winter. Yipee!! NOT! Hopefully that weather man will be as right as most weather men usually are. If we can make it past Halloween without snow I will be happy. If not I guess I'll still be happy just stuck inside with Karter. EEK!

Ooh...we've got to brush and brush and brush our teeth.

Karter has to have two toothbrushes when he brushes his teeth. Both have to have toothpaste and he will rotate brushing with each one. We made up a little song to sing while he is brushing. Hence the title caption to this post. When we went to Yellowstone Karter was getting grouchy so I was singing him some songs (The wheels on the bus, Speckled frogs, etc.) A little later Hudson started to get grouchy so Karl told Karter to sing him some songs. Karter was really quiet and just looked at us. A few seconds later we heard him sing really softly "Ooh...brushie brushie brushie teef." It was so cute. I guess we need to sing more often so he doesn't have to result to singing a song that his mom made up to make bedtime more interesting.

Hudson is getting sooo chubby. Karter was never a chunky baby but Hudson is well on his way. He is starting to "talk" back to you. He really only does it for Karl. Karl will talk to him and Hudson will coo at him and smile. It is super cute.

Karl and I were bored today and needed a change of scenery. So we packed up the kids around noon and headed to West Yellowstone. It was a nice drive. The boys both slept most of the way. It reminded me of all the trips I made to North Dakota with my Grandparents and my brothers. When we got to West Yellowstone we tried to find something to do but we didn't want to walk through a museum with Karter and Old Faithful was still a ways down the road. So what did we do? We went to the playground and let Karter run around. Then we went to the restroom and got a drink and drove back home. Nice little two hundred mile drive to let Karter play at the park, eh. It was nice just to be out of the house though. We thought we would go to the park in Salt Lake next week. :)

Here's the first pickin's of my garden. Pretty good for being huge pregnant and never weeding. I didn't know I was planting cherry tomatoes. I bought them from the high school greenhouse and when I asked them what kind they were they said "I don't know but they get huge." Hmm...I think they had better pay attention a little more in class.

SWEET BABY

SILLY KARTER

I wish he would sleep this good at 2am.

Karter had pudding for dinner. He obviously enjoyed it. To bad for me that it was the same day I decided to mop the floor.

Sunny is home and doing well. He limps on his front leg and has road rash but nothing serious. He's a lucky dog!! The vet didn't have to do surgery so that was a plus. Hopefully he learned his lesson.

Sunny dog has become the latest victim of the road we live on. He was hit by a car on Sunday evening. Karter and I had walked across the road to get the mail and didn't know that Sunny was tagging along. He didn't die but is still in the "hospital". He doesn't have any broken bones but is pretty beat up and has some internal bleeding. The vet has not decided to do surgery yet. She said she would give him a while to see if he can clot himself. Ahhh!!! The stress of life is getting to Karl and I. We need a vacation. It is now my personal mission to get the speed limit on my road reduced. It is currently 50mph. I figure about half the people are going faster than that. I talked to a guy at the transportation department today and he said they would do a survey to see how many cars travel it each day and how fast they are going. He said it would be 3 weeks before they can get out here. So will see. Hopefully it'll work out.

Nothing much has changed around here lately. Our routine is pretty much the same every day. Karl goes to work and the boys and I eat, sleep, do the laundry and play. Pretty exciting!! Hudson has only had one bad night since he was born. It was a BAD night though. I was so tired and went to bed around nine. Good thing. Hudson was awake at midnight and stayed awake until 5am. That is no fun when you know Karter is going to be ready for action in 2 hours. We survivied though. Hudson's cheeks have gotten quite chubby. He is a super noisy sleeper and eater. He has something called laryngomalacia. It's a congenital abnormality of the larynx. His cartilage is floppy. The dr. said that it's nothing to worry about, it sounds worse than it is. He is just noisy. He makes a high pitched noise when he breathes in. It doesn't happy all the time though. It's sporatic.

I found my phone. It was in the dirty clothes. That was my fault not Karter's.

Oh by the way. If any of you all are trying to call or text me my phone has been MIA since Thursday night. I don't know if that is thanks to my darling Karter or if I misplaced it. O-well. I'll give it a few days. I turned it on silent so I could take a nap so that doesn't help in the search.

On Friday, Karl and I were getting ready to walk out the door to take Hudson to his two week check up when all of the sudden we heard breaks screaching, LOUD. I had my hand on the door knob and Karl was standing in front of the window. He looked over just in time to see a speeding truck hit a minivan that was turning around. The truck continued on and hit a power pole in front of our house and the van made its way on to our neighbors lawn. We ran out there and in the 2 seconds it took us to get to them the driver of the truck and the passenger of the minivan were already out of their cars screaming every word in the dictionary at each other. Karl went over and told them to knock it off, that didn't help. My crazy mom got in between them and the passenger told her to get out of his face. Meanwhile I am helping the driver of the minivan who has a head injury but is walking around trying to get her husband to calm down. Her husband sees her and for a moment stops to "see" if she is ok. He than turns back to the other guy and says "look at my wife!" with a few other words in between. Karl again tells him to back off what does the guy do, he punches the other driver in the jaw. All of the sudden my cousin, who is the Lt. in town is pulling in to our drive way. He tells the guy to calm down and the guy keeps on and then he shoves my cousin, oops wrong thing to do to a cop. The next thing I know the passenger is on the ground being choked out by my cousin. Wow, this is crazy. His poor wife is laying on the ground, bleeding, talking to her mom on the phone and trying to tell her husband to stop. Don't worry he's stopped he has a cop sitting on top of him telling him if he's ready to calm down that he will release the pressure on his wrist.
Well I've had all the excitement I can handle. I go back inside to watch with Sam and Karter from the sidelines. It's funny to watch all the passerbys. Their heads turn as far as they can for as long as they can so they can take it all in.
The accident was the guy driving the trucks fault. Both cars were traveling the same way, the van was stopped to turn left and the guy in the truck must not have been paying attention, it was his brakes we heard and he swurved to miss them just as they turned left. He was ticketed for following to close. But the passenger is in way more trouble. He was charged with two counts of battery, one for punching the guy the other for assaulting a police officer. So the guy who caused the accident got an iffraction and the other guy has two misdeamenors(sp). Temper, temper.

We survived the first week! But...Hudson got circumsized yesterday so we will see if we survive the second week. He cried more last night than the entire time he's been alive. Poor kid. Now that they say there is no medical reason to have the circumcision(sp?) done it really makes me feel bad after it's done.
Hudson weighed 7 lbs 5 oz, he's truckin right along. Karter seems to have more energy than a hive of bees since Hudson came. I don't think it's any different than before I just don't have the energy to keep up with the both of them. Karter goes to bed at eight and most nights I am ready to hit the sack with him. Poor Karl results to laying in bed with me watching movies on his laptop. I wouldn't trade it for the world though. I can't believe how much happiness my little family brings me. I love my boys (Karl included) so much. I thank Heavenly Father every day for them. They are the greatest!!

HELLO

Karter has done really well with Hudson. I was super nervous about how he was going to react but he loves him. We haven't had any meltdowns and he doesn't get jealous when we are holding Hudson. What a relief!

Hudson Russell Bowcutt

Karter thinks Hudson is wonderful. He is ready to help at a moments notice and doesn't understand why he can't hold him all the time.

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Hudson was born on July 18th at 1:53pm. He weighed 6 lbs 15 oz and was 19 3/4 inches. My labor was great (minus the pain). I did have to be induced but when I checked in I was dialated to a three and was having a contraction every 15 min but I couldn't feel them. Once they started me on pit I went to fast and they had to slow me down because I am positive for Group B Step and so I have to have two doses of antibiotics while I am in labor. They have to be given four hours apart. Trying to slow me down didn't work though. Once I got my epidural I was ready to deliver within 30 minutes. So they never even got the second dose started. I pushed 2 1/2 times and he was here. We are both healthy and doing great. Karl is much calmer (at least on the surface) with this one. Now his biggest worry is trying to figure out how to keep Karter from spreading germs to Hudson without making Karter feel like he can't be a part of everything.

I mowed the lawn today. I'm still pregnant.

I love to take "sleeping" pictures. No matter how hectic my day has been or how many hairs Karter has made me pull out, when I go in and see him sleeping so peacefully it makes my heart skip. He is so precious when he is still. I hope that it is one thing that never changes as he grows older. I want to always be able to go in and watch him sleep and be reminded of how special these little spirits really are.

Uh-oh Dad. You'd better start taking Karter to do more "guy things". He started with my jewlery and has now moved on to my shoes.

I had a doctor appointment yesterday. I am dialated to a 1-2 and am almost completely thinned. It's more than I ever did on my own with Karter but will it be enough?? If I haven't had the baby by Friday they will induce me. I called Karl this morning (he is enjoying his weekly golf game) to let Karter talk to him and he thought I was calling to tell him I was in labor. No such luck.

Sunday morning breakfast. Karter had to wear his hat. Dad unknowingly taught Karter how to get the last drop of milk out of the bowl. Lovely!!

We went to the lake on Saturday. The whole family went plus a few extras that we'll claim. It was a great time. Karter loved riding in the boat and playing in the sand. He found it quite funny to throw mud at whoever was standing closest. Sam got it in the face one time. Karl had to go buy snorkels and goggles so him and my brothers could use them. He didn't realize that he bought kid size ones though. It was hilarious to see four grown boys with child size goggles on trying to keep them from filling up with water. (click on the pic to enlarge it to get the full effect, it's pretty funny!)