Big, Big Family Vacay

My Grandma was looking down on us pleased as punch, I'm sure. Almost all of the family was together in one place with the exception of a few (whom we missed, by the way). A bonus for Gma, we were there in honor of her. 

The weekend before her funeral we all got together at the lake. The lake is my happy place and I was surrounded with my parents, my sister, aunts, uncles, cousins, and cousins' kids. 

It was great to see Aunt Joanne, Amy and Michael who came all the way from Washington.

 And dogs. How can I forget the mention the dogs? This was not even all of them.

I spent lots of time on the boat, which is the best place to be. I got to do some wake boarding. The water was calm as far as the eye could see. Absolutely perfect.

As a special bonus, Zekers got up on the wake board, too! I might make him a lake person one day.

I couldn't get the other two to try wake boarding, but they loved tubing with their cousins. There is a story about the tube flying in the air and Zekers was holding on, suspended in mid-air. Umm, thanks for the memories Justin??

My family does the lake right. We had campers to borrow, lake toys, a boat, a jet ski, a huge floatie, fantastic meals, and fish that nibble on your toes. Family time doesn't get much better, folks.

How perfect is this picture?

Daddy, Lijee and Daisy in one kayak, Zeke in another. DanFam5 time in the morning because all of the older cousins were still in bed.

Grandma, you left behind a great legacy.

I (K)need You

It's been a couple years since my lovely husband has had a hospital-worthy injury. It was high time and he accomplished it. This time he tore his meniscus. 

Those words don't really mean anything to you? Me neither. Apparently it's stuff in your knee that keeps your bones from rubbing together. A little more technical jargon: a common injury to the cartilage that stabilizes and cushions the knee joint.

Since Abe is interested in the body, its functions, and ways to repair it naturally, he opted to go with stem cell injections. He went in one day and they withdrew blood from his hip bones. They spun that blood several times to get very concentrated amounts of stem cells. 

The next day he went back to get them injected into his knee. I got to come along this day since he took some vicaden to take the edge off. No driving while under the influence of prescribed drugs.

 This big arm was an x-ray machine to help the doctor get the injections into the right place.

 I got to go in and watch, which was fun. Of course I had to wear an x-ray apron. At least it matched my shirt nicely.

 These x-rays mean absolutely nothing to me. The doctor acted like they helped him so we'll go with that. 

 He had 3 or 4 syringes to inject.

 They took more blood when they were done for the next day. They collected the platelets (or maybe this was the stem cells? I can't remember it all) and froze half of them. Freezing them breaks down the outer wall so they would go to work faster. The other half would take 7-10 days to dissolve so they were time-delayed. Cool, huh?

 Just a little bitty needle...

 apparently it was a little painful. The nurse got him a wet towel.

It's been a week. So far, so good. It seems to be slowing getting better. Recovery will be about 8 weeks. We're praying for good results in the weeks to come.

Hopefully we're good on hospital visits for the next few years!