Live from Jared's room

Jared's room is wired, so I am able to add to the blog while Jared watches. He will keep me honest. I'm good at understating, so I'll say Jared is in a lot of pain, but doing as well as can be expected. His spirit is high and he is grateful for the outpouring of love, prayers and support in his behalf. Thanks everyone.
When the doctors operated on Jared, they quickly realized the infection was more severe than they suspected. The infection was in three major places, his hip, soft tissue in his inner thigh and in his pelvis area. There was an abysses next to his bladder which was pushing on the bladder. The doctors successfully drained the infected areas and are hopeful they won't have to go in a second time. While they were draining the hip area, they observed that the cartilage, though structurally in tact, was black. The doctors are concerned there may be permanent damage, but are hopeful given Jared's age that the body will renew itself and Jared will have no lasting issues.
Jared has had several visitors already. His first visitor was his basketball coach. Jared will be in the hospital until Friday. He will be on crutches for 4 - 6 weeks. He can't do anything strenuous for 4 months. At the moment, Jared struggles with simple tasks like getting up and going to the bathroom. The doctor said things will start to get better after a few more days. Because Jared has an infectious disease, he is confined to his room. Visitors have to wash their hands as they enter and leave his room. We won't know the actual infection type for another day, but the likely culprit is one of those nasty staph infections.
Jared appreciates his family and the love he feels right now . Continue to pray for his thorough and quick recovery.

Saturday Morning

We're anxiously waiting for news on Jared but in the meantime, as I was looking out the window, six deer made their daily walk across our back yard and wandered over to the Messers. Then the phone rang and it was Aunt Ann. She said Todd opened his Mission Call last night and found out he will be going to Brisbane, Australia in August. He is excited about that.

Pray for Jared

Jared has had quite an ordeal the past week and a half. He has been playing a new game called Stump the Doctor. Jared won the first three rounds. However, the third doctor, an orthopedic specialist, wouldn’t go down without a fight. He ordered an MRI. I took Jared to get his MRI yesterday morning. A follow up appointment was scheduled for Monday. About the time I got home from work last night, the doctor called and talked to Kristin. He told her the MRI revealed Jared has a serious infection that needs to be dealt with immediately. Within an hour, Jared and I picked up a DVD of Jared’s MRI and were on our way to Cooks Children Hospital located in Ft. Worth.
To give you an idea of the type of pain Jared has been going through the past week and a half, I’ll share a moment he and I had last night. As we were driving to Ft. Worth, Jared, knowing full well he was going to be operated on, said “I am so glad they know what is going on and they know what to do.” He was practically giddy with the prospect of an eventual return to full health. Jared was in so much pain at the beginning of the week, he missed three full days of school. He returned to school on Thursday, not because he was feeling better, but because he felt he needed to start catching up on what he missed. He was miserable yesterday. The day started off with an uncomfortable MRI. He then went to school. One teacher forbade him to from doing any work because he looked so terrible. “You can make up the work next week when you are feeling better”. Jared has been battling severe pain and fever for over a week now.
Back to my story. Jared and I arrived at Cooks last night and a nurse took us to a little cubby hole and got all the vital information from us. Jared was then taken to a room and placed on a bed (after slipping into something more “comfortable”). Eventually, the doctor came in. My jaw nearly dropped when I saw how young he was. After reviewing Jared’s MRI, the doctor told us Jared’s infection, which he called an abscess, was so severe that he felt like he needed some help in the operating room. The doctor he wanted to assist him was not available until Saturday morning. The operation is going on right now as I type this message. Now for some good news. Last night, the doctor told us Jared will have 4 to 5 weeks of recovery time. He will then be able to return to playing basketball and his normal routine. The doctor doesn’t feel there will be any long term affects from his condition. Jared will spend several days in the hospital so they can administer antibiotics intravenously, then he will probably spend several more days on crutches. We are so looking forward to having a normal Jared around the house, the messy kid he is. We have missed him, even his appetite. He has lost over 10 pounds in the past two weeks. Your prayers in Jared's behalf is greatly appreciated!

Michael

I've had more fun with these pictures of Michael. I think I'm done and then I find another cute one that I had passed by.

Michael

Another Michael pose

Snow

Beaver has had an abundance of snow this year for a change. The local paper reports Merchant Valley as beeing 116% of average water content for this time of the year. That doesn't count the snow we are receiving this very minute. Grandpa and I took a little trip up to Ponderosa the other day and I took several pictures.

Jack

The Chris Kelsey Family

The Ron Lowe Family

The Jeff Randall Family

The Steve Lowe Family

These pictures were taken the last time we were all together at Josh's farewell

Michael

This one makes me laugh

Michael

Such expressions! What a character!

Michael

This one has got to take the prize!!!

Michael

Brendon and Taylor stopped in today on their way to Cedar. I snapped a few pictures of Michael. He just gets cuter every day.

Lyssa

I found some new pictures of Alyssa to play around with.

Lyssy Lou

Megyn

I found this cute picture of Megyn

Ugly, cont.

I meant to mention that the ugly fabric was the purple and red fabric used for the outside border. The first place winner gets a $100 gift certificate at Rockhouse Quilts, second place is $50 and third is $25. The winner is chosen by Viewer's choice. So if you are in the vicinity of Beaver after February 19th, come and vote for my ugly quilt. I really would like to have that $100 gift certificate. This is a closeup of the applique block.

Ugly quilt

Michelle, at Rock House Quilts, is sponsoring her first annual Ugly Fabric Quilt challenge contest. I wasn't interested until Judy tickles me into purchasing a bag of fabrics with a swatch of the "ugly" fabric pasted to the outside. The challenge is to make something beautiful out of this ugly fabric and the coordinating fabrics contained in the bag. This is the end results from my bag of fabrics. I did add two fabrics, the background cream and the small swatch of Purple fabric in the center of the flower petals. Well! Is it ugly enough? The applique was machine applique using the method taught by Carmen Geddes of Eagle Mountain when she came to our Guild meeting last October.

Michael

I love this picture of Michael with his great big eyes!!!!

Siennah some more

Siennah with lens flare

Just playing around. I sure do need some new pictures.

Siennah