Monday, February 23, 2015

What just happened!?!

It's been awhile since we blogged last because the holidays kicked our teeth in.  I, of course, mean that in the most literally metaphorical way possible.  It took us until the end of January to fully recover and ever since then we've spent any free time lying on the floor trying to conserve as much energy as possible.

Here's a brief timeline of the holiday events that destroyed us:
  • Week before Thanksgiving - Annie gets terrible cold
  • Week of Thanksgiving  - Nate and I get minor colds - Annie still has terrible cold
  • First week of December - Annie still has terrible cold
  • Second week of December - Nate gets another minor cold - Annie has terrible cold causing terrible headaches.
  • December 13th - Annie goes to ER.  Yay! She has ear and sinus infections.
  • Dec 15 - I get really bad cold
  • Dec 16-ish - Nate get his brand new power wheelchair!
  • Dec 20 - Nate gets same really bad cold - all hope of sleep for next few weeks is lost
  • Dec 24 - Annie gets another really bad cold
  • Dec 25 - Nate has horrible crash in his new power wheelchair.  The chair flips over and breaks his vent and suction.  New chair is broken.
  • Dec 26 - Nate's cold gets much worse and we spend the day in the emergency room
  • First week of January - Nate and Annie's cold remain terrible
  • Second week of January - Annie goes to ER again - has another ear and sinus infection
  • Third week of January - Everyone much better.
  • End of January - Nate's wheelchair is finally fixed.
I know that it looks really bad when it's all written out but it was actually really, really terrible...like so much worse than it looks just written out.

Nate spent a lot of time recovering.  His favorite? 
Laying on the couch and watching HTTYD2
But there were some wonderful things that did happen.  Nate and I got a lot of great time together, mostly watching How to Train Your Dragon 2 (which he had just gotten for Christmas). 

As bad as it was on December 26th, after having spent the day in the ER - it was wonderful to lay on the couch with Nate and watch the movie together.  Nathaniel's powerchair is another great thing that happened.






He loved it the minute he got in it and even though the crash spooked us all, Nate was ready to jump back on it when it was repaired and was actually more confident and competent after the crash than before.

We got to spend time with family and even tried to wrangle all the Green cousins together for a Christmas photo...with mixed results.  Micah just wanted to get off the couch and play.  You could take 20 pictures of Sammy and Nate and get a different look each time and Callie - well - Callie was very patient.



Nate Hanging his Grammy's house stocking.


Gingerbread house and laser eyes


Oh, and hands down Nate's favorite part of the whole Christmas break was his new cousin Liam.  I know he doesn't look it in this picture but Nate is a Liam-loving machine.  One night Nate just sat in front of Liam touching any part of Liam he could and staring at him.  And then he would immediately start reminiscing about whatever Liam just did.

- Liam Sneezes- Nate loves it.
Then for the rest of the night;
Nate - "Dad, remember when Liam sneezed"

The crash was pretty horrendous but the fact that Nate came out of it with nothing more than a bruise on his head was a reminder to all three of us that God is taking care of us.  He may not be doing it in the way we want but it's in the way that makes us better and helps keep us sane.  Although sometimes we are very close to losing that battle.

Nate loves his chair and although it comes with new anxiety and takes up the last bit of space we had in our apartment, it's changing his life.  Nate can go where he wants, discover, explore, be away from his parents, chase animals or, when it's a dog, run from animals.  It's completely changed his approach to the world.