The Best Christmas

Merry Christmas everyone! Andrew had a wonderful Christmas. We took him to the mall to pick up a present. He was able to attend our family parties. The first party was a lunch on Christmas Eve. His cousins, Nicole, Ryan and Eli were here from California. That night we went to the Spilker party. It is always great fun. Grandma Spilker feeds us a German buffet. It is the best meal of the year. Every family has to perform a talent. It gets pretty funny at times. Then we opened gifts. After that we picked up Grandma Martin to bring her home for a sleepover. Andrew was pretty wiped out Christmas morning. He wanted us to go ahead without him. But finally we were able to coax him out of bed. The gifts really didn't matter, we were content to just have the whole family together. Grandma put a bow on Andrew and called him the best gift of all! I cooked up a turkey and a ham. I don't know if Andrew is eating anymore food but, I seem to be cooking more food all the time. Half and half cream and bacon has become a staple at our home. The next day we took Andrew to his sister's home while we went to the show. Unfortunately, we found out that all movies were sold out! So we went back to Ashley's and watched a movie and had spagetti. Family time is the best part of the holidays. We are enjoying having Alex here from Washington. We are so thankful for all the kindness Andrew received for Christmas. He had carolers, treats, presents, and lots of visits. Andrew is thankful to the Tullis family, the Jenkins, the Spragues, Alice Henderson and Advanced Graphics for the gift. They found out that Andrew was feeling down when he learned that the money being rasied was for medical bills not for his fun money! They decided to gift him a bit of cash to brighten his spirit. It really did the trick. Thank you so much. Rick McGurk brought Andrew a really neat present. It is a sword made in Spain. It is really heavy, and it says "The Sword of Laban" on it. Thanks Rick! You have been great! Things are difficult for Andrew. He wrestles with pain all of the time. I think he is a bit anorexic from not eating for so long. He keeps his food down but eating doesn't sound good to him. I find myself worrying about this a lot. On Christmas Eve, Dr. Downey, called to check on Andrew. This is one of the surgeons who worked on Andrew. He talked to me for 1/2 hour. I continue to be impressed by this man. He wanted to know how Andrew is getting along. We will see him on Tuesday. Dr. Downey said that he feels an ownership in Andrew and that the hospital should too. He talks about him to associates all of the time. He mentioned that the muscle graft/skin graft surgery may be coming up. He feels that it will be a two year recovery for Andrew. On Christmas night, Andrew's wound vac failed. We tried to get a home health nurse out to change it, but no luck. So guess who got to change it? Luckily, I have seen it done a million times. Ariel helped me. It turned out ok, so we felt good about it. It has worked since! Finally, we have noticed that we are more aware of the people around us who are suffering. There are a lot of people who answer this suffering. Whether you are the server or the one being served, good comes from this interaction. January is coming. If you get the winter blues, find someone to help. You will end up helping yourself. I know this to be true. I have seen it from both sides.