Reconnecting with Family and Unconnecting an Appendix!

Gary hung out at home on Sunday while I went to church. It sure was great to see everyone again. Monday morning Gary ran the RVNet ham radio station and then we left to see family.

Our first stop was in Lake Tahoe to see Dad and Marie. We took them out to lunch and they chose the "American River Cafe" at Harrah's Casino. The restaurant was decorated really nice but I thought it was a little pricey for what we got. Oh well, we had a nice visit.
We headed off to Placerville after taking Dad and Marie back to her house.

Isn't she sweet? Malia is getting so big!! She has a first tooth, can pick up cheerios and bananas to eat them and scoots all around her blanket. She loves her mommy, aunts, uncles and grandma & grandpa and smiles and giggles when they play with her. She wasn't quite as sure about great grandma & grandpa, but warmed up to us by the end of our visit.

I know I promised to have pictures of everybody, but was too busy visiting and finding out the latest from each of them. Sorry. Amanda and David each like high school, BJ seems to tolerate it and Mackenzie is already hard at work in her classes. Ahren and Rebecca were working on homework and getting off to a great start. They seem to enjoy being 8th graders but I don't know if they like having all their classes together. Heather and Jason are cringing at all the school start up expenses - its hard having 6 teenagers!
Jason barbequed hamburgers and corn-on-the-cob for dinner and then Heather and Gary went to look at a flute that was for sale. Becca needs a flute and Ahren needs a clarinet as the school instruments are not available for a low rental fee anymore. No luck on the flute, but they will keep looking. We had to leave to go back to Dayton so we will try to see everyone again soon.

Now for the second part of the saga .... Before we left for Tahoe and Placerville I had called my doctor to set up an appointment for Gary. We decided that his abdominal pain and fever was more than just regular flu and needed to be checked. We left the house about 12:30 pm on Tuesday and headed into Carson to see Dr. Hillbrick. We did not return home until after midnight!
My suspicions were the same as the doctor's and Gary was sent to have a CT Scan of his tummy.

This picture is of Gary talking to Dr. Hillbrick after the CT scan was done. The doctor was telling him that he was to report to the ER at the hospital because he needed to have surgery to remove his appendix! The technician that did the scan left the IV in Gary's wrist because he knew what was going to happen and didn't want him to be poked any more than necessary.

The emergency room doctor was looking at Gary's CT pictures and explaining what needed to be done. They had Gary in the hallway for a short time until a room was available and all the blood work and labs were done at this point. Our home teacher, Todd Hamblin, and good friend and neighbor, Ron Olson, had already come by and given Gary a special blessing. It works!

I had to include this picture to remind everyone of the joking around that Gary did with all the personnel, doctors included! He kept everyone on their toes - I think it helped him relax, too.

Gary was ready to be taken up to the surgery floor. I tried to take some more pictures from that point on but my camera battery went dead. Gary had real nice people helping him at all the points in his hospital experience. He is a healthy guy and does not need so much contact with health providers so I think he had a chance to find out how great they are!
Surgery was about 8:00 pm and the doctor came out to see me before 9:00. All went well and he said Gary would probably be able to go home in a few hours! I went out of the hospital to find a pharmacy (Walgreens is open late, I discovered) so that I could fill the pain pill prescription. I had only been back a short time when Gary was wheeled into his room! All they needed to do was admit him to the hospital (instead of ER), take his vitals for an hour, make sure he could get up and go potty, and they were ready to release him! Amazing day. We got home around midnight.
It was quite a welcome greeting from Apollo and Lady, but after they settled down Gary took a pain pill and went to bed.

Would you believe this was taken about 8:30 am Wednesday morning? Gary was up, dressed and at the radio as if nothing had happened on Tuesday. He is taking it easy, however, and will probably not do too much else today. Doctors orders include walking, eating fiber, not lifting things, but otherwise trying to do as much of his regular routine as normal. I guess we will try to get back to a 'normal' routine as much as possible and won't need to change much about our schedule except the garbage detail!