Whew! Long day, but Sidney is better!

We got up and went to OKC early this morning. We went first to see Jo Ann and Frank at the hospital with Sidney. Of course we saw Jeff and Staci, too, but they were so wiped out from nearly no sleep since Wednesday night. It’s getting really hard for them. Sidney is really doing much better, but he’s at a stage that is hard to witness. If you aren’t familiar with brain injuries, it’s a really tough thing to see. My brother, Jim, had a motorcycle wreck about 20 years ago, so I’ve seen this before. It’s hard. The good thing is that Sidney is past the touch and go stage. He will live. They’ve taken him off the respirator and taken the tubes out of his nose. They are letting him come out of the coma and he’s reeling in the bed, wanting OUT! He recognizes everyone and knows who he is, but doesn’t know where he is or why. He wants all those restraints taken off and he wants out of there! Bless his heart. His brain is healing and he’s got to be in there, but he can’t understand that. He looks around and sees all the monitors and sees the bands on his arms and feet and thinks he’s tangled up in TV cords and begs you to get the TV off of him! It’s just hard to watch. He’s a strong kid and all the prayers for him will work. Thank you for your love and concern for someone we love.

The pictures on the blog today are of me, yesterday with the windmill weeds. It was really kind of fun to ‘play’ with them. Don did the really hard work of picking them up. I held the plastic bags for him. He picks up all he can with a big wide arm grasp and then wads it around itself until it sort of makes a ball. Then he crams it into the bag. Then I sit on the bag to mash it down and we go through the process again and again. We’re getting pretty good at it. Those things are unreal to capture and bag, but we got a bunch of them. They really are a nuisance, if you don’t have a partner to help you get them or if you’re really sick. Fortunately, we were in pretty good shape yesterday. The thing that made it really work was that we worked until we were tired and then quit instead of working until we were done, which is our usual mode of operation. We’re learning!

We visited Trish after we went to the hospital today, so we got there in time to see Grace, Mason and Sadie as well and Raynie. The big boys, Nate, and Gabe were visiting somewhere, so we missed them. Raynie was laughing out loud, her new trick, so we loved that! I forgot my camera, so I didn’t get pictures today. Ugh! I did get some pictures with the new cell phone, but I don’t know how to get them out of the phone, so we may never see them. HA! God is good; He’s still working with me!

We thank Him for bringing Sidney around and for healing him. We thank Him for giving patience and strength to Jeff and Staci and Jo Ann and Frank. We thank Him for our safe trip and for our healthy, baby and big kids who can laugh out loud just because Grammy remembers Patty Cake! PTL!