I Love NY

Here's the update - warning, it's a long one.

On 10/2, Lori and I left for a NY trip. Lori is an old college roommate of mine. Her husband gave her the trip for her birthday and she shared it with me. Our plans were to watch conference in the hotel Sat & Sun. Monday - Thursday = we became the proudest NY tourists that we could. Thursday night = fly back to Phoenix.

Notice I said that was our plans. Life has been derailed a little bit. The plan was great until Tuesday night 10/6. We had just finished seeing Lion King (a great play by the way, but that will be for another post). We traveled back to our hotel and we had gotten off of the bus stop 2 blocks away from the hotel.

As we were crossing the street, we were hit by a car. Neither one of us saw it so we don't know where it was coming from, was the driver drunk, was he texting? We just don't know or remember. I remember hitting the car and then hitting the street. I didn't lose consciousness, but I knew I couldn't move my right leg. Ambulances came and both Lori and I were taken to the North Shore University Hospital. We got in touch with our families. Lori had fractures in her face and pelvis. I had broken my right femur bone and needed to surgically repair it with a rod.

By Wednesday morning, I was being prepped for surgery. Surgery went great. I don't even have a cast on the leg. I have several staples holding things in place. My left leg is pretty bruised, but it just is soft tissue damage, no broken bones there.

Wednesday evening until now 10/13 - I've been on the 2nd floor (surgical wing) of the hospital. I have been able to hobble to and from the bathroom with a walker. I'm stable enough to be transported to a rehab facility behind the hospital. However, we've been waiting for Lori's husband to go pick up the police report. Hopefully the transfer will take place this evening or tomorrow morning at the latest.

Lori is doing well. She had surgery on her face Friday morning. She is also waiting to be transferred to rehab.

Overall, we are counting our blessings that it wasn't worse. The church members here are wonderful. Someone from the stake high council went and got our belongings from the hotel. He and his wife came by Saturday night and left a copy of the Ensign for me to read. Another young couple is nearby. The husband is an intern at the hospital and they live 5 minutes away walking distance. They have come by to visit.

Ryan and his family came to visit Sunday and Monday. It was nice to see all of them. It was the first time I saw the twins. They are cute little guys. Cooper was full of questions and Adriene was full of answers. So good times were had by all. :) Thanks for coming guys.

That's about it so far. I will keep people posted on this and via Facebook.

Love you all.

New School Year, New Goals

Well, I finished week 1 and 2 fairly successfully with my new batch of students. We have bigger class sizes. The biggest class I have is 9 and the smallest class I have is 6. I know that all of the public school teachers are laughing their heads off saying "only 9??? only 6???" I know. I know. Having taught in both worlds, I can see where I look like I'm complaining. But all of these are profoundly deaf students. In an ideal world, they should have one on one education. But that's another debate for another budget meeting.

I have had a few health setbacks. I threw my back out Tuesday morning. Not by cliff jumping or wrestling. No, by setting a small pile of mail on my kitchen table. Just that one twisting motion, and I couldn't move. So for two days, I was in bed and on muscle relaxants. (The muscle relaxants were the best part). After this weekend, I think (knock on wood), that I'm back to working condition. But I've had a lot of time to think of my health. Which brings me to the new additions to the blog.

Addition number 1: the weight tracker. No I will not post my weight on the blog. At least not yet. But I do have a weight tracker to track the first 50 pounds that I need to loose. This is about as public as I'll get with this. So, every week, I'll put an update. Hopefully, I will get closer to my goal. You will see me do a few 50 pound weight trackers, but for now we'll start at this first one.

Addition number 2: Spark People button. Jessica (my sister) showed me this site when I went to visit her in June. I've started to become more excited about it over the past few weeks. Jessica and I had several heart to heart talks while I was with her, many concerning my health. I really love her for lovingly pointing things out to me that I've tried to hide for many years. Anyway, she showed me this site, and it's a good start up diet site for me. I'm not saying it's great for everyone, but just to let all of you know what I'm up to.

Anyway, that's it for now. More to come, and less of me to report next week. (Hopefully).

School Starts in 72 hours.

Back to school I go. I've actually been back to school this week getting ready for the 7th and 8th graders that will greet me on Monday. It's been fun getting ready this year. Not only am I still pumped from my Biosphere conference, I realized I have many things prepared already. I guess after 7 years of preparation, I think I may know what I'm doing. I just hope I don't jinx myself by writing that. :)