Christmas tree Hunting '14

Russ had the tradition as a kid to go cut down their own Christmas tree. Over the years we have taken on this tradition for our family-but this year we talked my family into getting into it as well. We threw a twist on it this year adding in another tradition Russ had as a kid where his dad would find a family who wouldn't be able to get a tree on their own and get one for them. So we got an extra tree tag and looked around and my dad found a family of a single mom in his ward that would be a perfect candidate for our tree. However, my dad thought of the good idea of having the oldest boy in that family coming with us to pick out and cut down the tree for his family.

So the day after Thanksgiving, when Russ was feeling better, we packed up early and took off to find us the perfect trees.

Due to the pain from shooting caused on Thanksgiving Russ camped out in the backseat of my parents truck to still be a part of Christmas tree hunting but still keeping his foot elevated.

My dad taught him how to use a chainsaw and then guided him to cut down the tree he had picked out.

Also then had him pack out his tree. My dad letting the man of the house get the full experience.

 I of course had to get a picture while we were there so I was the mean wife making her husband navigate around in the snow, in his shorts, on crutches. side note: This week after Russ's surgery was the only time in our relationship where I have seen Russ where shorts because he hates them but they were the only thing that would fit over that honkin cast.

 We went home and got the tree decorated while we watched Christmas movies and then I had to bring the dogs in for our little family experience. I had found an ugly Christmas sweater for dogs at Target and for the first time ever I dressed Remi. I thought it was the cutest thing even though it reminded me she's not as little as I think and want her to be :(

Thanksgiving '14

We have attempted to start a family tradition of going shooting on Thanksgiving morning down in Sanpete- since Ash and I are married now and have to share holidays we missed out on the tradition last year but this year even with Russ being a post-op patient we made the adventure down.

Shooting skeet is a great way to start the day off feeling grateful :) also I got to try out my banana clip for my 22 that Russ gave me. It was a great morning!

With Russ being in a "cast" and on crutches it brought out a whole new eye opening experience of the things we're grateful for that we take advantage of every day. Among our list of things we're thankful for this year is each other, amazing families, friends, jobs, dogs, and also just being able to walk :) Happy Thanksgiving!

Russ's ankle surgery

Russ's right ankle has been bad for a while now. After a previous injury to the ankle he's continued to roll or sprain it randomly and sometimes with the reason unknown (such as just walking). Russ has a habit of liking to hunt alone as well as hunting in places where nobody else likes to hunt aka the boonies and we've talked a lot how if he was to roll his ankle up there bad enough to break it or injure himself bad enough that he couldn't hike he could die. Not such a comforting thought or idea so after my mom had her ankle operated on Russ finally vocalized interest in getting his looked at to see if there was something we could do.
I called and set up a consult with Dr. Faux but with his busy schedule we wouldn't even be able to get a consult until December! But we made the appointment anyways. Taylor works at Central Utah Clinic and called me a couple weeks later to let me know about a new ankle surgeon that was coming to work with Dr. Faux and that he was now seeing patients. So we made an appointment and saw him in September. Sure enough-there was a problem! Russ's right ankle ligaments were so loose from constantly spraining it that he had no support and the result had also caused a pretty good sized bone spur on top of his ankle that could also have been impeding his mobility. Dr. Hoopes also discovered that Russ's calf muscle was so tight that it was contributing to pulling his ankle out of alignment.
Dr. Hoopes talked about surgery and gave him some new inserts to wear in his boots to help prevent sprain and we left with infortmation on who to call to schedule surgery. Problem being we both work full time and this was definitely going to cause some down time. So we came up with the great plan of doing surgery the week of Thanksgiving therefore Russ wouldn't have to take as much time off work and I'd be off work for that Holiday this year. I emailed my boss and we had a plan.
However, as we have learned life doesn't go by our plans- Luckily the surgery scheduler for this surgeon is one of my former friends from high school who was awesome to deal with! She informed us that because this doctor was new all the paperwork for this surgeon to be able to perform surgery at my hospital was still in process of being approved. That finally went through but then he was having to go through getting put on the actual insurance process so that people on certain insurances could have surgery with him. PAIN IN THE BUTT! However, Mckell called me one day saying everything was good to go and that he had availability still for the week of Thanksgiving and so we scheduled Russ's surgery for Tuesday November 25. I got approved from work to take 9 days off to be able to be home to help him that first week.

Well once again life through us a curve ball- while enjoying myself at the Christmas Expo up in Salt Lake (about 2 weeks before Russ was to have surgery) McKell calls me saying there was a problem and that Dr. Hoopes was no longer going to be performing surgery at my hospital that Tuesday and was re-routing his patients to a surgery center that wouldn't be covered by our insurance. Long story short but Timp (the hospital) had other surgeons scheduled that day and so Hoopes wouldn't be able to start his 6 surgeries until 3pm when an OR opened up. Therefore not wanting to operate that late he wanted to change. I was in tears, I won't lie I was SO frustrated. We had the perfect plan worked out and now everything was changing. I told McKell another time wouldn't work right now and I'd have to get back to her to reschedule. Russ was frustrated but being the better person he is than me stated-well maybe next year, if it's meant to happen it'll happen when it's supposed too.
Flash forward to the week before surgery, I still hadn't called McKell to reschedule because we still had no date, and in the meantime I had picked up a shift for the 24th seeing as how I would no longer have to get my husband to the hospital early on the 25th. Later that week Russ started getting phone calls to pre-register for surgery. At first he brushed it off as a mistake but when the phone calls kept coming we started to get hopeful that maybe he'd be having surgery afterall! I called the hospital and he was still on their schedule, so I text McKell to see what was going on and she bursted our hope haha. (jk McKell) She told us that she hadn't cancelled it yet because it's easier just to reschedule and had just been waiting to hear from us but that there was no way that Dr. Hoopes was doing surgery at that hospital that day. I thanked her for her help, told her we'd think about it over the weekend and have a date for her Monday.
Sunday night I'm at work texting people trying to trade shifts for different dates that we thought about rescheduling to make it work, but no one could and Russ didn't feel super great about the proposed dates and missing so much work. So by the time I went to bed after work Monday morning I was frustrated that I was going to have to call McKell when I woke up that afternoon and tell her we were just going to have to cancel all together.
& then the miracle happened!.... I awoke to my phone going off around 10AM. I was delirious thinking it was my alarm so as I'm thinking I'm snoozing it I hear my voicemail chime. Confused I wake up enough to check my phone and I see first a text from McKell saying "call me please." My first thought was oh shoot she's in a bind now because we didn't reschedule the surgery yet and now it's the day before. Then I listen to her voicemail... to summarize she basically said that the hospital had called her that morning saying an OR had opened up and that Dr. Hoopes could have an earlier OR time for the 25th if he was interested. She then went on to say that Dr. Hoopes had agreed to do it in lieu of the Holiday that Thursday and that he would be willing to do surgeries at multiple facilities. So she ended with saying - So if you want Russ can still have surgery tomorrow. wait what?!?!?! I call her back tell her yes yes yes!! Then I called Russ and told him surgery was back on and to plan accordingly for tomorrow. After setting up surgery check in time, and pre-registering him with the hospital I tried to get a nap in and get things settled at the house to go to work that night.
Thankfully the people I work with are ANGELS! I was able to leave work on Monday the 24th at 2 AM in order to get some sleep before taking Russ in for surgery. Thank you again Marie, you were a lifesaver!!
The morning of the 25th we sleep in till about 9, feed the dogs and get Russ's things assembled and then take off to the hospital. We're checking in with the register at Same Day when the nurse comes over and says "oh good you're here! Dr. Hoopes called and he'll be here any minute and wants us to have you ready to go as soon as possible." Hallejuiah! I'd hear nightmares of people waiting around for hours waiting for an OR to open up and we were gonna get him right in. But then more excitement happened......
It was all fun and games getting him dressed in his surgery attire-he secretly hated it but could not stop posing in it and saying "I'm gonna save this and wear it deer hunting."

 Once he was dressed the nurse came in to do his IV-now Russ would tell you a different side of the story with what I'm about to tell you being my fault but that is not true. Everything was going great and Russ was sitting up laughing as the nurse was preparing for the IV. Then we got talking about how I worked upstairs, veins etc.. and Russ was laughing tell her how I play with his veins all the time because they're so good. The nurse pokes him and sure enough got a great vein-and vocalized that opinion. Next thing I know the nurse is starting to clean up the site to stabalize it with a tegaderm when I hear Russ say "I think I'm gonna pass out. I think I'm gonna pass out". Wait what?! I look at him and sure enough he's as white as a ghost and so while the nurse hurries and secures the IV I jump up to lay the bed back but sure enough Russ passes out and starts to shake-like people do when they pass out. Tell you what- I make a much better nurse than a family member because as funny as it is to look back on it now, I was not okay in the moment. We woke him up and laid him flat while the IV fluids started to infuse. Next thing I know they were coming in to wheel him away to take him to get a nerve block then go straight to the OR. Holy moly like I said-not a good family member. I almost cried as I leaned down to give him a kiss as they wheeled him out the door.

Then started the waiting game.... I visited co-workers upstairs, ate lunch, read my book, looked at pintrest and facebook, played with a family members baby in the waiting lounge, etc... for hours! I knew it was going to be a long time but by hour 3 I couldn't keep my eyes off the OR board waiting for his status to change from in OR to in recovery. Then another hour goes by as I continue to think worse case scenario and wondering if he'd be getting admitted tonight afterall- and I looked up from my book for a second to see Dr. Hoopes coming towards me. He showed me some before and after x-rays and told me everything went great and that he wanted to see him in a week and then he left. PHEW! I took a sigh of relief and went and refilled my diet coke, got some candy from the cafeteria and went to wait in his room. I had only been in there for about 10 mins when in he came. I was expecting to be video taping him saying hilarious things and being drugged and crazy but I felt so bad because he was miserable. His foot was numb from the block and it was driving him crazy, he didn't want to look at it because he was afraid he was going to pass out, and he was nauseated. I jumped into wife nurse mode and started rearranging things for him, feeding him ice chips, and crackers, while meanwhile glancing up at his vitals machine everytime his blood pressure went off. He started to perk up a little bit, we sat him up and fitted him to crutches then took him in to the bathroom. Since he was able to pee I got him dressed and we were gone within another 15 minutes.
The drive home was rough as we had to stop and get his prescription filled, he got so nauseated with the motion of driving so we just hurried home as soon as we could. Thank goodness we have great family and friends that had been checking in on him throughout the day but as we pulled up to the house my sweet mom was there with dinner for me and helped me get his settled in the chair as our buddy Spence and Russ's dad got there to see him. Luckily the nausea started to improve and he was able to eat some mac and cheese before bed. I set up camp on the couch next to him for the night and then proceeded to wake up throughout the night to give him Tylenol and check his circulation, as well as help him to the bathroom. We survived the first night.

Day 1 Russ felt less nauseated and still had a numb leg from the block so no pain. We hung out throughout the day and he was able to nap here and there. We had planned to get together with my family that night for the tradition of watching a Christmas movie around Thanksgiving and luckily they are great and super helpful because they all changed their plans to come watch it at our house so Russ didn't have to move and my mom brought dinner. Score! Obviously Russ was feeling better because I found quite the selfie and picture rampage on my phone from the night haha. 

 After my family left Russ noticed that he was starting to get less numb and starting to feel some pain. So we had start taking his pain medication and we went to bed. That night was miserable! Poor guy got acid reflux in the middle of the night out of the blue and nothing I gave him really seemed to help. He didn't get much sleep because of that but when he would fall asleep my alarm would normally go off shortly after indicating it was time for pain medication. And of course the Tylenol and pain medication times never quite landed at the same time so sometimes we were every 2 hours or less :(

Thanksgiving morning we woke up early to get things ready to go shooting down in Sanpete County  with my family. Which we did and as we left shooting and started to head back to Utah County Russ got in the worst pain he had been in yet. He had just taken his pain pills and after an hour drive he was still in excruiating pain. I got him situated back in the recliner, got the foot elevated and iced and gave him some additional pain medication. Meanwhile I was notifying his mom to let her know that we would not be making it to Thanksgiving dinner because I was not about to move him. She responded that she would bring us food over later. So initially we were supposed to go to Thanksgiving dinner at 2PM-finally at about 4:30 Russ was feeling better to the point that he was talking again and opening his eyes not lying in silence and pain. 

Flash forward to Sunday- Russ was still requiring his pain medication every 4 hours to maintain tolerable pain levels and on Sunday afternoon I noticed that his toes and knee would turn a dark purple color upon standing which I know is not good sign of circulation. So seeing as how he didn't see the doctor until Wednesday we called the on call doctor so I could get permission to loosen the splint and dressing. Thankfully after doing that he started to feel a little more relief in pressure to make it more tolerable.

 Russ had originally planned on going back to work on Monday but he was still in a lot of pain when he would not have his foot elevated so he worked from home. This was his little set up that we worked out for him. Also this is where he had lived for the week as he was not ready to sleep in the bed yet. Also that couch right there was my bed for the week +, making sure I could stay close to him and help him.
Side note: This week was the roughest week! I felt so bad for Russ that everything was not going according to plan. Besides the pain he had all sorts of other random things that happened and everyday would be something different such as insane itching, acid reflux, nausea, and he even got thrush! poor guy!

 Wednesday finally arrived and it was time for the follow up appointment. They took Russ right back and took the plaster cast and dressing off. Russ loved that! After having loosened it the pressure had gotten better but it had also caused some rubbing and looseness in the splint that getting it off just felt so much better for him. Up to this point Russ hadn't put any weight on his leg and that day the doctor came in and told him to start walking around on it. They had him put on a walking boot and at first Russ still needed his crutches to help him balance but he did great and within the next week was walking without the crutches and just needing the boot.

 The following week Russ started Physical Therapy. This was a tricky time and a hard time for the Hudson household. I had gone back to work and Russ was having therapy 2 times a week at 7 AM. Multiple times I was scheduled to work the night before and since Russ couldn't drive we had good family that would pick him up that early to get him to therapy and since the building connects to my hospital I would go down and meet him when I got off work and stay the 2 hours then take him to work before going home to bed. I went in and hung out the first day of therapy and I of course had to take some pictures of him going up against the old people at 7am.

we were doing some last minute Christmas Shopping and since we would be in the store for a while Russ used one of the wheelchairs. I think this was one of his favorite things about having surgery because he kept backing up to make the noise and cruised around unnecessary aisles.

Russ started driving himself again about the week of Christmas and that helped with his Cabin Fever he'd been experiencing. He said goodbye to the walking boot and hello to an ankle brace that he still wears to help maintain stability when going to work or out doing physical activity, but at home he is brace free! Even better now he's done with Physical Therapy and has started going on a few hikes to start getting his strength back. He did get an infection in 1 of his 3 incisions which the doctor did a debridment of and then put him on a pretty heavy dose of antibiotics for 2 weeks. Luckily that issue has since resolved as well.

I'm so happy that everything went well with Russ's surgery and that he's on the road to making a full recovery. I'm so grateful for great co-workers who took such good care of him while having surgery, a great boss who allowed me 9 days off in the middle of a holiday, andof course for such great family members who looked after us, visited us,brought us food to make sure we stayed fed during such busy times, and helped chauffeur Russ around when I wasn't available.