Bailey had a relatively easy surgical experience yesterday. No complications. She had a full, deep general (the procedure to get the fractured bone set was apparently a rather rough one - the ortho had to angle her arm in different directions to finagle it all back into the proper position - I was amazed to learn that doing this procedure in-office was an option. I suppose if I wanted to put her off horseback riding forever we could have gone with that… yikes!).

In spite of the heavy anesthesia, she came out of it fairly quickly and with no ill effects. Not even a speck of nausea. On the contrary, she was RAVENOUS and wanted to eat immediately. I was thrilled to assist with that. She had an excruciatingly long pre-op fast yesterday and it was killing me to not feed my child! She was released to go home within an hour of the surgery.

I cannot even express how glad I am that they were able to do this procedure yesterday. Scheduling conflicts aside, after a full day of living with her living with this injury it really hit me how uncomfortable it would be for her to live with that un-set fracture for any length of time. Her recovery could not truly begin until after the surgery.

Last night she ate and ate and ate some more. She took a nice long nap and woke up around 9:30 to have another snack. She was very alert and chatty at this time. During the surgery, the doctor gave her a nice big dose of novocaine. So she was completely pain free all night. I gave her a vicodin at bedtime and she had a lovely sleep all through the night. Yay!

She woke up around 6 am and texted me from the couch downstairs that she was hurting. One vicodin seemed to be enough to make her comfortable, so I think we’ll easily keep on top of the pain. She’s sitting and playing around on her computer now, feeling much, much happier that her bone feels “normal” again and having the scary anxiety of surgery now behind her. (She WAS really scared, too - I was a little surprised to see how high her blood pressure was before the procedure yesterday!)

She keeps commenting how sorry she is that she can’t help like she usually does (with Jake, with dishes, etc) and that she sorry that she needs so much help. “I can’t wait until I’m self-sufficient again!” My goodness, she really is an exceptional teenager. I am certain I would have milked it for all it was worth at that age!

Bailey took a tumble from her horse today and broke her left shoulder (proximal humerus fracture). See image at right for the idea.

Mercifully, she’s right handed.

It’s a pretty major fracture - bones are broken and all out of kilter. The doctor said without surgery, she might regain 50% range of motion at best, so… surgery tomorrow. This is an internal fixation procedure she’ll be having at 1:30 pm tomorrow. For those unfamiliar with that (like I was, until today), the doctor will realign her shoulder bones with an x-ray machine set up as his guide. Once the bones are in place, he will anchor them with long pins that stick out of her body (eek). Once the bones are starting to knit back together, the pins are removed.

It’s a short procedure (the doctor anticipates it will take 15-20 minutes), but she’ll be under general anesthesia.

Bailey is being a real trooper. She has a lot of valid anxiety about surgery (”What if something goes wrong with the surgery? With the anesthesia?”) and also just in general (”What if my shoulder is never normal again??”). It’s surreal - no one ever thinks when they wake up in the morning that this will be the day they hurt themselves in such a way that they’ll never be the same again. She’s grappling with that a bit. But, generally, she’s being very brave about it. She’s also very sad that she can’t ride for a couple months.

She’s also taking responsibility for the accident. And it WAS an accident and it could happen anytime. There’s a reason, after all, they make you sign a waiver before you even breathe the same air as horses. But there were a couple choices she was telling me about that probably led to this. I’m so proud of her for understanding that. Her maturity and emotional intelligence amazes me sometimes.

She made a set of decisions that were less cautious about her own safety than they could have been. First, her horse is not liking the bit they’ve taken to using with him lately, which makes him harder to control. Then, she noticed he had a sore spot on his girth, so she chose to ride bareback. Even that would have been fine, but she didn’t want the bareback pad to rub that sore spot either, so she went bareback *without* the pad. When she lost her balance during a trot/canter, she slipped right off his slippery back. She told me she might have been able to regain her balance if she’d had the pad there for some traction.

But, ah well. I think she’s definitely learned something about her own mortality here and not taking it so much for granted. She told me today that she has always had this feeling that SHE will be one of the lucky ones who never gets injured from a fall. Today she learned she’s only human, and therefore breakable. And how fast and easily it can happen! The horse didn’t throw her, she just slid slowly and gracefully down, breaking her fall with her shoulder. Such a slow fall, I thought she must have simply dislocated it. But now she understands that if you hit at the right angle, you can be vulnerable to a break.

This has been an exhausting day. Aside from the obvious, there was this juggling of different children’s needs. When I first called the surgeon for an appointment, they said they couldn’t get Bailey in until Monday. HM and I are supposed to be in FL on Monday! I explained and they managed to squeeze her in with a different surgeon today. Then he wanted to schedule her surgery for Monday! He’s leaving town on Thursday (I get back on Wednesday) and he said the surgery should be done within 10 days. And honestly the sooner the better since a growth plate is affected and she’s still got 2 years of growing.

I was a the point of just canceling the trip (poor HM!!), but he said, if we can get an OR tomorrow, I’ll do it tomorrow. That took awhile and we were on tenterhooks. Poor Bailey was in tears feeling SO guilty that the trip might be canceled. But it seems to have all worked out. Scott’s mom was already scheduled to come down on Saturday so she could watch Bailey/Mira/Jake while I was out of town. Bailey is thrilled to have grandma here to take care of her and (bonus?) Karen just had this exact same procedure performed on her hand (arthritis-related) earlier this year. So she’s completely up on the wound care, etc. I’m still feeling very conflicted about leaving town two days after Bailey’s surgery and I don’t know how I’m going to NOT fret about it the whole time. But hopefully I can compartmentalize my emotions somewhat for HM’s sake.

Please think of my baby Bailey tomorrow! I don’t know exactly what to expect from her recovery, but she has a vicodin prescription and they said she’ll probably be very uncomfortable with pain for a week or so.

Wow, my first blog entry in over a year. I sure have fallen out of the habit. Well, no promises that this is a reversal of the trend. I’m just in the mood for blogging today. We’ll see where it goes from here, if anywhere.

Without further fanfare…

So speaking of habits I’ve fallen out of: Working out. This lack of working out has been stressing me out. My job and life is soooo sedentary, I really need to be making a more concentrated effort for the sake of my heart and longevity. Plus, I know I need to be setting a better example. Rather than endure this burden of guilt and obligation, it really would be less stressful to just get off my duff already.

Mira (now age 10) has really been pushing me to go on bike rides with her - she even took the initiative and pumped up my bicycle tires and washed down my bike! Sweetie. How could I procrastinate in the wake of that effort?

So last week we started regularly biking. Ouch, my butt. I knew I’d have to suffer through that a few times (right?) before it would get better. But it’s not been getting ANY better. We stopped by REI in Tempe last weekend for the express purpose of purchasing me a pair of padded bicycle shorts. Nope, no improvement.

Today I googled (<< it’s time for spellcheck to consider this a real word already - oh, and “spellcheck,” too) to see how long it would be before I’m, erm, toughed up. Two weeks, one person said - apparently it takes about two weeks to get used to it. Maybe.

But then I found some suggestions about angling the seat so it’s tilting slightly down in front. I thought about that and the physics make sense… that way more pressure is put on your actual BUTT (instead of the pointy sit-bones and other tender tissue I’m euphemistically calling “butt” in the title of this post but you know that’s not really what I mean).

Tonight Scott dug out his Allen wrench and adjusted the tilt on my bike seat. The difference? It felt like MAGIC on my little test run - no uncomfortable pressure at all! We’ll see how it holds up on my next real bike ride, hopefully tomorrow. No promises that this is the reversal of a trend, or anything. I’m just in the mood for bike riding right now.

Bailey made this tonight with my guidance (but all her labor!). Her first experience with chopping onions and potatoes. This is her Grandma’s traditional recipe - a family comfort food favorite.

German Potato Soup with Dumplings

Ingredients

7-8 large potatoes, peeled and diced
1 onion, peeled and diced
1 stick of butter (1/2 cup)
1 can evaporated milk

1 cup flour
1/2 cup water

Directions

1. Cover diced potatoes and onion in pot with 1/2-inch water. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer until potatoes are tender, approximately 15-20 minutes depending on size off the dice.

2. Mix flour and water to form a stiff dough. You can also put 2-3 eggs in a bowl and add flour until a stiff dough is formed. We like the dumplings either way.

3. With larger diced potatoes, blend or mash potatoes to thicken. You can skip this step with smaller dice potatoes.

4. Add can of evaporated milk (you can also use regular milk or heavy whipping cream in a pinch) and stick of butter to the pot. Bring back to a simmer.

5. Drop small pieces of dough into soup and simmer for 5 minutes. Serve.

Here’s what’s for dinner tonight (with bread and lima beans). Recipe adapted from this recipe at Southern Food on About.com - I really find a lot of good recipes there!

Looked like something yummy to do with the five pounds of bone-in country-style ribs I got on sale.

After typing this up, I realize this would be even simpler and even less mess if you skipped the dredging step. Just season the pork with a little salt and pepper before browning it. Mix all the other seasonings in with the tomatoes and pour over the browned pork to simmer.

I’ll try that next time and report back, because I suspect the trade-off in convenience is worth the tradeoff (if there is one!) in flavor.

This would also adapt well to the crockpot. If I make this in the crockpot, I wouldn’t add any additional water, and might even skip the diced tomatoes.

Spicy Skillet Country Ribs

Ingredients

2 pounds boneless country style ribs
1 tablespoon ground allspice
1 teaspoon ground ginger
Cayenne to taste
1/2 teaspoon coarsely ground black pepper
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon dried leaf thyme, crumbled
3 to 4 tablespoons brown sugar, divided
1 to 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 medium sweet onion, sliced
1-12 oz. can diced tomatoes, plus 1 can water

Directions

1. In large bowl, combine allspice, ginger, pepper, salt, thyme and 2 tablespoons of the brown sugar. Mix to combine well.

2. Dredge pork in the spice mixture (or shake together in a Ziploc bag); place in hot oil in one layer. Cook, turning frequently, until browned on all sides.

3. In same large bowl, mix together the remaining brown sugar, tomatoes, water and sliced onion. I also added a few tablespoons of Sweet Baby Ray’s BBQ sauce to the mix.

4. Pour mixture over the pork and simmer briskly for about 5 minutes, or until liquids are reduced by about 1/4 to 1/2.

5. Cover and cook for 1.5 hours, until pork is tender.

Serves 4-6.

Click to see my photojournal of our camping trip to Horseshoe Lake

February 14-15, 2009: Mesquite campground at Horseshoe Lake, Verde River.

Highlights of this trip:

- The Brazaletes Pueblo ruin at the summit of St. Clair Mountain was extremely fascinating. One of the most extensive ruin sites I’ve seen (that hasn’t been developed for public interpretation, that is).

- First time camping since Scott made the dinette modification. Compared to the bench seat we had previously, the dinette is SO family friendly. The set up is much roomier and the layout is far more conversational. I liked that there was room for the hubby, a tween and the toddler to sit there while I prepared a meal and served it to them at the table. When we had the bench, there wasn’t a lot of room for other people to sit on it while I was cooking - knees in the way. And, of course, no table, so I was handing the food out. We always had to eat outside. While that is usually something we WANT to be doing, since we’re camping, after all, it was pretty cold on this trip  (got below freezing at night) so we were glad to have the dine-inside-where-it-was-warm-and-comfortable option.

- HM fell into the river once while climbing out onto a tree from the beach at our campsite. Completely drenched, from head to toe. Later, after she was dried off and in dry, warm clothes, the dog dragged her into the water’s edge from the muddy beach. Not as wet this time, but much muddier. I think HM learned her lesson and now understands why I always harp about using the gentle leader!

- It was cold weather for falling into the freezing cold river (like HM did… twice!) or sitting at icy concrete picnic table, but it was the PERFECT temperature and conditions for hiking and exploring, which we managed to do a lot of on this trip!

We got some fresh air and exercise today, as well as an eyeful of some gorgeous scenery!

Click the link below to see the complete photo story.

Hiking: Lost Dutchman State Park - a set on Flickr.

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Amazingly, this is the first photo we have of all six of our children in one shot!

While on the topic of teeth and how expensive they can be…

Human teeth need to evolve such that they are better suited to modern longevity. Having a baby and turning 40 within a year of each other have been hell on my teeth.

Recently I’ve had THREE pulp caps. That’s where there is so much decay that they have to drill very close to the pulp, so they put on this antibiotic layer to try and preserve the pulp while the dentin layer grows back up. It’s a conservative treatment designed to prevent a root canal. It’s also another layer of treatment your dentist gets paid for if the pulp cap fails and you still need a root canal. (Although in fairness, my dentist said that if the pulp cap fails he will apply the very high cost of the porcelain onlay towards the cost of the crown that would become necessary.)

Anyway, one of those teeth already required a crown (one of my metal fillings failed and cracked the tooth massively). Another one required an onlay. And the other one “just” a filling (not metal!!).

Besides all that, I also had to have the crown replaced on a tooth that had been root canaled not even 8 years ago - the dentist I had then apparently did a shoddy job; decay was getting under it because it wasn’t properly under my gums. (I’ll always remember the day I got that permanent crown placed, because it was 9/11 and I was driving to my appointment after both towers had fallen. It felt very surreal to go about such a mundane activity in the midst of such dramatic events.)

The dental work itself was basically painless. Just long, tedious and uncomfortable. The one good thing about a root canal is that the nerve is gone, so there is exactly zero pain to worry about once it’s done and the anesthesia wears off. One of the teeth I got pulp capped can hurt pretty badly from time to time if I chew too “aggressively?” or whatever on that tooth. It’s vulnerable for the next few months while we see if the the dentin grows back to the point that the tooth is considered salvaged. Otherwise, moving on to a root canal for that tooth, too. In the meantime, advil is my friend. Ugh.

My dental work was so expensive we had to divide it into two sessions. Two teeth in December maxed out my dental benefit. So we did the other two teeth a couple weeks ago when the benefit renewed for the calendar year. And we still owed nearly $2,000 out of pocket.

As if that’s not enough, having had one metal filling fail pretty catastrophically (a common scenario because of hot/cold expansion/contraction), I’m now motivated to get the other metal fillings I have replaced. I’ll probably have 1-2 done at a time at future cleanings and take care of the problem gradually. Ugh. Ugh, I say.

In hindsight, what I would do differently:

1. Get x-rays immediately before getting pregnant (a hard one to accomplish, since a girl only has so much control over that). But still, I could have made more effort. We moved right before I got pregnant and I procrastinating on finding yet another new dentist.
2. Get x-rays *immediately* after the baby is born. I kept procrastinating for almost 18 months. Had we caught the decay earlier, the intervention likely wouldn’t have been as dramatic and costly. As it was, I only went in when I started having some tooth pain. When you feel tooth pain, things are usually pretty far gone at that point.

Easy crowd-pleasing dessert - a perfect recipe for baking in dutch oven when camping, too! Of course, you can use any fruit pie filling.

Cherry Pineapple Dump Cake

Ingredients

1 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup oatmeal
1-20 oz. can cherry pie filling
1-20 oz. can crushed pineapple in juice
1 package yellow cake mix
1-1/2 sticks butter, cut in pats

Directions

1. Mix together the brown sugar and oatmeal in a bowl. Reserve.
2. Spray a 9×13 cake pan with cooking spray. Dump in the cherry pie filling and spread evenly over the bottom. Dump in the pineapples and juice, spreading evenly, followed by the cake mix and the sugar/oatmeal mixture.
3. Evenly distribute the butter pats over the top of the sugar/oatmeal mixture.
4. Bake at 350F for one hour. Serves 10-12.