ALEXA'S JOURNEY TO A NEW LIFE: Day 31 of recovery

7/31/14

Day 31 of recovery

Today was a fun day with much pain mixed in with it. RMH was having a field trip to this ranch to do crafts & ride horses, two of Alexa’s favorite things to do. She was really excited about it & made sure we signed up to go. She was so worried we wouldn’t get the permission paper filled out in time. This morn we woke up early, well 9:30 is early for us, & got ready to go. We met downstairs at 10:30 & told them we would drive our own car in case we needed to come back early so we just followed them over. It was about ½ or 45 min away but was beautiful along the way. When we got there Alexa was in heaven when she saw the 3 or 4 dogs that were there to greet us. There was one dog named Penny that only had 3 legs that she especially loved. We started out by touring the different barns & buildings & meeting all of the dogs. Then they had the girls & boys divide up & the boys went to the stables & mucked them out. One of the boys was especially happy to have Tyson there with them! The girls went to do the craft which was to spray paint some horseshoes. Then they traded & the girls cleaned the stalls while the boys did the craft. Then we all sat in the grass & ate a nice lunch that the RMH had furnished. After that they met the horses & learned how to groom them. Alexa got to groom a huge horse named Stella, she was beautiful. We had realized at lunch that we had forgotten to put the poker in Alexa’s diabetes test kit to test her blood with so we decided we needed to head home since she is on a new formula in her tube & they told us to watch her blood sugars closely for a while. The kids didn’t get to finish decorating their horseshoes & ride the horses. Alexa probably shouldn’t have ridden anyway. By the time we got home she was in quite a bit of pain so she just rested for the rest of the afternoon till it was time to go down for dinner. After dinner it was Bingo night there at RMH. That is the best night of the week around here! They have a huge amount of prizes! Alexa & Tyson both won & Alexa won about 3 different times! We went back to our apartment with 2 arm loads of toys & stuff. It was a lot of fun!! I was planning on buying gifts for all the grandkids & now I’m so glad I hadn’t yet! They had so many things there that they are going to love!! After Bingo we went back up & Kaia came to visit us & brought Alexa a beautiful bouquet of flowers! She has been such a blessing in our lives & I’m so grateful to Craig Parry for introducing us!! Something else that is really cool, I found out that she knows my 1^st cousin, David Skouson!! They lived in the same ward in Manhattan!!! Such a small world!!! She wouldn’t let me take a pic of her tonight but I will manage to get one sometime, haha! We talked to Austin & his Mom, Ann, tonight at dinner & they told us they had seen Dr. C today & he is expecting them to be able to go home by Aug 11^th!! Can you believe that? He got his picc line out today & he is getting switched to only 12 hr feeds on the feeding tube!! Ty was pretty upset cuz we didn’t have our appointment with Dr. C this week. Alexa is doing just as well & she probably could have got that darn picc line out & had her feeds switched too. I emailed Marie, the one in charge of scheduling, & she said they would make sure we had an appointment for next week with him. I don’t really think Alexa is ready to go home just yet though, she was in quite a bit of pain tonight. It would be nice if things worked out to go home in a couple of weeks thoughJ! If we had good doctors at home that knew how to deal with the post-surgery stuff, I would feel better about going.

Waiting to go to the ranch

Gfather would say, "ewwwww!!"

This was Dakota, he loved to play ball!

This is Penny, the 3 legged dog. She belonged to an Amish farmer & got her leg caught in a hay thrasher & had to have it amputated. Alexa loved her so much!! The barn behind was the craft barn with a cute little kitchen inside.