Family Reunion 2010--SO MUCH FUN!!

Fun at the Beach and Uncle Boyd and Aunt Becky Ann's house.

So much fun to dress up at Grandma Kent's house.

This is the whole Kent Klan. I love this picture! Thank you for putting up with the heat and hassle to get it done for me.

This is a picture we took from the freeway on our way to the reunion.

Canning Season

We are in the midst of canning all of the produce from our garden, so that is how I spend my weekends. So far I have: 19 pints of pickled beets, 14 quarts of canned potatoes, and 4 pints of carrots. Not a lot yet, but we have only gotten started. We have lots of potatoes, so if anyone would like us to can some for you, I would be happy to do so (I am sure that Curt will be first in line). Forrest helps me a little and asked me yester day if I like canning. I told him I do like canning, because it gives me a sense of accomplishment. His comment was, "You are a crazy woman."

Jerry will go for a brain scan on Tuesday, so we are anxiously awaiting the good news.

Continued Good News

We went to the Neuro-surgeon this morning and he said everything is fine. They are scheduling a CT Scan in the next few days and then we will see him again in two weeks. He said there are no restrictions except for no riding horses until he looks at the scans. Jerry was a little dissappointed as he hoped to be able to do some riding with the boys before Will leaves. But all in all the recovery has been miraculous. Thank you for your faith and prayers in our behalf. I know this has made all the difference.

William will be leaving on July 30th, and we are very sad. We will really miss him. We have plans to stay in touch and hopefully that will make the differences for him as he returns to a "not ideal home." He has come so far and made so many positive changes in his life. The neuro-surgeon summed it up beautifully today when he said, "It is amazing the ability children have to change in an environment of love and kindness." I hope Will's changes are permanent and that he can move toward success in life.

Light at the End of the Tunnel

You are probably all bored with hearing progress notes, but the news continues to be good, so I want to share it. We are now at the point where Jerry takes care of almost all of his own needs and is even helping with a few things around the house. He is much steadier on his feet, although still has to walk a little slow or he lists to one side or the other. Yesterday, he walked all the way to the chicken coop and fed the chickens. He said it took him a long time with stops to rest, but he was very pleased to have done this chore again. He is down from 12 pain pills a day to only needing 8 yesterday, so in all ways progress continues to happen. He is still struggling with short term memory and regularly thinks things have happened when they didn't, but these are less frequent all the time.

Jimmy has moved to a different home now, and I am ashamed to admit that he is not missed. He was a very challenging boy and made life unpleasant for everyone. Will and Forrest were practically silly last night, they were so glad to be out from under this perpetual cloud. I think I must work very hard to improve my christian attitude the next time one of these challenging boys live at our house.

The bad news is that Will is leaving soon (probably this week or next). And noone is happy about that (especially not Will). He will leave a huge empty spot when he is gone, he has been a pleasure to have around and we have come to love him.

More Progress

This morning Jerry got up and decided that he would like to go with me to do the grocery shopping. I was quite surprised, but thought the exercise and fresh air might do him good, so off we went. Other than him wondering a bit and having to stop frequently, it seemed to go well. He is really making progress now and I am confident that within a few weeks life will be back to normal.

The boys and I went swimming last night and Jerry decided to come to the meadow with us. We set up a chair in the garden and he ate peas and strawberries while we swam and had water fights. It was fun and he really seemed to enjoy it.

On the foster care front: Jimmy will be leaving on Monday to go to another home as his status will change from an Oregon Youth Offender and so he can't stay in our home. This will make my life a lot easier. Will is going on a home visit this weekend. I will miss all of his help. When he went to leave this morning, he went into what I have come to refer to as his "shut down mode." I asked him what was wrong and reminded him that he is working on not shutting down when he is unhappy and he said, "I just don't want to go. You need me here and I don't want to go home." What a sweet young man, I will really miss him when he is gone.

No More Staples

If not having staples in your head means that things are getting back to normal then we are, indeed, getting back to normal. The staples were removed this morning and Jerry was so happy I thought he would cry. Apparently they were really bothering him. There was a whole scenario here, because his doctors office put the appointment on for next week instead of this week and we definitely can't leave the staples in that much longer, so I ran to the hospital to get a staple pulling kit and Paul did it for us. After the week I have had with confusing conversations (please see story below) I wondered if the receptionist had had brain surgery recently. Or, there is a distinct possibility that it is me who is looney and everyone else is doing fine.

Our home teachers came out to visit last night (this is the first home teaching visit we have had in a number of years) and Jerry came to the living room to visit. If we had known it would take brain surgery to get home teachers to visit, we might have considered it sooner (on second thought there are probably some length to which we would not go to get home teachers to visit). Anyway after sitting up for a while the pain got worse and he had a pretty rough night, but seems to be fine again today.

He is doing better, both mentally and physically, but still has a little struggle with some things. For instance his doctor is in the same building as our office, so I told him that he would be able to have the staples pulled in the same building. Somehow this to him meant that his doctor was moving their office into the sleep center and would be working with me now. He thought that we had had a whole conversation about how this would mean additional work for me. I really never know what to say when these conversations happen (and similiar things happen several times a day). I don't want to make him feel bad, so sometimes, I just let it go. I couldn't let it go the other day, when he read the instructions on his pain meds (2 tablets, 4 times per day) and decided that meant that he could take 8 pills at a time. The math works, but I definitely had to stop him before he overdosed.

Anyway that is life at our house, which is mostly getting a little easier everyday.

A New Damn

Yesterday we were playing around in the meadow after finishing chores and Will and Forrest decided that the damn that was built so many years ago should be moved downstream and so the job began. Forrest did most of the heavy lifting (he is amazingly strong), Will moved smaller rocks, while telling Forrest where to put the rocks, Jimmy crawled around on the rocks, shouting, "Hey what is this everytime he saw a new bug or water creature." I sat on the sidelines laughing when they fell, cheering everytime a big rock was moved, and telling Jimmy over and over that I had no idea, "what that was." But mostly I marveled at these young men who have suffered so much in their lives and can still laugh and build.

At our family meeting with Michelle (the boys case manager), she asked them to brainstorm ways that they could help, while Jerry recuperates. Will's said, "We can't take care of Jerry, but we can take care of Nyla." And both he and Forrest have been doing just that: They have done dishes, cleaned the kitchen, cooked a meal, and mostly just been kind and helpful in a hundred ways.

Again, how do young men who have suffered horrible indignities in their life manage to be so kind to others? We sat on the porch last night watching the sun come down, teaching Shiann new tricks and I couldn't help but wonder, what I would do without them. My life as Jerry heals would probably be easier without having to constantly watch these three--or would it? They are indeed "taking care of me and reminding me that there will be life after brain surgery and in the meantime, we can laugh, and talk, and survive together.

Picture of Jerry after Surgery

The Kent Family Times and Seasons

Head Games

The title of the post may seem a little macabre to those of you who know that Jerry was seriously hurt and almost died recently, but I have learned in the last, very difficult week that a sense of humor will get you through the toughest experience.

Jerry is recovering from brain surgery and this has brought with it a host of comical situations. At first the wacky things that Jerry has been saying and doing, made me a little frightened--wondering if the man that I married would be coming back or if I would spend the rest of my life with someone who puts his sock in the frig. Then I decided to trust the medical professionals who tell me that these things are all temporary and in the next 6 months my husband would be coming back.

I got home from work the first day back from Idaho to find a trail of misc items from our room to the living room. One of the items I found was a single clean sock. As I put the items away, I looked and looked, unsuccessfully, for the mate to the sock. So, I put the sock in the hamper and hoped that the match would show up in the laundry. The next day I was putting the groceries away, when lo and behold I found the missing sock, carefully place under the milk container in the frig. It was a truly funny experience, especially the look on Jerry's face when I told him about it.

There is much to chuckle about, but some parts aren't really funny, such as head pain that is sometimes almost unbearable, the room spinning around everytime he stands, and slightly slurred speech. But all in all I know that we will survive and thrive through this experience, as long as we keep a sense of humor and know that 6 months from now the trial will be a memory and the only place we will be finding socks is in the drawers.