Never, ever EVER!

For those of you who don't know, we've had an extremely eventful month. Not "fun", eventful, but "holy mess of minor disasters" eventful. It all started in the end of July, when Scott decided to get cozy with the road. While descending Alpine Canyon on his bicycle at approximately 42 mph, he hit a pot hole and flipped over his bike. Miraculously, he landed handlebars took the first impact, then his shoulder and helmet, finally sliding on his hands and rear AWAY from traffic. He also landed by the entrance to the canyon so the guard station had first aid supplies. The bike had a lot of damage, though not the frame, but as he was wearing arm coolers, aside from his fingers and shoulder he didn't even have much "road rash." Hooray!

Then on August 12th, I was using the facilities and let the boys wander for a bit, only to hear Thomas start to really scream. When I arrived in the kitchen, Thomas had stuck his left index finger into a can of mandarin oranges that Raymond got down from an upper shelf of the fridge. The lid was partially attached, and like a finger trap, as he tried to pull it free, the lid cut into the top of his finger. Thus, I was tasked with finding a way to remove the finger from the can. I don't know how much worse I made it in trying to remove it, which I ulitmately did, but by the time it was out, it was cut through to the bone, right at the joint. A few moments of fumbling with bandaids and tape, and I made my first 911 call! The paramedics arrived, wrapped it properly, and told me to take him to the emergency room. By the time we arrived, Thomas was completely calm and behaving normally. What a trooper. After checking his finger, and having x-rays, some time later he was sedated and prepared for sutures. As they were cleaning the wound the supervising doctor observed that they could not see his tendon. As he was already sedated they sewed him up, and then requested the Orthopaedic hand specialists to come. And orthopaedic resident came and said they needed their supervisor. Another hour or so later the supervisor came and said something to the effect of, "It appears he has severed his extensor tendon. I don't know why they didn't call us before they sewed him up because we could have reattached the tendon at that point. Now we'll have to splint it and wait to see if it can repair itself." Well, a week later, off comes the splint, and poot little Thomas' finger tip just flops forward while the rest is straight. The hand trauma doctor says "I don't know why they didn't contact us before the sewed him up." Next morning, Thomas and I arrive at 6:45 am for extensor tendon repair surgery. I tried not to freak out, but couldn't help crying a bit when to took him away (he only complained a little for having been sedated again) for general anesthesia. The procedure went well, and when he woke up, I went into recovery and helped. He was angry as can be and wouldn't calm down until we agreed to take the IV out of his foot.

So, we got home and had a nice relaxing afteroon. He was behaving wonderfully, and everything was fine when we put the boys to bed at night. Until......

At around 1:15 Ray woke up with a serious croupy cough and started screaming and crying that he couldn't breath. We've experience croup plenty of times, but the rapid onset, and his terrified crying sent us to the E.R. They gave him a steriod, and a few hours later we were home.

Thomas started coughing as he woke up. He has croup as well.

So that's the story through today. I think we're going to watch movies all day.