Soggy Homes & Broken Bones

Imagine the suckiest weekend you've ever had. Got it? Yeah, this last weekend ranks up there with yours. In fact, if we had a weekend 'suck-off' I'm not sure who would win. Wait. That just sounds so wrong and not the way I meant it to. I think it's best if we just move on.....

So Friday evening after dinner we were upstairs playing with the kids and for some reason I can't recall I went down to the basement (which is finished) and heard a dripping sound. I opened up the door that separates the boiler room from the rest of the finished basement and lo and behold there is standing water covering the floor. I just stood there for a second, mumbled an obscenity, shut the door and went upstairs as I just had no desire to deal with it at that exact moment.

Obviously I wasn't going to put it off, but the kids' bedtime was quickly approaching and it would be smarter to take care of it after they were asleep than to deal with the two rugrats wanting to help and splash the water all over our 8 week old rug (which by the way was already wet the first 12" past the door and wall).

We cleared out the room, sucked up the water with the wet/dry vac and called our oil company. The service guy was there in less than 45min and showed me the problem. He said he really couldn't do anything to fix it, as it could very well just make the problem worse. Allison and I had a little pow-wow and decided that we should just shut down the boiler and drain it out.

Well, that's not entirely true. There was no little pow-wow. As the guy was showing me what valves to turn, buttons to push and gauge limits to keep an eye on in case the drip worsened, Allison yelled from across the room to just shut it down and drain it out. Yep, she made the executive decision all by her lonesome. She knows better than to trust me to keep a watchful eye on valves, gauges and buttons! Our (Allison's) rationale was that since the weather was forcasted to be really warm, we'd be able to get by without heat or hot water so we (she) decided to just quit while we were ahead and turn it off.

So the service guy did that and all was well & good. So it was our intention to stay in the house until a new boiler was put in, but as you'll learn in the next part, that was not to be the case. But as far as the rest of the story that pertains to the boiler goes: I met the owner of the company at our house late Monday morning and he gave us an estimate to put in a new one, which they did on Tuesday.

We didn't want to go top of the line as we're intending to sell the house, but we didn't want to get something inappropriate for the house in case we're here longer than anticipated. Besides, it just wouldn't be right. So we are the proud owners of a 3 section cast-iron tankless boiler with an efficiency rating of 86.2%. Booyah.

We were considering a trip back to Disney either the end of November or beginning of December but dropping close to five large on this thing was the nail in that coffin. Good thing we didn't tell the kids our plans. Imagine their disappointment if we had told them, and then trying to get away with taking souvenier photos of them on top of the boiler and pretending it's the Dumbo ride. I think even Leah is old enough to know she was getting conned.

Probably the best part of this is that so far it doesn't look like we'll have to replace the rug in the basement. Only time will tell, but I think we're in the clear.

So that is Part A of the beginning of that Sucktober weekend.

Part B begins Saturday afternoon at a birthday party for one of Ian's friends. The party started at 1pm and Allison had some errands to run, so I took the kids to the party and she was to meet us there later.

As we pull up Ian spies the bounce house in the back yard. He gets all giddy and wants to unbuckle his seatbelt before we even stop the car. We go into the back yard and he makes a beeline for the bounce house, running by the birthday girl and her mom just kicking his shoes off and leaving a trail of shoes, socks & a sweatshirt.

Ian was in there pretty much the whole first two hours. I got him to come out for about 5 minutes for lunch, but he showed no interest in eating (his M.O. lately). He wanted to do whatever the bigger/older boys were doing and that usually meant jumping around in the bounce house.

Around 3:00 I left to take Leah home for a late, but much needed nap. Well, Allison called me around 4:30 and immediately I could hear Ian screaming. She told me that she said that he got hurt and was going directly to the local H-O-S-P-I-T-A-L, spelling it out so Ian didn't understand her. Yeah, that plan didn't work because he did and it freaked him out even more than he already was. (He said he didn't want to go, and wanted to go directly home, but of course Allison knew that something major was wrong).

I woke Leah up and met them at the hospital. When I got there, they were just wheeling Ian out of the triage room and he wasn't crying at the time but it looked like he had been....alot. And he began crying as soon as he saw me and asked for hugs.

We all went to the waiting room to wait to be called for x-rays and Ian zoned out in front of the TV before finally falling asleep. Here he is, after his body just shut down on him. Poor little guy, look how puffy his eyes are!:




After a little while Ian woke up and we were finally called in for x-rays. I recognized some of the ER nurses from bringing in patients on the ambulance so a few of them went out of their way to help out in the x ray room maneuvering Ian into position and helping to try to keep him as calm as possible. He still was crying, but it was more out of nervousness of being hurt further rather than pain from the movements. Every time he started crying I asked if it was because he was hurt or because he was scared, and more often than not he was scared.

At some point it was like a switch was flipped. He calmed down completely and got his 'personality' back. We moved him onto the stretcher, after the x-ray techs saw the break in Ian's bone, thinking it would be more comfortable than the wheelchair. Ian didn't object, because he looked mighty comfy once he finally layed down.

He was wheeled into a room in the ER and we began our wait for the orthopedist, who was on-call but not in the hospital. Allison's sister, Melissa, came and got Leah and brought her back to their parent's house which was nice. Now we could focus on Ian and not deal with Leah's antics. Yes, Leah does have antics.

After awhile Ian was able to really calm down and settle in and eventually he fell asleep. When the orthopedist (a PA in this case) finally came in, we tried to wake Ian up, but no dice. He told us that Ian fractured his tibia high up, right below the head of the bone. He said it didn't affect the growth plate (which is great, obviously), and that he'll be in a cast for 6-8 weeks (which is not so great, obviously).

Since the ER was so busy, and Ian was sacked out cold, the PA asked for Allison and my help in wrapping up Ian in a full leg cast. Oh, good job, Honey! No one can hold toes like you! The PA said that it was the first time a patient had been asleep the entire time. He has had people fall asleep, but not be asleep when he got there and asleep when he left. Yeah, waking up at 5am and being in a bounce house for several hours and then crying for another hour plus will do that to ya.

Here is Ian after his cast hardened, right before we left the hospital.


So we left the hospital and went right to Allison's parents house and stayed there the night. Since we had no heat or hot water, and they have a big house AND heat & hot water we decided to stay there for awhile.

We were told to keep Ian off his feet (duh!), and just let him relax on the sofa. Uh, have you MET Ian? If there is one thing Ian doesn't do is relax. As a matter of fact, I've seen Ian TRY to relax and it is painful watching him because he looks so uncomfortable. So anyway over the next few days he got lots of TV time, which he loved.

On Tuesday we went to the pediatric hospital and had the experts take a look at his leg. The prognosis is that he'll be in his cast for 4 weeks (not the 6-8 as previously reported) and at which point more xrays will be taken to see how the bone has healed. The next course of action obviously depends on that.

I've been trying to keep Ian busy with crafts and stuff, but he hates that shit. We had fun putting together a little model Star Wars spaceship and a little birdhouse but you can tell he is just barely tolerating it. He's a tough kid, but I think he's going to die of boredom! We've been holding off on getting him any electronic gaming thing (like a gameboy), as we feel once he has that he won't want to do anything else...but I think he'll have one before the cast comes off. Although I still want to hold out for as long as possible.

As far as transportation goes, I've been lugging him around in our wagon, as my only other option has been to carry him. That seems to work, but it gets a little hectic while in parking lots and such where I also have to worry about Leah (she won't fit in the wagon with his club leg) especially if I need to carry any kind of bags or something.

The doctor said he could try to get around on his own, he just couldn't run or climb anything. Well, the way his leg is positioned, he definitely isn't doing any running. He hadn't wanted to attempt any movement on his own (and was content with me carrying him everywhere) until yesterday. He hobbled around a little (with assistance) and this morning he got out of bed, butt-scooted down the hallway and made it all the way downstairs without waking anyone up. So I'm glad to see he is figuring out alternate modes of transportation.

He is back at school and while he's bummed about not being able to run around with his classmates, he likes the attention that the cast brings. On Wednesday afterschool he just sat in his wagon while a few of his classmates had at his cast with some permanent markers:





So we're getting along okay, and hopefully these next 3.5 or so weeks pass by rather quickly. I wanted to go out the past two days, but Ian has been complaining of pain in his leg (which he hadn't done before yesterday) so we've been pretty much stuck in the house.

I called the doctor yesterday and they said that as long as his prescribed pain meds were helping to alleviate the pain then it isn't a problem. We're not giving him the medicine (Tylenol w/Codeine) unless he's in pain or at night, to help ensure a good night's rest.

Well, I think that about sums up the weekend. Sorry if this has been so disjointed. I've been working on it over a few nights so I couldn't get into my 'groove'. There is other stuff to tell, but it's getting late and I'm beat.

Cheers.