...Two months later...

Well... nearly two months later, here I am, still alive. 

So where have we been? What have we been doing? We've been really busy. We were on duty more in June and July than usual. Plus throw in a vacation and a trip to Illinois. 

So a quick picture recap of June:

we went kayaking with Pine house

House Parent kids really know how to live the good life

boys in a hay field

Pine house cookout

the barn with residents

We only had a few days off duty before we went to Wyss Vacation. The nice thing was, it was at Rita and Loren's so we didn't have to go far. 

swimming :)

cousins!

One evening Rita's Amish friend let us all take buggy rides. 

a tiny buggy :)

Evening kayaking on the St. Joe

a tour of a chocolate factory

Nathan's Father's Day gift

:)

  

One of our resident's had a birthday. He requested a chocolate mocha cake. I had fun. 

I mean....

swimming at Pine House

 June went so fast.  We tried to enjoy as much of it as we could. 

A quick July recap:

 We took our first post-quarantine trip out to Illinois. 

We were able to hit up Faire coffee!!!

swimming at the farm :)

Cousins = fun and chaos :)

 We visited Grandpa and Grandma and Pearline too. 

Waiting for a combine ride...

this picture looks cute but the real story:

They had lined up to ride the combine and these two kept inching forward to be first...

:)

harvesting the wheat

:)

all the Wyss cousins

racing

on your marks, get set...

Go!

Church in Washington in the tent

And then we went out to the Braker's

feeding the goats

milking the goats

visiting the gardens Emily works at 

feeding the goats, day 2

And then we drove back to Indiana and went on duty that night. 

light saber fight with a resident. :)

they have no idea what they are doing

painting during the residents' quiet time

back home for a few days...

a visit to the splash park

 After a short 3 days off, we went on double duty at Oak house for 5 days.  It was a new experience to be on at Oak. It's a teen mom house so it came with some interesting challenges. 

Campus has been very tense/crazy lately. A house parent couple has COVID and are in quarantine, making staffing very slim. We've gotten a lot of new residents who are causing issues, and that plus the usual craziness that comes with the job, things have been harder than usual. 

My mom came out our last day on at Oak and took the kids to Rita's. We've had two days off and she's been helping us start the packing and moving process. Because, in 10 days we are moving to Maple house to hopefully open it again and be leads there. 

That's been our lives for the past two months. Full. Busy. Fun. Stressful. All of the above. 

In Christ
~Michelle

The rest of May and a trip to the hospital

After the excitement of my birthday, grad parties, saying farewell to residents, and having my parents out, things calmed down in May for a while. Or, it was supposed to.

messes...

We went back on duty for our first stint of summer time. 

when the kids are quiet...

He is so patient with her. 

He was working on a pretty intricate model tank.

this child.

Campus opened up slightly, which allowed a few residents to go off campus for visits for the first time in months. They were incredibly excited. 

We had to do some rearranging in the house for social distancing purposes. To convince DCS to allow resident's on passes we had to agree to social distancing in the houses... I'm not sure it's realistic and it's definitely not practical. But, you do what you gotta do. 

So, Saturday to give the residents who couldn't go on passes a pick-me-up we went to Metea Park. It's a pretty little wooded area with hiking trails. 

   

I just love this

This little stinker was so proud that she snuck three suckers...

 After dinner, Nathan and the resident's ran out and picked up ice cream. 

seriously the best ice cream

All was well with the world....

Until Sunday morning early, I woke up with stomach cramps. I ended up puking my guts out the rest of the day Sunday. I couldn't get out of bed and I couldn't keep water down. 

Thankfully, Chelsea came in for a few hours to help Nathan out. I really have no idea what was going on most of the day.  

We went off duty that night. Monday, the puking had stopped, but I couldn't get out of bed. My stomach cramping had gotten worse. By afternoon I was getting worried. Nathan was having to practically carry me to and from the bathroom.  Around 5:00, It got so bad I was screaming.  That's when we decided I should probably go to the ER. 

But, by the time we got it figured out who could watch the kids, Nathan got them supper, and everyone was loaded up, it was almost 8:00. 

Nathan dropped the kid's off at Rita's and then he dropped me off at the ER. Because, you know, it's always fun to have a medical emergency during a pandemic. 

A quick digression to give a bit of a background. I'm weird. For some reason my first tendency is to downplay my pain. Which is odd since I'm also naturally dramatic. Normally when asked to rate my pain I go with low numbers. I went in to the ER for a blood clot, which in retrospect was comparable to child birth, I told them a 7 or 8. My mom who was with me at the time, had to encourage me to tell them a higher number. I went in to the ER for chest pain that had me concerned about a possible pulmonary embolism, I said a 2-3...

This time I decided to be a bit more assertive/realistic. I was dying and didn't want to do so in the waiting room.  So, when the poor ladies at the check in asked me my pain I said "10, it's worse than labor." (Honestly, not an exaggeration.) They wisked me off to a room in no time. 

However, somewhere in there, messages got crossed and the nurse was convinced I was nauseous and ordered me anti-nausea meds instead of pain meds, so it was 1:30am until I got something for the pain. It may have been when she heard me crying and moaning that she finally decided I was really in pain.

This whole time I had been convinced it was just food poisoning and they couldn't figure anything out. So, they ordered an ultrasound.  They saw what they thought was blood covering my ovary and labeled it a burst ovarian cyst.   They thought the blood must be causing the pain, so they scheduled surgery to go in, clean it up, and I'd be heading home in no time. Ha.

I went in to surgery around 5:00am.  When they went in, it turned out, it wasn't blood, it was puss. My abdomen was filled with puss from a burst appendix. So after switching off from the OB that started the surgery to another surgeon, they fixed me up. 

I spent Tuesday and Wednesday in the hospital, mostly sleeping and resting. 
Let me tell you. Hospitals are humbling.  To do the appendectomy they filled me up with tons of air. And then I was only allowed a liquid diet, after not having eaten for two days... things got fun. 
That is all.
  
I'm so thankful for the many prayers.  I felt peaceful the entire time even though I was alone. 

My mom came out Tuesday and was able to be with the kids. I was discharged Wednesday afternoon.  My mom left Thursday afternoon. Kayla and Kyle came to visit Friday evening through the weekend. They helped keep the kids occupied which was wonderful.  We had so much help and people sent us meals. It was wonderful. 

And we got to watch the rocket! Gideon LOVED it. He has been talking about Bob and Doug, the astronauts, ever since. 

He was in awe

:)

 Each day I improved slightly.  

Then, Sunday night, we went back on duty.  It actually went really well. By Monday, a week post-burst I was in barely any pain at all. 

Eating watermelon with Chelsea's parents

coloring chalk with volunteers

:)

crazy little child

Chelsea made a fantastic chocolate cake...

Aurelia snuck on to the counter to help herself.

Crazy child.

But, yeah, the first week of recovery went quickly and being on duty went well. 

And, that brings us to the end of a very eventful May. 

In Christ
~Michelle