October

By early October, they were framing in the walls of the toy room and new bathroom, and we were busy figuring out all those silly remodeling details that you don't think about unless you have to, like flooring and faucets.  Because our bathroom floor was open to the crawlspace, we started getting visitors in the kitchen at night.  Sometimes they ran right under my feet while I was nursing Celeste on the couch.
    

     

Mousey Bites

  

This school year, Evan started preparing to take the Level 1 Certificate of Merit exam (which happens every March,) while Connor and Elise studied for levels 4 and 5.  Their piano teacher, Roza, held theory classes almost every Thursday after school, where they got the bonus of hanging out with friends a little bit.  I didn't get pictures of the big kid theory class, but it met upstairs.  Also, Corinne played in her first ever piano concert.  I believe her piece was "Old MacDonald."
   

E-I-E-I-O....

    
Generally speaking, we were busy with normal activities and appointments (I texted my mom a picture of my calendar one day to illustrate our craziness.)  Corinne covered Celeste with yogurt, and Evan made a framed family portrait and worked towards his Book of Mormon goal.  We found a zebra swallowtail caterpillar in our orange tree, and fed it leaves until it turned into a chrysalis.
    

On Monday, October 9th, we had just brought some school friends home to play, when I got a call from my mom.  Chuck had recently undergone surgery at Huntsman Cancer Center to reconstruct his lower jaw (a mandibular free flap procedure).  It had been weakened by cancer to the point that, one year previous, it had fractured, leaving him unable to eat almost any solid food.  He and my mom decided that taking the risk of the surgery was worth the improvement in quality of life it could bring, and at first it seemed to have gone well.  The problem was that, as had happened a few other times, Chuck's heart responded badly to the anesthesia, and he had gone into atrial fibrillation a day into his recovery.  They had been unable to get it under control, and it had worsened to the point that my mom was told he wouldn't live another 24 hours.  She was calling me to hurry to Salt Lake for what might be his last moments.
  
Ryan was able to get me tickets for the next flight out of Burbank, and I took Celeste with me (because she's still nursing) and Elise (to take care of Celeste.)  We arrived around eight o'clock, I think, and were driven up to Huntsman by Kevin and Liz.  Liz was very kind to stay with Elise and Celeste in the waiting area, so I was able to go spend a couple hours in Chuck's hospital room with my mom and brothers.  Although the atmosphere was one of fear and sadness and shock, I also remember those moments as being very tender and full of love.  Happily, the doctors had been able to get the AFib under control, but the cardiac issues had caused damage elsewhere.  Chuck was in and out of consciousness, and had to be on a ventilator attached to a tracheostomy tube.  He couldn't speak because of the tube, and something was wrong with his digestive tract, since he was throwing up everything they put into his feeding tube, so he ended up being put on TPN (nutrition delivered through an IV.)  Also, in addition to all this, he looked like he had been mauled by a bear.  The surgery had been successful, but it involved removing his entire jaw and replacing it with skin and bone from his leg, and everything was still very swollen.  By eleven o'clock, the girls were tired, so I found a hotel room nearby on campus, and we went to bed.  I coached Elise on how to use the hotel phone, so she and the baby were able to stay asleep the next morning when I returned to the hospital for morning rounds.  I have to say, that Elise was amazingly responsible and helpful the entire trip.  I was very blessed to have her there.

Airplane Ride

   
Things were stable enough by morning that my mom sent us down to Levan in her car to take care of the house and dogs.  We had spent so much time training on how to run everything, that it felt good to actually be helpful for a few days.  We would feed and power-spray and squeegee and box-fan each morning, drive up to the hospital in the afternoon (where I'd often find my siblings in the hospital room) and return to Levan at night.  Despite all the odds, Chuck slowly began to improve, to the point that my mom finally felt comfortable coming home to shower one day (and grind up some raw dog food.)  On a couple of occasions, Kyle and Kelli watched the kids so I could go spend time at Huntsman without distractions.  Again, although the circumstances were scary and sad, the feeling of love and togetherness that week made just as big of an impression on me.
   

Power Sprayer

Naughty Baby

Huntsman ICU Waiting Area

Beef Guts!

Playing with the Murrays

Checking out Rehabilitation Centers (Elise's Picture)

We decided that I'd fly home Saturday night, since by that time it seemed safe for my mom to travel back and forth to Salt Lake, and she needed to get some rest in her own bed.  At home, I prepared for the Primary Program at church, took care of a now-sick Celeste (she'd developed a cold the day before we came back,) and tried to get things back in order.  I'm so grateful that Ryan was able to take care of the other three that whole week.  They had spent one day at "Emergency Child Care" downtown, a day at school, a day with Ryan at home, and one day when Aunt Helena came up and drove them to their piano lessons.  
     

Sicky Baby

Ryan was tired of Evan leaving the table during meals.

     
At 11:15pm on Wednesday night, I got a text from my mom telling me to call her.  She had just received a phone call from the hospital telling her that Chuck's vital signs were crashing, and she was in the car, rushing back up to Salt Lake.  They called again while she was speaking with me, so she switched calls.
  
Mom called back a few minutes later.  She told me Chuck had just passed away. 
    

I was up most of the night.  Sometime around 2am, I saw this raccoon.