Every Second Counts

106 days since Our Adventure began.
2,544 Hours.
152,640 Minutes.
9,158,400 Seconds.

Putting it into numbers seems to makes it feel so recent and so far in the past all at the same time.

We went to see Dr. Paul Gardner's PA, Star Clayson, last week after Kirk did a flexion and extension series of x-rays. Star put the x-ray films up on the board, separately and one on top of the other to see if everything lined up. The best words came out of her mouth, "Everything looks very stable. It couldn't be better."

Absolute relief was shining through our smiles like the rays of the sun after a stormy day. We ran several questions past her, the biggest of which was, "When can he get out of his shell?" Star wanted to speak with Dr. Gardner but felt that he would recommend transitioning into a soft corset over the next month or two. She said she would give us a call when she had spoken with him and got his opinion.

As you might expect, Kirk transitioned himself out of the shell that night. No call from Star. No soft corset. No surprise here. He went to work the next day, with shell in hand, "just incase".

Three days later he got the call, "Dr. Gardner would like you to transition into the soft corset over the next few weeks." Star told him. "Well, what if I just transition myself out of the shell without the soft corset?" Kirk casually asked. Star gave him the recommendations from Dr. Gardner and Kirk finally told her he had already "transitioned" himself out of the shell. "How long have you been out of it?" she asked. "Since Tuesday." Star asked how he felt and his response was joyful....."Better than ever!"








And he is.

He has transitioned out of the hospital bed and out of the shell. He continues to physically do more and more each day while taking fewer and fewer medications for pain. After spending the morning raking leaves with his dad, brother Brad and nephew Cole, mowing the lawn and even doing some laundry, Kirk walked into the room, threw his hands up in the air like a veteran referee calling the winning touchdown in the final seconds of the championship game, and exclaimed, "I'm back!"

What a beautiful journey we have been blessed with. Every single, miraculous, second has brought us together in ways we couldn't have managed on our own.

We are stronger.
We are more focused.
We are giddy.

And "we" are searching for a new motorcycle:)





- Posted by Gena Bertelsen using BlogPress from my iPad

He's Back!!

He did it! He even made it the whole day! Thank you to everyone for your thoughts and prayers throughout Our Adventure. We absolutely could not have gotten to this point without you.

Thank you City of Orem Police, Fire, Paramedics, Dispatchers, Office Staff. You have made the rough road smoother.

Thank you to all of our sweet family, friends and neighbors. It would be impossible to name everyone as we have been so blessed by so many.

Our biggest THANK YOU to our Father in Heaven who truly knows what we need and when we need it.

How blessed are we?

How blessed are we all?

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Balance

TGIF and it is day 39.

Unbelievable.

I think all of the excitement of Wednesday's good news has caught up with Kirk today. He is physically and emotionally spent. He met his goal and walked our three mile walk yesterday and is definitely paying for it today. It is a continual cycle in our lives lately......feel pretty good, push harder physically, spend the next 24-36 hours recuperating. No one said it was a good cycle. Just a cycle.

I can see how tempting it is to hurry up the healing. Kirk usually spends his day with power on full blast. It is rare to see him sit still for longer than an hour or so, unless it is football season. Wednesday's news was wonderful and harmful at the same time. Wonderful, because it gave us news that we didn't dare to expect. Harmful because it almost gives a false sense of "I'm good to go".

At the beginning of our Adventure, Dr. Gardner firmly told me that I would have to reign Kirk in. "This is a marathon, not a sprint." Convincing my adventure loving, super-action hero is another story. (I am open to suggestions on how to do this.)

Today was the first day that Kirk did not have someone here with him for the majority of the day. As much as he tries to let me and the girls know he is "fine" with being alone, he did admit it was a very long day. There is just so much TV one can watch before being disgusted with society or purchasing a very expensive item.

Kirk did have a visit from Mom and Dad, Rick and Lori and Springville High School friend, Mike Christensen. These are the the things that balance out the boredom and the pain.


Kirk and I watched one of our favorite shows tonight, American Pickers. Two guys, Frank and Mike, travel the country trying to find antiques and treasures that they can refurbish, resell or retain as their own. It's like a Deseret Industries, Garage Sale, Estate Sale Heaven. Okay...maybe just my kind of heaven.

On tonight's episode they found this old toy called a "balancing man". It was a small man standing on a tall platform holding a long rod with both of his hands. At either end of the rod was a weighted ball. My grandfather, Dan Carly, was a master craftsman and made many wooden toys and novelty items for family and friends. One of the items he made was a balancing man. I was always fascinated with that toy. It was almost impossible to knock him over because the load he carried was perfectly balanced. No matter what you did, he stayed atop that platform, rocking, wobbling, never falling.

There has definitely been a lot of rocking and wobbling in our lives since our Adventure began. We are trying to balance the load and not fall but it is not as easy as that toy made it look. I guess the best part is that we get another chance every morning to rebalance our load. Eventually, we will be immoveable, nothing will tip us over.

One of my friends, Brian Cole, posted a great quote on Facebook and it is precisely what I needed today.
"I am determined to be cheerful and happy in whatever situation I may find myself. For I have learned that the greater part of our misery or unhappiness is determined not by our circumstance but by our disposition."
~Martha Washington

Cheerful. I like that. I am going to dig that balancing man out of storage and put it somewhere that it will remind us everyday that we need to find the balance in our Adventure.

Love to you all!
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad