Spice and Sugar - A Perfect Combination for Valentine's Day

Saturday, a wonderful day for sleeping in. Often what happens on Saturday morning is that I will wake up at about the time I normally get up so when I looked at the clock and it said 5:10 it was especially nice to lay in bed a little longer. As it turned out it was close to 8:00 before I actually got up. I LOVE Saturday mornings when I can sit and have my coffee and read my Bible and just ease into the day. That is exactly how my day started and it was wonderful.

The Spice

Since Dan had his foot surgery getting out has consisted of going to the doctor or the emergency room so we decided to get lunch somewhere and settled on Carlo's O'Kelly, one of our favorite places and thus the spicy part of my day. We left around 11:30, got a table right away and enjoyed a wonderful lunch. By the time we left there was a wait so we were glad we went early. I stopped at the grocery store and picked up a few things and that was the extent of our outing but it was fun to get out and do something together.

The Sugar

In the evening Mikaela and Elise came to spend the evening while Tom and Denise got together for a fondue dinner with some friends just up the street. While they were dipping we were frosting and doing a little dipping ourselves. I had made Valentine cookies ahead of time and we decorated them with either pink, purple, or turquoise frosting and sprinkled and with a wide variety of sugars and little decorations. We also dipped pretzels and decorated them. Thus the sugar part of my Valentines day. I enjoyed seeing the girls and I hope they had a good time.

What Fun

For a time now Dan has been having trouble with a bunion on his left foot. Two years ago he had a small surgery that was suppose to help it but it did not really do the job and it had gotten pretty bad again. A bigger repair was done a week ago and we are hoping that it will be much better after it heals.

Before the surgery you can see where the baby toe is sticking out on the side.He emerged from surgery with a great big bandage on his foot. The surgeon straightened out the toe and placed 2 little screws in the bone to hold it in place until it healed. There was also another little bone spur on the top of his foot that was removed.

Three days later we went back in to have it casted. After the bandage came off you can see what repair was made. The toe is much straighter now.

Also notice the rash on his leg. That should have given us a clue that his leg was not happy all bandaged up. We weren't listening though.

They fixed him up with a pretty orange cast. It was on his leg for less than 24 hours.

In the evening of that day he broke out in hives, especially in places that were closed in and a little warm - not fun. A big problem though was that where we could see underneath his cast it was all broke out. It was driving him CRAZY. In being married to Dan for 34 years I have never seen him be so bothered by anything. We went to the ER and waited and waited and waited and eventually they gave him Benadryl - whoppee, and then they did split open his cast. The resident that was seeing him was a little hesitant to just take it off and by this time the Benadryl had worked some so it was a little better. To make a long story short he should have just taken the thing off. We got home about 2:00 AM and were able to sleep. In the morning it was bad again so off to the clinic this time. They finished the job that had been started in the ER the night before and this is what his leg looked like

His surgeon saw him and was dumbfounded as to what was going on. He was put into a boot instead of a cast and it appears that he will just stay in it. His doctor's comment was "you are just a very complex person".

Stay tuned for the ongoing adventures of Dan's bunion - or non bunion at this point.