Doug called me Wednesday to tell me that his car was broke on the side of the road. I asked what was wrong with it and he told me that with over 300,000 miles on it, it finally gave up the ghost and threw a rod through the side of the engine block. I'm not a mechanic, but have heard the guys talk enough about vehicles to know that what that means is that the engine is shot! Will never run again. It was the only running vehicle they had. Needless to say, he was very upset. And Virginia had an appointment in Grand Rapids to have Alissa's cello repaired. It seems the man who repairs the cello's is only there on Wednesdays. I told them that I could give them a ride, but I couldn't just drop what I was doing and go right then. I needed to finish making Tom's dinner and make sure his clothes were out of the drier and ready. I suggested they call and see how long the cello repairman was going to be there.........they did and found out he would be there until 5PM. GREAT. Gave me plenty of time, but then only 1 of them could go with me as the other one would need to be at home since some of the kids would be getting of the bus before I would make it back. They decided that Doug would go since Virginia had a headache and still wasn't feeling totally recovered from the pneumonia.

Fast forward to Thursday evening about 7:30 PM. My phone rings and it's Virginia all upset........I can hear it in her voice. She said that Harley had fallen in the house and hit her mouth and put her teeth through her lip and there was blood everywhere, and she needed to go to the ER. I told her I was on my way. While driving there I'm having flashbacks to the day when Doug was about 6 and fell off the neighbors porch and bit his tongue half off and they had to sew it back on and stitch the cut in his chin. I get there and Doug brings Boo to the car and she is holding this washcloth with ice inside to her mouth. As he is putting her in the car, the washcloth gets moved away from her mouth and I see this chunk of top lip skin hanging down and notice that her top teeth are pushed in and one is partially behind the other. I'm thinking......'oh, this isn't a good thing at all'!

While driving to Plainwell to reach the nearest ER from their house (it's called Borgess-Pipp Hospital, btw) Doug starts explaining to me how she fell. She was running and Hunter accidentally stepped on her sock that was coming off her foot causing her to fall forward, face first onto the top edge of the coffee table. Poor little girl. She was being so brave. She would move the cloth away from her mouth every so often and say "Daddy, my mouth hurts." But you have to hear it come out of a little 4 year old girl who can't say her ''r's" and is talking funny because her lip is more than twice the size it should be and her teeth have been pushed into her mouth. Very pathetic. We got her there and had a long wait. There was an elderly man with chest pains, an elderly lady who was in a diabetic coma, a baby with seizures, so we certainly understood why we had to wait. They had to deal with the more critical patients first. By the time Boo is finally seen by a doctor, he informs us that it is going to take at least 1 stitch to close the area, but there is a chance he might have to clip some of the lip skin away as it was already turning black. They brought in the suture kit and a needle and some med to numb her lip and gave her the shot. There were really 3 times that he had to poke her to make sure it was all the way numb. She cried big alligator tears, but that's okay. Once the shots began to take effect she was quiet again and holding Daddy's hand. The doctor was able to close it with two stitches and didn't need to clip any skin off............whew, we were glad of that. Then he decided he needed to take a good look at her teeth. Her gum above her two front teeth is terribly swollen and bruised already and he tried to move the one tooth from behind the other one. He was able to accomplish that, but feels that Harley should see a dentist as soon as possible. I finally got them to their house at 10:30PM and left and got back home just around 11:00 PM. It was a very long and frustrating evening. Ones that I thought I was all finished with. Some things never change, do they? Gosh, I hope they can purchase a vehicle soon!

FF, once again to Friday morning. Doug calls and has scheduled an appointment for Harley for 11:30 with the only dentist in the entire area that had an opening. Remember, it's wintertime in Michigan and I don't like to drive when the roads are slick and icy. And after receiving another 4 inches of wet heavy snow overnight, that's exactly how the roads were. So, for the second time this morning I wake Bumpa up. The first time was when...........now please don't laugh, I feel out of bed landing on my hip with a rather loud thud. I had been sound asleep and rolled over and out. Mind you, our bed is a pedestal bed with six drawers underneath it so it is quite a ways off the floor, much higher than most beds. It was a modified waterbed frame if that gives you any idea of it's height. And I am very sore and am having trouble getting around today. But I digress. So, good ole Bumpa gets out of bed, quickly drinks a cup of coffee and leaves to drive 16 miles southeast to pick up Doug and Harley and turns around to drive 10 miles back north to deliver them to the dentist office. He then drives 10 miles back south to return them home and drives 16miles to return to our home so he can get ready for his second shift job and drive 27 miles to work. He didn't even get his dinner today. But he said it doesn't matter as long as the grand daughter is going to be okay and no damage was done to her permanent teeth. Bumpa said she asked when she had to go see another doctor with a worried look on her face and her daddy told her not for a while. I think he will take her sutures out himself rather than try and arrange for another ride back to the ER which is another 10 miles south of where he lives.

So in spite of all the drama of the last couple days, things turned out okay and all will be back to normal before we know it..........maybe even by spring!