Rough Seas at Home

Every notice how, when things seem to be going really well,

all of a sudden.....

something happens....

like this:

No, luckily that isn't Butch's foot.
If it were his foot, there would be lost days at work, no sicktime, no paid vacation......and oh yeah. The cast would be much bigger :)


Sadly, it is mine.
My foot.
My boo boo.
My owie.

So what happened you ask? Well, I stepped backward off my driveway. My heel went down and my toes went up and somewhere in the middle twisted. And I saw stars and nearly threw up. So glamorous is this life I lead.

The ER doc said I had broken my 5th metatarsal or my cuboid.  He was not impressed that my left side of my foot was numb and that I could not move my 3 smallest toes. He gave me Vicodin, which made me cry and sleep a lot. Butch and the Princess say I mumbled and spoke incoherently to myself. (I prefer to think of it as conversing amongst myself.) He also put me in a worthless foam Jesus sandal looking velcro shoe and gave me crutches. (Enter the Vicodin reference...I couldn't use those crutches to save my life. Who could use them, when they are asleep, nauseated, and talking amongst themself?)

I was referred to an ortho surgeon, because the ER doc said I had broken a bone in my foot and damaged some ligaments or tendons. The ortho doctor said the ER doc was crazy. My foot had no breaks anywhere. What I did, was damage a nerve somewhere in that whole "twisting my foot in the middle" part.

He gave me the stylish new Fall boot seen above, told me to stand up straight and wear a good fitting running shoe on my good foot and go home to rest, ice and elevate. WHAT???? A good fitting running shoe? I am SUCH a flip flop girl....but alas, I followed his advice.

So how does this all fit into a blog about being a Tugboat Wife? Largely because this accident occurred while Butch was home, BUT NOW HE IS GONE!!!!!!!!!!! Waaaaaaaaaaah! Who is gonna cinch up my boot for me? Who is gonna wrap my foot in the compression thing? Who is gonna pick up things I drop because I can't squat or bend without tipping over? The Princess of course! She is a HUGE help!

It's hard to be a Tugboat wife in times like this, when I am supposed to be keeping everything going smoothly at home. It's hard to be strong and say it doesn't hurt all that much when I want to scream and kick something with my good foot.  It's hard to accept that my 16 year old is runnig our household this week.

I am blessed. I have church family that have brought food, and my Mama came today and took good care of me. But for the most part, it's just me, the Princess, and the cats. I gotta heal.....and quickly!!! You can't lead a Tugboat Life as a Tugboat Wife who can't even walk!!! But we keep on...not exactly full speed ahead, but limping along the coastline, doing the best we can.

Ah yes...a familiar scene on the river. These tugs are pushing the giant ship to the dock to be unloaded. It is still amazing to me, after all these years, that these tiny tugs and push those giant ships into place with seemingly little effort. Butch says it's all about the twin screw blah blah prop blah blah blah propulsion blah blah things. I just nod and smile like I understand, and he seems satisfied that he has properly educated me :)

Ask me a question!

What would you like to know about our life? What can I share that you would be interested in?

The life that God chose for us...

I get asked a lot "Why did Butch choose this job?". The answer to that is quite simple. He didn't choose this job for our family. God chose it for him.

Eight years ago Butch was working at a local grocery store as a butcher (hence the nickname). The
grocery store used to fill all of the grocery orders for the tug company once a week. When Butch inquired about the orders, he was intrigued.

When it came for the groceries to be picked up, Butch found himself chatting with a really nice guy who enjoyed telling Butch all about the company and what they did. Butch was really interested!

There are several things I should probably point out about Butch, and here they are, in no particular order:

• Butch served in US Navy right out of highschool.
• Butch is hyperactive very active and could never sit still at any type of desk job
• Butch will talk to a post. (Hence chatting up the man with the groceries)
• Butch has had several careers since we married, but each job move has been a move UP!
• I don't know a man who works harder than Butch. He will tackle any job, and if you tell him he can't do something then you had better just sit back and watch while he does it.

The company that Butch works for now has two types of employees....full-time and relief list. The relief list guys are the guys waiting for a full-time spot to open up. They work on a call-out basis when a deckhand is needed due to sickness, injury, or the need for a personal day off. At this point there are about 6 guys on this list and some of them have been waiting for full-time work for 6 years.

When Butch was chatting up the man with the grocery order, he didn't realize he wasn't just talking to anyone. He was talking to a member of management in the office. Mr. Manager guy told Butch if he was interested to come talk to him. He liked that Butch had prior maritime experience with the Navy and probably also noticed that under the white meat coat there were some fairly nice guns produced by cutting meat, which would come in handy for a deckhand!

We discussed  the job  that evening when Butch came home. He went and talked to the company that week.  He put in his two week notice at the grocery store and began training on the boat on his off days.

SO......how do we know this was a God ordained thing???
Because Butch was hired immediately. In a full-time capacity.
Because in the Navy, Butch was certified in shipboard firefighting. (Did you know tugboats fight fires? That's another blog post!)
Because the job paid several times more than his current job.
Because it gives him JOY.
Because it gave us PEACE.
And because we know that God has a plan for us.

"For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future".  Jeremiah 29:11

Tag Team!

Butch has decided to join the bloggy world with his own blog! Find him here at http://dabutchersworld.blogspot.com/

This is one of Butch's Instagram pics....this is overlooking the stern of the tugboat as it sails downriver.  That's the Talmadge Memorial Bridge in the background and the Westin Harbor Resort on your right.

Just wanted to share a pretty picture with you....one of the many reasons I love the river life!!!

Another Potential River Hazard?? And who knew you had a lymph nodein your ELBOW???

Butch began complaining of a lump under his arm about 2 weeks ago. He was on the boat, so I told him I would make an appointment for him for Friday when he got home. His typical caveman response was "Let's wait...it will probably go away...let's see how I feel when I get home." (insert caveman grunt here) Later that week, he said that his elbow was swollen and hurting. I again said that I could make him an appointment and again he told me "Let's wait and see how I feel."(grunt grunt)

When I picked Butch up Thursday night close to midnight, he couldn't move his left arm from beside his body. The lymph node under his arm was the size of a golf ball and his elbow was swollen, red and warm to the touch. We got home, and part of our church homegroup was still here at our house so they prayed over him and claimed that healing would manifest quickly in his body. By one o'clock AM Butch had pain shooting into his hand and numbness in his fingers.

I entered Mama bear mode.  I called our 24/7 nurse hotline and the nurse who triaged him said that he needed to be seen within 4 hours so we headed off to ye olde ER.

When the DR  saw Butch's hand, he ordered a CBC and blood cultures. They gave him Clindamycin in an IV and a shot of Toradol for pain and a shot of Phenergen for nausea. Dr said that because Butch chews his nails, he had contracted an infection that had traveled up his arm into the lymph nodes.  Did you know you have a lymph node in your elbow? Yes you sure do! Here is a photo to explain it!

Isn't it amazing what cool pics you can find at google.com? (Side node: Our family doctor later explained that in layman's terms, "gland" is used interchangeably with "lymph node")

They sent us home with a prescription for  Motrin  800 and Clinaomycin pills.

This is  what  Butch's  hand looked like that night: (eew)

                                          

By the  next evening, the lymph node  under the arm was baseball sized (NOT an exaggeration at all) and Butch was in excruciating pain. He still had the weird bump thing, and he was also dealing with fever and chills.

We went back to the ER, this time to a different hospital. This time the ER dr suspected a huge abscess under Butch's arm and sent him for a CT scan with contrast and had his nurse arranging for a surgical consult. He also hooked up an IV and drew more blood. When the  CT scan was normal, they began to look more closely at the hand. "What's that you say? You work on the river?  Oh my, there is no telling what type of bacterial infection you may have!"  My biggest concern was that since he handles lines that fall into the river, and lines from ships from all over the world, there truly was NO IDEA what this might be or where it came from. Add to it the recent water release from the dam upstate (see previous post) and you figure all of that stagnant, old water was flooding down our river......moving on.....

Enter more IV drugs, this time Penicillin. And more pain drugs, which I didn't get the name of  but wish I had because they KNOCKED MY MAN OUT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

As Butch rested in a  peaceful, magical world of unicorns and rainbows,  I visited with one of the pastors from our church. We discussed hymns, and how we love contemporary praise and worship songs but they just don't take the place of the old hymns.

Finally, blood work was back and the dr was befuddled. He decided it might be fun "to lance that thing open and see what we find".  A local pain shot or 12 and off he went, lancing and digging and poking and prodding. My poor man :(

Eventually, we were sent home. This time he was prescribed Doxycycline pills and given Percoset for the pain. His finger looked like a small mummy.

The next few days were rough. The pain was bad, the swelling kept him from putting his arm by his side or finding a comfortable position to sleep in. The fever and chills did not return, thankfully, and slowly Butch began to feel some better.  The ER dr had us follow up with our regular doctor a few days later  who added Prendisone to the mix  because the wound was not healing as well as he would have liked and the swelling was still pretty bad.  He was also quite annoyed that neither emergency doc bothered to swab the bump/incision for wound cultures.

Thursday  came and it was time for Butch to go back to work. Praise God, his hand is almost back to normal and the lymph node under his arm is almost normal sized again too.  I  spoke with him about an hour ago and by the grace of God he is doing ok. He has been working but the jobs have so far been relatively easy and he has managed fairly well.   The hand and armpit are ok, but the elbow is still VERY sore. Who knew we had lymph nodes in our elbows????

So tonight,when you pray for your spouse, would you do this tugboat wife a big favor and say a prayer for my man too? Butch thanks you, and so do I!

Here are a few Scriptures  to reference for God's healing:

Psalm 41:3
The LORD sustains them on their sickbed and restores them from their bed of illness. (NIV) 

Psalm 147:3
He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds. (NIV) 

Isaiah 53:5
But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed. (NIV) 

Isaiah 58:8
Then your light will break forth like the dawn, and your healing will quickly appear; then your righteousness will go before you, and the glory of the LORD will be your rear guard. (NIV) 

Jeremiah 17:14
Heal me, LORD, and I will be healed; save me and I will be saved, for you are the one I praise. (NIV) 

  Jeremiah 30:17a For I will restore health to you, and your wounds I will heal, declares the Lord (NIV)