It is way past time for an update. We have been extremely busy here the past couple weeks. Dennis Wurm came all the way from Indiana and surprised Lowell. I should say he "shocked" Lowell! If you consider that Lowell's mouth fell open and he was rendered speechless. It was wonderful to have him here! Although, Jen, I'm afraid I spoiled him with fresh garden tea all week!

Then Kenny and Genny Graber came on Wednesday along with Baby Benson. We have been having such a good time with them! Us women have been just hanging out here at the house with all the babies and kiddos. We don't have much of a schedule and our poor company actually get cold cereal for breakfast most mornings. They assure me they don't mind and I have no choice but to believe them. Genny made a mocha cheesecake for Sunday dinner today that is beyond scrumptious and was almost too pretty to eat.

Uncle Kenny and Aunt Rita came on Friday and will leave tomorrow morning. I think we've convinced them that two full days is not nearly enough time to take in all of North Idaho since Uncle Kenny just bought his Idaho elk tags for this fall.

Yesterday we took everyone up to the top of Black Mountain. That is one of the places where you can see for miles around, including Canada, Montana, and possibly Washington. That was a big milestone for Lowell! He has slowly been building up steam this week and did terrific yesterday. His stamina is improving daily and he can be up longer than he has yet since the accident. His pain has reduced tremendously from what it was 3-4 weeks ago. In fact, we have cancelled the pain clinic appointment and will continue with his Lyrica for the time being.

We have so many things to thank God for! Lowell is feeling so much better and we even got to go to Sunday School today. Just doing a few more of those "normal" things feels so good. He is even going to go flying this evening. Marcus Byler has agreed to take our company up in his plane so they can see Bonners Ferry from the air. Then we will make homemade ice cream for any and all who'd care to stop by!

We have an appointment with the ortho doctor on Wednesday. So I will try to get another update posted after that. Maybe, just maybe, he will say that Lowell is no longer an invalid!!

Until then,
The Idaho Grabers

Lowell is going to drive to town today! He has done it once by himself already, but he will be gone for several hours today. He wants to see if the chiropractor can help him at all. Then he also wants to stop at the worksite to get himself back in the swing of work again. He has been doing some office work/estimates here at home, although not like he normally does. His meds make it hard for him to think clearly and even see clearly. So we are also beginning to cut back a little on the meds to see if we can't help his vision and other side effects a bit. The pain is down to a bearable level. And for that, we praise our Lord! He has saw us through this far and we are confident He will continue to do so.

May you all have a blessed summer day!

The house is quiet for an hour right now while the little ones are all napping. So I am grabbing my chance to post another update on Lowell.

We are still waiting to get a call back from the pain clinic in Coeur d'Alene as to whether or not they will accept us and set up an appointment. If they decide to accept us, it will probably still be two weeks until we can get in. Lowell's ortho doctor referred him to this pain clinic to get an epidural steroidal injection. It's an injection (or series of injections) in the lower spine to help reduce his sciatic nerve pain. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. But it's worth a try right now.

On Sunday evening, his pain was pretty bad and we called the ministers to see if they could come anoint him. They were glad to do it and we felt a peace knowing it is truly in the Lord's hands. He was not miraculously healed, but we believe God's will is being done in our lives. We believe Lowell, in his pain, will somehow be able to bring more glory to God than having been healed from it. We don't know how or why - we're just trusting Him.

Yesterday we went to see our family doctor here in Bonners Ferry. He was so very kind and talked with us quite a while about Lowell's meds and physical therapy. He put Lowell back on Dilaudid, which is something he was on in the hospital for pain. And he's also trying a different type of muscle relaxer. I don't know if his Lyrica is beginning to kick in or if the Dilaudid is helping that much, but today has been the best day we've had in a couple weeks. That's not to say he won't have some bad episodes yet. His nerve pain is different from all his other pain. It fades into the background for an hour or two, but then comes roaring back leaving him almost shaking. I think he's done really well considering the amount of pain he's in.

As for the rest of us, we are having a really fine day. I was able to weed my garden and put down some mulch around the swing set. For me, that is called "playing"! We're learning to count the little blessings God gives us. It sure helps to keep our spirits up!

Until next time,
The Idaho Grabers

This is going to be a shorter update. Supper is waiting in the oven!

Lowell is still in quite a bit of pain. We went to the ortho doctor down in Spokane on Tuesday. He is taking Lowell off of his old meds and trying some new. The new consist of an anti-inflammatory, antidepressant, muscle relaxer, and a newer form of nerve med called Lyrica. We were advised about the antidepressant from a friend. Today is the third day he's been on that and we are hopeful it may be helping him. The pain hasn't been quite as constant today, coming more in surges again. So that is good! If I have my information correct, the antidepressant helps to heighten his pain sensitivity and also boost his mood, thereby enabling him to deal with the pain better. Lowell told me today he thinks yesterday may have been the lowest point, so we are praying it's all uphill from here on.

Nelson and Krista left today. We had eight little kiddos in the house here. It got rather noisy at times, but considering everything it went very well. The cousins all had so much fun! We went through popsicles and milk like the kids thought there was going to be a shortage. Days consisted of running through the sprinkler, splashing in the wading pool, playing at the creek, eating popsicles in the grass, and having a picnic in the front yard. And of course there was the sandbox, swing set, and slide that got put to much use. We put up quite a few pictures on our xanga site if you care to look.

Gotta go - the timer's beeping!

We woke up to some gloriously brilliant sunshine! It was shining in beautifully at 6:30, although the sky begins to lighten up before 4:00am right now. If you're wanting sleep, don't come to Bonners Ferry in the summer. Daylight is from 4:00am to 10:00pm. When we first moved here, I would be up with the baby around 3-4am. The first night I just thought we had a really bright full moon. After a week of "full moons", I realized it was actually the sun coming up! All you Idaho natives can laugh at me, that's okay.

As I was sitting in the living room this morning trying to adjust to the bright sunshine after a week of rain, Terrel came up to me. Now for those of you who don't know Terrel, he is our almost-five-year-old. He is the one that has a will of iron with a heart of sugar! This morning he looked at me with a face full of trusting innocence and said, "Mom, God knows a way to make everything just right!" Ahh, you should've seen the puddle my heart made on the floor. Sometimes children see things that we as adults have too much "knowledge" to comprehend. From the mouths of babes . . . .

Summer is made for popsicles and sprinklers, right? At least, that's what the little Grabers here think. Today has been full of radiant sunshine and the kiddos have already been out with the hose and wading pool . . . although I did see some water get sprayed on my clean windows. They had been asking for popsicles ever since we got home from town this morning, but I told them they had to have some cheese first. I am still trying to get a bit of good nutrition in them in spite of our mixed-up lives right now. One cannot live on Cheetos and popsicles alone, right? But I figured they couldn't be too hungry since they had had a little snack not too long before. I told Derek they probably weren't even hungry yet, anyway. To which he said, "No, we're not really hungry yet. We'd just like something cold, like popsicles!" Uh-huh, Mom could see through that one.

For those of you who were praying for us last evening, I'd like to say thanks. Lowell's pain was so severe we had to call our family doctor again. We also talked with a couple people who gave us some ideas to try for his sciatic pain. It seems as if the nerves in his left leg and foot are waking up. That is good, but so very painful. The pain runs down his left leg into his foot and toes, with the most severe pain being below his knee. He says the pain is always there just under the surface, but the times when it gets severe it feels like electricity shooting down his leg, foot, and through his toes. We are expecting a call back from the nurse at the ortho doctor's office today. She may have some ideas to help or a new med to try. It looks as if his neurontin may not be helping at all. So we would appreciate prayer in that regard. By the time this pain subsides, one of us will probably have gone nuts! Let's just hope it's not both of us.

Lowell and I were reading the first chapter of Job the other evening when we got to the last verse. "In all this Job sinned not, nor charged God foolishly."Job 1:22 Our circumstances right now are nothing compared to what Job was going through in his day. Yet he sinned not. That is the intent of our hearts - that we would not bring dishonor to the name of Jesus, but that all praise and glory should go to the One who has shown Himself to us and to those watching these events. There is no other way to describe how we have felt through this than to say we have been "held". Held in the hand of our loving Father.

Two slushy slurpin' cuties!

It looks as if we are now on our own for a bit. Mom left this morning to fly back home to Dad in Indiana. We appreciated her being here so very much! She was here while I gave Lowell his first spit bath, his first shower, his first church service, and for the doctor appointments when we just picked up and left within the hour. It was incredibly wonderful just to have her here to watch the kids while I did things for Lowell. I feel a little more confident that we can handle most of it now that it's become a routine for us. But I also know that I can call on a church full of people, as well as multiple neighbors, who would love to come help us.

Here's how our day begins. I usually have a one of the three older children sleep on Daddy's side of the bed with me. They take turns every night and I'm in big trouble if I forget whose turn it is! At 6:00am (give or take 1/2 hour) another little person pitter-patters downstairs to snuggle in bed with Mom, just in time for Logan to wake up in his crib. Once the body count reaches four in my bed, I'm outta there. Little kids are none too gentle on the ribs!

Coffee comes next. And if I'm really good, I might even get dressed and my hair combed before Lowell needs his pain meds and breakfast. Then all the kiddos need breakfast and our day truly begins. Lowell usually gets up several times a day to use the restroom and maybe sit in the office a bit. But for the better part of 24 hours, he is in his recliner.

We went to see our family doctor yesterday because Lowell was complaining of a sore throat. The doctor said it looked like a fungus that came about because of antibiotics he had been on. So we are to keep an eye on it and he will prescribe a Nystatin gargle/flush if it gets worse.

Lowell has also been feeling a sharp pain in his left shoulder blade. We asked the doctor if the nerve that runs through his left elbow, where they did major surgery, would originate back there. He said that 3 nerves run through your arm and hand and they are all joined right back there in the shoulder blade. So, hopefully, it means he may be able to extend the fingers on his left hand since it seems to be nerves that are keeping him from doing that at the moment.

God bless you all!
The Idaho Grabers

Two ornery guys!

Neither one of us is getting a huge kick out of this hair-washing job!

Right now I have two very good reasons why I'm glad God made me a woman. The first reason is that you can eat chocolate without feeling too guilty, and the second reason is that you can change your mind as often as you change clothes. So once again I have changed my mind and decided to continue this carepage. It seems a bit more user-friendly than the xanga site, at least to those of you who have gotten used to it. I did not realize that to leave a comment on the xanga site, you would actually have to have your own xanga site. So we will mostly use that for our general family life . . . umm, such as it is at the moment. And we will continue Lowell's saga on here.

We called in to the doctor this morning to see if we could get an appointment today. Lowell's left leg is beginning to wake up out of it's 3-week sleep and is nearly driving him crazy, short trip though it may be. (Those of you who didn't get that comment . . . don't ask.) Anyway, they got us an appointment at 1:45pm. So we left all the kiddos with Mom and flew down there. That is, we hovered just slightly over the speed limit.

We also visited Costco for diapers, diapers, and baby wipes. Then we proceeded to get lost trying to find the doctor's office. Not really lost - we just went the wrong way. I have become such a country hillbilly that driving in a big city such as Spokane is pushing the limit of my sanity. Lowell wasn't much help considering he'd taken some pain pills and his leg felt on fire. The guy has felt pretty miserable the last 3-4 days. He has been sick to his stomach from his pain meds and the sciatic nerve is coming back in his left leg. He said it feels like a hot poker down his leg. But it is good pain since he now has feeling in 3 out of his 5 toes. I told him to think of it like a woman does in labor - the pain is good, right? To put it mildly, he did not appreciate that comment.

We got to see the xrays for the first time since his surgery. Suffice it to say, it was gross. The xray of his elbow was disgustingly fascinating. When they told us they put screws in it, I was thinking the kind of screws that hold glasses together, like the 1/4 inch kind. Excuse me, but this looked like nails! Lowell will probably read this post tomorrow and say I exaggerated a bit, but that is the thought that came to mind when I first saw it. We'd really like to get the xrays on a disk so we can look at them again at home! Makes for great entertainment on long winter nights.

The physician's assistant gave us a prescription for some generic neurontin - a pain med specifically for nerve pain. So, Lord willing, he will begin to get a little relief from his sciatic pain - especially since she said it could last 2 months.

Lowell felt smugly happy when the xray of his right hand looked really good with new bone growing around a fracture. I say "smugly" because I had been reminding him not to put weight on it and also to wear his splint (which had been off more than on lately). Just trying to do my job as a nurse . . . guess I'd better do my job as a wife now and be quiet about some things. He really does know what he's doing as far as how much he can do with broken bones, considering he's had enough in his lifetime to pretty much write a manual on it. But everything looked good and now he has some new pain meds and (without docs orders) some crutches. He even hobbled into the house on them - then nearly passed out on his chair. Well, not quite. He was a little lightheaded - it just makes a better story to say he nearly passed out!

Okay, I think I need to go to bed since this is beginning to not make much sense. Good night all!

Until the next ramblings,
The Idaho Grabers