Seth's Birthday

October 7th was Seth's birthday which fell on a Wednesday this year. Wednesdays are his LONG days and he doesn't usually get home until 10:15 pm. Since he is gone all day, I usually try to work extra this day. I went in at 6:45 that day since I wouldn't see him anyway. Since we didn't get to spend any time together that day, I told him that we could go to Pigeon Forge that weekend and go to Bass Pro. He could pick out his birthday present there since I had no idea what to get him. He had school Friday so we didn't get to leave until 6:00. It was about 7:30 when we got to Bass Pro and getting ready to pour the rain. They didn't close until 10 so we had plenty of time to shop. He found a couple small things that he wanted and we got Nattie a bag of rawhide chewies.

Last time we went in August, we found a jacket that he really liked and it was on sale. Under Armour is rarely on sale and I tried to get him to go ahead and get it. He wouldn't and told me he didn't need it so I thought, "Fine, I will just get it for you for your birthday." I tried to find it online but I couldn't find it on sale and I wasn't sure what size to get. I knew what size fit him but he has to wear it over two or three layers of clothes. I figured we would just wait and get it when we went down there. Needless to say, they didn't have it. Apparently, the ones we saw in August were leftover from last year. They had one left in a medium but that is not his size. They had new ones, which looked almost identical, but they were definitely NOT on sale. Anyway, we fussed about it for about 30 minutes until he finally gave in a tried one on. He said they were too expensive for a jacket but with Under Armour, you get what you pay for. He only has a couple new hunting clothes that were bought for him. The rest of what he has is hand me downs or just a quick fill in from the Wal-Mart that do not fit him like they should. If he is going to wear it and it fits him, I don't mind to get it.

While we were there, the power went out so it was almost impossible to look for anything in the dark. We finally got everything we wanted/needed and went to the checkout. We have a Bass Pro credit card and since my school was on it, we had accumulated quite a few points. They come as cash rewards so we got about $40 off our purchase. Seth got gift card for his birthday that he used on some stuff and we ended up getting out of there spending only as much as the jacket. It was like we got everything else for FREE!

Since we were already down there and had Season Passes to Dollywood, we thought we would run through their Fall Festival. Not much was different except the decorations and some booths set up for individuals. We got a roof slate welcome sign and some Kettle Corn while we were there. We didn't stay but maybe 2-2.5 hours but it was so nice because it was cloudy and cool. We also stopped by the Christmas Place...wow! I had never been there before and Christmas is my favorite holiday. You need an entire day (or two) to look at everything in that place. We found a couple ornaments for our tree, a CD, a couple tarts for our warmer and a set of wooden deer to put next to our tree (they were 40% off!). We had a really nice time and found some nice things. Here is a picture of his new jacket which he takes very good care of by the way.

Doctor visit

Many of you may know that Seth had surgery on his ankle back in August to remove some hardware from a previous surgery. The original accident happened in 2005 and he has never been able to walk very well since then. Some days are worse than others and most of the time it is really bad after he has been working all day mowing or walking around. The doctor gave him some arthritis medicine earlier this year to help with the arthritis but we decided to go ahead and try surgery to see if it would help. The surgeon said that when he went in to take out the plate and screws that he would also cut off the bone spurs that restricted alot of Seth's movement. We decided to do it now because Seth graduates in May and we didn't want him to have to take time off from a brand new job to have a surgery.
We went August 12th for an outpatient procedure and after about 2-3 weeks, he was starting to improve. We had a hard time getting the incisions on the outside of his foot to heal but we kept bandaging them tight and they finally started to heal. About the second or third week of September, Seth was starting to move pretty well and not have as much pain. He felt so good one day that he walked all the way across campus to get something to eat with a friend. That was when the pain started coming back. He has more trouble ever since and actually told me he wished he never would have had the surgery.
He went back to the doctor this week and they did another xray. It looks much better than before the surgery but the doctor said that it is very inflammed and he has less movement now than he did two weeks after the surgery. They ended up giving him a cortisone shot to see if it would help with some of the pain and told him to really work on stretching it every day. Some mornings when I get off work, I will wake him up by stretching his foot. It is easier for me to push him because I can't feel when it hurts. I know it does hurt but he has to get some movement back in it. He has discovered that by changing his shoes every couple of hours, he can keep the pain from getting bad. He thinks it is because he is changing the position of his foot. He rotates between his boots, tennis shoes and Crocs He also says that he thinks the cortisone shot is helping.
Please keep him in your thoughts and prayers that he will be able to gain more movement and have less pain in his foot. He is back to hunting a little so that is a good sign. It makes me a little nervous thinking about him climbing up a tree but he says he is ready so what can I do?