Clarine - Update

It has been two weeks and four days since Clarine had her ankle (foot) fixed. It seems like eons. There is still a long time to go until the three month recuperative period is over. I guess I am inherently impatient. Clarine handles it all better than I do. The pictures show her "biding her time." She is an excellent patient - extremely independent. I am mostly a "go fer" - go for this; go for that. She is a non-complainer. (I leave her on her own twice a week for temple service. She seems to manage well. I like having her go to the temple with me.) I think she is doing what the doctor told her to do to help recovery. If you look at the photos closely, you will see the electronic device strapped to her ankle. She wears it three hours a day to speed recovery of the bones. (Her bones were soft, so they put two four-inch screws into her ankle to hold the bones into the proper alignment.) That took so much time that the window on the tourniquet time ran out before they straightened her toes, so they stopped - leaving her toes bent under. Apparently this was the lesser of the two evils. Three hours was the length of the tourniquet window. If all goes well the blue cast can come off after the eight to ten week mark. This will be replaced with a boot, and some limited walking will be allowed. I'll bet a lot of dead skin will be evident after the cast is removed. I will update again anon.

We had a snow storm on Saturday that put much, much snow in the mountains. There was lots of moisture here. Thankfully it was not all snow. My neighbor (Jacobsen) stopped by and shoveled the piled up (by the wind) leaves into my flower bed. The snow stuck on the leaves but not on the driveway. Jalayne stopped by Saturday evening and we ate left overs. It was so nice of her to stop by. She insisted that she had to be back in Logan Sunday morning for her church duties. She made it back but stopped in Kaysville at Kim and Chris' when the storm got so heavy and continued to Logan Sunday morning.

We are going to be very low profile on Thanksgiving (probably for Christmas too). The Friday after Thanksgiving we expect to see Beth, Hanna, Carol, Keith, Lisa, Phil and family. I have even heard rumors that Phil may set up his assembly line for producing turkey tamales.

We are going to do one adventuresome thing in December. We have a week in a time share in St. George, December 5th through December 12th. We won't leave here until 7 December after the temple shift. We will return 10 December for the temple the next day. We plan to drive Clarine's car as it is lower and easier for Clarine to get into. Her wheelchair will fit into the trunk. There is an elevator at the timeshare. Our friends, the Allreds are joining us in St George where we will play games and eat - perhaps venture out a little if circumstances permit. This is the end of the report for this time. gwh