Update....

It's been a long 3 weeks! Randal had surgery on Nov. 16th, friday. [The disk between the 4th and 5th vertebrae ruptured INTO the spinal canal!! This caused him to lose control of his legs. They wouldn't hold him up and he ended up falling all over the place.]The following Tuesday he was mistakenly sent home! He called me from the hospital with the names of two drugs he needed a prescription for...he wasn't certain of how to spell them. I found this very odd that they'd send him home without prescriptions! He was told to go home and call outpatient services. We couldn't even find anything by that name! So called the rehab centre at the hospital. They sent someone over twice. Then after having him home for almost a week I was feeling quite at loose ends as to what should be happening with him. I was concerned about the incision and dressing on his back. He had 20 staples! It didn't look pretty...If I'd thought of it I'd have grossed you all out and taken pictures. :D
So I took him in to see our dr. on Monday, after him being home for 6 days. Our doctor was surprised to see him. He asked why Randal wasn't in the rehab unit at the hospital. Randal told him that the nurse had said that the hospital he was supposed to transfer to was full and that he should go home. Dr. was very surprised! He showed us the letter he had gotten from our neurosurgeon, saying that he'd arranged a bed for him in the rehab unit and that he'd been transferred there!! He quickly left the room and went out to make some calls. He came back in after speaking to the neurologist and the rehab unit. He said that yes they still wanted him in there but now there really were no beds, so go home and wait for them to call. Our dr. seemed very stressed and upset about this mixup! He said you hear about people dying because of medical mixups in hospitals but this was the first time he'd seen such a stupid mistake. They finally called on Thursday afternoon and I took him up there. He stayed until today. Six days with a 24 hr pass over the weekend.
My mom was here for 2 weeks and 1 day throughout this time. It was so nice to have her here. I don't really like staying alone with the kids but do on occasion, if I have to. I didn't ask her to come because I don't like to ask her to do things. She's quite busy with what she has going on at home there and in their church. But she came. So it was great having her here. She took over the cooking, the laundry, schooling Janelle and many other tasks! (I was her assistant :D )
It was so wonderful..We got alot of work done around here too. We sorted out the kids clothes and got rid of the stuff that no longer fits anyone....a huge job to tackle! Another job that she helped me with was grocery shopping...I really don't care for this task. So it was very cool to have someone help me with it.
We also switched two of the girls rooms. We got paint to do their rooms too. We also picked out some inexpensive blinds for the living room windows. There are 5 3x5 windows and I'm having a hard time figuring out what to do with them other than the white blinds.
We did alot of different things, including hospital visits, all the while doing the everyday stuff...It has been exhausting.
There is still a bunch of stuff to finish up before we can start our Christmas decorating. Courtenay put up our prelit artificial tree on the weekend. We're debating getting a real live tree that's extra tall...our ceiling is about 10 ft. So we'll have to see how that works out.
Anyway.. that's the long and the short of it. We've just been plugging away here, bit by bit getting things done.
Randal will now have to see a physiotherapist for awhile, privately. We just found out that our health plan doesn't cover this...well I shouldn't say that they don't cover it...they cover $8 of each visit. Each visit is between $50 and $65! But we serve a big God who takes care of his children! He will work this out..even when things seem impossible...they aren't..not with God!
Oh...I almost forgot! His Mom is doing well too. She had a bloodclot that wasn't too big...which is a first! She usually waits until she is going crazy with pain before she goes in and by then the clot is huge. One time she went in with a clot that went from her knee down to her foot! So this was great to catch it before it grew. She's driving and back to herself!

THANK YOU all for your prayer~ I so very much appreciated it!