Story of Us, Part V

So, it has been a while. Jamie went into the hospital on July 23 for his second surgery and didn't come out again until August 12 -- 21 days later. The full story (in emails) is posted in Story of Us, Part V.

My new violin (I think I'll call her Sabine...Top Gear fans might get the reference) had its first public performances -- in church with piano accompaniment and at a wedding as part of a violin duet. I can't wait to play it in an orchestra!

For Labor Day Weekend, we took our first mini-vacation trip. We've traveled to other places and stayed in hotels before, but we've always gone because of something. When we visited the museums in Raleigh, we were in town for me to play at a wedding. When we went to the beach, we were there to be Mom for her surgery. When we went to Anacortes together, we had to pack up Jamie's stuff. When we went through the Shenandoah Valley and up to Bethlehem, PA, we were on a business trip.

We went to Charlotte for our mini-vacation. We stated at the Hilton Garden Inn in Uptown Charlotte. It was super nice and directly across the street from the NASCAR Hall of Fame. We ate great food and visited lots of new places: Discovery Place, the Charlotte Nature Museum, the NASCAR Hall of Fame, Southpark Mall, and the Carolina Raptor Center. We took lots of pictures (go to our Flickr album!).

The days are quickly counting down to Jamie's third and final surgery on October 11. This surgery will only take about an hour and will have a much shorter recovery time (3-5 days). Since the surgery will be shorter than the last one, we're hoping Jamie won't have the same intestinal problems. Anesthesia makes the digestive system really sluggish and sometimes it takes a while for everything to start working again. The longer a patient is under anesthesia, the harder it is for the gut to wake up. And, when the patient has digestive problems to begin with...well you get the idea.

If I'm a good girl, I'll post my surgery/hospital update emails on the blog as soon as I send them.