Stages of Normal

I know you have probably been suffering from withdrawal going so many days without hearing from us after 2-3 posts per day for so long! We have been trying to figure out what to do and where to go since we still have no power at our house. It was quite a welcome to the post-Ike world. I didn't know what to expect, but it was a bit crazy. Street lights and signals are out and piles of tree limbs are everywhere. I know we missed the worst. Most things were already somewhat cleaned up.

We spent the first 2 nights at my sister's apartment. That was not as bad as it could have been. We had some good nights and the days we spent moving stuff to get to other stuff and then moving that stuff back. We quickly realized that it could not be a too-long-term solution. We then got a few calls from people offering their homes for refuge. We decided to move closer to our house so we could be near family and friends. We had SO much stuff because we had packed in shifts and as needed, so we had hospital things, hurricane supplies, baby items, and big boy toys and a potty seat. This included a cooler big enough to fit both me and both boys with room to spare. We looked so funny hauling everything out! We caravaned up to the Woodlands and settled into our NEW home away from home.

On Saturday we went back to our house (our home with no power). We took a few pictures of the subdivision:

See Travis and me off to the right? That gives some perspective. And Travis is standing on a piece of stump almost as big as he is!

There were some HUGE trees that went down in our subdivision! I can't imagine what it looked like those first few days!

Sunday afternoon we were concerned about Justin's chest tube hole. It had been getting red, so we called the cardiologist and he asked us to come into the ER. So we spent Sunday afternoon at TCH emergency. We were there for 5 hours and got a chest x-ray, EKG, and blood work, and looked normal. They think it was irritation from the stitches so they took them out and told us to watch it.

It is now Monday morning and we stopped by this morning and there is still nothing, so we are still at the Koctar's. It is difficult going back to being the parent of two boys again. Travis is doing so well with going potty, but we ALL have to go into the bathroom to go potty! And the rooms are close so one wakes up the other. You know, all the things that we dealt with prior to surgery! It was hard in the hospital having my mom and sister knowing more about what was going on with Travis than I did. I guess that's how Randy feel sometimes. It was fun getting the boys both ready for bed tonight. Justin was able to have a REAL bath, in water and everything. Soon we can bathe the boys together again. Here's Randy talking with Justin before bed tonight. He was getting his bedtime instructions...sleep hard, sleep long!

We are getting back to normal, but it is going to be in stages. We are so glad to be out of the hospital, and hopefully the next step will be getting home. We will be spending some time at home healing, and slowly back to our activities. Of course, it is a new normal, but it's OUR normal.