Family ski trip - take 2! (Straight to the hospital)

Tuesday night our house was in a flurry of excitement and activity. Tomorrow we were going skiing - and this time, we were going to be even more organized, and less spur-of-the-moment as last time!

The table was piled high with 8 piles of ski clothes - one pile for each person. The fridge contained a prepared lunch - enough to feed an army, or at least our hungry crew of skiers.

The kids were sent to bed with prayers and well-wishes for a great night sleep before our big skiing day. The next morning, John went early into the office to work for a few hours before everyone got up and ready to head to the slopes. Lillia came into my bed as she often does around 7 AM - I thought she wanted to cuddle. I quickly awoke, however, when she said, "Why is Mariyana crying?"

I wasn't sure - in fact, I had no idea, but knew that if she was crying, as Lillia indicated, it had to be serious. We have one who will cry at most anything, but Mariyana isn't like that. I went into her room, and saw Mariyana laying in bed, crying, in obvious pain. Her stomach hurt - it started hurting early this morning. She showed me where - lower right abdomen, and I knew our ski day was off.

I called John and told him of the developments - he looked online for symptoms of appendicitis - that was what immediately came to both of our minds. She seemed to have a bunch of the symptoms - so he came home to stay with the rest of the kids, while I got ready to bring Mariyana into town.

In the meantime, our feisty 2 year old, had climbed on top of the bookshelf, and managed to open the child-proof lid on the kids' vitamins. Rather fond of the vitamins (we have had to hand-deliver each vitamin to each child in the morning, because when we used to just put them at everyone's place, Anabella would walk around, take and eat everyone's!), she decided to help herself - to about 50! In doing so, she ingested 100 days worth (she is supposed to just have 1/2 a vitamin each day!). So, in between getting Mariyana up and going to bring her to the doctor, I was on the phone with Poison Control to determine if Anabella was also a medical emergency. With some calculations, it turned out she was in the "gray area" - and we opted to just watch her at home. Poison control called our house several times later that day to check on her, and except for some really nasty diapers, she seemed fine. (She is still on vitamin-restriction, and will be for quite some time!)

Mariyana and I headed into Bozeman, with directions in hand for the local "Urgent Care" facility. Even though Big Sky has a medical clinic, they don't start seeing patients until 10 AM, and since we figured it was appendicitis, we predicted we would have to go to Bozeman for the operation anyways.

By 9:15 AM we were at the Urgent Care office, and the doctor quickly summed up Mariyana's case as "classic appendicitis". The hospital was called, a surgeon arranged to meet us at the ER, and we headed (with map in hand - because we had no idea where we were going!) to the hospital.

By 11:30 AM, I said goodbye to her at the operating room, and she headed to surgery. And then, I started getting nervous. Up until then, I was keeping busy doing things - filling out paper, talking, reassuring her - but once all had been done, I started worrying, as a mom does, and should.

While Mariyana was in surgery, I was able to run downstairs to the cafeteria and get something to eat (hadn't yet eaten all day), call John and his parents, and come back up just in time to meet with the surgeon. All had gone well, and they would allow me into the recovery room as soon as she was stable.

Before long I was in the recovery room with Mariyana as she came out of the anesthesia. After a short time, we were moved upstairs to her room, where she would be the rest of the day, and they predicted would be able to go home from the next day. As Mariyana rested, we had visits from Nana and Gramps, as well as John and the kids. Mariyana was a trooper and did a great job recovering. By 2 PM Thursday afternoon, we were checking out of the hospital and heading home.

The care we received at Bozeman Deaconess hospital was wonderful. People were friendly, helpful, kind and caring. Even the pull-out chair I slept on that night was somewhat comfortable! After being spoiled by our care at Gritman Medical Center in Moscow, we weren't sure how well any other hospital might stand up. We are happy to say that the care was indeed comparable.

So, we never really made it out skiing again on Wednesday, but more days would come in the future, we knew. We were instead quite thankful that all had gone so smoothly. Mariyana was feeling pretty good when we arrived home and kept saying how different her recovery was from Sasha's. Apparently, Sasha had his appendix removed while he was at the orphanage. Mariyana said a big group of kids had theirs removed all at once (so I don't think all or even any of them had appendicitis!). Apparently, Sasha slept for an entire day following the operation (drug-induced), and was in the hospital for 10-15 days following!

Family ski trip

The day was gorgeous and sunny. It was a Saturday with nothing planned and nothing to do. We hemmed, we hawed, and finally, decided to go skiing!

The kids got dressed and we loaded the van. By 11 AM we were headed to the ski rental shop to get skis for all the kids - yes, all 6! None of them had ever skied before, and we never stopped to question whether we were crazy or not taking them all skiing, with just two adults.

Within 30 minutes we were in and out of the ski shop, loaded into the van, and headed up the mountain. We parked in the free parking lot, loaded onto the free shuttle and got dropped off right in front of the lodge. A quick walk up to the bunny hill and we were on our way. (The bunny slope is free at Big Sky Resort - so we didn't need any tickets. And, all Big Sky residents in K-8th grade, get free season passes as well!)

The reality started hitting home when we were crazily trying to get everyone's skis on, and figure out how to get all of them up the hill without causing a local catastrophe. Big Sky Resort has a great bunny slope lift - it is called a "Magic Carpet" - it is a rubber mat that whisks you up the hill (well, not really that fast - these are beginner skiers, after all!). But, it is this little mat you just stand on - kind of like the moving sidewalks (but up a hill) in the larger airports.

We managed to get a majority of the kids up the hill and I volunteered to be the first one to go with the kids down the hill. Mariyana went first - I was skiing backwards, and she skied frontwards (most of the time!) facing me. She didn't have much patience for learning the snowplow - didn't understand why she couldn't just ski like all "those people over there". It took some stern words to let her know that all started out with the simple snowplow and that she needed to learn this before anything else. She got a little mopey, and I know didn't believe me, so it was onto another child, who was a little more willing to try. John mostly stayed at the bottom of the hill and make bathroom runs!

Sasha was next and had the most amazing contortions of the legs and arms you have ever seen! He hardly looked like a natural out there. Sasha is the type of kid that doesn't really try very hard - if it is too hard, he shirks away and gives up. However, he is also great at blending in, and it takes a lot of work to notice that he is giving up and not trying. We went down a couple of times, and once he had the hang of what to do, it was up to him to be willing to try. He would just keep sitting down!

Then it was onto Olesya. She probably picked it up the fastest, except for Mariyana (who finally came around and decided Mom was right, and she would do what I told her to do!). After just a few times down the hill, she was good to go on her own.

Then it was Vanya's turn. John had gone down with him and gotten frustrated, so it was my turn to try. I spent most of the remaining time working with Vanya. He could not get his legs to go into a snowplow! I spent most of the time on my hands and knees (all contorted at funny angles because I had my rather-long skis on the entire time), placing his feet and skis in the correct position. The next morning, my arms ached, and I had bruises on my knees! In fact, I was so tired at the end of the day - I think it would have been less work to just go skiing myself! But, not nearly as enjoyable as far as the day went.

Vanya started getting the hang of it toward the end of the day. That freed me up to work with Lillia a little. Unsure how she would like it, we started out slow, but that wasn't for her. It was a struggle to ski backwards fast enough to stay ahead of her. Considering her skis were crossed more than they weren't she did quite well. She didn't really leave the ski hill able to venture down the hill (safely!) by herself, but wanted to go again, so that was a good sign.

I know you are all wondering about our dare-devil, Anabella. At the ski shop, she was so excited about wearing her ski boots, walking around and saying "ski!" Unfortunately, by the time we reached the ski hill, it was getting to be naptime, and her enthusiasm was outweighed by fatigue. Most of us had stripped off various amounts of clothes because the weather was so gorgeous and the sun was so warm. Anabella figured that nice soft pile of clothes at the bottom of the bunny slope looked like a great place to take a nap. She laid down and was promptly asleep in just a few minutes. My only regret is that we didn't get a picture of her sleeping!

By about 3:30, the kids were getting tired and hungry, and we packed up and headed home. It was a great day - and we looked forward to the next day, which was going to be the following Wednesday. Wednesday was a homeschool ski day, and John already had taken the day off work! We were looking forward to another fun day on the slopes, as were the kids....