Marrott's Believe It or Not

As per our usual crazy life, something has gone wrong. Most anyone who would read our blog already knows, but I feel it deserve a spot in our bit of living history here on the world wide web. It was a fairly usual day here at 12 Normandy Close: kids were jumping and screaming on the trampoline and I was in the kitchen listening to an audio book and cooking dinner. Geoff was at football practice with his squadron. The phone rings. I frantically look for it while trying to also wash my hands clean of floury mess. I answer just at the moment I'm sure the caller has probably hung up.

"Hello," I huff out.

"Hi, is your mom there?" haha. I get that a lot... and yes, it does get old.

"This is the mother," I say as patiently as I can while stirring dinner.

"Oh, sorry. Hi, Mrs. Marrott? This is Sgt Smith from the law enforcement desk. I'm in your husband's squadron."

My heart squeezes a little, you know that intuitive thump it gives you when it's trying to tell you something important. But I calm myself, thinking she probably just needs help with a bake sale or a meal for a new mother or a moving family. Just business. But then why call from the LE desk?

She continues. "Your husband is fine, ma'am. I just wanted to inform you that he's been taken to the hospital. Nothing major, but he couldn't walk."

"Ok," I squeak out, "So he's at the hospital now?" I know she just said he was, but I just needed a confirmation. But what I'm really thinking is, what happened and do I really want to know how he ended up there?

"Yes, ma'am."

"Was he in an accident?"

"No, ma'am. Well, yes, ma'am. I mean, he got hurt playing football."

Huge sigh of relief. Sports injury, I can handle this.

"Alright then. Thank you."

I try and stay calm because I know the kids will flip out when I tell them where Geoff is and why I need them to immediately get shoes on and get in the car. My attempt at calm isn't successful and I'm soon yelling, "Get your shoes. You can't find them? Well why not! Forget your shoes, you can go barefoot. Just get in the car."

Ok, I wasn't really yelling and it wasn't like it started that way, but after 5 minutes and they still weren't in the car, I started to get impatient.

I call the Cranney's and ask my dear friend Camille to watch the kids while I go to the ER to check on my hubby.

The phone rings just as we are about to walk out the door.

"Hello," I try not to huff this time.

"Hi Miranda?"

"Yes." I realize now that it probably came out condescending and/or belligerent.

"Oh, hi. Um, this is Audrey (or maybe it was Amber). I'm not just some strange lady calling. I work with your husband. I just took him to the ER. He asked me to call you and make sure you knew where he was and tell you he's ok, but he needs you."

There went my heart again.

"Thank you, Audrey/Amber, for taking care of him. I'm on my way. Thanks."

Now, I was swatting my kids out the door. My hubby needed me. My kids are even more anxious knowing they can't go with me and they will have to wait to find out how Dad is. Brody is in tears, pulling his hair. Daeglan is saying "Mom, mom, mom, mom, mom, Maaaaaooommm," trying to get my attention so he can ask for the 19th time if he can come with me and then why can't he come with me. Mac is looking at Brody and Daeglan and trying to decide if he should be freaking out too. He finally decides to shed a few tears too, until he hears he gets to play at the Cranney's then he's fine. Emeryss is only worried about packing her backpack with her new dollies so she can show them all to Camille.

We get in the car, finally, and take a few deep breaths. We have a prayer and we're off.

I drop off the kiddos and rush to the ER, reminding myself that driving 80 down a 2-way road barely big enough for one car will get me to the ER, but not in the way I want to get there.

I get there and clap my hands that there are parking spaces right by the door. I all but run inside. I find my friends and Geoff's coworkers the CC's (Cirincione's). The husband, Dom, is G's supervisor and has been there with him and talking to the doctors. I got up to the desk and tell them I am there to be with my husband. I'm told to find a chair and wait as the doctor is with my husband at the moment so I will have to wait to see him! I literally wanted to rip the attendants throat out.

I sit and wait.

The CC's fill me in. Geoff was running down the field and stumbled. Everyone thought his cleats had smacked together. He cried out in pain, swore up a storm and could not get up. It's suspected it's his achilles.

They call Sgt CC back to be with my husband and consult with the doctors!!! I was simply speechless. Hello, Wife here! You know, the one that will be caring for him while he heals! Unbelievable.

Luckily, CC speaks up and says, "His wife is here and I think she should be with her husband more than I need to be with him." Or something extra amazing along those lines. The attendant nearly rolls his eyes as he calls me back.

My love is face down on the bed, looking very much in pain. My heart thumps again.

Geoff fills us in about his examine in which they discovered that not only does he not have control of his foot, he also has no reflex which means the achilles is very badly damaged.

The tech comes in, shoots G up with some narcotic cocktail and then the doc comes in to tell us we have to see the surgeon in the morning. For tonight all they can do is wrap it up and send him home with some pain pills. Geoff winces and tries not to complain as the tech who obviously hasn't wrapped very many tore achilles tries to wrap up his foot. It takes forever. The tech wrap and unwraps his foot about 10 times. I was about to suggest that I do it myself when the doctor comes back and walks the kid through it.

I sleep on the couch with Geoff that night.

I call the surgeon first thing in the morning to schedule an appointment as per his discharge instructions from the ER.

The receptionist informs me that we cannot request an appointment with the surgeon, that the surgeon reads the reports from the ER and then decides who needs an appointment and they call us. Really?

We wait for them to call.

They don't but Geoff's supervisors do, wanting to know what's going on and if he'll be back to work the next day. Geoff's office calls again about 2 hours later.

I call the surgeon's office again. Read to her our discharge papers that clearly state we are to call and schedule an appointment and reiterate that ER doc had contact with the surgeon about Geoff the night before. She assures me he must not need an appointment because if he did the docs would have told her by now and she'd have already called us. I state our case again, adding that his supervisors need to know what's going on and demanding she ask the surgeon about it while I wait on hold.

She puts me on hold.

2 seconds pass.

She picks up and begins to apologize profusely. "Yes, he does need to be seen today. Can you be here in an hour?"

I scramble to rally the troops again, find another sitter and get us all out the door.

The surgeon suggests surgery, though they can't get him in for a week because they only have one anesthesiologists. And now here we are 4 days after the surgery and Geoff is finally feeling some relief... and I am exhausted and still sleeping on the couch with him.

Geoff was nervous about having surgery, never having had surgery before. Before they took him back the anesthesiologist gave him a shot of something to relax him. It was hilarious. Geoff kept saying, "Wow, I've never been high before. This is weird." He was loopy most of the day, when he was awake, mostly he just slept once I got him home.

The surgery went well. In the surgeon's words Geoff's achilles was "hanging on by a wisp." They had to go up into his calf and extract his achilles, but it did reattach well. The prognosis is good for a full recovery. However, it will be a long process. Long as in 6-7 months before he'll be able to begin running again. He can't drive for 2 or 3 months and will be on crutches for 2-3 more weeks (which is about a month total), which leaves me playing chauffeur.

So we are moving on base. Our prayers have been answered so quickly. We applied for housing (mostly to save money and get out of debt) the day before his injury and thought it'd probably be a few months before we'd actually get to move. They called us the day after his accident, which was 2 days later and completely unheard of, and gave us a choice of 5 houses. We'll be moving in about 3 weeks. Not great timing since I'm left to do much of the pre-moving work on my own, but such a blessing that we'll be so close to the doctors and his work during the months of his recovery. We've already had lots of help and support from friends in our wards and Geoff's squadron, so I'm sure we'll make it through this month and the next 6 just fine.

Things are busy and crazy... so basically normal for us :) The only difference is that this time, believe it or not, the craziness is centered on Geoff and not me or the kids. And believe it or not, this was our longest non-ER visit/hospital stay/surgery stint we'd had since I got pregnant with the twins... it had been a whole 7 months!

News Flash

Miranda graduated from College!!! I now have a Bachelor's of Science in Psychology. It feels so good to be done.

Updating our many adventures in 2010, so far :)

I was going to start with, "It's been a long time since I've written on here" and then had a bad flash back to writing in my diary when I was 10. So, we'll skip that intro.

So far 2010 is proving to be a most memorable, busy and altering year we've had in some time.

Just after Christmas break, the kids and I got to go home to Indiana for my grandmother's 80th birthday. It was a great, though short, trip.

Grandma Waters, Daeglan, Mac and Uncle Morgan

The trip started on Wednesday, or it was supposed to, when we got up at 3 am to get to the terminal on base and hopefully catch a military hop to Kansas where I had a friend waiting for us. We were turned away, the flight had been rescheduled, please come back at 7:30. We came back, waited for nearly 2 hours and then were told the flight was full. I'm not gonna lie, I walked out of the air terminal in tears. I had to go home and call my dear friend, Traci, I wasn't coming to Kansas.

The next day we tried again and were successful. It took nearly all day for check in and then

sitting and waiting for them to ready the plane, but eventually, we boarded a C17 (click here for a look at the C17) and were on our way to Delaware. Yes. I said Delaware. The flight was.... an experience. C17's are cargo planes and this one was loaded with jet engines, 2 huge jet engines. See?

We sat in jump seats that folded down from the sides of the plane. We enjoyed our in flight meal of ham sandwiches, snickers and pop. We drank lots of bottled water. We broke the toilet.... seriously, my kids broke the toilet. Ever fly on an overseas flight with a broken toilet?

Good thing the crew was so nice. The pilot took the kids up the cockpit and let them fly the plane. It was a great treat for all of us, especially for me since he keep them entertained for a whole half hour. Here's a picture of the boys lounging on the floor of the plane, another great benefit of fly military flights :)

After nine hours of flying and spending the final two hours calming my sensory overloaded child from the noise of the plane (cargo planes are very loud), we finally landed. We got a taxi to the hotel. All was good. Until we found out that our hotel room was actually about 2 blocks from where we had checked in.... and I had already sent the taxi away. So we loaded our luggage on the bell hop trolley and walked in the dark to our room. My kids cried the whole way.

"Daddy should be here, he'd protect us." "Mom, you should have never made us come." "Someone is going to jump out from those bushes and kidnap me." Finally, we made it to our room!

The rest of our trip, actually followed this crazy, unpredictable pattern. The rental car company charged me $800 for my $150 car rental, making it so that I couldn't use my card to get gas when we stopped two hours after taking off for Indiana. Driving on the right side of the road kepy me on edge all day and I did, in fact, turn into the wrong lane (only once!) when getting off the highway for dinner... it was dark, leave me alone. Our time in Indiana was too short, but we got to see all the grandmas, grandpas, aunts, uncles and cousins we'd been longing to see.

On Monday, we left Indiana for Texas with Mackenzie and Emma. The drive was long, but actually went well... oh wait, I was sick and throwing up for some of it... well, it went mostly well. While in Dallas, we got to go to the Dallas Aquarium, a Butterfly house, Chuck E Cheese, Applebee's and Old Navy! It was a great American fix.

The cousins, minus Sophie Jane, at the Dallas Aquarium

Leaving was bitter sweet; the kids and I were more than ready to be home and with Geoff, but it was hard to say goodbye to family and our dear America. We took a rental car up to Kansas and got on the first flight we tried this time, thank goodness. This time we were on a KC135, a refueler. (click here for a look at the KC135)

This flight was... even more interesting. We broke the toilet, again. Yes, we did. This time before take off. It took them 3 hours to fix, during which we sat patiently on the plane. The kids stayed awake the whole flight, finally giving it up at hour 9. Unlike the flight on the C17, there was no room to stretch or lay out, so it was a bit trickier keeping them happy. And, believe it or not, this plane was louder. Good thing I had gone to Walmart and bought Brody a nice set of hunter earmuffs to block out the noise. The boys got to go into the belly of the plane and see all the refueling equipment... again a nice treat, keeping my kids entertained for a half hour. Air Force flight crews, you rock. So we were finally all asleep and someone wakes me to tell me we are emergency landing in Ireland. Ireland? Yes, our navigation system went out hours ago and we are flying with a hand compass!!! Thanks for not telling me hours ago. YIKES. We landed fine. But since most of the flight was U.S. military flying on military orders, next to no one had passports. Me and the kids had ours, but not one other person did. We sat on the plane, on the tarmac for 4 hours while the U.S. and Irish governments decided what to do with us. After 18 hours of being on the plane--which of course, by that point we had eaten all our food hours ago and were thus starving--we finally descended the steps and got straight on a bus. They took us to a nice hotel, that I paid $240 to stay in. We ordered room service for the first time and slept all day, 13 hours solid.

Our room in Ireland

Our Irish room service. Yes, those are elf-sized bottles of 7up. Not Tolken elves, Santa elves.

We made it home, and in one piece the next morning and ran into daddy's arms. And I am tired now just remembering this trip. I'm not sure we'll do it again.

More adventure updates to come :)