An Attitude of Gratitude

This Thanksgiving in particular, I have so much to be thankful for. We had a rather nasty scare with Hubby... without going into much detail, the odds were very strong that he would have been paralyzed. Or dead. He is neither!

Hubby is still in pain, has lost some functionality in his left hand, and his left leg is a touch awkward. He will definitely need physical therapy. But at the time that the ambulance was called, Hubby was paralyzed on his left side altogether. He got into the hospital a short time after symptoms appeared, and he had an amazing neurosurgeon get him into surgery quickly. The quick response time, coupled with his excellent physical conditioning, really saved him from a much more typical (and worse) outcome.

We have wonderful friends that called, facebooked, visited-- some even brought supplies to the hospital and home for us! Stinky has been very helpful, too. He insisted on staying with me rather than at his mom's so he could keep me company, and he has been a great comfort. Our boss has been monitoring Hubby's caseload so I don't get all that extra work dumped onto me. He even came to the hospital to visit!

Hubby is not allowed to work for awhile, which is a bit of a financial hit... but we can handle it. Luckily, November is a 3-paycheck month! The gas bill is ahead, and our rent is cheap. Looks like the pub bill is going to be virtually nonexistent, and we can likely get forbearance on the student loan payments.

Our usual holiday travel is impossible for Hubby to endure, so we are staying home this year. But some family came to us for Thanksgiving:



Freeda's husband is in Afghanistan (I'm also thankful that he is safe and well!) so she decided to bring Kiddo out for a little road trip east:



The artistic Kiddo has already been recruited to design a tattoo for Hubby, incorporating his new scarring. Which will be shown below... just giving a "heads-up" to the unusually squeamish.

We had a lovely Thanksgiving dinner... which we did not cook! Our local hangout pub puts on a free community turkey dinner every year for the holiday. So we decided to attend this year, since I do not have the energy to stage a dinner myself. Delicious food (of course!), and I got to have some fun with the pub owners' (our friends) daughter:



Oh, yeah... Freeda challenged me to style this necklace that she's been having difficulty with. Then decided it looks better on me! There will be more postings of this big beautyt this week. The earrings:



Hubby managed to sit up throughout dinner, leaning on the high booth back with a pillow behind his neck. But I had to take him and the pumpkin pie home, because his neck couldn't take the strain of sitting up any longer. I think he is over-optimistic on his return date to work.

Once the "sheer terror and panic" phase of his hospitalization was over, and I was to the point where I could observe the world around me again... I spotted a cute little sculpture garden in a courtyard at the hospital:



It's such a random thing...



...but cheery!



The hospital staff were wonderful, and took such great care of my love. And of me... at about 3 a.m. or so that first awful night, there was no way I could drive home. I tried to sleep in the chair next to Hubby in ICU, but it was killing my back. One of the nurses unlocked an empty consult room with two short couches I used to make myself a little bed by pushing together. She brought me blankets, As I was lying there, sobbing my guts out... she put socks onto my bare feet for me.

I will do the breakdown now instead at the very end, like I usually do.

Top: via Macy's
Pants: Lane Bryant
Necklace: no clue on the source yet... Freeda?
Earrings: via M-I-L's purge
Yes, I wore Crocs. So sue me!

Last warning... if you are particularly squeamish, don't look:
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