So I have decided to make this blog private, so for those of you that want to continue reading my blog will have to email me so I can put you on the list. Also I am changing the blog address to dmbullock.blogspot.com. Just wanted to give you all a heads up. I'll probably change it this week sometime. Thanks!
I finally gave in! I couldn't say no to this face.
These last few weeks have proved to be quite exhausting! Malone finally had his surgery on his knee May 3. Back in December Malone tore his ACL snowmobiling. This surgery was an ACL reconstruction surgery. The surgery was done at an outpatient surgical center in Rexburg and took about 2 hours. The surgeon used two tendons from his hamstring to reconstruct his ACL. Turns out, once the Dr. got in there, he found a tear in Malone's lateral miniscus too. So he patched that up and is confident it will heal well on its own. The first few days after the surgery were the worst. It took a couple days to get the anesthetic out of Malone's system. We kept him on some good pain medication, so he wasn't in much pain. For the first 24 hours, Malone had a drainage pouch connected to his knee to help remove excess fluid from the surgery. We had to manually empty the blood/fluid out of it every few hours. It was pretty gross. The Dr. took that out at his appointment the next day. Once the drain was out, Malone really bruised up in his calf. The ace wrap around his knee squeezed alot of that fluid down into his calf/ankle making it swell and bruise. Monday after the surgery, Malone was back to work at his internship with his crutches. There's no slowing that boy down! We managed to get him time off from Broulims for about 2 weeks, which helps. Malone has started Physical Therapy on the 9th at Mobley Physical Therapy in Rigby (which is where I work!). It was pretty obvious that his motion in his knee has decreased as well as the muscle tone in his hamstring/quad. He's about 15 degrees off from getting it straight, but can only get his knee to about 90 degrees bent. So far therapy has helped with the inflammation and his motion. He's still got a long way to go though. They've started him riding a stationary bike, trying to get that motion/strength back. It's been about 2 weeks now since surgery and his knee is finally starting to look normal. He got his stitches out on Monday May 14th, which was nice since by then the wounds were starting to heal over the stitches and was becoming really irritating. Malone hasn't slowed down much since surgery, so by the end of the week he gets pretty exhausted. He plans to start back at broulims next Monda (21st). He'll be going back to working really long hours. I just pray that he will be okay and that he'll have the energy to do what he needs to do.
The semester is over and Malone is done with his internship! So now his schedule is back to normal, 6-3 instead of 6-8. It'll be nice to have him home when I get home again. Since it was between semesters, we decided to take a little weekend getaway. We drove down to Salt Lake City Thursday (april 5) and stayed till Sunday (8th). It was so nice to just be together without any distractions. We ended up having to take Altivo with us because we didn't have anyone to watch him while we were gone. It was kind of fun having him with us. He had to stay in his kennel alot though, but nothing he's not use to already. We stayed in a pet friendly hotel so he was able to run around our hotel room while we were there. Malone and I spent most of our time shopping at the malls there in the SLC area. We set aside some shopping $ and splurged on a few things. We both bought a few things including this new purse I got that I absolutely love! Malone got some Oakley sunglasses that he also loves. He has a hard time finding sunglasses he likes. We also got to spend some time at the new City Creek mall there. It had a lot of high end stuff there, waaay too expensive for us. But the new building is very nice! Malone and I also got to eat at some fun restaurants we hadn't eaten at before. One was Tapanyaki, a Japanese steakhouse. You sit at the grill and have a chef cook and do tricks for you. The chef flipped shrimp into our mouths! I think i can speak for us both when I say it was a blast! Then the next night we went to Tocanos, a Brazilian restaurant. It's basically a buffet and waiters will stop by your table and bring you fresh meat off the grill. There were tons of choices, everything from chicken to pork, to fillet mignon wrapped in bacon. My favorite thing they brought was a brown sugar glazed pineapple. Sooo good! We also sampled a few different Brazilian lemonades. I tried the pineapple lemonade and Malone tried the mango lemonade and passion fruit lemonade. So good! We also had lunch at a pizza place with a friend of mine from High School who I haven't seen in forever. It was a good trip! I felt bad we didn't visit family while we were there, but it was sort of a trip we wanted to spend just the two of us. With schedules as busy as ours this past semester, it was nice spending that quality unterrupted time together.
Sometimes I feel like my blog is totally boring. We don't have kids, or do anything fun really. So all I ever write about is work, and that's so boring. I love reading my friends or sister-in-laws blogs and it's always so fun to see their kids grow, the funny things they do, and seeing them be moms. Lately I've been feeling a void in my life, wishing I had a real family. I have Malone and the dog I guess... but it's not the same as kids. I love kids. I love the way they think, their sweetness, and their complete honesty and innocence... well, sometimes I like their honesty. haha. But really though, I feel like I'm missing out because we haven't started our family yet. Malone thinks I just want a change, which is probably partially true. But I do look forward to the time when we do decide to start a family. It scares me to death because it's such a huge change. But it'd be worth it in the end to have a little baby. Anyway, so sorry to those of you that read this and are just completely bored. We're boring right now, what can I say?
Well, we took Malone in to our orthopedist, Dr. Lee. Dr. Lee is sure that Malone tore his ACL and that he'll need surgery to repair it. All we need to do now is schedule the surgery, which has yet to be done. Malone is doing well though. He is working alot and doing his internship, which he's enjoying alot. We'll probably schedule the surgery for the end of the semester after his internship.
Recently we tried snowmobiling again, just the two of us. We borrowed my parents snowmobiles and their trailor and went up to Green Canyon. There were alot of people up there and tons of snow! We unloaded the snomobiles and went for a ride. It wasn't 15 minutes however, when Malone's machine (the one I had issues with LAST time we went snowmobiling) became sluggish and quit. We used the other machine to tow it back. We couldn't get the snowmobile started, so with the help of some guys nearby, we loaded the snowmobile onto the trailor. We left the ramp out and went for a quick ride. When we came back, the ramp was gone. It had only been about 30-40 minutes. Someone had stolen it! Luckily we had a spare ramp and used it to load the other snomobile. Afterwards we went to the Hot Springs there and soaked in the hot tub! Felt sooo good! Despite the issues, we had a good time! Turns out the engine in that snowmobile is pretty much burned up because of several contributing factors. I felt bad about it. Sucks for Dad.
Anyway, that's about it for now. Until next time!
Since I last posted, we have made it through the holidays! Christmas was amazing! Malone and I celebrated Christmas Eve Eve (the 23rd) at my parents house. We played games, opened some white elephant gifts, and just had a blast! Malone got a plastic fly swatter from my parents. We gave Ashley our goldfish. I wish I could say it was sad to see them go...but it was starting to become a pain having to find someone to watch our fish whenever we were away. Not sure if Ashley appreciated them either since they are still at my parents house. We handed out real Christmas gifts. We bought Ash and AJ a Yahtzee game! We got a Wii game and a Wii remote charger from Marshall and Tiffany. I think the big hit of the night were the marshmallow guns Marshall and Tiff got from Natalie and Chris. Genius! Everybody loved it, and there were marhmallows flying EVERYWHERE! We also played our traditional chimes (which gives us a headache by the end, but still fun), and games. The next day Malone got off work around 3, and we made it to his sister's house by about 5 for Christmas Eve. We always enjoy spending time with his family, and Christmas Eve is especially fun because Holly and her family always put on a Christmas Program. Her kids are so talented! Malone and I brought the chimes from my family (since we used them the night before) and everyone got to play. I think Malone's Dad actually enjoyed it the most, haha. It was a hit!
Malone and I spent Christmas Eve night at our own house this year and had our own Christmas morning. It was really nice getting to sleep in a while and just taking it slow. Malone completely spoiled me, and I messed up on his gifts. Got him the wrong game, the wrong socks, and he spent more money than I did so I had more gifts than he did. I felt dumb, but he seemed happy anyway.I did get him a videogame he did like as well as a nice jacket. He got me some jeans, a couple pairs of shoes, and a really nice winter coat that I LOVE. It's green and soo warm! Later that day we stopped by my parents for dinner and gifts. We gave them a big clock to go on the wall downstairs, and they got us a food storage rack, and some money. We had so much fun! Later we went to Malone's parents where we had MORE food and played some games. It was a blast!!
Tuesday after Christmas Malone and I went with my parents, Parker, Tiff and Marsh and their kids to go snowmobile in Moody. We just messed around and pulled the kids on sleds behind the snowmobiles. It was so windy and cold, so we didn't stay too long. Malone took me for a ride and it was so SCARY!! He drove really fast and I thought we'd wreck. Luckly we didn't. But next time I decided I'd for sure wear a helmet.
Wednesday (28th) was Malone's birthday! We both had to work that day, but were able to celebrate and go to dinner at Texas Roadhouse that night. Afterwards we went to my parents for homemade banana cake and presents. Malone got a couple shirts, a hoodie, and a couple movies from me. My parents gave him a vacuum to clean the car out with. It looks pretty handy!
To also celebrate Malone's birthday and New Years, we went snomobiling in West Yellowstone with our friends Larin and Brian Christensen. We left late Friday afternoon just in time to hit the snowstorm on the way up. We checked into a hotel there and went over to visit Malone's parents. They have been working on remodeling a building for their new business there for the past few months. We had dinner and took a little tour around the place. Later we all went out for a walk around town to look around and get some hot chocolate. That night all four of us went for a swim in the hotel pool and hot tub and relaxed in the sauna. Sooo cozy! The next morning the four or us got up around 8 and were ready to snowmobile by about 10:30. I know, it took a while because when we were unloading the snowmobiles they had been completely frozen from the wet snow the night before. It took a while for them to warm up, and for Malone and I to get the tiedowns untied since they were frozen too. Larin and Brian had borrowed snowmobiles from their parents so we each had our own snowmobile to ride. We jumped on and went for breakfast at McDonalds... unfortunately we had missed breakfast by about 5 minutes, so we had lunch for breakfast. Once again, we bundled up and went to find the Madison Trail. Malone was in the lead, followed by me, Lerin, and Brian. The weather was perfect! A beautiful day for a snowmobile ride! The trail we picked was just north of town and was about 16 miles long. I haven't snowmobiled trails before so this was completely new to me. There was one point during our drive about 20 minutes in where I noticed my machine made a funny sound in the engine, like it was struggling a little. I waited a minute to see if it'd stop and it did. So I didn't make a big deal about it. I mentioned it to Malone when we stopped for a little break. He said not to worry about it, unless it happens again. We got going again, and about 10 minutes later, my machine completely stalled! Malone continued on without me not knowing I had stopped, and Lerin and Brian stopped with me. I told them my machine just stopped, and Brian sped ahead to catch up with Malone. Lerin and I just laughed about the situation and enjoyed the beautiful view where we were at. About 10 minutes later, Malone and Brian came back. Malone stopped by me and I could tell something was wrong. He told me he thought he just broke his leg. What?! How could that have happened? He was only gone a few minutes! Malone later explained that when Brian caught up with him, Brian called out to him that something happened to my machine. But over the sound of the engines and with helmets on, Malone heard "something happened to Danielle". I think he must have thought I was hurt and it was an emergency, so he tried to stop quickly but his sled hit an edge and started to tip. Malone stuck his leg out to stop it from flipping and was able to stabilize it just before he had to bail off. He wasn't sure if it was when he bailed off or when he stuck his leg out, but he injured his leg badly. After examining his leg, I could tell it wasn't broken and that it was probably a tendon. But we all decided the trip was over and we needed to get Malone to the ER. We all started up our machines to go. Lerin was standing next to her machine and had started it, turned to us, and suddenly her machine just took off without her!! It sped away over the bank and into some trees. It all happened so fast, we weren't sure how it happened?! The snowmobile suffered a crack in the plastic hood.. but was able to work fine. We all got on our snowmobiles and took off. About 5 minutes later my machine stopped again. Brian started it up for me and we left again. But my machine kept stopping, which prolonged us from getting back and Malone was in pain. Finally Brain switched machines with me and was able to keep starting it to get it back to Malone's parent's place. We got Malone inside and I put some ice on his knee, which was completely swollen by this point. His Dad took a look at his knee and said he thought Malone tore his ACL. Meanwhile Lerin and Brian had loaded all the snowmobiles, which was so nice of them! We loaded Malone in our Trailblazer with Brian driving, and I got in the truck with Lerin. The boys led the way home. The roads were extremely slick from the wet snow the night before. Lerin and I were driving along and suddenly the truck began to fishtale out of control! After trying to correct it, the truck finally slid into oncoming traffic and off the road. Lucky for us there were no cars, and we had 4 wheel drive. Lerin pulled right out and was able to straighten out and get back onto the road. Luckily no damage, except for a little nick in the bumper from the handle on the trialer. The boys didn't even notice we had slid off, but called a few minutes later when they noticed we weren't behind them anymore. The slide off made me and Lerin so scared to continue driving, but we had to get home! After a really LONG drive, we made it home safe. I got Malone in our other car and I drove him to the ER.
Once we arrived at the ER, it took some time to get X-rays and have the doc look at him. The doctor concluded that it wasn't broken (just as I thought), but he may have torn his ACL (which is what we had already speculated ). He referred us to a specialist in Rexburg and gave Malone a prescription for some mild pain meds. The first night was really rough on Malone. The next couple days weren't that great either. I had to help him with alot of things, which he's not use to people doing everything for him. That was the hardest part for him I think. I borrowed some crutches from work so Malone could move around on his own easier. But we were finally able to get in to see the Orthopedist, Dr. Lee, later in the week. Dr. Lee said he was about 90% sure Malone has torn his ACL, but wanted to wait to look at it again when the swelling went down. We scheduled to go back 2 weeks later (the 19th). Today is the 19th and since we've been to Dr. Lee, the swelling has gone down alot, and it's not as painful. Malone is able to walk without crutches and rarely needs a brace. There is still a little bit of pain, but nothing much. And Malone is able to straighten his knee and bend it pretty well. He's been into the PT office I work at and has had the therapists stretch his knee a few times. Bending it more than 90 degrees has been challenging, but he has pretty good motion. We are hoping that when we go in today the dr. will find out for sure what is going on. I pray everyday that the tendons are intact and that Malone will get through this.
Two days after Malone hurt his knee, he got a call from BYU-I saying he was accepted for an internship on campus for the winter semester. He'll be managing a project there expanding the data center. We were both so excited for him! But the knee complicates things a little. And as I said before, he's been doing pretty well with it. Since starting his internship he's been able to walk around on campus okay and has been able to do the internship as well as go to work.
Even though everything that has happened this year has been completely crazy and has not turned out the way we had expected, on the bright side, everything has worked out considerably well. I thank Heavenly Father everyday for watching over us that day. Me and Lerin were able to get back on the road without any problems. Malone did get hurt, but he is okay and it could have been alot worse. And even though his knee has hindered him somewhat, he has still been able to do his intership and go to work. And when we were afraid his internship would interfere with his work schedule, that worked out too. Malone has been going to work early at 5AM till about 8AM, heads to his internship from 8-5, and then goes back to work from 6-9PM. He is working enough hours for us to keep our insurance (which we're gonna need if Malone ends up needing surgery on his knee!). I cannot believe how much we have been blessed. I knew the day that everything happened, that if Malone and I have faith, Heavenly Father would take care of us, and he really has. He is so aware of us and I know that He loves us. This experience has taught me a few things and has brought Malone and I closer together, as well as closer to our Heavenly Father. I am grateful to have Malone in my life, and for the wonderful person that he is. I truly appreciate him and admire the man that he has become. I am so grateful for the gospel in my life and for the peace and comfort it brings me to know that someone is looking out for us at all times.
