A few Photos of the Day.

In my last post I mentioned that I've been busy with the football memory book.  It has been time consuming, but a few other things were keeping me busy towards the end of summer as well.  So in between my random photos, I'll tell you what had been going on. 

Eric had been having some odd symptoms with weakness in the muscle in one of his calves.  After some tests and an MRI they determined that he had a tumor in his spine.  Yikes.  That isn't news anyone wants to hear.  It was a tumor growing in the sheath of one of the nerves coming from his spinal cord.  The tumor had grown to the point where it was pinching the nerves going to his leg.

Since it was inside the spinal column, there was no where for it to grow, so it had to come out.  Scary surgery.  They had to remove two of the bones in the back of his spine to get at it.  Then he had to lay flat, with his head down, for a few days to make sure that his spinal fluid didn't leak.  It meant spending the whole Labor Day weekend in the hospital.  He did great.

He came home in time to see Billy's first day of his Senior year of High School.

The good news about the tumor is that is was benign.  And they think that they got it all.  His leg weakness hasn't improved yet, but there is still hope that the nerves will come back to life.  After six weeks he's back to playing volleyball and doing the things he does.

It was a scary time, a time where you really look at all that you have and understand how fleeting everything in life can be.

One week after his surgery he felt good enough to go to Billy's football game.  He was hurting but happy to be there.

Back to football.  Billy has been playing in both the Varsity and Junior Varsity games.  He would have liked to have been the punter for the Varsity, but things didn't work out that way.  He has been punting for JV though, and doing a great job.

 I'm proud of his attitude.

Brian came home from college to visit and to make sure that his Dad was OK.  Since Eric wasn't up to a long ride in the car, I brought Brian back to school on my own.  We stopped at Lake City to stretch our legs and look at all of the boats.  Such a pretty spot.

It's a 2.5 hour trip to school, and 2.5 hours back again.  I'll admit, I'm usually only good for driving an hour or two, then I get a little stir crazy.  But I had to get back home, so I did it.  I was grateful for hot coffee and a rest stop right when I needed it most.

Sometimes there is no better feeling than coming home.

Home where things were slowly returning to normal.