If you're squeamish, don't look - really

So on Saturday Jared headed out for one last bike ride on one of his favorite black diamond trails here before we move next week.  He came home with his elbow looking like this.

He took a bad spill and in order to protect his wrists (he's broken a wrist before on his bike), he tucked in and tried to roll - like you're supposed to - but he ended up taking the full brunt of the fall on his elbow.  Ouch!

So we all hung out at the ER most of the day Saturday.  The kids were actually quite pleased about watching TV in the waiting room rather than conquering the mountain we'd picked out for our hike that day.  They're not always pleased as punch about our hiking expeditions - they love it when we get going but the lead up isn't always a bunch of excitement.

The x-ray showed crushed elbow bones - a few little pieces floating around in random places.  He was scheduled for surgery on Monday.

The surgeon wired everything together and said he "sort of had to cram some little chunks of bone into the places where there were big cracks" - didn't sound all that great to me but the doctor said the surgery went very well and things should heal up quite nicely.  In 6-8 weeks he can use his arm again.  In 4 months he'll have good mobility and can lift things safely.  In a year he'll be as good as he's going to get and should be pretty normal - other than the fact that he'll probably experience some early-onset arthritis.

Here's how Jared's elbow looks now on the inside (this is the other side of the arm - that's why it's backwards from the other xray above):

And on the outside:

Yes, those are staples and yes, it is that swollen.  The incision is like 8 inches long.
I purposely didn't make this photo very big.

Jared's recovery hasn't exactly been a breeze.  He had a hard time finding a pain medicine that worked well for him and had some rough after-effects of the anesthesia.  But he's doing better each day and it could have been much much worse.  We're so grateful for good doctors and modern medicine. We're glad we're on a health plan with a $3500 deductible instead of the much higher deductible we used to have.  We're all so grateful that we've been able to have Jared around this week - we haven't had more than 2 days together as a family in months.  Even with him sort of groggy and quite needy, his presence makes everything feel better around here.

But moving next week may be a bit of an issue with my strong-as-an-ox husband unable to lift anything.  We'll be calling in all favors here and quickly making new friends in Odgen!

I'm packing like crazy but it seems like I'm barely making a dent.  We finally got our house here rented to some great people who seem solid but who could pull out if the sale of their house doesn't go through.  And we're crossing our fingers that the sale of the house we're buying in Odgen will close this week as planned.

Send a few prayers our way if you feel so inclined.  We could use them.