A Family Dinner to Remember

'Twas a memorable fam dinner last night... 

We had a delicious breakfast for dinner meal + the chocolate cake with Oreo icing - all good!  Mom and I are flying to Colorado tomorrow morning, and I wanted lovely curls for Graduation.  It always takes me forever to get them right, so I brought my Halo extensions hair for Rach to curl.  Naturally, I'm holding that hanger and flinching every time the hot curling iron gets close to me whilst Rach elevates and ices her bleeding ankle (the same varicose vein that erupted during Kyndal's birthday party).  Somewhere in there, I was struck by the comedy of all this and asked Mom to take our photo! lol

Apparently, this is normal for varicose veins that start bleeding openly.  Once again, Rach bled through multiple towels and used pressure and ice to try to slow and stop the bleeding...

Rach:  "I didn't think it would be this bad.  This is INSANE!!"

Mom:  "Dad's getting towels to help, and Lindsey's grabbing her camera!" #accurate

Rapidly soaked riiiight through the gauze and layers of paper towels and medical tape!  Sorry if you're squeamish about that... maybe skip this post. lol

Twice, it stopped for a tiny minute then started back up when she put any weight on her leg.  After a literal hour and 20 minutes of that, I insisted that we go to the nearby ER/Urgent Care.  Mom took J&K home while I took Rach to Saint Anthony's.  Comically, we got seated inside, and it stopped bleeding fairly quickly.  I encouraged her to walk on it, and again, the bleeding started back up immediately... then she echoed my "Take some steps" in a mocking tone. lolol

After bleeding through several small kitchen towels, we had taken a huge beach towel from Mom and Dad's house on our short drive.  Rach was filling out the paperwork when I noticed blood dripping onto their waiting room floor.  She got blood on the pen as she bent down to clean that up, then she somehow knocked one of her press-on toenails off her other foot.  She was angry-laughing as she put that in her pocket, saying "WHAT ELSE!?" whilst I was laughing too hard to be super helpful!  The officer came over to grab her paperwork, and Rach told him there was blood all over the pen, so he let her keep that as a special souvenir. lol

(A couple minutes later...)

Rach:  "Oooooh, now he's sanitizing the clipboard.  This is so embarrassing!"

Me:  "Don't worry about it - I'm sure you're not the first person to bleed in the ER."

We waited about five more minutes, and in that span of time, the bleeding actually fully stopped and she was able to walk around on it without issue.  Thennnn the doctor came out to get her.

Doctor (realizing Rach was joking around about it all):  "Those varicose veins just bleed like crazy!  You can follow up with your doctor to get that fixed...  You're welcome to check in if you want, but all we can do for you here is amputate your foot!" lol  (Pic = the angry veins once it finally stopped bleeding. Woof.)

The whole thing was fascinating and entertaining.  Rach is often funny to me, but never more so than when she's mildly flustered or irritated, which she definitely was by the end of the night!  Earlier, while Rach was curling my hairpiece - LOL - I freaked out about the curling iron and dropped it on the ground right where she'd just cleaned up a pile of blood.  Five second rule!? lol  I just washed it that morning, and now it may smell like blood and/or bacon, but whatevs, you can't smell a photo!! lol  In the end, we laughed a lot and all was well.  And we spent zero dollars and less than 30 minutes at the hospital, and Mom got to help a bit with the laundry and packing for Kyndal's 5th Grade Creation Nation trip (in progress right now - hope she has a total blast)!

Way back Wednesday:  The 2-year-old Jace Michael, 11 years ago today!

And the 24-year-old very blonde Lindsey Claire, 17 years ago today! =)

Suggested shortly after my marathon, I'm in a new FB group called "Slow AF Running Club." lol  It's mostly fun and supportive and inspiring posts, and I'm enjoying that.  This one made me laugh!

Another post from that group.

Just me using ChatGPT for some free therapy as Mother's Day approaches.

Not getting into that more here, but it's been a whirlwind of unanswered questions lately.  Here again, I'm reminding myself to stay tethered to Jesus and anchored in eternal hope!!  Easier said than done, but our walk with God is worth every bit of effort we put into it.

He is with us.

One day at at time.

God's grace is sufficient.

Today's trouble is enough for today!

Okay, I'm headed home to pack soon.  Excited for our Colorado trip ahead... prayers appreciated for safe travels!

❤ ❤ ❤