Focht Family Blog

This weekend has been a lot of fun. Saturday we went to dinner with two friends we haven’t seen in years. We went to one of our favorites, Maggianos. This is a picture of John and Jennifer Mason.

Sunday was my brother’s 41st birthday. We started Sunday morning with some fishing. I went to Walmart with Timmy to buy some new poles since his other one was broken and we couldn’t figure out how to fix it. Here are some pictures of Timmy and Josh fishing.

Sunday evening we went to a local restaurant that has beers from all over the world to celebrate Tim’s birthday. Here is a picture of Tim and one of Andrea with Meghan.

The kid’s meals were served in frisbees. Timmy decided to spin his in a corner while waiting for the adults to finish eating.

We pulled out Monday morning to go to Helen for a few days. However, we found that we had a screw in one of the truck’s tires so we first went to fix that. While waiting for that to be fixed, we got a phone call from Andrea. She tore the ligaments in her ankle and it appears there may be a hairline fracture. She is in a walking cast so we decided to stick around for the rest of the week to help out with the girls.

It is good to be married to a smart engineer. We have been getting quotes on some of the things that we want to add to the RV. One of the items that we have been looking into is getting a second satellite dome so that we could have a DVR. One of the companies we talked to told us that they thought you could buy a splitter that would make it so you had four inputs coming in so you could have the DVR without having to buy a second dome.

Nathan bought a splitter and a DVR and decided to figure it out. After he figured out the wiring the end result is that we have a DVR up front and two receivers in the back so the kids now have a receiver in their room that they can change so they don’t have to watch what the front TV is watching. Here is a picture of the new DVR and of the receiver in the kid’s room.

Right now the kid’s receiver is in their book cabinet. Once we have the new bed put in for Samantha it will be placed in one of her cupboards so that it can breathe without having to have the cupboard door open. The one issue we had after the DVR was put in was that it was bigger than the regular receiver. Nathan had talked about wanting to put a flat screen up front to replace the big regular TV that came with the RV. The added benefit is that with a flat screen we can put all of the extra electronics like the network internet connection and the Wii behind it. So…. Nathan next put in a flat screen that can be pulled out so that all the extra stuff is in the box.

Since we were still in Statesboro it worked out well for Nathan. His dad came over and helped him fish the wires through the ceiling and he was able to use his Uncle Bob’s wood working shop to make the new header for the TV so it looks like the rest of the cabinetry.

A quick update from this week. I saw the surgeon on Monday who said that one of my vocal cords is paralyzed. This is why I have been having problems with swallowing, breathing and talking. They are fairly certain that the nerves will regenerate but can’t give me a timeline as to when that will happen.

I met with the endocrinologist, Dr. Fernandez, on Wednesday. She is a MILLION times nicer than the doctor in Savannah. She is concerned about my calcium levels so she told me all the symptoms for low calcium and told me to go to the ER if I get any of them. I am on calcium and Vitamin D supplements. She also put me on thyroid meds. I am starting out low and she is hoping to increase it slowly. My heartrate was high at the visit so she doesn’t want to increase too fast because it can accelerate your heartrate.

She said my thyroid levels were not that low but that I don’t want to make the left half of the thyroid do all the work or it will enlarge and have to be removed. Definitely do not want that!! So this way the thyroid meds will take some of the work off of the remaining thyroid. I go back in November for a check up on my levels although I will have my calcium tested next week and the week after and call her for the results.

Poor Nathan. I think he was getting a bad case of cabin fever. He was so happy to be moving again even though we only went about 3 hours away and are spending the week in Charleston. Timmy requested one last meal at the Japanese restaurant by the campground so mom and I took the boys to lunch on Saturday. Samantha was spending time with Nathan’s mom. Here are the boys outside the restaurant.

I also had to share a picture of the two of them hamming it up…

They are just too cute. I went to the surgeons office today for my recheck. He removed the stitches and the surgical glue. He also scoped my throat and I found out the reason I have been having problems with swallowing and talking. One of my vocal cords is paralyzed. He warned me that this could happen. It could have been from the surgery or the intubation. He checked his surgical notes and he checked both vocal cords with an electrical current before closing and both responded. He said that most likely what has happened is that the swelling from the surgery cut the blood supply off to the nerve. Now it will have to regenerate and heal itself. He seemed to think that it will heal but he didn’t give me a time line as to when that might happen. They also took blood to test all my levels and I meet with the endocrinologist on Wednesday so I will see what the levels are doing.

I survived the surgery. Anesthesia was not fun. I think I feel more pain from the intubation than the surgery. I am having problems being able to clear my throat. Other than that the pain isn’t too bad. I woke up and still have the left side of my thyroid so I guess that means the cyst was benign. Here is a picture of my main incision and bruise.

I realized while I was uploading the picture I had a few miscellaneous photos that I hadn’t posted yet. The first is of Timmy in a bunny suit at his grandma’s house.

The next two I have a cute story to tell on my mom. While we were in Indiana it was my youngest niece’s birthday. We asked what she wanted and my sister-in-law said she would love a long Amish dress. Andrea likes cultural clothes and Meghan loves long dresses. So we decided to see what we could do. Mom went shopping in town to see if she could find something in one of the antique shops. They send her to an Amish store but they only had dresses for babies up to size 18 months.

On a side note every time we go to Nappanee we go to an Amish bookstore that is owned by one of the men who works for Newmar. They have two kids and their little girl is about the same size as Meghan. I had told mom to go and ask her if she could buy a dress from her. So she asked the owner of the dress shop if she knew the family and if she thought it would offend the wife. She said no so she went to the house and asked her. She brought her into the house into the laundry room and gave mom one of the dresses off of the line that had just been washed. She had never sold one of the dresses before so she was going to sell it to mom for $5 but mom gave her $20. Here is two pictures of Meghan in the dress that mom bought off of the back of an Amish girl! :)