I'm still standing

It has been a long two months and so much has happened since I blogged last. Getting the kids in school was a feat in itself. There was a flurry of meetings about placement at the last minute and seven of them managed to get off to 4 different schools the first day at 6:30 in the morning. Then I thought that I would have time to get all sorts of things done but I had appointments almost every day for forgotten vaccinations, IEP meetings, mental health meetings and on and on. The whole first month of school was so much work about school that I almost regretted putting them back in but by the end of the month things were starting to settle down a little. Then on the night of the 22 of August, I think it was, I called Rick as usual at his supper break and he didn't answer. I finally heard from him around 11 or so and he was in the Naknek clinic with a collapsed lung. The whole world seemed to start to fall in on me and I almost went into panic. It was nothing but the Grace of God and the prayers of friends that kept me from going into breakdown. It was a long night as I waited for word from the Anchorage hospital that the medivac plane had arrived and that they had gotten a chest tube in to stop the collapse. I flew to Anchorage that Saturday afternoon and got to the hospital after midnight. It was Maria's first week of college and fortunately Raymond didn't have a job and was able to be at home when the kids got off the bus. Between the older ones, things didn't fall totally apart here and I was able to stay with Rick. He had to have surgery and was discharged the next Saturday afternoon. He was told that he couldn't fly for two more weeks and was stuck in Anchorage. Thankfully, his sister went and spent the remaining time with him as I had to fly back by the 3rd to get someone into the outdoor therapy program that day. I'll continue this later but it has been quite a fall so far.