“What’s appendix?” Kenzy asked.

The doctor sat with her and explained what was going on. But when he said the word surgery, her eyes got as big as saucers. I held her hand and told her it would be OK.

“Piece of cake, baby, you got this,” I assured her. “It will make you feel so much better.”

It was now almost midnight, and they were working on getting her a bed on the pediatric floor. I waited to tell everyone until morning, as they told us her surgery wouldn’t be until 8 a.m. We got moved to a room at 2 a.m. I covered Kenzy with the blanket I brought her, kissed her forehead, and told her to try and get some sleep.

“No, Mommy, I can’t go to sleep because you don’t have a bed and that’s not fair.”

My heart swelled when she said that. She was more worried about me than she was herself.

I told her that I would sit right by her in the chair and made her believe that I would get great sleep and not worry. I wanted her to try and get a few hours of sleep before her surgery. It didn’t take her long to fall asleep once I comforted her with those words.

Six in the morning came quickly, and I called Chris right away. We had figured it was her appendix, but I told him I would call before she went to surgery and for him not to worry. Chris and her big brother Tyler both came out by seven to be with her. By 7:30 a.m., they were in her room to get her prepped for surgery.

As they wheeled her into the prep room, they gave her a large kitty Squishmallow, which is a stuffed animal. This made her whole morning. She loves Squishmallows and kitties are her favorite. It gave her the comfort she needed going into surgery. We prayed with her and kissed her goodbye.

An hour later, she was out of surgery, and her kitty had a band-aid right where her incision was too. It was like they both had surgery. Kitty to this day still has her band-aid on, and Kenzy healed beautifully.

She was loving all the extra attention and visits at that time. Her only worry was she wasn’t allowed to do any swimming (pools or river) until the doctor cleared her, and that worried her because our river staycation was coming quickly.

The timing worked out perfectly, though, as our river vacation started on July 2, and she was cleared to swim on July 1. Thank you, Jesus. Let summer finally begin!

Or so we thought…

Fourth of July was a decent weekend (a little wet), but we were anxious to finally be riverside all together, enjoying our first week in our new camper, and our boat was finally in the water.

Life was good.

Jump to Saturday, July 11. Woke up to a gorgeous morning on the river. We were planning on packing a picnic and heading up to the (river) beach for the day with some other boating friends. But I quickly learned that my poor momma was in the ER.

She had her hip replaced on June 11, and it got severely infected. I can’t even sit here and tell you about the next two months. It would take the next four weeks for me to type up everything that my momma had to endure. The whole thing was absolutely insane. My heart ached for our momma. She spent over six long, grueling weeks in the hospital, where we as a family were constantly going out day after day after day to be with her. She had multiple surgeries in just a few weeks, one being because during a surgery her hip became dislocated. I mean, you can’t make it up. She couldn’t catch a break, and we could see her struggling as anyone in their right mind would. She felt bad she was “screwing up everyone’s summer,” but we assured her it was OK. She couldn’t help anything she was going through. We just wanted her better.

In late August, we finally had planned to hit the river the weekend before our kids had to go back to school. I had helped line up help for my momma that weekend as she was finally home, but wasn’t allowed any weight on her hip for weeks ahead. We needed round-the-clock care for her for those first few weeks.

That Friday morning, the day we were going to head to the river, my phone rang as I was getting my nails done. My mother-in-law, Marlene McElroy Rook, was heading to the ER as she was in rapid A-fib. We spent the next three days with her in the hospital trying to get things figured out. Then she felt awful about it. At this point, we felt like we were just living at the hospital. It was some kind of sick, cruel joke, it felt like, but we assured her there was nowhere else we would be than with her. Family comes first. Our poor mommas!

That following weekend was Labor Day weekend. Memorial Day, 4th of July, and Labor Day are our favorite weekends. We were at least looking forward to Labor Day weekend as it would be the last and final weekend we had to spend up there. I had gone and bought everything to make two crockpots full of my famous crockpot pumpkin dump cake for our river lot families’ big Labor Day picnic we go to every year. We were so looking forward to it, but little did we know what was coming next…

Kenzy’s Oreo-Fluffer in a Muggy

*This is Kenzy’s recipe and photo. She wanted me to share it with you all, and she sent me the recipe. I was shocked when I saw what it was made out of. So easy and delicious!)

Ingredients:
• 4 Oreos
• 1/4 cup of milk
• 1 Tbsp sugar
• 1 Tbsp flour
• 1/2 tsp baking powder

Directions:

Put everything in a mug and cook in the microwave for one minute.

Kenzy then added marshmallow fluff on top.

I was really impressed with how good this turned out. Yummy!