This is a video from few weeks ago of Jacob taking a jump at the ski hill.  (The loud boom towards the end is the ski patrol doing avalanche control).  I recently saw this video and was amazed at his ability!  However, that ability Thursday resulted in an injury from this same jump.  Nothing like getting a call from ski patrol that they are requesting my permission for ambulance transfer!  Upper leg injury, most likely femur, but they would not know until they got him off the hill and did further exam in first aid.  Because of the distance, there was no guarantee I would beat the ambulance up to the ski hill.  I went straight to the hospital.  I waited there about an hour before he finally showed up.  I was able to communicate with him twice on the phone and he was in a lot of pain.

This was in the ER room.  You can see how much shorter the right one is.  Femur injuries are all significant, because of the bones retraction, the muscles contracting and then the whole issue of the femoral artery that runs down the leg and depending on break and movement, could cut the artery.

I was somewhat surprised they did not do more of pulling traction. They just put a splint on it.  He was in a somewhat comfortable position so did not want to move it to much.  When it came time to remove the ski boot, they made sure they had drugs in his system and it took about 7 people to stabilize everything.

Here is the xray.  A clean break!

He got to the hospital around 1pm and went in for surgery around 5:30.  He was somewhat agitated because he really wanted water and of course, he could not have any.  We look back and laugh now, because at one point when they were pulling off his boot, he raised his voice, saying I am hurting, really hot and want water but none of you will help me!   Surgery lasted about 2 hours.  They had some complications lining things up.  He has an incision at the hip, where they put pins, an incision just above the knee, where they put pins and then had to make an incision at the fracture sight so the doctor could manually manipulate the bones together.  Here is the rod.

This was my bed for the night.   A chair that pulled out.  It was actually quite comfortable.

He was a hungry boy! (Here he is eating a sub from Jersey Mikes that Ben made for him.  Yes, Ben has gotten a second job working at Jersey Mikes.)

He used crutches and a wheel chair to get to the "stairs" which are behind him.  Since we have stairs, they made sure he knew best way to navigate them.

He has no cast, splint or brace.  He can put as much weight on it as is comfortable.  From the time of injury until being released from hospital, it was about 24 hours, which is mind blowing!  We are trying to manage the pain and it will take a few days for us to get in a groove moving around etc.  

 We are in the middle of a really cold snap here!  These are the days that we have to remember why we live here, for amazing summers!

Jacob and Joseph and in the middle of basketball season.  Jacob's grade plays other schools and the 5th and 6th graders just practice and scrimmage with each other.  Amazing how much better things go when they have extra curricular activities.  Jacob has also been on the ski hill most Saturdays.

My mom is coming up for a visit this week.  Looking forward to having her here!

I am still working a lot plus helping a guy with his Turo rental car.  A sweet side gig.  He and I work really really well together, so nice to have the extra income.

Some random pictures.  These were taken the last time JR was at the fort.  Sure would be nice if it could just become a permanent structure.  Pretty sure no one has come across it.

Benjamin's car was recently parked on a street and a kid, who had his license less than a week, was hot dogging it and slid and side swiped his car.  Damage all the way down the drivers side of the car.  Benjamin learned the whole process from calling the cops (the kid got a ticket) to dealing with insurance.  We were pleasantly surprised that insurance gave us about 40% more than we expected.  On the flip side, Ben really likes the car and at this point doesn't want to get rid of it.  It is just a matter of time though before things start rusting.  A great lesson in humility.  

Every February, I anxiously wait for the sun to start hitting our yard.  Look below, it has.  It seems like things start warming up pretty quickly, once the sun appears.  And yes, our new neighbors have moved in.  I was talking with someone yesterday and they told me the median house in our area now is $699K.  Truly unbelievable what Coronavirus has done to our area.  There is zero inventory, for either sale or rent.  I have resigned myself to the fact that we will probably not move into something bigger in the next couple of years.