Thursday, December 31, 2009

Jeremy's Surgery

Jeremy has had problems with his knees for many years and one finally got bad enough that he went to see a doctor. After many visits, blood tests, x-rays, and an MRI the doctors found that he had a significantly torn meniscus in his left knee. The procedure was supposed to be a 20 minute orthoscopic operation and he would have 3 days before he could really walk on it again.

But on December 3rd, when the surgeon was fixing his messed up knee he found that not only was the meniscus torn all the way through, but he also had some cartilage that had been torn up and the top of his femur bone had been scraped, so they drilled 10 or 12 little holes down from his knee into the marrow of his bone to stimulate blood circulation to the knee and speed up healing.

The added work prolonged his recovery time too. He was drugged up on the couch for 10 days and using crutches until he could actually stand on it. After 2 weeks taking it easy he has been improving every day. Now he is moving around and playing like before with the use of a knee brace…He’ll never learn!

Jeremy ha tenido problemas con sus rodillas por muchos años y una de ellas al final se puso muy mala que tuvo que ir al doctor. Después de muchas visitas, exámenes de sangre, rayos x y un MRI (Imágen de Resonancia Magnética) los doctores encontraron que tenía una rasgadura significante en el menisco de la rodilla izquierda. El procedimiento sería una operación ortoscópica de 20 minutos y el podría haber caminado a los 3 días.

Pero el 3 de diciembre, cuando el cirujano estaba arreglando su rodilla él encontró que no solo era un problema del minisco sino que también su femur se había rasguñado de alguna manera así que le hizo pequeños agujeros en su hueso para hacer circular la sangre y sanar el cartilago del hueso.
Esto hizo que su recuperación fuera más prolongada también. Jeremy estuvo tomando medicina para el dolor por más de 10 días y usando muletas para caminar. Después de dos semanas de recuperación él ha mejorado mucho. Ahora ya anda jugando como si nada… creo que él nunca va a aprender!

Waiting for 2 hours before surgery.

Jer got cold!Doctor came and marked his knee :o)

Pictures of inside his knee. On the fourth one you can see the meniscus flopping around.
All done!
Going home!
He was starving when we got home :o)
Only two cuts!

Sunday, December 13, 2009

Thanksgiving 2009

For Thanksgiving we went to Grandpa Dave and Grandma Kay's house. She cooked a wonderful dinner for the family. We enjoyed each other company and had a good time. The kids had a sleep over at their house that night. Jer and I went home and had a quite time for a few hours until we got up at 3:30 AM to go Black Friday shopping! We got pretty good deals and did all our Christmas shopping for the kids.

Para el Día de Gracias fuimos a la casa de los abuelitos de Jeremy. La abuelita cocinó una cena muy rica para la familia. La pasamos muy bien visitando con todos. Los niños se quedaron a dormir con ellos esa noche. Jer y yo regresamos a la casa y pudimos pasar un tiempo solos hasta que nos levantamos a las 3:30 AM para ir de compras el Black Friday! Conseguimos cosas a buenísimos precios y compramos todo los regales de Navidad para los niños.

Making Guatemalan Tamales

Since Jeremy and I got married we have always craved Guatemalan tamales. Every time we go back there we eat as many as we can because we don’t know anyone around here that makes them. Jer likes black tamales (sweet, made with chocolate), I like red tamales. The last time I went to Guatemala my older sister, Evelyn, made tamales and I helped her. She is a good cook and she can make a lot of the traditional dishes. She gave me a recipe for “tamales colorados” (red tamales) but I was scared to make them by myself.

Well, a few weeks ago I decided to go and find all the ingredients and give it a try. I was amazed that I found everything I needed. I started around 2 PM one afternoon and called Evelyn. She was so nice and said “I call you back through Skype and I’ll help you”! It was nice cooking together even though we are a couple thousand miles away from each other but I felt that she was right there with me. Jeremy helped me a lot, specially with the dough because it takes about 1 ½ hour stirring it. In Guatemala we wrap the tamales with plantain leaves, maxan leaves and cibaque. I didn’t want to get all of that since Evelyn said I could use aluminum foil so that’s what I used. From beginning to end we cooked and prepared the tamales in 6 hours (Evelyn and I were on Skype for a total of about 3 hours).
Evelyn and Hugo The whole mob
Dough, meat and bell peppers
Recado (sauce), it makes the yummy flavor
Wrapping the tamale
Ready to put it in the pot
Jeremy goofing off with the kids

Here it is! they came out perfect! "Esta foto es para tí Evelyn"