SuperJason’s Personal Blog

I've been trying to visit my mom every day, sometimes twice a day.  I'm sure she's kind of bored just laying around.

She seems to be feeling pretty good today.  She said the pain is a lot better, and her voice is sounding fairly normal.  They're not sure when she's moving out of intensive care, just because of how rare the injury is.  For now they're keeping her with the nurses that are a little more experienced.  She said that she didn't sleep last night, because of nausea.  They switched her off of morphine, and it seems to have helped.  She also needed a little bit of extra blood, because the pelvis creates a lot of blood.

To give her something to do, I bought a little portable DVD player, and rented her a movie.  I'm going to try to keep the movies flowing for her.
 

Yesterday (Sunday as of this writing), my mom was riding her ATV in the Kewaunee ATV park.  Both of my parents have been out there a few times, and they have over 3000 miles of ATV experience this year alone.  After they were there about 5 minutes, my mom went up a hill that she's been up before that same day.  In sort of a fluke accident, she hit a muddy area, and the ATV rolled over.  She was able to push away from it a little bit, but it still ended up rolling over her.  The gas tank rolled over her pelvis, shattering it into at least 3 pieces.

There was another rider there, and he was able to offer her some assistance.  Then my dad showed up, got on top of a tall hill, and made a call to 911.  He said that they showed up very quickly.  They rolled her onto a gourney, and then put her on a specially designed medical ATV trailer, where she rode out of the woods.  They then put her on a helicopter, which got her to Aurora BayCare Medical in about 7 minutes.  My wife and I showed up at about that time.  They gave her some morphine to help the pain, but I know that it still didn't feel very good.  At that point they couldn't tell us much except that they needed to give her surgery and that they would know more afterwards.  The surgery took about an hour, and they said it went very well.

It turns out that her pelvis is broken very badly, the worst that they have ever seen.  However, she amazingly had no other internal injuries, which usually would make the injury much worse.  That means that they can just focus on fixing the pelvis.  They put a pin in to hold it together, and right now there are pins sticking out of her that are connected by metal bars.  It's an odd looking contraption that needs to stay in place for a while so that everything heals correctly.

She is in good spirits, and just needs to lay around for a long time.  She would probably appreciate anyone who could send her an email or a letter, which will help pass the time.  Right now, it is uncertain how long she'll be in the hospital, and she won't be able to stand at all for the next 3 months.  Obviously she'll need to go through a fair amount of phsical therapy.

She's probably going to be moving out of intensive care tomorrow, so that is a good sign.  She probably won't be able to check her email for a while, but we'll be trying to get her set up as soon as possible.

I'd also like to let everyone know that she was wearing all of the proper safety equipment.  She's a strong advocate of ATV safety.  This makes you realize that ATV's need to be respected, and there is danger as with any sport.  Personally, I'll be happy when she can get back to riding.

If you would like to send flowers, I recommend getting them delivered from Flowerama (http://www.flowerama-roseswi.com/), and the delivery charge to the hospital is $7.00. You can contact Flowerama directly at (920) 432-1651.

You can have flowers sent to the following address:

Aurora BayCare Medical Center
Vickie Young - Room 233
2845 Greenbrier Drive
Green Bay, WI 54311

Last night, we went to a Halloween party at Nick and Kirstens house.  It was interesting to see some of the creative costumes.  It was also our first chance to see their new house.  It was very nice, and had lots of spacious rooms.  They had to make a few repairs, but it's coming along nicely.

Everyone voted for the best costume, and Ryan won with his superman costume!  The photo below was taken when Ryan decided to try on Jeni's ghost wig.  Click on the photo for more photos of the event.

This is a list of the current things that would make great gifts for me.  People often start to ask me for my list around Christmas time, so I thought I would publish a continual list so that it's easy for everyone.

•  Adjustable roller stand (1 or 2), ~$19.99, can be purchased at Harbor Freight(http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/displayitem.taf?Itemnumber=46074), Home Depot, Menards, etc.
• 12" Miter Saw, $180+, can be purchased at Home Depot, Sears, etc.  I like Ridgid because they're a good value and have a lifetime warranty.
• Nintendo Wii, $250, can be purchased at electronics stores (Starting end of November).
• GOOD Right angle clamp (1 or 2), These are hard to explain.  They allow you to attach 2 pieces of wood at right angles.  The cheap ones are no good, but there is a good one at Menards for about $29.99.
• Electric Pressure washer - There is a good deal on one at Menards.  I believe it is a Karcher, and goes on sale for $64 every once and a while.  It's normally $90 or so.
• Airzooka - 10.99 @ ThinkGeek.com or even better would be the Mega Airzooka! which has a scope and a trigger!  They cost 10.99 and 24.99 respectively.

 Nintendo Wii Stuff:

• Bomberman Generations (Gamecube) - this one is hard to find
• PaperMario (Gamecube) - I really want this one, and it's about $20 at most retail stores
• Any Mario Party games (Gamecube) - The later ones are preferable such as 6 and 7.
• Super Monkey Ball 2 (Gamecube) - This game is awesome simply because of Monkey Target.
• Nintendo Wii Points - These are in retail stores, but might be hard to find for a while.  They allow me to buy old games and download them directly to the Wii. 

Tuesday my body finally gave into the illness that Ryan has been passing around to everyone.  I called in sick, and spent the day laying around watching movies.  I thought I was getting much better, so I went into work on Wednesday.  All day I felt fine until I went to bed.  I slept bad, and had really weird dreams (Adam and Jeni win 5 million in a church raffle for one).  So Thursday, I ended up calling in sick again.  Only this time, I was unable to speak.  My voice was completely gone, and is only finally starting to return today.  So if you get a call from Darth Vader, it's probably me actually.

I did get a chance to watch the following movies:

• Crash - This was supposedly one of the greatest movies of the year, which I can never understand.  It's good, and it makes you really think about racism.  I'm not sure if the movie was trying to tell me that racism is good or bad.  Maybe they were just trying to say that it "is", and that things are not perfect.  It ends up sucking for just about everyone.  I would definately recommend this movie to just about anyone.
• Stick It - You don't need any intelligence to watch this movie, and you'll probably have less after you see it.  It was midly entertaining and really had no content.
• The Break-up - This one was pretty funny, but I think people don't like it because it doesn't end the way most movies do.  Just don't watch it expecting an ending.

By the way, never ever see the movie called "Friends With Money".  It's probably the worst movies of all time.

I've been very busy and stressed out lately, because a lot of things are going on.  I'm making a video for the reception at Chuck & Carly's wedding.  It's tough putting the finishing touches on it with the music and all of the photos.  It's not easy to say that it's officially "done".  It has turned out pretty good so far, and is on par with the other videos I've seen at various weddings.

I also put together a little surprise for the bride and groom-to-be.  I set up a website as a central place for some information about the wedding.  Guests will be able to go there and view the reception video, and a lot of the photos that were taken at the wedding and reception.  My plan is to have a laptop set up at the reception, so that people can hand over the memory card for their camera, and we can grab all their photos.  It will be a lot better than putting the cheap disposable cameras on the tables.  They should be able to get some good quality shots.

I'm renting a Canon GL2 to film the wedding and reception, so I'll have to make sure I'm paying attention so that I don't miss anything important.  I'm also going to take my own video camera, and a digital camera for even more raw footage.

This past weekend, I helped my brother and sister-in-law move from their apartment into their first house.  Their house is very nice, and I think it will be a great place for them to live for the next couple of years.  It's only 2 bedrooms, but their yard is big enough that they could add on if absolutely necessary.  Obviously that is dependent on future interest rates and the housing market.

Anyway, it was the first time that I really got a chance to use my new 4×8 foldable trailer from harbor freight.  It was about $200, and I customized it so that it would be great for my ATV, and just about anything else I want to haul around.  The night before, I built some sides so that it would be a lot easier to move boxes and furniture, and not have to worry about it falling out.

We made about 4-5 trips between the house and the apartment, and hauled just about evening in my van and trailer.  At one of the stop lights in DePere, an old lady in a mini van rear-ended my trailer.  Fortunately, it just bent one of the brackets and the frame slightly.  She claims that she couldn't see my lights, even though I was stopped and it was the middle of the day.  Also, the trailer is a big black square that is hard to miss.  When I approached her, she said she also hit the guy behind her.  Much to my surprise, it was my father-in-law Brian, who was also helping them move.  She hit my trailer, and then backed into his Blazer!  Her van took pretty much all of the damage.  The Blazer didn't have a scratch on it, because the front towing hooks poked holes in her bumper.  We left, and she went on her merry way.  I'm wondering how she explained it to her insurance guy.