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Moonlight Run

I enjoyed a moonlit run on the runway tonight. It looks like it's almost a full moon, and I could see the moonlight reflecting off of the peaks of Sangay and Altar. On Sangay I could even see wisps of ash and steam coming from the summit cone. As I headed back home some of the MKs were playing Capture the Flag on the school field. I could hear the occasional boom of fireworks and bottle rockets and people start gearing up for New Year's.

Año Viejo Dolls

Here's a link to an interesting New Year's Eve story on Yahoo! News: Ecuador to Close 2001 by 'Burning' Bush, Bin Laden. We don't see too many of these masks or http://www.thehoffmanfamily.com/ for sale in Shell, but in the bigger towns and cities they are everywhere. Here's a photo of some http://www.thehoffmanfamily.com/ from last New Year's. This picture was taken in the town of Ambato.

December Rambling

OK, well here goes with some random thoughts. I guess mostly just so I can link to some photos.

We had a good Christmas together. Dustin decided that his gift to us would be that he'd stop using his crutches. He did that for us. On Christmas Eve we had the Harcey's over and enjoyed having dinner with them. The boys lit sparklers afterwards and each opened a gift. We opened the other gifts on Christmas morning. Taylor got a Lego rocket that he had been wanting for over a year.

He's getting better at walking each day, although he really dislikes his exercises. Dustin made it back to school for the last week and a half of school, and was even able to participate in the school Christmas program. Although he missed many of the practices they managed to find a part for him. He enjoyed making some gingerbread houses with his class.

I spent quite a bit of time with the boys this past week working on our go-kart. I wanted to get as much done as I could before Christmas. Actually it's slow going, but here's a photo of our progress. As soon as Christmas arrived then Dustin and I had to work on the model airplane we gave him.

Big Bug

Big bugs freak you out? Check out this big boy! Just in case you can't tell, it's a cockroach.

Well, here we are

Well, here we are again, back at work. Actually I'm only going to be here a few hours today. I came in at 10 AM because I stayed home for a while building a control model with Dustin. We brought that back with us from the US this past summer since things like that are hard to find in Quito. It has a .049 Cox engine and I'm excited because that's how I got my start with model planes years ago. Unfortunately, just like it was for me, Dustin isn't just down the street from a hobby shop. He needs some balsa sealer and fuel-proof paint, and it's going to be a trick to get that any time soon. The problem is that when you're nine, you don't always have the most patience in the world.

It's a rainy Christmas

It's a rainy Christmas Eve morning. The hanger is somewhat empty today. Most of the North Americans are on vacation. I'm here working on a PC for a missionary who is on furlough. I'll have it all ready for his return in April. The really fun stuff is the go-kart the boys and I are building. I'll be back after lunch to keep working on that.

I've not written much

I've not written much in here lately. We were hard pressed with our noses to the grindstone since returning to life in Shell after Dustin's stay in the hospital. We could have used a vacation, but that will have to wait until the first week in January. Dustin's struggling with his slow progress, and I wish I could do something about that. His knee still requires therapy and the going is slow. Stitches came out this past Saturday, but he'll be on crutches few more days.

It's good to have

It's good to have Dustin and Ellyn home again. Dustin and Taylor have switched places on the bunkbed for a few days so Dustin doesn't have to climb up to the top. He's also in school today. I don't know if he made it all morning, but I'll find out when I head home for lunch in a few minutes. We're thankful he's doing so well, and we're looking forward to him being all better by Christmas. He is on the mend, but he's going to have to keep working to get the full range of movement back in that knee.

In Quito Again

The following was written on Saturday, but not posted because internet access options changed unexpectedly:

Well, where to start. It's Saturday and I'm back in Quito, this time with Taylor. We came up this morning with Sandy and Trish. Ellyn has been up here all week with Dustin and much has happened.

On Tuesday Dustin went to an office outside the hospital for an MRI of his knee. Those images revealed an infection in the femur. On Wednesday Dustin went into surgery again. Unlike the arthroscopic surgery of the week before, this time the doctor made a three inch incision on the inside of the right knee and drained the infected bone. Dustin has been making good progress ever since. Today marks his third day without a fever, and when we saw him today he looked so much better. In fact when Tay and I walked up to the front of the hospital at 1 PM, Ellyn and Dustin were sitting out front, enjoying the sun. I was surprised to see he wasn't in a wheel chair, but using crutches.

Right now he's on the bed taking his IV antibiotics and making something with some construction paper. Quite a few people in Shell gave gifts for me bring up today. He started with some physical therapy this morning and the therapist will be back this afternoon. It sounds like if he does well with the therapy he may be able to go home on Monday. Earlier we had been told Wednesday was the day he would be released, so this is good news.

I was able to get back to work this past week. Getting back to Shell on Sunday was a bit hard. I was tired from spending five days in the hospital, and it was hard leaving Dustin in Quito knowing he wasn't well and that we still didn't know what was causing the fever. On top of that, Taylor was out of sorts because our family life had been turned on it's head. By Monday though, he and I had settled into a routine. Trish arranged for people to bring evening meals to us and that was a huge help. I would come home each day at 3 PM with Taylor and do his homework with him. He would then go to a friend's house to play and I'd head back to work for an hour. Friday was a holiday, so we slept in and then had pancakes. After that he went to a friend's house to play and I went to work for the day. In the afternoon on Friday he made a gingerbread house with Molly and her kids. It's quite an impressive house!

Ellyn is going to take a break from the hospital the next couple nights and stay in one of the mission guest houses. Shrek has finally made it to Quito. Maybe I'll take Dustin to see it tomorrow, even though the boys saw the movie when we were home this summer. Even if I don't, we'll work on getting Dustin up and around more so he can build up his strength. It's going to take a while after two weeks of laying in a hospital bed. The Lord has been good to our family. Despite the hardships there have been blessings, and He has always been with us, and always holding our right hand.

I wrote an update

I wrote an update last night to enter in here, then couldn't connect to the ISP here in Quito. Of course since my iBook has no floppy disk drive, it makes it hard to take that text off my computer and run over to the Net Cafe with it. Makes me wonder if my next computer will be an Macintosh. Wonder who else they've lost as customers because they don't put floppy drives in their machines?

I'm back in Quito today. Came up Saturday AM with Taylor. Dustin was sitting in front of the hospital with crutches when we pulled up. He is doing great! He should be home Tuesday, and he can hardly wait. Now that he's feeling better, he is so ready to leave the hospital. He's spent the past two weeks of his life in that one room!

More from Shell!

I'm back in Shell

I'm back in Shell tonight. It's very late, and I'm playing catch-up with my e-mail inbox. Taylor is asleep in my bed across the room, and through the open window I can hear the rain falling outside. It's nice to be back home tonight. But I miss Dustin and being able to care for him. Right now his mom is doing that. We thought we would switch places on Monday, but there was a perfect opportunity for that today, as an emergency flight left Shell late this morning. Ellyn rode along, and we were able to see each other for about fifteen minutes at the hospital before I caught the flight back to Shell. Today (make that Sunday) Dustin was still not feeling any better. Still has pain in the knee when he tries to move it, and can't stand on the leg. Still has a low grade fever that occasionally spikes. Still has no appetite to speak of.

Back in Shell, Taylor and I put up the Christmas tree and a few decorations. He needs to spend some time with Papa, and is worried about his big brother. He's got a cold and isn't feeling too hot. This evening we watched a Mickey Mouse Christmas video and ate some popcorn. I'm exhausted from this week, and after the movie we both fell asleep. I woke up an hour later and made it over to the computer.

It's 5:30 PM and

It's 5:30 PM and Dustin doesn't want to be bothered by anyone else. No nurses, no doctors, no visitors. Only his dad is welcome. Well, I back again after a quick interruption by Dr. Boldt. Actually, I don't consider it an interruption, as he speaks English and can fill in the gaps for me.

We've had a busy day. It started off well. He ate a little breakfast, we did some school work. The pain in his knee keeps him from standing, but we managed to give him a shower, sitting on a chair as usual. He had visitors from Shell for a few minutes. I had him out of bed, sitting up and reading for a bit, and then he spent some time sitting up on my bed. Just sitting on a different bed was a good change of pace for him. Then after lunch Mike came by with his dad, and they played a game of backgammon and chess. I could tell Dustin was getting worn out, as he was ready for a nap before they even got here. Just after they left, his friend Craig, from Shell, came by with his dad. They were up for the day and had gone to the bullfights. Dustin perked up a bit to see his classmate.

After all the visitors he told me his temp was going up. Sure enough, it was 38.8 (101.6) so we knew we had to tell the nurses so they could draw some blood. What a fiasco. One of them dropped and broke a thermometer on the floor. Two guys couldn't get blood, so they had a nurse try. She managed to get about 2cc after a long time and much wiggling of the needle. Poor Dustin! He was so brave, and put up with a lot, and only shed a few tears. They even had to come back and get blood one more time, because they need to samples from different sites. It went much better that last time. We started counting how many times he's been poked, and it's a least a dozen times in the past six days. And this is the same kid we had to literally hold down to give the vaccinations when we came to Ecuador in July 2000. He's come a long way!

So now it's the end of the day. Dinner is here and I'll try and feed him a few bites, which is all he'll want. I hope to get him up in a wheel chair for a bit, and also do a bit of physical therapy with him. I think homework will be out of the question, but the teacher in me can always hope. In the morning I actually thought we might be in Shell on Monday. Now I'm not so sure. If the fever doesn't go down soon, the doctor will need to clean his knee out again. Thanks for your prayers.

Thoughts from Quito

I should call this 'thoughts from Quito'. I'm ready for both of us to get back to Shell. I thought we might be able to head back to Shell yesterday, but it was not to be. Because Dustin's fever still hadn't come down, they didn't want to release him. At about 9 AM the doctor came in and took the drain out of Dustin's knee. That's given him a bit more freedom. Later in the afternoon I had them disconnect him from the IV machine and took him around in a wheelchair.

It turns out he has staph aureus, or a blood infection. The mystery is where the staph is coming from, as he's been on IV antibiotics since last Sunday evening. They took out his IV and are culturing both that and the drain that was in the knee. He has a new IV farther up his arm near his elbow. Later in the afternoon yesterday he spiked another fever, and that was discouraging for both of us. Mike and his dad came by to play a couple games with him, but he was sleeping. Later, just before visiting hours were over, Mike and Joan came by with a chocolate milkshake for him. Also, at 3 PM Pam had brought him a burger and fries from McDonalds but he felt good enough only to eat the fries.

We ended the day by doing a little bit of school work and watching some videos. We both enjoyed cool runnings, and it was good to hear him laughing. We don't often watch TV together, and it was good for us to just hang out together.