The baby is getting so big!  She is walking everywhere, and I believe she eats more than the other two kids!

    Katy walks almost every day of the week, and uses her arms to do rehab with the dominos, and also to use a stylus to surf the internet on her new tablet.  She has had all of her blood tests come back normal for the last 4 months, and hasn’t been in the hospital since December.

    Amber is doing great in school!  She is ready for a Summer break, and will be spending a month in Austin with her dad.  We get letters every day from colleges courting her!

   Jake is ready for Summer break!  He will be hanging with friends, riding his bike, and spending a few weeks with me at the beach for Rock N Roll band camp.

     Katy is singing in our band, Soulshine.  She does backups, and I play guitar.  You can check us out on www.reverbnation.com/soulshinebandtx.

  Thank is about all I have time for now.  I hope this update finds all of you well.

Love to all,

Al

Speaking of “home,”  our new house is great.  We are settling in nicely, and TRYING to keep up with all the leaves that fall in our yard.  I caught the little old man next door blowing his leaves in our yard.  I laughed.  Our other neighbors are AMAZING!  The sweet couple that lives next door has quickly become close friends, and we feel blessed to have moved in next to them.

Amber is doing well in school, and such a HUUUUGE help.  She comes home from school, takes Jake and Arielle to Jake’s MMA class, and then comes home and makes dinner while everyone is waiting for me to get home.  Then she does her homework. 

Jake and Arielle continue to be fun-loving kids, and keep us all in stitches!

Our other member of the family is Shantel.  Shantel started off as Katy’s nurse, and Arielle’s caretaker.   Now “Auntie Tell” is a daily part of our family, and has been a God send.  She cooks, cleans, gives medicine, organizes, takes Katy to therapy, and is a big part of what keeps our lives going. 

Other “Angels” have shown up on our doorstep and helped us out of the goodness of their hearts.  There are too many to mention, but we would like to hug them all!  One particularly kind man, Larry, owns Sundown Lawn Service.  Larry has kept the lawns up at the old house, and had his crew do our leaves at this house. 

Ali Kay, at Positive Space Art, has done murals in 2 of our children’s room, and is about to do another.  This incredibly sweet, and unbelievably talented, young lady has created artistic masterpieces.  What a great gift to our kids to customize their rooms.  It helps to let the kids know that we aren’t going anywhere, this IS our house.

Thanks cannot begin to express how we feel about Betta, Mike, and Jen.  They have worked insane hours on our behalf, and there aren’t words to explain what they have done for us.  Thanks you 3!

To everyone else, thank you all for your prayers, dontaions, emails, food, gifts, thoughts, ideas, and support.  You have not only done wonderful things for our family, but many people contact me to tell me how your kindness has reaffirmed their faith in humanity. 

No promises, but I will try to blog again soon.  May 2011 find all of you healthy, happy, and with those you love.

Love to all,

Al

alhayesmusic@yahoo.com

Thanks!

Love to all,

Al

Love to all,

Al

Arielle is growing so fast!  She is “furniture surfing,” (pulling herself up on the furniture and walking while holding on to things) and she has skipped baby food all together.  She still has a couple of bottles a day, but eats anything we put in front of her!  She is quite the character, and LOVES, LOVES, LOVES music.

Jake is in 1st grade, and doing well.  He has had a few friends over, and his room is the closest to being unpacked of anyone in the family.  He is taking mixed martial art classes 3 days a week, and we have all noticed how much these classes have helped him go back to the “old Jake” that we all knew. 

Amber is doing very well in school.  She is also being a huge help with picking up her brother and taking him to MMA practice. Her homework load is heavier than it has ever been, but she is keeping up with it. 

The new house is great, but is still filled to the ceiling with boxes!  We are getting it done one day at a time, but it is a daunting task to try and organize while I am working and both kids are in school. 

I want to say “THANKS” to Atascocita Methodist Church for all of their hard work in the yard, and building ramps for Katy.  Thanks to Marion for all of her AMAZING efforts in getting paint, doors widened, coordinating volunteers, etc. 

A HUGE “congratulations” to our friends Sarah and james on the birth of their first son!!  I’m still waiting on pictures…hint, hint.

Oh well, I have saved the best for last.  So much has happened with Katy, that it is hard to know where to begin.  Katy started September by doing the castings for her leg prosthetics.  Her “stubbies” are short prosthetics, with no knees, that are low to the ground, for safety.  We were particularly excited about this development because we were told, initially, that she wouldn’t be able to be cast for legs for another 6 months to a year because of her wounds.  Well, in typical Katy fashion, she healed quicker than anyone could have imagined. 

Katy did 3 weeks of in-patient rehab at TIRR.  The folks at TIRR were above amazing.  Katy did occupational therapy, physical therapy, and function groups.  Aside from her daily work outs practicing getting up, rolling over, sliding in and out of her wheel chair, etc, she also painted a bird house, painted some wooden kitties, played table tennis with a balloon, changed the diaper on a baby doll, drove her own wheel chair all over the hospital, and kneeded dough!  She also, in spite of the doctors saying that no one walks in the first 2 weeks, walked on her first day with her legs!  By the end of her stay, she walked 60 feet unassisted! 

Since returning home, Katy has done some cool things.  Last week she drove her chair to Jake’s school and picked him up….he was SOOO excited to see her!  They are so cute together.  He sits on her lap and gets to drive her around.  It is truly a sight to behold.  Today, Katy put up the silverware from the dish rack.  She is doing so well, and I am so proud of her. 

Last week, Katy and I got to attend the Case Managers Association meeting in Houston.  Ted Muilenburg was giving a talk on prosthetics, and focused on Katy’s story.  Katy got to get up and answer questions.  The people were so nice, and Ted, as always, did a great job.  Wednesday will see Katy talking to students at a school about what she is doing to overcome the loss of her limbs.  Again, I am proud of her.

Anyone who has followed the blog from the beginning will know the name “Dr. Purdue.”  Sadly, Dr. Purdue was killed by a drunk driver a week ago.  Katy, the kids, and I drove to Dallas for the funeral.  I would like to say that, in my limited time knowing Dr. Purdue, that Dr. Gary Purdue was the type of man that the world needs more of.  He was a skilled surgeon, as we know, but he was also a great man.  During the service we learned of his commitment to his family, his patients, and his staff.  Every day, around 2pm, I would wait in the hall of the 6th floor for my meeting with Dr. Purdue.  For some unexplainable reason, he had a way of giving me information in a way that made me trust him.  As you know, I was not the most trusting of the doctors, but I always felt good about his advice.  He was caring, informative, and respectful.  Both Katy and I feel grateful for his work, and, at the same time, feel sad for all of those he will not be able to help.  Rest in Peace.

Thanks, again, for your patience with me in not writing my blog.  I will write as I can.  Our family will forever be grateful to you all.  Even if all you did was read my ramblings, at least we felt like weren’t alone in this.  Thanks you.

Love to all,

Al

Katy has been fitted for her leg prosthetics!  Her wounds are healing so much faster than anyone could have guessed, and everyone, from the doctors on down, are amazed by her healing.  Her hip still gives her a lot of pain, but we are working through it.  She stood up on Monday, with the help of the prosthetists and her nurse, but it is still the first time she stood up since February.  She is supposed to be entering TIRR’s rehab center on the 12th for her 2 week boot camp.  I would like to say a HUUUGGEEE Thanks to Ted Muilenburg, and all of the staff at Muilenburg Prosthetics.  These folks are like family to us now, and the attention to detail, and Katy’s needs, goes WAY beyond what was expected.  They are great people, and we feel blessed to have gotten to know them.

Now for the $h!t we have been dealing with.  The wonderful folks at the Social Security Administration have started sending us letters telling us that if we don’t turn in certain paperwork that Katy will be declined for future SSI, and no longer received Medicaid.  The thing is that the papers they are requesting have been turned in TWICE before.  Now I am running around collecting copies of taxes, bank statements, and trust documents, all of which have been turned in before.  I asked how on Earth they could lose documents containing such pertinent information such as social security numbers, birthdays, legal names, etc.  They have no good answers.  I have contacted an attorney, and we will be requesting another case manager.  I do not feel as though this person is competent at their job, and I fear that relying on this person for my wife’s medical needs will only result in bad things. 

That is the news for now.  We will be having a house warming party soon, so keep looking for posts.

Love to all,

Al

The exciting news is that the inspection went very well, and though there are things that need to be done to the house, we are moving forward with the closing!  Yeah!!  Katy, the kids, and I are so excited about the house.  We all wanted to say a big THANK YOU to all of you who have donated your time, money, and prayers to help us.  We are one step closer to having a home that allows Katy complete access to all of the rooms, and, thankfully, keeps us close to all of our wonderful friends in Kingwood.  We are planning on having a big house warming party as soon as all of the repairs are done, ad we have moved completely in.  If anyone knows anyone who is skilled in the following areas, we need help with ….

ROOFING

AC INSTALLATION

PAINTING

WIDENING DOORWAYS (2)

BUILDING RAMPS

I am pretty handy with tools, and so are a few of my friends, but the roofing/AC work will require someone with more experience than I have.

In the last week and a half, Katy has been getting out and about more and more. She had a very sweet MOYC get together at Sharky’s.  I know it meant a lot to her to get to have a great dinner with all of her friends!  She is getting more proficient with her prosthetics, and was able to use them to move pieces in a wooden puzzle, feed herself a carrot, and even signed her name again!  We also went for a family walk to Krogers where Katy operated her power chair all by herself!!  She drove herself to the store, around the aisles, and back…we were all so proud!  Another piece of good news is that, thanks to the nice people at Northshore medical supply, we may have found a solution to her ostomy problems.  The new bags seem to be working great, and that will save us several dollars a month.

TO THE PERSON WRITING NASTY COMMENTS ABOUT ME – DON’T HIDE BEHIND A FAKE NAME.  WRITE ME USING YOUR REAL E-MAIL ADDRESS.

I will write more as soon as I get more info on the house, etc.

Love to all,

Al

We have the inspection on the house tomorrow…wish us luck.  Provided that nothing major is found, then we will close soon, and start renovations immediately after that.

I will keep you all updated as things progress.

Love to all,

Al

Love to all,

Al

As I reflect on the last 11 years, the good and the bad, I know , WITHOUT A DOUBT, that I would do it all again.  Even if I knew what was to happen, I would travel our road.  Katy has been the best thing to happen to me…even when I have fought tooth and nail to say she was wrong!  She has helped to balance my inner turbulance, and somehow convinced me to at least come home to the same place now and again. 

We went out today, and enjoyed a fabulous lunch (thank you so much to Italianos), and went and saw a movie tonight.  Everywhere we go we get stopped by people telling us that they follow our story.  Thank you all.  I have to admit that I wonder why so many people follow our lives.  I have spent my whole life trying to be famous, and, in this situation, I feel weird when praise is heaped on me.  I feel that I did that only thing that there was to do.  It was as reactionary as flinching when something surprises you.  Whatever the reasons, I appreciate all of the kind words.  I know I haven’t been blogging lately, there hasn’t been a whole lot going on, but I will now have A LOT MORE TO WRITE ABOUT.

TELL ALL OF YOUR FRIENDS TO START READING THE BLOG AGAIN…A BUNCH OF EXCITING STUFF IS HAPPENING

I have had umpteen million requests to turn this ordeal into a book.  Nothing has been signed into contract yet, but I have been approached by a publisher.  I will update as we hopefully solidify a deal.  I am also planning on releasing more music very soon, at least by Christmas, and I have a new music project that I am very excited about!  I feel positive that this evolution of my recording/performing band will be out in full force this year.

We made an offer on a house!  We won;t know if the offer is accepted until next week, but we are at least moving forward.  The fundraising, though not as much as was hoped for, did allow us to start looking.  We hope this house goes through.  It meets our needs, and would need a lot less modification than others we looked at.  Wish us luck!

Katy might, depending on administrative nonsense, go in to do her 2 weeks of in-patient ptosthetic therapy on August 20th.  Though I hate her being gone, and she HATES being anywhere but with her family, we both know that this will help to advance her use of the prosthetics, and her independence.

Jake, Amber, and Arielle are all doing well.  School will start before they know it, so we are trying to let them have a final blast of fun before the real world crashes down on them…and me.  I report back to Pin Oak soon, and am REALLY looking forward to this year’s stage band and percussion classes.

KATY UPDATE—–Katy fed herself a Hershey’s bar with her prosthetics AND signed her own name on a document!! Though this may seem minor to most, it is a huge step forward for Katy.  I am SO proud of her!

I WILL WILL WILL write more very soon, and you can expect to see more blogging again.  I am so looking forwrd to the next 11 years with Katy…especially 2012 when we renew our vows….and you are ALL still invited!

Love to all,

Al