Friday, January 22

Good morning! We were hoping to be able to give you all an update on how Clay's surgery went this morning; BUT, there was no surgery. Clay was sick to his stomach twice last evening, on our way to Dallas. We called his doctor and he said it would be a wise idea to reschedule his surgery (Mama called the doctor and the doctor said......). Also, the anesthesiologists would not have anesthetized him for surgery because of the vomiting. We turned around and came back home last night. Clay slept soundly throughout the night and says he feels better this morning. I fed him a light breakfast and.....so far so good. :-) We just received a message that Clay's surgery has been rescheduled for Friday, February 19 (at noon).
Chance and Carson are at our county stock show today. Carson will show his pig this afternoon and his steer in the morning. Cody is in school today (next year he will be in 3rd grade and will be old enough to show as well). So, depending on how Clay is feeling, we will head to the show when Cody gets home from school. Clay says that he is feeling better and keeps asking "Can we please go to the stockshow?" (Little turkey-does he really have a stomach bug or did he have a plan up his sleeve to get out of the surgery???) No, seriously, he really did not feel well last night.

Also, I haven't forgotten about the letter we promised. It was mentioned, in a comment, that this letter will now be a Valentine letter. So we will just call it our New Year/Valentine letter. :-)We just never seem to have time to turn on our computer. I have the pictures inserted into a document and saved; but, there has been a problem with saving them in the right form. After 4 trips to Kinko's, I think we have it figured out. Now, we are addressing each envelope when we get a spare moment. We do not want to miss anyone! Although, there have been just a few that have posted on the blog and we can't figure out who you are by just seeing your "blog" name. Please send us your mailing address (cdcccfite@hotmail.com) if you think we are confused about your "blog" name. We are going through our blog list, "thank-you" list, church-meeting list, town list, hospital list, girl list, boy list, etc., etc., and every other list we have to make sure we have covered everyone (making a list and checking it twice).
Thank you so much again for your care (and patience with the letter)! Thinking of all the ones in Haiti and others in "trying" times. Makes us thankful again that ALL this is in our Father's hands and makes us thankful for our privilege of prayer. ("Prayer is a mighty source of power")

Friday, January 15th

Hello to everyone. Clay broke his left arm. He has a new red cast that he is really proud of. He was playing tug of war with his puppy on the snow and ice after Christmas. He slipped and landed on it and broke two bones. He favored it but it did not slow him down. As he continued to protect it we became worried and took him to our local doctor for an x-ray. Definitely broken. He and Deidra went to Dallas to see an orthopedic at Children's. They put the new cast on and told him to wear it for three weeks. It seems that in the scope of things the arm was mild in comparison to what he has been through. He is back home and doing fine. Still on schedule for the surgery on the 22nd. Good days to all.

Wednesday, January 6th

Good Morning to everyone. There has been a large gap in time since the last post and all of the Fites have been very busy. We were able to travel over the holidays. We had the opportunity to put faces with some of the people that have grown so dear to us through this experience. We went North to Omaha, NE and were able to visit/meet some dear friends in Wichita, KS (family and friends of Larisa Hertz who has spent many days in an ICU burn unit). The boys enjoyed the biggest snow in the last twenty years. They played outside everyday and would come inside looking like a Popsicle. Clay was right in the middle of the fun. We had to tape his glove on his left hand. After that problem was solved the snowy world was his to enjoy. They did not really want to come back to boring Texas, but upon arrival, they were amazed to see that we could not pull in our garage because of the snowdrifts. After a brief stay at home we made a quick trip South for the new year. Clay made a special friend at convention this year and we went to Austin for a couple of days so Clay could see Tucker and we could visit his family. All are home now and back in school. Clay had an appointment Monday with the plastic surgeon that is doing most of his procedures. He had not seen his finished product on the neck and was pleased with the results. His goal now is to work on the nose and mouth. If he can offer Clay some relief in these areas, and the ENT Doctors approve, the next milestone for Clay will be the removal of his trach tube. Clay has already informed us that when that thing comes out and heals we need to find him a swimming pool. We have a tentative date for his next procedure set for the 22nd of this month. I used to keep a close count on the number of surgeries he has had, but I seem to have lost count. Deidra is still working on the New Year letter. Please don't give up-it is a major undertaking because we do not have much spare time to work on it . We hope the New Year finds everyone well and are thankful that we can start it out with our entire family at home. Thank you for all of the prayers and encouragement during 2009. We will try to post more frequently or when something newsworthy occurs. Take Care, Chance