Life changes...

I feel like I have been in the Twilight Zone the last 10 days or so. It
has been a whirlwind of trying to get everything together for the
day Alex left for college, something we have all been dreading. We
seemed to be getting things done and Alex had a little free time to
make plans with friends before leaving. That was until last
Thursday, Alex cut off part of his finger using a mandoline to
slice an apple (be warned, those things are very sharp and
dangerous). He did not want me to take him to the Emergency
Room as he said there was nothing they could do,  his finger would
not stop bleeding, just pouring and pouring. I tried something
called Liquid Bandage, he screamed when I put it on, it was so
incredibly painful. It did not stop and I kept putting more on as I
did not know how to get the blood to stop. I told him again we
needed to go, he said no as it would cost too much money to go
there!! After 35 mins of non stop bleeding I put him in the car and
drove as fast as I could to the Urgent Care. They took one look
at the masses of blood soaked paper towels covering his hand and
took him straight in. Seems that this was an injury they had seen
many times, nothing left to stitch or glue together so they just had
to dress it and bandage it. No pain medicine or antibiotics were
prescribed, and we know it will be a long healing process.

Alex is a very positive person and we still had to get everything
packed and ready for our drive to the University of Arizona on
Sunday. We got everything packed and headed out early Sunday
morning. After spending most of the day there we got his dorm
room all set up and ready. We tried to do as much as we could
for him as we did not know how much he could tolerate with his
finger, after all it is really an open wound under his bandage.

Here he is waving goodbye from his room as we left him there. I
managed to keep it together until we got back to our car, and then shed a few tears.

We are all feeling a little lost around here without Alex, my
younger son is really missing him, they are very close.
I tried to get some of my feelings down on an art journal page
and I think it helped a little.

Thanks for reading all the way to the end. Hoping that there are no
more major drama's in my life for a while...