Here's Hoping. . .

That today is an altogether better day than last Sunday. That should be easy to do. Last Sunday began with Kathleen dropping a plate on the floor, which shattered, and Keegan, in his usual place grasping at her leg, immediately grabbing one of the sharp shards for all he was worth. It cut him deeply across three fingers. He didn't cry much, and was mostly interested in watching that red stuff flow out and get all over his fingers and hands, as he clenched and unclenched his fist and fought like heck to keep us from putting band-aids on.  The blood flowed so fast that once we did get band-aids on, they would get soggy almost immediately, which allowed Keegan to easily pull them off again. After several rounds it finally stopped enough to keep the band-aids on, and today he seems none the worse for wear.

That, however, was nothing compared to how we ended the day last Sunday. We had an evening family get together, with all of the cousins, out at Kathleen's sister's house in Salt Lake City.  All was fine and dandy, until Kate ran at full speed, mouth first, into the forehead of her poor cousin Molly. It broke almost a quarter of one her upper front (and permanent) teeth off, leaving it deep in Molly's badly bleeding forehead. It bent Kate's other upper front (and permanent) tooth backward into her mouth, and it was bleeding.

I was the first adult to know about this. Kate came running up to me, not crying at all, and told me, in just a bit of a whimper, that something bad happened and she needed help.  Almost no crying at any time thereafter. She is so tough. Well, chaos ensued, which included fishing Kate's tooth-chip out of Molly's deep wound (poor Molly ended up with five stitches). We then raced for home, tooth chip in hand, madly calling every dental student we ever knew. Some of you were on the receiving end of that. A huge thanks for all of your help. While I was talking to you, Kath was madly dialing every Bountiful person we knew, trying to find a dentist willing to look at Kate at 9:30 p.m. on a Sunday evening (over a holiday weekend, no less). The first local dentist we were able to talk to was Mark Blaisdale, who said he would be there in two minutes, and whose office was very close to our home.

Imagine our peace when we found out that he had graduated from none other than UOP. We felt truly blessed. He glued Kate's chip right back onto her tooth, straightened out the other one, and an hour or so later we were on our way home. Here is a picture of the operation.