In Which Papi Breaks His Hip, We Travel to California, and the Fourth of July is Celebrated

For the Fourth of July, my family decided to go to San Diego and meet up with my cousins who have a timeshare condo there. My sister Amanda and her husband Alex were driving up from Texas, and it was going to be one of those increasingly rare times where my whole immediate family (minus Brandon) would be together.

My dad broke his hip cycling up Hobble Creek canyon about a week before the trip, and our family get-together was thrown into a crisis. Syd and I had already bought our plane tickets, and Alex and Amanda had already started their long trek over to California. 

I want to take a moment here and talk about my amazing freak of a father. He was cycling up the canyon when he skidded on some gravel and slammed into the pavement. Since his foot was locked in the pedal his leg wasn't able to move with the fall and that's what broke his hip. At first he thought he had just dislocated it. He tried calling my brother for help, but didn't have any service, so he got back on his bike and biked ALL THE WAY BACK HOME.

But the story doesn't end there. After getting home, since everyone was still asleep, he dug some crutches out of the front closet, went downstairs and tried to pop his hip back into place by himself. 

Only when that didn't seem to be working did he wake up my mom and asked her to drive him to the hospital to have it checked out.

He jokingly told the X-ray tech he wasn't allowed to tell him if it was broken. After the X-ray, the tech came back and when questioned by my dad, said "I'm not allowed to talk to you about this."

It turns out he needed immediate surgery. For awhile they were considering giving him a hip replacement, but decided to try pinning his bones back together first. He might need a hip replacement in the future, but they won't be able to tell for a few more months if the injury cut off blood supply and killed any bone. 

My dad is an awesome freak of nature. He went back to work the day after the surgery and was determined to go to California. Luckily the doctor said he could, as long as he got out every couple of hours to walk around on his crutches and stretch it out, though he wasn't allowed to put any weight on it for 6 months. I was just relieved he was going to be able to go, since this was to be the only time I would be able to see him. He came later, with John and Aly. 

So, we all met up in California for a few days and spent the Fourth with my cousins. 

It was perfect.

We were a little concerned how all of us were going to fit in a two bedroom condo, but we managed surprising well, with my parents in one bed and my youngest brothers on the floor, and then Amanda and Alex on an air mattress my uncle bought for the occasion, and Autumn on the couch, and Caleb on a cot (also brought over by my uncle) and Aly and John on a cabinet fold-down bed in the living room, and Syd and I in the other bedroom in twin beds, and Oliver in the closet in his playcrib.

Oliver fell off the bed for the first time while we were there. He had woken up rather early, and I was nursing him and (I guess) fell asleep. The next thing I knew there was a loud thunk (which jolted me awake) and then Oliver was crying. I felt so bad. He hasn't slept with me since then. To this day, I still occasionally jolt awake scrambling for Oliver, terrified he's falling again, only to realize it's just a bad dream.

I was lamentably remiss in taking photos of this trip, and I regret it. My phone has become my camera, and it was rather full and unable to accommadate much photo-taking. Luckily, I have awesome siblings who take epic photos (much better than mine) and then share them with me.