Visitation Hours!

As an immobile and drugged up tree-hitter, I've recently become a big fan of people dropping by. I prefer friends and family, but delivery people and strangers are accepted. Since I've been home, we've had some great visits. I'd like to take the opportunity to thank everyone that's gone out of their way to come by and say hello to gimpy.

Let's start with two of our best friends Troy and Crystal. They win the trophy for driving up all the way from Arlington, Virginia to pick us and our car up from the Baltimore airport. A quick check on Google Maps indicates that the ride is over 34 miles and should take about an hour.

One way.

They drove up to meet us at almost midnight on Tuesday, February 16th! A work night! That right there is friendship. Thank you guys so much. Oh, and I'm serious about the trophy.

Now, because we had just arrived home, and we were all a flutter with trying to get around, we weren't really prepared with the camera. Fortunately, we have plenty of pictures of Troy and Crystal. Here's a good one.

Not surprisingly, they look like this most of the time, except when Troy is blocking Crystal's layup with his left and then his right hand. I believe in this picture, we were at Cape Cod fixing to eat some lobster! They are one genuinely happy couple. You guys rock and we are truly lucky to have you as friends.

Now my Mom and Dad win the record for being the most helpful! They flew up from Tulsa the day after we landed. They've been a giant help. My Dad played with the dog, Spunky, and my Mom has kept us well fed. We absolutely love you guys! My Dad had to take off last weekend due to work, but my Mom is still here. More food for us!

My first appointment with Dr. Buchanan was the morning I turned 28. Later that night, Mom and Dad (mostly Mom) made me a cake and we had a sweet 28th B-Day par-tay! It was awesome, you should have been there. That's how cool my parents are. I challenge anyone to a parent-off!

Unfortunately, I don't have a picture of our friends Scott, Joe, Chris, and Jeff, the next group of friends that surprised us with a visit within a week of us getting back. We really appreciated the visit, and we're terribly sorry we didn't grab a picture together. Instead, here's a picture of Dog the Bounty Hunter in his SUV.

Stay away from drugs and crime, kids. You don't want this guy after you.

Next up is another one of our best friends, Alison! She too was quick to visit, getting here within the first week. Really, I think she just wanted to see how bad the leg was and to play with our dog, Spunky.

This wasn't taken the first time she dropped by, I think it was taken last Thursday. But it captures the fun these two have together. I mean, look at how much fun Spunky is having!

Our friend Tyler had originally asked us several months ago if he could stay with us during the weekend of February 19th through the 21st while he attended a conference. We had a full house for a few days with Brooke, Mom, Dad, Tyler, and myself all in our apartment. But we had a great time!

Tyler's staying at the Hotel Meehan again this weekend for another conference. You should check out some of the awesome pictures he takes when he travels. We're looking forward to another great time.

Here's a picture we took from Tyler's first stay at Hotel Meehan. This is Alison's visit number three, if you're keeping count. I'm sure Alison is.

Another friend of ours, Lindsay, came out to watch the USA vs. Canada hockey game for Olympic Gold, the day just before my second surgery. Troy, with all the school work he had, took some time and came out as well.

It was an amazing game, if you didn't catch it. Unfortunately, Crosby, one of the world's most hated hockey players, ruined it for America in overtime.

But Lindsay, thank you for coming out and giving us some support the day before surgery two. You too, Troy. We didn't take a group photo, which is extremely surprising! So here's a picture of Lindsay from our Sonoma, California trip.

Lindsay is in a Brooke and Crystal sandwich (she's the beautiful lady in the middle).

Our friend, Binoy, is also a competitive friend. We're actually surrounded by competitive friends. I'm betting he realized he was way behind in the gimp visitation game. My parents are obviously in the lead, but they're family and are not qualified to participate in the competition.

So I believe Alison is currently in first place, by a landslide. Binoy, well, he hadn't seen me since before my accident. So on Thursday, Binoy dropped by, for visit number one, after he left work. Alison was already on visit number four. We were watching Tulsa lose horribly to UTEP. Horribly.

Again, we didn't grab a photo, so here's a random one of Binoy I found.

I'm pretty sure that's his fake smile. It's a pretty good fake smile, though. For all of our friends out there, $20 says he asks me to take it down when he gets back from Philadelphia.

Today, I had a visit from some friends from work, Dave, Doug, his wife Katie, and their son, Ben. Here you can see Ben investigating one of my external fixator rods. He's pretty happy about it, which is funny. I, too, was pretty happy about it.

I tried to explain to him that it felt awful wearing it, and that it was probably something you wouldn't want in your mouth. I don't think I was successful communicating this to him. He continued to examine the fixator with his mouth.

That toy elephant on the inside of my left leg isn't Ben's. It's mine. You might also notice that I'm wearing the exact same shirt as I'm wearing in the Tyler & Alison picture. That's because I'm down to about a three shirt rotation right now.

Surprisingly, before everyone left, we had the wherewithal to take a group picture.

Ben apparently enjoys eye glasses.