The Bradshaw Crew

Dad has been home for a couple of weeks now and recovering very well. Of course he’s bored out of his mind and looks forward to getting out as often as he can for short amounts of time.
He’s had a lot of pain though and had an MRI to find out why. The results showed that he’s got an annular tear which is a tear in the outer wall of a spinal disc causing the inflammatory mediator phospholipase (gel like fluid in the disc) to leak into the epidural space. He’s also got a bulging spinal disc and a pinched nerve causing sciatic pain. He went to his primary care doctor today and found out his incision on his belly is also infected so he had to open him up, clean it out and pack him with gauze which he will have to unpack himself in a few days. He’s still on pain pills, now on antibiotics for the infection and will start heavy duty steroids soon to try to minimize the nerve pain from his back injury (from the surgery) until they can come up with a permanent treatment option.

Even with his setbacks, he is doing fantastic. He is up and around, goes for short walks, runs errands or goes to lunch with friends, hangs out with mom and spends quite a bit of time on the computer.

You can post comments on this blog just as you could on my other blog for dad to read so feel free to comment here for him to read.

Thanks for your prayers and well wishes. Please keep them coming as he continues to heal and finds a treatment plan for this spinal stuff.

Much Love,
Kari & the Pitardi’s

Bo and I went to the Mens Wearhouse on Monday to check it out and see what they had available. I didn’t know they even rented tux’s there until I received an email from Davids Bridal (where I got my dress) saying that they had a partnership and used the same color schemes so we figured we’d check it out. It’s a lot closer than the Tux shop which would be way more convenient for all the guys so we went just to take a quick look at what they had.

About an hour later, we walked out after Bo had been fitted, picked out exactly what he wanted, ordered it all and paid in full! Sweet deal! They were very helpful and friendly so we just went with it and got everything taken care of! Now we’ve just got to get the best man & groomsmen to go in and get fitted and it will all be done!

We also found pens. Bo wanted to use matching pens to address the envelopes (so did I but I gave up on finding them FAR before he did) so after visiting a few craft stores, we tried one last ditch effort going to Staples Office Supply where we found the perfect Sharpies! Yup, I’m addressing our wedding invitations with Sharpie pens! (they’re fine tip)… the color matches great, we were so happy, I guess that means I should probably get to work on them sometime soon huh? UGH….

We spent quite a lot of time looking at different invitations from different companies and finally chose on a design from Stylart sold at Costco. They were very cute and we were excited to get them in the mail hoping all the wording turned out right. A week after ordering them, they arrived and were perfect! So the last 2 days, Bo and I have folded them, punched out the die cut, weaved the ribbon through them, tied the ribbon and stuffed them in the inner envelope. We both regret getting invitiations we had to actually assemble, but they are cute and we like them. Now comes the addressing part of the invitations. I’ve agreed to hand address them all but I need to figure out how to word them, would it be MR. & Mrs. Bo and Kari Bradshaw? or Bo and Kari Bradshaw? or Mr. and Mrs. Bradshaw? I don’t know… when i send cards to my grandma they are addressed to “grandma”, is there a different prefix to use for someone who is a widow? And I JUST learned the other day that Ms. is for someone who’s divorced, who knew!? So if you are reading this and you get an invitation in the mail either with no prefix or the wrong one, I apologize. I never made it that far in english to know proper grammar or even if that’s a grammatical error or something else. We still have to finish the guest list, make sure the church can accommodate everyone (we have already had to cut back quite a bit) and hope to get the invitations out in the next couple of weeks. Tomorrow we’re heading out to look for Tux’s!!

Our wedding planning has been going very well! It’s stressful trying to make everyone happy (family, friends, each other, etc) but we’ve still enjoyed planning. We’ve reserved the church (for the ceremony and reception), our Pastor, the photographer, caterer and dj. I ordered my dress a few months ago and we’re going soon to check out Tux’s for Bo and the guys. We also just received our invitations in the mail which came out perfect!

We’ve been counseling with our Pastor since January and that is also going very well. We’re learning a lot about each other and learning how to communicate better and resolve conflicts since we seem to be so good at digging them up. At least we’re getting a lot of the “marriage fight” stuff out of the way now and learning how to compromise very well with each other.

Thanks for checking out our new blog. As I transition from my World Race blog and we start our lives together, this is the new place you can get all the info on what’s going on in our lives! We’ll try to write more soon and see if i can figure out how pictures work on this site to put a couple up.