home again

oh man, there's so much to blog. okay, mainly our trip to ashland. but if I have the time, that could be several posts w/ all that we did, so this post is just for two short but important things:

1) I had a follow up xray and appt w/ my surgeon today. He gave me the thumbs up for everything except scuba diving (which you never get to do after lung surgery so that was already out based on my other surgeries). so hurray! I took my last drugs in portland on the drive back, so I'm now off drugs and a nice way along the road to recovery. I still don't have full feeling in my arm because some nerve got sliced, but feeling is slowly returning and apparently that's usually slow, but the doc expects it to come back to 99% normal eventually, so I guess it's just patience there. if it doesn't hurt then I'm allowed to pick up the kids, and I can bathe and swim again as well. my stitches came out last week and they took the steri-strips off today. one of my wounds that they glued together still has glue on it, which is irritating simply because it melts and gets on my clothes, but the other is completely "unglued" and holding well. plus I can now see that my scars on those two aren't as big as I thought, they were just very generous with the glue, but underneath the incision itself isn't huge.

2) Kaylee is 23 months today! which is neat, but the real excitement is that next month they'll be 2 years! So save the date. I am woefully behind on invitations but I'm going to start designing tonight and then get them printed and eventually I'll send them out. but if you read this blog and aren't an internet freak-o, then you're invited to their party. save the date for August 11 (Ethan's actual bday), in the morning. their party won't be as cool as last year; I did see if the ice cream truck could come again just because I liked it so much, but alas, they were already booked all day. so we'll do other fun things. but for now, just save the date!

more posts to come as I get caught up on life again. :) happy 10th (ooh, I guess I missed 10 on 10, huh?) well, happy 10th to y'all anyways!

I'm home!

I'm home! Sorry for missing that update. Here's what you've missed:

• midnight Friday/Saturday: detached my tubes from suction. they were still attached to some little fluid-gunk-measuring machines, but those machines were no longer attached to the wall.
• 5am Saturday: x-ray (yes, that is the standard xray time. I had one at 5am almost every morning). It showed my lung was still up after 5 hours of no-suction - yay!
• sometime later that morning: they pulled my tubes and stitched me up. HURRAH!
• soon after: I had this one drug that was like an epidural, but it was hooked up to my back in a continuous stream plus I could give myself more if I wanted. it ran out. instead of refilling it, they said, your tubes are out, you should be fine, and pulled it. (I was fine, so that was good). now the only medical equipment in me was my IV line.
• about 5 hours after pulling the tubes, 1pm-ish, another xray to check if my lung was still up after pulling the tubes.
• waiting for the x ray to be read, waiting... waiting...
• 2pm-ish: it's good! time to take out the IV and get discharged!
• later that day: sleeping at home in my "lung chair" that my parents bought for me back in 2008 w/ my other lung surgeries. :)

Sunday

• sleeping at home
• I have not showered or bathed in a week, and I am not allowed to shower for a few more days (or bathe for a few more weeks) so I call and make an appt to get my hair cut, just so that they will wash my hair really well in one of those sinks. my mom takes me. we go for a very short, very small walk afterwards which totally wears me out.
• I come home and nap.
• Evan and Alyssa are having dinner w/ my parents that night before heading back to CA. We go over too because I can just nap there if I need to. It goes well and I stay awake the whole time!

Monday

• Blake stays home to watch the kids and me. I take a couple naps, and at one point try to go too long w/o pain meds and learn that that was a mistake. Sarah, from a mom's group at church that I'm a part of brings us food. Dylan, a kid I just finished tutoring (going to SCU next year!) comes to visit me and brings books and chocolate for me! Audria and her kiddos come over for a playdate which is super fun 'cuz I haven't seen her in awhile and my kids haven't seen other kids in awhile either. I get two deliveries of beautiful flowers from relatives. :)
• Overall, I feel much better on Monday than either blake or I was expecting me to. yay!

Tuesday

• Today! Blake's first day back at work. Charlotte comes over to watch the kids. Who's Charlotte you ask? Well, my brother darren (8 yrs younger) has a very good friend Thomas (1 yr younger than him), and Thomas has a sister Charlotte (just finished her soph yr of hs). They live in our neighborhood, so this is pretty darn awesome because she can walk over to our place. Thus far today, she has been GREAT w/ the kids, and let me take a nap once everyone was settled. I'm not allowed to pick the kids up (doc's orders) so she's done all that and fed them lunch and the whole deal. Later today someone else is bringing us food and Danielle's bringing us groceries (like milk and bananas) and then coming over to hang out for a bit before she heads off to Extreme Week w/ the high school youth group. There may be another nap in my future, or maybe not, we'll see, but overall, it's been a good day thus far!

That's the update thus far! Enjoy a few pictures of our dinner w/ Evan and Alyssa and one from K&E and Audria's kiddos B&C jumping on the beds yesterday!

uncle evan is so silly. my fav thing about this picture is that ethan is (appropriately) weirded out by getting his shirt/tummy nibbled, but kaylee is like, "my tummy? my tummy? please do me next!"

yep, kaylee figured out she had a lot of people who were willing to throw her around if she just rotated who she asked.

drum lessons from uncle evan

ethan, kaylee, ben, and claire!

Back in bed

Dana's surgery went well.  She's back in bed, with no pain, but some "miserableness".  But Dana is smiling when she says "miserableness".  We've also got pictures of her lung:-)

In the OR

Dana asked me (blake) to post updates to her adoring public.  She went into the OR a few minutes ago.  Everything seems fine.  Thanks everyone for your support!

surgery plans

Looks like the plan is surgery tomorrow early afternoon, both talc and abrasion. it would seem that all the medical professionals think this is the best plan, so we're going with it. I haven't quite signed the consent papers yet, but I think that's likely to happen this afternoon and then we'll finally have a plan. I like plans. after surgery we expect me to be in the hospital for about 3 days, and then go home sometime over the weekend probably.

I was a little emotionally exhausted yesterday; worn down by the tedium of waiting and the unknown, but I'm feeling better today. physically I feel fine. my pain is less and less and my chest tube leash (that's attached to the wall) has been extended (they put another section of tubing in it to make it longer) so now I can make it as far as the bathroom in my room all by myself. this is actually pretty great, as it means I can get out of bed and brush my teeth, get out of bed to reach the laptop if it's been set on the counter, reach the dark chocolate covered pretzels (although not for long, I've eaten most of them now) etc, all without calling a nurse. the nurses are nice, but it's extra nice to just be able to do things for myself.

anyways, that's my update! thanks for your love, prayers, and support. and especially to those who have babysat for us - it's very appreciated!

Oh no pneumo

Dana's lungs have been acting up a bit.  She had an x-ray on Thursday, and on Friday Dr. Madsen said that it's time to take care of her left lung again.  So today we went to the hospital and Dana won the grand prize: a chest tube!  All things considered, she is doing well.  She'll be in the hospital for a while longer: until her lung heals and the doctors can perform another pleurodesis.  Many thanks Jackie, Dave, Brianne, Danielle, and Heidi for watching Ethan and Kaylee today.

campsites (kayak trip pt 2)

want to see where we camped? okay, here you go. two panoramic views of our campsites. saturday night on Jones Island and sunday night on Posey Island. To see the images better, click on them to open them in their own window and then zoom and scroll back and forth.


Jones Island (see it on a map)

people in this picture: dave and jackie, evan and alyssa, evan and alyssa (can you find them twice?), jackie dave danielle tim rp ian tara. I just find it amusing that people are in there multiple times since they walked through my picture taking.

Posey Island (see it on a map)

no repeat people in this pic, but here they are: danielle, blake (sleeping in the tent), evan, jackie and dave