WELCOME!!!!

I would also like to say a BIG "HELLO" to those visiting our blog from China, South Korea, Australia, Japan, Italy, Spain, Ireland, Austria, Poland, Germany, Scotland, Switzerland, Norway, Finland, South America

and..... of course Netherlands :-) ( Hi Rui Chun, Theo, Jose' and the girls! Max (and all of us) send kisses and hugs!!! Rui Chun must be running like a track and field star by now with her new leg!!!
BTW... I think Max misses you being his cribmate! He tries to sleep in bed with his big sister Sonja all the time! :-)

Much love to ALL!!!

I have an older camera Dan purchased for me. At the time, I was thinking about taking up photography as something that I could do after my injury in 1999.

My aspirations were put on hold when life, as it does, threw me some curve balls, one of them being my father becoming gravely ill. My first priority was to be by his side in the sunset of his life. That time was precious. He passed away July 2001. He was 75 years old.

The camera was put aside. We dug it out when we took our trip to Rome Italy and then to adopt Sonja. Dan later purchased a very small camera before our trip for Max, which is the camera that has been used most of the time. Occasionally we would use the old camera. Even though it is quite heavy, and is several years old, it still takes much better pictures than our new "mini" camera.

I recently took the old camera out of the moth balls and used it. To my surprise, there were these images on the card.

These pictures were taken around July of last year. I can't BELIEVE the change in Max since that time!!! Take a look for yourself!


Max looks so small in this picture with Daddy during a park picnic.


No..... that's not a beer, it's apple juice.........jeez....
A first glimpse at Max's feisty attitude (notice the stern look, raised eyebrow and furrowed forehead).
Even Sonja's looks have changed tremendously( especially her haircut....what was I thinking!!!)!

Sonja shows what she thinks about the store bought potato salad.

The above picture was taken in the fall of last year, right about this time of year.

As you can see in the picture, Max was still doing quite a bit of drooling due to his lip still not repaired and his palate fistula.

We sure went through A LOT of bibs in a day!

He would sometimes soak through his bib, and then through his shirt, which would leave his skin cold, irritated and sometimes chaffed, poor little guy.

Now, he HATES bibs, but will wear one when he needs to for eating.

They still love Daddy's horsey rides though... I don't think that will change....at least for a while.

Until next time.....

O.K....So I haven't been the best at keeping up with blogging lately (understatement of the year!).

I am so far behind in this blog, it'll take forever to catch up.

I guess I never will unless I start!

The pictures from this posting was taken back in July on our trip to a small theme camping spot.

It's very quaint and has a few things for the children to do. They have a few scheduled things throughout the day for kids to participate in as well a having a theme every week. It's not like the bigger campgrounds that have tons of things for the kids to do, but it was fun for the kids for a few days and that's what counts.

At certain times throughout the day, they have "wagon rides". The morning after we arrived, Sonja woke up bright and early (as per her usual) and was dressed and ready to go (see picture above of her on her bike).
Max, on the other hand, takes a little while to wake up and get his bearings (see picture above).

Daddy, Sonja and Max headed out to go for a wagon ride while I stayed back at the camper and hung out, as I was feeling a little under the weather. Max was excited at first to go for a ride, that is until he saw the big furry weird looking bear wearing the an ugly green hat....Oh.. and his little pal Boo Boo too.

Everyone is all smiles, singing songs and fun was being had by all.....
except for Max.
He wanted nothing to do with this whole thing.
Notice the tear just under his eye? That's due to the weird looking bear looking at him. He broke right down crying. As long as he stayed his distance, no one was gonna get hurt. One false move by the creepy bear and it was going to be a cry-fest.
Sonja, on the other hand, was loving it! She sat along side the other kids and joined right in.

Sonja: Maxie.... come on! It's O.K. Come sit with me!
Max wasn't falling for it!


Maxie thinking: Hmmmm.... those people don't seem to be too afraid.
Max approaches the big, green, weird looking bear with extreme caution. One sudden move and Max would be running like crazy, crying his head off all the way.
Max: The big weird bear hasn't killed anyone so far!
Max decides to throw caution to the wind and go in for a hug.
Max and Sonja playing with their friends.
Sonja, 3 going on 16
While camping, we met some friends, the B family. Sonja immediately hit it off with their son, Chesney. Since that trip, that's all we hear about is Chesney, Chesney, Chesney. If you click on the picture above, you'll see she's just smitten by him.
and also in this picture
He was just as crazy about her too. Oh... and he's an older man.... the ripe ol' age of 6!

Here Chesney adjusts the necklace he gave to Sonja as a gift! Awe.....how sweet!
This is a picture of Chesney's other family members (minus Derrick the dad). Rachel (Mom) is on the right, along with big sister and brother Brittney and Jordan.

Great people that we hope to see soon!

Well, that's all for now!

Until next time.....

Happy Adoption Day Anniversary!!!

Happy Adoption Day!

In my previous post, I mentioned that on July 4th we celebrated Sonja's anniversary of her adoption.

It's been 3 years since we adopted Sonja. It feels like she's been with us always!

Here's a little look back in time 3 years ago, to one of the best days in our lives!
Big Daddy, with tear filled eyes, holding his baby girl.....priceless......
She was sooooo tiny!!! She was 10 1/2 months on "Gotcha" and only weighed 14 pounds! Just like dynamite though, big things come in small packages!
FIRST BATH!!!
She was a little hesitant, but within a few minutes she was having a ball!!!
To this day, she likes those stacking blocks shown in the bath with her. We brought them with us when we adopted Max and he also loves them. I guess I'll have to divide them up to put in their memory boxes when the time comes.
Sleepy little peanut.
Sonja after her first taste of Popsicles, and her little Popsicle face (notice: big smile, red stained face and gummers!)
She had the tiniest little arms and legs.
She'll soon be 4 years old and starting Pre-K! She's so excited and promises to teach Max everything she learns in school.

On August 1st, Dan and I celebrated our 16th wedding anniversary!!!! In actuality, we've been together for 21 years. We pretty much grew up together. We were in the same homeroom in high school, hung around together as friends throughout high school and beyond, and well.... the rest is history!

Thanks for stopping by!

Until next time......

O.K.....So I lied.....

Well, I thought I would be able to post before now, but it just didn't happen.

We've been REALLY busy! So many things to do and just no time for blogging.

We've been enjoying the camping season tremendously. We've taken advantage of most weekends and have traveled to several parks.

We've also been trying to catch up on home projects that have been put aside since Max's arrival.

In the past month we celebrated Sonja's adoption day, which just happens to fall on the Forth of July, how appropriate! We had a small celebration with family and a weekend of camping and fireworks. I hope all of Sonja's "sisters" had a wonderful day of celebration too!! We love you and miss you all!!! We'll see some of you very soon!

The kids are loving camping and have made new friends. Those who meet the kids initially think Max and Sonja are twins. They are close to the same height, Sonja being 38 1/2 inches and Max being 36 1/2 inches, and are the same weight almost to the ounce!

Every time we leave the house now Sonja asks, "Are we taking the camper?" Even when we are at a campground and we go somewhere outside the campground, she asks the same thing, like we should drag it with us whereever we go!


Is Lawrence Welk camping with us?Max and Sonja love playing with the bubble machine.

"Hey! Watch out or I'll sock ya in the kisser!"
Sonja and Max doing their own woodworking projects while Bear watches closely.
Safety first!
Whatchu talkin' bout!

Dan and I celebrate our anniversary tomorrow!!!!!!!

Until next time

Update on my epidural experience for those interested

Well, It's been a while!

Sorry I haven't posted but we've been pretty busy here. Lots of stuff going on and a long list of things to do, the blog being low on that list.

In my last post, I mentioned about me getting epidural injections in my thoracic and lumbar spine. Well.... that didn't go too well.

When my pain doc was giving me my thoracic injection, she entered the space in my spine where they give the injection without any problems.
She was trying to instill either the numbing solution or the medication and when she did, I started to feel very faint, and my blood pressure monitor started beeping like crazy. My blood pressure according to the monitor was 157/80's, which is much higher than my norm. She stopped the procedure at that point to see if I would recover. It lasted for what seemed like an eternity but was really only minutes.

I started to feel better, so she proceeded with the injection again. As she resumed the instillation of the medication, I started to feel tingling in my face cheeks, and when she asked me if I had any tinging, numbness etc, I told her about it. Suddenly there was 2 more nurses in the procedure room and again the monitor started to beep.

My blood pressure, according to the monitor was 145/125, which is MUCH, MUCH higher than my norm.

Being a nurse, I was a bit worried, but remained calm. After all, I'm in a hospital, in an O.R. suite. If anything was to happen, at least I'm in the right place!

It took a little while (probably 5 to 10 minutes), and my blood pressure returned to normal.

This has never happened to me before, and I've had probably close to a couple dozen of the lumbar epi's over the years.

Needless to say, I'm not getting another. I was warned by other Chiarians not to, but I never had a problem, so I didn't listen to their warnings.....I should have and will from now on.

I was later told that my experience sounded like I may have experienced neurogenic shock. If I did, I was never told so while it was happening, or since.

I did receive some good news though....
I sent in my questionnaire/packet to The Chiari Institute on the same day as my injections, which was Thursday the 19th. On Saturday the 21st, I received an e mail from that my questionnaire had been reviewed and that they will do the consult.....YEAH! Unfortunately, I will not be notified for 4 to 6 weeks of the date of the consult. It will be 4 weeks this Thursday and I was told I should e mail them just to make sure they haven't forgotten about me!

Well, I should get to bed.
I promise I will post happier news next time (tomorrow maybe).
Until next time......

News from the Frontlines (homefront that is!)

Well, I haven't been able to upload the storm pictures to my computer (for some reason my bluetooth doesn't want to cooperate). They weren't the best quality due to being taken by my camera phone so it's not really a great loss, although they did depict the destruction of the storm.

As far as Max's team evaluation for his cleft repairs etc, all is going great. The doctor said he is pleased with the outcome of his lip and palate but said we may want to revise the lip repair before Max starts school. It really all depends on if the slight lift on his left side reduces on it's own or if we can bring it down manually by rubbing down on the incision line with our finger.

His right ear that had the tube placement is doing well too. The ear tube itself was coming out, which I had seen a couple of weeks before his appointment (and now has fallen out) and was also plugged, but the good news is that it is functioning like a normal ear should and had no fluid behind it. I'll keep doing what we've been doing though because I want to protect it seeing his other ear is compromised.

The speech pathologist said she thinks he has some speech issues (as if we didn't know) but I ordered a DVD that is put out by the Hospital for Sick Children of Toronto, Canada and she said is an excellent tool for learning techniques to identify and correct any maladaptive speech production and/or patterns. I expect to receive it soon in the mail and will review it with Max's speech pathologist he works with from our home. He is doing really well considering he had his lip/palate repair less than 5 months ago (besides his first palate repair attempt.

All in all a great evaluation.

I also have some news regarding my ongoing medical issues.

As you may have read, I was diagnosed as having Chiari Malformation, a tumor in my thoracic spine and some herniation's to some more discs.... well...I have some more good (sarcastic) news... I have a fracture to my T 12 vertebrae...AND a questionable syrinx.....yippeee

I'm sending my information, along with my MRI to The Chiari Institute (www.chiariinstitute.com), which is the premiere treatment center in the world for Chiari malformation, syringomyelia, tethered spinal cord and other related conditions, and it just happens to be in Great Neck, New York. After sending my info, I should hear from them in about 2-4 weeks. They are already booking for September so it will be a while before they can do further testing. One thing though, is that they can give me their PROFESSIONAL opinion as far as reading my MRI prior to seeing them in person. Very few doctors in the world are true Chiari specialists. Many say they are, but most have limited experience at best.

In the meantime, I'm scheduled for another series of epidural injections, my first of this series being Thursday. Hopefully, I will get some relief from these new symptoms like I have in the past for my others. Keep your fingers crossed for me will ya?!?

In other news.....

Today, Sonja and Max were supposed to go up and take their nap. I could hear Maxie up there playing and chattering along and also Sonja saying "Shhh Maxie! Mommy's going to hear you!" with that, I would say "Please go to sleep" in my best "mother" voice. The whispering and playing went on, and I decided I'd just let them play as long as no blood was drawn.

Dan came home right when they were sneaking down the stairs with the above get-ups on.
Sonja was playing the role of "Supermodel" as you can see. I'm not quite sure what was going on with Max though. He came down with the "Elton John" glasses that Sonja is wearing below, along with the fairy headpiece as a necklace, his shirt and diaper. I'm definitely saving these pictures to show to him someday (or his girlfriend :-)

Sonja strikes a couple of poses.

The Elton John glasses

Bear had his day at the spa. He did have a spa massage bath (he smells great!), nails done (no polish of course), blow dry and brush out along with his first real labradoodle hairdo. Now he looks like a labradoodle instead of a sheep dog. His groomer said he's starting to lose his puppy coat and is getting his adult coat so she didn't cut to much off so he'd have the "labradoodle fluff". You can actually see difference in the adult coat. It's like a small, tight "S" curl. She also said he had no mats!!! While she was clipping his around his eyes he flinched and she took too much in one area so she had to even it up on the other side. I think he still looks cute though. I can't wait to see what he looks like when he gets his full adult coat in.

I'm so happy we adopted him. He's a very good dog. He only barks when a stranger comes or when a stray entered the yard while the kids were playing. He is definitely protective over kids, which is exactly what I wanted.

he's already learned a couple of tricks too! He shakes paws, sits, and lies down when told (well the lying down is sometimes selective depending on other situations), oh... and he's fully house trained!!!!!

He's such a lover!!!

Until next time.....