Deleted pictures? WAHHH

I wish I could get my photos back that I had on this blog....any ideas???

it's been a while

Maybe I'll start blogging again :-)

Nevi...nope...not the name of bluejeans...

What the heck is a NEVI? Well, its a noun and its plural for Nevus, which is any congenital anomaly of the skin, including moles and various types of birthmarks.

I had a mole removed back in September...one my lower back. I thought about calling Dr. Kelly to see what was what since I hadn't heard from her, but time passed and I forgot. I didn't go back to see her 7 days after the surgery to have the stitches taken out because Allen removed them...maybe I should have, it may have prompted her to take a look at the report. She called me last week saying she was the "delinquency police." I thought I had missed an appointment. She was calling to set up another biopsy of the area because the cells looked "funny." Ugh...what the heck does THAT mean? So I saw her yesterday and got to look at the report. Apparently my cells have such comedic value that they were sent for a consult from the doctor at Milton Hospital Pathology Department to the Skin Pathology Lab at Boston University...yup, that's how I roll....or at least my cells do! So what did the report say? Well...it said Lentiginous compound melanocytic nevus with severe atypia. HUH?? From what i've read, it means a mole whose appearance is different from that of common moles.

I'd get dizzy if I read all the literature "out there" but from what I understand and "According to the National Cancer Institute, researchers have shown that atypical moles are more likely than ordinary moles to develop into a type of skin cancer called melanoma. It is worth noting that the vast majority of atypical moles will never become malignant."

So I asked Dr. Kelly, "what if this biopsy says my cells are 'funny' too?" Her answer? We do another biopsy.

Ok, so now we wait. Allen will take out my stitches again....but I will call her next week for the results.

Is that you Santa Claus??

Andrew is so helpful....(ugh)

Friday 12/9/11

Earlier this evening AJ was a little fussy...he was hungry...here is what Andrew thought about the whole ordeal......."Allen needs to stop crying...i tried poking him in the head, but he started crying again..that's what I was doing...he liked it but then started crying over and over again but then he didn't want me to do it....hey do ya hear that? He stopped crying! Should I poke him in the head again? I think it likes it now!"

Andrew's help is just beyond words! When he was telling me he was very serious and was gesturing towards AJ's crib with his hand...and the look on his face when he noticed that AJ stopped crying was pure elation...like HE, and his poking, had solved the problem!

Some more info about Ptosis

Here are a couple of interesting articles that I found tonight about Ptosis. This one is about Ptosis and this one is about Ptosis surgery. I will keep posting information as I find it.

Happy Friday...where did the week go?

Yes, the boys should have been asleep hours ago, but I have to pick and choose my battles. I was doing the dishes when Andrew came running out of his room..."mom you have to change me QUICK! my poops are melting!!" where does he come up with this stuff? So after he was nice and clean and dry he walked back into his room and said "AWWWW what STINKS?! Aidan did you toot? ohhhh no no no wait, i know, it was me, never mind..."

Aidan had a pretty good practice tonight, he made a tackle and was pretty darn proud of himself! Abby had cheer practice and the girls had to run with their hands by their sides...kinda weird.

We have a busy weekend ahead of us (but Daddy has the weekend off...YAHOOOO!)....and a busy week next week too...but aren't they all busy? Aidan has a game tomorrow (its supposed to rain....UGH) and Abby has to cheer for the C team on Sunday. We might try to squeak some time in Plymouth in but who knows. There is an open house at Norfolk Aggie on Sunday as well and we might try to go, even though High School is almost 4 years away. Then on Monday Andrew has a dentist appointment and Abbs has Cheer practice...Tuesday is CCD and Football practice, Wednesday is dentist appointments for Abby and Aidan and Girl Scouts...ohhhh i forgot that there is a den meeting for cub scouts monday night...geez, being one of the den leaders I should remember that huh? Lets see, where was I? oh yes, more cheer wed night then AJ is 9 months old on Thursday and he has his 9 month check up and football practice and then Friday I am going to be a mystery reader in Aidan's class and then football and cheer that night...and poof...there is my week!

Long day...

Well...its almost 11:19pm and I'm tired and hungry...nothing new there! On the nights that Allen works I usually don't go to bed until he gets home. The kiddos didn't have school today and do not have it tomorrow either because of Rosh Hashana (sorry if i spelled it wrong). I have a cold or allergies or something that made me feel lousy all day so when Allen got up I snuggled in Andrew's bed and fell fast asleep for a couple of hours...and felt SO much better when I got up. Aidan had football practice tonight at 5:30. I was secretly hoping that when I woke up from my nap that I would find out that it had poured and that practice was cancelled...instead when I awoke, the sun was shining! UGH...
Well, my secret wish was sorta answered because as soon as we stepped on to the practice field we felt raindrops. I set up the DVD player in the truck for Abbs and Andrew and stood in the off and on rain watching Aidan. Allen arrived to check on his boy and us (and I was about to make a bottle for AJ) and KABOOM....a few rumbles of thunder and big flashes of lightning...off the field the boys ran to the overhang at the school...but any idiot could see that the storm was not going to pass us by without some drama...flash flooding and LOTS of bright white flashes....the coaches told the kids to run to their parents because practice was over....YAY!
Other than that excitement, my day was pretty uneventful. Although a highlight was when Andrew told me that he has a "pray phone" and talks to Grammy on it in Heaven. He talks about her ALL the time....its wonderful and I love that he talks about her. He often mentions her when he talks about Gigi and Uncle Bog on the moon. Who knows, maybe he knows more than I do.
I spent a lot of time last night surfing the web (why do they call it surfing?) looking up Ptosis and information about the surgery and about the surgeon. I came across a blog (which i am now following) and emailed the mom who writes the blog. Her son had the same surgery that AJ is going to have when he was only 3 months old and then again at age 2. We emailed back and forth a bit...mostly with me asking questions and I have read through her blog twice already and have a bunch of questions for her. She has chronicled his life with Ptosis very well...it is wonderful to know that there are others "out there" who are going through what we are. I have also subscribed to a few message boards through yahoo groups and am waiting for approval to be added...that should be another good source of information.

Well, that's all for now....wow, 3 days in a row of blogging.....not too bad :)

The date has been set....Nov 1st

Baby Allen's eye appointment was this morning. We met with Dr. Aaron Fay after meeting first with his fellow, a woman who's name I cannot remember. She took some pictures of AJ, measured his eye lids a bit and not much more. I gave them the report from Dr. Laby...but it was pretty clear that they knew what needs to be done...surgery. Its called frontalis suspension...there is an interesting article here. "The advantage of silicone frontalis sling is that it requires small skin incisions and less surgical time. This technique can be performed in all eyes with ptosis and poor levator function, which necessitates frontalis sling." That is a bit of a comfort...small skin incision....ugh...i want to cry every time I think about all of this. Dr. Fay is a young guy...blonde hair in a pony tail...and seems to know his stuff. He did say that he is working on a new procedure to correct ptosis but its about 10 years away...at least I know he's working on it. I'm all over the place with this today I know. AJ was awesome at the appointment, full of smiles and giggles. One thing to note that I had read and did ask the doctor about is that AJ's eye will not close all the way for quite a while, perhaps months or years...this does not mean that it will be all the way open when he tried to sleep but it will not be closed all the way...I guess we will have to just wait and see. We will have to put ointment or salve on his eye when he goes to bed at night.

The surgery is scheduled for November 1 at 7:00AM and we have to be at Mass Eye and Ear at 5:30AM...i'm thinking we wont be sleeping too much the night before. Ok, should I get a second opinion? I talked with Allen about it. I trust Dr. Laby and he trusts Dr. Fay. I've been online for a bit this afternoon researching Dr. Fay and I like what I see. He has published articles in journals of Ophthalmic medicine. Bottom line is that the surgery needs to be done. If nothing is done it is almost guaranteed that AJ will become legally blind in his left eye and his spine will not develop correctly because of the head tilt. Is this THE worst thing EVER in the history of surgeries? No. Will it help our little guy? Yes. Does it seem like the worst thing ever in his little life right now? Yes...but he wont remember it and he'll be so much better off than if nothing was done. His follow up apointment is Friday November 11th.

I do have some questions for the doc that of course I didn't think of until the drive home...
will he need additional surgeries? if so, when? how many? how often? will he have a scar? when will his eye close all the way? ever? will the astigmatism correct itself? will the "misaligned" eye correct itself? will he need to patch the right eye? will he need glasses when this is all done? how long are the silicone rods good for? do they need to be replaced?
Some of the questions are for Dr. Fay and some are for Dr. Laby.

Well, that is it for now....i'm sure i'll be blogging more later, if not today then maybe tomorrow.

"Being a mother is learning about strengths you didn't know you had, and dealing with fears you didn't know existed." ~Linda Wooten

What the heck is Ptosis anyway?

What is ptosis? Ptosis (pronounced “toe-sis”) refers to a drooping of the upper eyelid. The lid may droop only slightly or it may droop enough to partially or completely cover the pupil, restricting or obscuring vision. I got this definition from a very good article...click here if you want to read it.

I have been doing my homework on this for a while now. I knew the minute, the second actually, that AJ was born that something wasn't right with his eye..his left eye. At 12 days old I took him to see Dr. Laby. Dr Weiskopf didn't see anything wrong...most likely he'll outgrow it is what she told me but my gut told me something different. Dr. Laby is wonderful. At such a young age baby Allen had to have an MRI to rule out a tumor or fluid behind the eye. During his first and second visits to Dr. Laby we decided that it was more of a wait and see type of thing. As long as the little lid didn't obscure his eyesight we'd be ok, and surgery was something we wouldn't have to think about until his late teens or early 20s...or unless it because a social issue (meaning kids would be mean). Well, at his last visit Dr. Laby didn't like what he saw...AJ has developed an astigmatism in his eye and also he is definitely tilting his head back to see under the eyelid...neither were what I wanted to hear. The astigmatism, if left alone, could lead to legal blindness in his eye and the tilting of the head could be bad because his little spine would not develop correctly. Also, i had noticed that his eye was often misaligned...or what i described as lazy or wandering.

Where does all of this leave us? We are going to Mass Eye and Ear tomorrow to see Dr. Fay to discuss surgery. I'm not sure i'll get any sleep tonight...i haven't slept that past 2 nights at all. As Dr. Laby mentioned, in the grand scheme of things, there are surgeries that are much worse and more serious, but in my life, right now, in the life of little AJ this is huge. Say a little (or big) prayer for our little Allen...

I will update this blog tomorrow to let you know what the doctor said.

Diva

Tomorrow is "Hollywood Day" at school and Abbs is ALL ready for it...check out her pink gloves, pink boa, sparkly shades and pearls........and she has the attitude too!!

One Decade...

WOW...so much has changed in 10 years....too many things to list...some good and some not so great...10 year ago I would never have imagined that Ma would be gone...i never would have dreamed that I'd have 4 kiddos...and 3 of them boys! i never would thought that I'd be a stay at home mom...a lot can change in 10 years...

In 10 years I've lived in 2 houses...driven 10 cars (tundra, 4runner, tacoma, sedona, spectra, conversion van, explorer, wagon, ram and expedition) had 4 jobs, 4 campers, worn 3 different wedding bands and still has only one perfect husband! :) hmmm..i guess some things don't change!

Happy 10th Birthday to my Abigail Marie

I cant believe that my Abby is 10 years old today. It seems like only yesterday that we found out we were going to have a baby...and then a few months later found out that we were having a girl...a GIRL! who would have known that she would be our one and only girl...followed by a gaggle of boys!

She is going camping tonight with her girl scout troop and will be gone until Sunday. She was a little leery about going because the trip falls on her birthday but i say GO GO GO! These chances don't happen all too often so we are going to have a cake for her on Sunday.

Ok, its time to start blogging again...

I used to do this blog for Ma....and for a long time I thought, why should I continue adding to it, she isn't reading it anymore...as a matter of fact, she has a front row seat to the craziness now...sometimes I swear I can hear her laughing at the going's on in this house! But then I thought, well, maybe there are other people out there who read this...or maybe I just want to be able to look back at it someday as a synopsis of what went on in the crazy days of the kids youth...so...I'm going to try to update it now and then...hopefully more often than i have in the last YEAR...wow, how things can change in a year....ugh...

So where am I today? I am sitting at my dining room table...its 12:48am...I am wide awake and 30 weeks pregnant...the wide awake and sitting at the dining room table part is perhaps not a shock, but if you had asked me one year ago where i would be I would not have said almost 8 months pregnant...but God works in mysterious ways...

Pictures from Geoff's Turning Blue Ceremony

Wednesday December 16, 2009
Turning Blue Ceremony, Ft Benning, GA

This kid cracks me up...

I just have to jot down some of the "Aidanisms" that i've heard today...

While making out his letter to Santa he said "dont rush me..." i mentioned to him that there isnt a heck of a lot of time for the elves to make ALL of the toys on his list so he might have to wait until his birthday to which he replied "lets just concentrate on Christmas...ok..."

Sometimes when he is like a dog with a bone with something he might want and i tell him that i am doing something else (or even say AIDAN you are going to give me hypothading ding) he'll say "its ok mama...take you time, just take your time..."

Where does he come up with the stuff?

Aidan is doing Karate...

As you know Aidan is taking Karate lessons...
check out these pictures...and I hope you can see the video too...hysterical!

A few pictures...i'll post more...

Pumpkin picking at Ward's Berry Farm

us in the pumpkin field...

ahhh sleeping....

BOO!

i love that bum!

Aidan's snowman from OCTOBER 18th!

Jammies...

Well, its 9:09PM and about 10 minutes ago i heard Andrew saying "mama, ammies, mama, ammies..." i had NO idea what he was talking about...it sounded like ummies (which means food/he's hungry) so i walked in the room and the first thing that hit me was the aroma...ahhhh...poops! the next thing that hit me was the fact that he had taken off his feety pajamas with the exception of his arms. so his arms were still in the sleeves, but legs, feet and belly were hanging out. so now i know that ummies is food and ammies is jammies. when i asked him if he was saying jammies he giggles, which means yes. hilarious!