Elliot in One-derland

Ok, so it has been a really long time since I have done an Elliot update.  In fact, I think back at the beginning of the summer I made promises to post her birthday pics on the blog.  Oops!  Well, that is not happening.  So I thought the theme of this post would be Elliot since she has hit the big O-N-E.

Can I just say I love, love, LOVE this age?!  Basically, this summer was so much fun because she is 100% personality and a blast to be with.  Her love of the great outdoors has not diminished.  She spent a lot of time outside in the garden with me.  Sometimes playing in/eating dirt, sometimes sneakily snatching unripe fruits and veggies off the plants.  She also spent a lot of time playing in the water.

More recently, she has started communicating more with words.  It is like she suddenly opened her mouth and actual words started falling out.  Some of her favorites are "more" (used in equal parts to request more food or more reading), "moo" (used to describe any animal sounds, not just cows, as well as what she calls her favorite magnet, which is actually a moose), "beep beep" (what she says when she wants to sit in your lap and do something, usually to read a book.  As in the sound a garbage truck makes when it's backing up.), and "Tote" (her interpretation of Toast's name).  Even with all the new words she still gets really frustrated when she can't communicate with us.  

I think the most profound difference from before age one and after is the emergence of her personality.  She is very sensitive but not shy.  She is sweet.  She is funny and finds random things amusing.  She is able to read people and react to them in a somewhat socially appropriate way.  And she is extremely flexible.  I am unbelievably proud of her.  This last month has been rough on her with my Dad being out of commission.  Pre-surgery he watched her 3 days a week.  He is recovering well now, but is still not quite up to snuff to watch her yet.  So we have been relying on the kindness and generosity of family and friends to watch her those days Dad would normally have watched her, which means in one week she might go to three different houses and babysitters.  She has handled it like a champ.  I think it was more difficult on me than her.

So I picked a random assortment of photos from the last 3 months or so to include in this post.  Enjoy!

Trying to convince Mommy to let her go down the big slide.

Gardening

Thwarted by the gate.

Sitting down with a good book.

Playing at the park.

Family selfie.

Enjoying the two S's: Strolling whilst snacking.

Harvesting summer's juiciest bounty: the peach.

Splash parking.

Her daily visit to "Happy," her tree gnome friend.

Reading on the go.

More "Happy"...this time in the pool!

Cooling down in the shade.

Watching her melons pop up in rows.

Her favorite: the floorbed.

Just because a baby from behind is adorable.

The thrill of the fair.

Crumbs.

Couch potato.

Yoga

Ice cream is a food group, right?

Eating directly from the cob.  She couldn't do that a year ago!

I will try to update more often in the future.  We are just having too much fun to document :).  Happy fall everyone!

Unfortunate complications

Another quick update:

Unfortunately, we got some bad news after Dad returned from the second procedure.  The CAT scan showed that there was some bleeding outside of his brain, with a wisp of blood in the brain, that was causing some fluid to fail to drain.  So, they are currently in the process of putting in an external ventricular drain, which will drain the fluid externally (as opposed to a shunt, which is internal and permanent).  They said this is necessary and occasionally one of the consequences of thinning the blood for surgery, and not uncommon.  The real bummer is that he is now expected to remain in the ICU for another week and discharge date will be pushed out until at least then.  As you can imagine, this was disappointing news for all of us, given the positive reports early on, as we were hoping he would be discharged on Wednesday.  The plus side is he should be much more comfortable after this is done because it should take away most of his headaches.

So for now we are playing it by ear.  Erik, Elliot, & I are still planning on heading home tomorrow since we both have to work Wednesday, but will likely be back next weekend.  Please keep the prayers coming!  We hope this is the only complication in an otherwise successful surgery.

Brief Update on Dad

I have finally found some time to update everyone on Dad's surgery.  It will be brief because I am T.I.R.E.D.  It has been a long week, haha.

As we speak he has just been rolled down for his second procedure.  More on that later.

The big surgery took place on Thursday and, thank God, went very well!  This surgery was the first of a two-step process for attacking the aneurysm and was the much more invasive process.  They went in through his skull and swung a vessel down to his PICA to bypass the aneurysm which they are coiling off today.  (If that didn't make sense to you go back to my blog post from several weeks ago where I explain it in brilliant [sarcasm] detail.)  There were no complications, however it did take much longer than anticipated.  We were there at 5:45 a.m. and did not leave the hospital until 11:00 p.m.  The surgery itself took slightly longer than the 4-6 hour estimate and apparently it takes quite a long time to prep and close up for brain surgery, so that accounted for a lot of the time.  However, there was a lot of just waiting for his room to be open up in the ICU where we could see him.  So that was a long day.  But, I am not complaining because everything went so well, and honestly, compared to a lot of the other patients in the neuro ICU, he is in great shape.  He also has/had a LOT of family here for support.  My sister, Danielle, flew in from New York, and in addition to Erik, Elliot, and me his mom, 3 sisters, 3 nieces & a nephew, dad, and several aunts and cousins have been here.  It has been quite a crew and Elliot got to meet some people she has never seen before.

Today's procedure (I say procedure because when I said surgery to a nurse I was sternly corrected that it is "actually a procedure, not a surgery") is much less invasive.  They are going in through his femoral artery (near groin) to do an angiogram plus coil off the aneurysm.  It should take approximately 3 hours, plus a couple hours in recovery, followed by 6 hours of lying flat.  So, he will probably be uncomfortable this afternoon.  They plan on taking out his central line today and he is still on track to be discharged on Wednesday.  He is one hundred times better today than he has been.  When we arrived this morning he stayed awake for 20 minutes talking with us.  He was cracking jokes and being himself.  I can't believe how fast you can bounce back from brain surgery!

Thank you so much for the prayers, texts, and phone calls.  I feel so blessed to have wonderful family and friends.  I especially want to thank my sister-in-law, Krista.  She has been amazing.  She has let us crash at her apartment for nearly a week (and we have made it a disaster zone!), makes us dinner, and has taken time off work to watch Elliot so we can be at the hospital.  I don't know what we would do without her.  Please keep us in your prayers, specifically that this second procedure goes well, that recovery is speedy, and that everyone has a safe trip home.  I will try to update soon about the procedure today.

Live Love(d)*

*Lutherhaven's theme for the summer

Look closely between the H and A...surprise!

We just got back from our vacation at Camp Lutherhaven on beautiful Lake Coeur d'Alene!

What a wonderful week!

For those who don't know, Lutherhaven is a Lutheran summer camp that has been around since the 40s and hosts thousands of kids, families, youth groups, etc. all year long, but during the summer is a traditional summer camp, where each week kids arrive for an awesome week of fun in nature and learning about God.  It is particularly special to Erik and me because it is where we met when we were counselors there in 2006.  We jokingly refer to it as "the land where our love began" which is not entirely accurate, since we were just friends at the time and did not actually start dating until afterwards, but at the base of every good romantic relationship there is friendship, right?  

Lovers in love (and friendship).

At any rate, we were thrilled when the opportunity arose for Erik to volunteer his time as the camp medic for a week, and Elliot and I got to come along.  It turned out to be a lot of work and great experience for Erik, and for me, his de facto assistant ;).  It was an unusual injurious week, with three campers being sent to urgent care and in some cases the emergency room, some bad sprains, and a concussion.  He handled it all like a champ and had great bedside manner, even for some of those overly dramatic kiddos who acted like they were dying from a stubbed toe.  I could not be more proud.

Erik Supermedic

Elliot is a born nature girl, so she, of course, had a great time.  She loved being outside so much and found quite the rock collection.  Every time we went outside she would find a rock and insist on bringing it back to the medic station.  Somehow they didn't make the trip home...  She was the star of camp.  Her love of children combined with her lack of shyness endeared her to almost all the campers, especially the girl cabins.  I think everyone knew her name by the end.  She would walk around camp saying "Hi Bee!" to everyone she came across with a huge smile on her face.  ("Hi Bee" is what I always say to her when I haven't seen her for a while.)  To no one's surprise, I have the trip well-documented with photos.  I took over 200!  Yikes.  Luckily for you, I've whittled it down to the best 40 or so for this blog post.  Without further ado, here is what we were up to all week:

Enjoying the vistas.

Making friends with kids...

...and Milton.

Being a cool baby.

Patiently waiting.

Indulging her Yadao (or is it Ladendorf?) bread gene.

Playing.

 Posing.

Getting her sand and swim on.

One of my favorites of all time.

Spending some quality time with Daddy.

 And forced cuddles with Mommy!  She actually loved trekking all over camp in her Ergo and I loved it because it was like around-the-clock cuddles.

So if the pictures are not speaking for themselves, we had a great time and can't wait to go back!

Until next time Lutherhaven!

Update on Dad; The Next Steps

We spent the last few days in Seattle where Dad underwent another angiogram so the surgeons could have a better idea of what we are working with.

On Monday, Dad checked in at the hospital bright and early to get his labs done and then to get the angiogram done.  Turns out he did not need to get there so early because they did not get him in until almost 3:00 p.m.!  It made for a long day for everyone.  It went fairly well after that and the surgeons were able to get very detailed 3D imaging of the aneurysm and the arteries around it.  Dad was left with a bit of soreness in his leg/groin region, where they inserted the the tubes that let out the dye and he had to lay flat for 6 hours after the procedure so he didn't get back to the hotel until around 10:00 pm.

On Tuesday, we met with the surgeons to discuss the results of the angiogram and plan out the next steps.  As we already knew, the aneurysm measures at about 11mm x 13 mm, which is classified as "big".  Unfortunately, we got some bad news.  Based on the type and location of the aneurysm they will not be able to "simply" go in through the groin and coil it off.  They will have to do two surgeries, and the first will be an "open" surgery, where they will actually have to remove a small window of his skull and operate on the surface of his brain.  I have made some sketches to help illustrate what we have going on here:

 Ok, so the sketch above shows the problem.  As you can see, the aneurysm is on the right vertebral artery which supplies the brain stem and the PICA (don't ask me what it stands for, it is an artery, and apparently it is quite an important one).  Coiling the aneurysm does not present a problem to the blood flow to the brain stem (Sidebar: Coiling is the process of putting a coil into the aneurysm that stops all blood from flowing into or out of the affected area.) because the left vertebral artery also supplies blood to the brain stem.  However, it does present a problem with regard to the PICA because the PICA has no other blood source besides the right vertebral artery.  If they were to go in and coil the aneurysm without taking other precautions there would be no blood flow to the PICA and this would almost certainly cause stroke and damage to his balance, speech, swallowing ability, and who knows what else.  So before they can coil they have to do another procedure.

 The sketch above illustrates the procedure.  So what they need to do is find another blood source for the PICA before they cut off the blood source from the right vertebral artery.  This blood source will be a scalp artery that they will "swing down" and suture to the PICA.  This means they will make an incision in the scalp and pick one of the arteries (apparently his scalp won't miss it because there are many redundant blood supplies there), the attach it to the PICA through the window made in the skull.  They claim that it will be very well protected  by the rest of his skull.  The process I just described is known as bypass surgery, and this should take around 4-5 hours and he will do it on a Thursday.

Once the first procedure is complete they will give him a few days to rest up and get more tests done, MRI's and all that, and then the following Monday they will go in and coil the aneurysm.  In this process they will go in through his leg/groin, the same way they did for the angiogram.  Once this is done the aneurysm will be blocked off and no blood will flow through it.  Easy, right?

I was surprised to find out that the hospital recovery time for all this is actually pretty short.  They said he could be released as early as the Wednesday directly following the second surgery on Monday.  Literally less than a week after he has open brain surgery he should be able to walk right out of the hospital!  Amazing!  So, even though this is not the best news we hoped for, I left the hospital feeling confident that Dad was in really good hands with his surgical team at Harborview.  The surgeries are going to take place at the beginning of September.  Please keep us all in your prayers.  Especially Dad.  He is understandably very anxious about having to undergo open brain surgery.  Thanks everyone for the outpouring of love and support.  It really helps!

Please keep us in your prayers!

This post is not going to be as fun as usual, but I thought it would be a good way to keep everyone informed at once about what is going on with my Dad and also to get lots of prayers going.

For those who haven't heard, a couple weeks ago my Dad went in for an MRI because his doctor wanted to rule out MS.  The results showed no signs of MS, but did reveal a brain aneurysm on his right vertebral artery.  A CT angiogram (CTA) was done to get a better picture of his brain and it revealed there was another aneurysm on his left vertebral artery.  He was referred to a neurosurgeon at Harborview in Seattle and had his consult appointment there this afternoon.  Erik and Dad's girlfriend, Ramona, went with him.  I stayed behind with Elliot, but I was packed and ready to go at a moment's notice if they decided to operate right away!

I have some good news to report from the consult!  There was only one aneurysm, the original one on the right side.  The thing on the left is not an aneurysm, but the doctor said it could turn into one so they will monitor it every few years.  The other good news was that this particular aneurysm has only a 2-3% chance of bursting per year.  This means that immediate surgery is not necessary and they can take a more cautious approach.  The possible options we were given prior to the consult were endovascular surgery, which is where they go in through a vein in the leg all the way up to the brain and fix the aneurysm (I'm a lawyer, not a doctor..."fix" is the best way I can describe it :)), or to actually cut open the head and snip the aneurysm.  The endovascular option is less invasive with a shorter recovery time, so that is what we were hoping for.  Well, today the doctor said before he can say for certain whether they can do the endovascular procedure he needs to get an even clearer picture of Dad's brain to ensure there are no healthy blood vessels mixed in there that would be harmed by that type of surgery.  So, Dad has to go back up to Seattle Sunday night for an early Monday morning procedure where they will look closely at his brain, then has a follow-up consultation on Tuesday with the neurosurgeon where they will (hopefully) set a date for surgery.

That is all the information I have for now.  I think the most frustrating part, for me anyway, is not having a clear plan in place yet.  We would appreciate if you keep him in your prayers and especially that his blood pressure stays low.  Erik says he is in good spirits after his consultation today, which is always good for the blood pressure.

Thanks everyone!