1 Nephi 4:6

"And I was lead by the Spirit, not knowing beforehand the things which I should do."

It's common enough to have a song stuck in your head, but have you ever had a scripture running through your head incessantly? That's the way it is for me lately. In one week I'll be in California having a "Health and Physical Exam" on Grant to make sure he's sturdy enough for the surgery the next day. I'm positive he's strong enough for a procedure, he was sturdy enough for his exam under anistesia recently. But that night and the rest of my time there, I don't yet know where I'm going to stay. The housing option I will be using has yet to be confirmed, and I won't know until Monday the 5th where Grant and I get to live for the next 2-3 weeks. The options are basically a room @ Ronald McDonald House or someplace similar to that, or if they are full next week then they'd make arrangements for me to stay in some kind of hotel room for the duration. Or, as I've jokingly suggested, I could pack along a dutch oven and sleeping bags to camp on the beach. That one actually sounds fun for some other time, but not in the winter and absolutely NOT with a post-operative newborn. So it'll be one of the other options. Until we know which type of place I'm staying at, I don't know what my diet for the next few weeks will be like ( kitchenette area? Fully equipped shared kitchen area? Hotel room with not even a microwave, just a vending machine down the hall? Eating out 3 meals a day out of necessity? I just don't know yet.) but hey at least Grant's eating is pretty simple at this point. :)


I packed for myself and 2 kids and left town immediately after Christmas, "not knowing beforehand", and am just trying to be guided by the Spirit for all of this. No new year resolutions, at this point I'm on "one day at a time" mode. Understandable, right?

Oh yeah, and this Sunday is Fast Sunday. If you're able and healthy and willing to do it, please skip a couple of meals and pray & fast for Grant that the surgery will go well, and for Dr. Brown that he will be guided to do an excellent job on his eye in the OR. This surgery isn't done on infants a lot, and the rates of success are rather slim. But I don't know if any of the other infant cornea transplant patients have ever been from an LDS family, so maybe we're extra entitled to a miracle. No? That's not the way it works? Drat. Well, success would be a miracle and so we're hoping for a miracle so pray with us please if you'd like. Thanks so much. bye!

quick check-in

Ok so I got to Vegas. Just thought I'd let ya know. I'm at my dad's house and doing fine. He has internet here, and I'll blog if anything interesting happens but I honestly will mostly just do twitter updates because it's just easier when I'm away from home like this. Plus I didn't bring the camera.

So I'm not much into technical stuff or computers so I don't know why this is happening but on your computer screen, on the left side of my blog where there's the twitter updates, do all of the entries say "One minute ago"?? It's obviously not true. But I think it's just the cookies or settings on his PC or something. Anyways, someone let me know and I'll attempt to fix it. If it's just on his I won't bother. :)

Gotta go.

Happy Festivus Everybody!

First of all....... I don't know what's up with the twitter. I hope it's fixed, and won't do any more of that jibberish it did. Hmmmm.....

Well here's the scoop.

I'm leaving for Vegas with both boys the day after Christmas. While Mike stays in SLC and works, I'll be there with my dad and stepmom to visit for a while. January 6th Mike will fly into Vegas, and the next morning we will drive with Grant down to San Diego. Lincoln is gonna stay in Nevada at my dad's house for about a month. I will miss him so so much. And the surgery on the left eye will be January 8th, with daily checkups for a few weeks afterwards and (I've read) hourly eyedrops and staying at a Ronald McDonald house of some sort, Mike flying back and forth once or twice in that month..... well, it's a pretty crazy time for us. It'll be stressful. I'm excited to have it over with.

Anyways, now the real reason for a post today.

I LOVE FESTIVUS! I think I like Festivus even more than I like Christmas. :)

If you don't know what Festivus is, it's my duty to educate you! Here is the wikipedia link where there is an explanation.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Festivus

So every year for quite a while now, my brothers and I ritualistically celebrate Festivus. We watch the episode (or sometimes just act it out. Yeah, those years are.... interesting.), eat bagels and cream cheese, and have a festivus pole out somewhere close. Then there's the airing of grievances which is always amusing, and the feats of strength. That's basically just a big wrestling match of whoever wants to participate in it that year. Then whenever we can declare a champion of the feats of strength, festivus is over much to the relief of Mike. He is exasperated every year with the silliness of this tradition we have.

December 23rd is the "official" date from the Seinfeld episode, we do it that day if we can, or we do it early if we're going to be in different places for the holidays. This year it's on the real date! But Chris and Mike aren't coming.

Party poopers.

We will be with them tomorrow morning, doing things all day for Christmas Eve pretty much. There will be residual festivities then, to make up for them missing the pole tonight.

I love the silliness and simplicity and family time of festivus. Although it's kind of an anti-Christmas holiday, it always puts me into the Christmas mood.

So happy festivus to all! Have a great day.

Beginning to look a lot like Christmas (in Grant's eyeballs)

Rough Draft, I obviously have a couple more pictures to add here.



Grant loves being under Christmas trees, Lincoln did at his 1st Christmas too! Grant stares up at whatever amount of LED light he can see, and bats his hands at the bell ornaments I always make sure are close to him. This is his grandma Reger's tree though.


Should I get the crappy news out of the way first, and then post the funny pictures of Lincoln and Grant I've had sitting on the memory card for a few weeks? Yeah, I guess that's what I'll do. Like I've said before, it's kind of a downer so feel free to read the last section, the cheerful part first then return to the top. Whatever you want. Here goes......

Grant's tear duct probe was Wed. It went very well, and the difference is immediate and drastic. It's his Christmas present to Mommy, that I don't have to wipe off his eyes and face constantly anymore with yucky yellow stuff constantly flowing from his eyes. I'm so glad! And it makes him a much happier boy as well. Here's a picture of what he'd look like most mornings when he woke up with his eyelids just glued shut. It would make him really mad. Poor guy.

So that is just awesome! But the exam performed at the same time was just awful. Actually it's about as bad as we thought, but seeing an extreme close-up picture view of his eyes made it obvious how bad it really is and was devastating. Here's a picture of Lincoln's eye at one of his exams under anesthesia, the dr dilates the patient's eyes and uses a retina-cam to take a picture into the pupil. Ideally you see through the cornea and look at any abnormalities in the retina. (those lines on the sides of Linc's eyes are little veins on his cornea that aren't supposed to be there. Medicine is helping those shrink away.) This is a pretty close to normal picture though, of what you're supposed to see, so I'll post it so you can compare. You're supposed to see this red circle thing in these pictures like this.

And here's a picture of Grant's eyes with the retina-cam. Cannot even begin to see into the pupil, or even if there are any veins on the cornea, because it's got all this junk in front of it. It looks like a blizzard! And remember, your pupil is what you see out of. So these are the messy corneas Grant looks through all the time. Which is why he sees probably only light but can't tell exactly where it's coming from or track it(that's light perception vs. light projection), moving shadows, brightly colored lights, fluorescent objects and..... well, I guess that's about it. I pretty much knew that already, but seeing a picture of it like this was awful.

The pediatric ophthalmologist confirmed a cornea transplant is the only option to improve this, and even after a transplant it's so likely to reject and leave him worse off than he started, that he told us to give serious thought to just not doing it on either eye. It could cause detached retina, glaucoma, or several other things that could result in them having to remove the whole thing and put in a glass eye. He told us we could do it, and there's a chance it might work, even less that it'll work long term. Or maybe instead we could put our time and energy and resources into learning braille and getting him orientation & mobility training, purchasing a white cane and/or guide dog etc. etc. That was his suggestion.

So it's a lot to consider. Not fun. On the bright side, he's sweet and adorable and growing fast because he eats constantly. So with that as a lead in, here's the recent non medical, fun pictures of the boys.

Couple of pictures of Grant in a Santa suit. Merry Christmas!



Best part of Thanksgiving is totally the LEFTOVERS!! I love it. And I know there's bunches of post-Thanksgiving recipes for turkey-stuffing casserole and such, to creatively use your leftovers. But why do that when it's better just in it's original format anyways? Turkey on the left, mashed potatoes+gravy on the right, big pile of cranberry sauce and stuffing in there also...... good stuff! Hey, how many days till Canadian Thanksgiving again? I am already excited. ;)

Lincoln decorated the bottom 3 feet of his Grandma Reger's tree, then proudly grinned for a photo. Oh, and that's her cute doggy Daisy in the background. She's just a tiny, hyper white ball of fluff.


Linc's silly faces!

Boys at the Festival of Trees meeting Santa. And Lincoln is not scared of St. Nick this year! I'm so glad. Still won't talk to him really, but sits shyly on his lap and grins instead of screaming.



In a way really impossible to capture in pictures or words, Lincoln is ecstatic about playing in the snow this year, loves all things Christmas with an eagerness that is adorable..... being a 3 year old at Christmas is really fun. I think he's lovin' it.

That's the end of that post! Merry Christmas, maybe I'll post again soon and try to not complain so much next time. Sorry.