The Mole

Well, as usual things never go as planned. Today that absolutely worked in our favor. When we arrived this morning at the hospital for Emilie's surgery the doctors had already decided that they wouldn't take the entirety of Emilie's mile because it was probably too invasive. They took almost the whole thing, leaving about 2 mm of dark spot and some of the very light spots alone. I told the docs this would be emilie's first hair cut and they were more than happy to save her hair for me! After she woke up the nurse told kasey that emi looked up and said, "all done?" We are glad she did well and is currently up and tormenting her sister. The only strange part of today is that we won't know the results for another three weeks. However, we are at least relieved that regardless of the biopsy results, about 98% of the mole is already gone. I want to go snuggle with the kids so I'll leave the updates at that. Sorry, typed this from my phone, so it's probably barely legible. Thanks for all of your prayers and support!

Emilie Update 7/30/10

Emilie saw the dermatologist in the beginning of June.  We were told that her mole on the top of her head had grown.  It was close to two inches long.  We waited until July 23rd for the consultation with the Plastic Surgeon.  He was concerned that the mole looked malignant.  He wants to do a biopsy first before removing the entirety of the mole to see if it is malignant.  Regardless of its cancerous status, Emilie needs to have the mole removed so that it doesn't develop into cancer cells. 

So the question is a matter of two options:

Option A: Two Surgeries.  One to remove the entire area and placing a skin-like substitute on her head.  Re-grow the skin with a series of shots in the back of her head to grow skin and then another surgery to cut and place the skin.  Painful.  Involves shots, scarring, things we really really don't like.

Option B: Three Surgeries.  One to biopsy the mole, then stitch together.  One to remove the mole, then stitch together.  One to get the surrounding breaks of the mole, you get the point.  No permanent hair loss on skull, no major scarring (we hope).  There is also hope that her skin will stretch enough to get all of the growth areas in two surgeries. 

Choosing between Option A or B involves how threatening the skin cells are.  We of course pray for Emilie's health first, but it is hard to think that she could have more surgery, more scars, etc...I hate this for her and apologize for the negative tone. 

We did get our vacation pictures back and I will be posting them soon.  We had a very enjoyable time, unfortunately coming back has reminded me of the tasks to come. 

The difference between kid 1 and kid 2

I know that we have now grown as parents.  This became apparent when I found Emilie last week rumaging through the house.  Specifically, through the bathroom.  Even more specifically, well the picture speaks a 1,000,000 germs, er, words.

So, if this were 2008 and Grace were the one with her precious little head in the potty, I would have had to cancel Christmas in order to spend extra hours bathing the sweet one to get the icky off.  With Emilie, my laughter outweighed the panic.  Thankfully I had the sense of mind to grab the camera on my way to the Germ X bottle, which is, by the way the course of action for baby #2. 

A Photo Tour of our Spring Break

With brief descriptions as we go, spring break in photographic order. We decided to catch up on some movies that the rest of you have seen, but we haven't.

We also wanted to watch an Academy Award Nominated film, but settled on this instead. Kasey swears it was nominated for best something at some festival or another, whatever, it was hilarious.

I had my first 3-D experience, though Kasey sand Uncle Kyle stayed home with the kids so Blaire and I could go.  Considering how scared I was, I was pretty sure that Grace and Em needed to stay behind.

 We also had to do something outside, considering we wanted to paint the house this week and only managed to come up with cold rainy and soon snowy days that prevented us from doing so.  So I settled on the porch swing.  Of course you get a before circa 2008 and an after from tonight, yes I am aware that my swing has been snowed on by the ridiculous Oklahoma weather.

The bottom looks like the back of the swing, it is just covered in snow now and the frame is black.

Next, the best picture of Kasey, er I mean Santa Claus that you have seen RE: 2005 with the old kitchen in the background. 

The last of our spring break has been spent fixin' up the kitchen in between naps, after bedtimes and during the snow.  Enjoy, please let the work week start so I can get some rest.

We got the backsplash for three dollars after some teenage kid charged us for two tiles instead of two boxes of tiles.

We took a pic of the door not because we love the door, but rather because the legitimate camera is missing so we are on cell phones that don't have flashes and you can see the red that we put on the walls.  You get the point, hope everyone had a good week! We are going to bed!

The Deceptive Penguin

I remember a few months ago when we were debating about vaccines and one of our students found an article that essentially stated that pharmaceutical companies are looking for ways to keep us all sick and dependant on their drugs.  At a glance, one would think this is conspiratorial habedashery.  Enter Mr. Penguin.  Cute, isn't he?  He even comes with his own special igloo that he lives in.  And all over the world he has little friends who wear the same tie as he and who have the same friends.  I didn't even know Mr. Penguin until this morning, when my lack of sleep and "mommy instinct" told me it would be bad for Emilie to have surgery on Monday.  Her panting had progressed to wheezing and coughing where she seemed close to passing out just from the cough in the wee hours of the night.  So, I start with calling in.  And follow that with a call to Emilie's doctor,  who happens to be closed for training. 

After arranging a special meeting to see the doc, Emilie meets this guy.  He is her new breathing treatment machine for the RSV she has.  And he is so damn cute.  Too bad we only have him to encourage Emilie to punch his face while she sucks on medicated air.  And he kind of has that face that means that he is looking at us like we are the suckers.  The kicker is that RSV is highly contagious.  It is still a mystery where Emilie contracted it, where her daycare seems symptom free and we haven't felt like we've been around anyone sick...

So, now the doc prepares us for saving the "extra fun parts" of Mr. Penguin which are there in case other members of the family need to stare at his smug face and receive treatments as well.  Oh you know who is most susceptible in this little game is Grace, so I can't wait to mask her down with the not quite as comforting parts of Pengy.  I am told reassuring things like, "Don't worry, if she screams the medicine will work better," and "Don't be afraid to hold her down while you keep the mask on her face," and "It will get into her eyes which may cause discomfort but won't hurt them."  And then the best information of all, which is that we get to purchase this guy but again to not worry because "...the insurance will send you a bill for the machine."  So I'll set the over/under at $200.00.  Aaand, our house will be betting on the over.  So we finish where we begin which is with the pharmaceutical companies.  I enter Wal-Mart to get the prescriptions (thinking it will be cheaper) and as I am waiting the 1:15 it takes instead of the 0:45 it takes to get the medicine, I have the realization that I am standing here making the calls that involve "yes, it's RSV" and "yes it is highly contagious" and "oh yeah, that is my highly contagious daughter wiping her nose with her hands and then grabbing the shopping cart." I think Wal-Mart's got this figured out and for this reason DOESN'T have a drive thru pharmacy, which is to keep people from keeping their germs to themselves.  It's like open season in that store and on those carts, thus insuring that just like Emilie spread her nasty disease all over that cart, she also probably contracted the disease from the same cart.  And yes, as an afterthought, I did consider wiping down the cart, but that was BEFORE both kids starting melting down from hunger and boredom and before the rest of the customer population in the store became so uncomfortable that they had to start clicking their tongues at me and saying things like, "that's a shame" and "they are so sick," etc....The kicker and completion to my theory?  Of course the darn drugs aren't cheaper when you have to wait in the store and buy chicken poppers, tiana dolls, candy cremes and poppin trains to keep the kids occupied and happy. 

Einstein Pooping Snow

You were hoping I had found some interesting fact about Einstein? Nope, just summarizing our lives in three words or less. You know, it's like when you used to take your street name and put it in front of your last name to see what kind of stripper you were. Mine was always "Gray Fox Lehman" which made it sound as though I were some 65 year old gray-haired Grannie who was workin' the clubs to feed a meth habit, no offense to Grandmas, clubs or drug addicts. Well okay maybe offensive, but where were we?

Emilie is busy making preparations to turn one. What that means for Emilie? Presents, parties, a Baby Einstein theme that only the internet carries such that $2.93 plates became $7.99 plates because shipping & handling from the internet is worse than Oklahoma City taxes, and THAT is saying something! So after some arts and crafting, we fashioned some invitations, spent half the savings on filling helium in the ballons, and made some good deals remembering that Walmart has site-to-store free shipping!

Em is also prepping to be evaluated by SoonerStart this week, which is the OKC child development agency that will help us determine if Em has a "developmental delay." Which is great because if she does, their services are free, and if not it is even greater because, well you sillies then she doesn't have any delays.

And as is always the case with Em, we also are making phone calls today to have another surgery done. She needs the shunt in her eye moved, as it has moved anterior. This also happens to be GOOD NEWS because the docs hope that once we move that tube that Em will actually lose most of the cloudiness in her left eye too! That would be her best birthday present!

And, if you haven't heard, Grace is pooping in the potty. By the way, if you aren't a parent or haven't cleaned up after an invalid, you may need to stop reading here. Just like there were some delevery suprises and pregnancy suprises that NO BOOK discusses and just happen to be cute little shockers when you get there, a child learning to poop in the potty has the same such shock. No one tells you that learning to poop in the potty with a kid is the equivalent to grabbing the dog who has started to crap on the carpet and running frantically out the door. If they haven't told you that yet, you are in for quite the treat. Grace's first "poop" in the potty amounted to her "in the act" begging to sit on her new princess potty while we grab her under the pits, holding her a fair amount away (as if poop would go flying on us?) wondering how much will hit her pants (or worse-THE FLOOR) and we slide into home base with a little submarine in the bottom of the potty, no mess-no "bad pants." Just one happy customer who now gets a ring poop, I mean pop, ring pop. (Thanks for that tip Tracy!) It's better now, I mean now she can say, "I have to poop" and we can run together into the bathroom and then sit down, but no one told us the first 10 "I have to poops" mean "I am pooping and you better just hope you can maneuver pants down, potty balance and no emotional trauma to me before this process is done." Thanks for the heads up on that one, guys.

Last, but not least, SNOW PICTURES!!!