Ramblings - bear with me...

We are home. Yeah! Hannah was released this morning at about noon. She had a decent night - only up once for about 45 minutes crying. Her doctor came in at about 10:30 and took the cath out, the nurse took the epidural out a few minutes afterwards. Hannah cried during both - I'm sure the cath was uncomfortable but the epidural was just because she was scared. Anytime anyone came into her room she would say "Don't touch my heiny" - the poor guy who was a volunteer looked a little surprised. :) We got her to do her business rather quickly - they told us she wouldn't have much bladder control for a few days to a week so she is in pullups. I hate that she is in them because she was never in them before. She seems more comfortable going to the bathroom in them than in the toilet. We'll keep them on her for a few days then encourage her to use the bathroom when she is healed more. We've gone through 5 of them in 4 hours - that is an expensive bathroom.

I have some pictures of her while at the hospital. She looked so tiny. I got a fun one of her hair this morning when we got her to sit up in bed after her cath and epidural were out. She had the start of one big dred lock in the back of her head that took me about 15 minutes to carefully comb out.

Her incision is about 2-3 inches long sort of where a C-section scar would be. They are disolvable sutures and are covered by steri-strips so we don't have to do anything to them. She is able to take a shower with one of us but not a bath so we got her in this afternoon for a quick cleaning. She still has some adhesive from all the tape they have used but she smells nice and fresh.

We have 2 prescriptions for her - one for the pain and one for bladder spasms. I'm not sure how we are going to know if she is having bladder spasms but we are just going to give her the medicine through this weekend and see how she does on Monday. The other is Tylenol with codine. I'm not really comfortable gving her codine but we are going to do the same thing and give it to her through the weekend and work her off it on Monday as best we can.

I'm anxious to sleep in my own bed tonight. I'm really tired. She is in a good mood and walking around so I hope the evening goes smoothly.

Thank you to everyone who was praying for her. We really needed it. Thanks for all the fun toys to keep her occupied too. I wish she had been up to playing with everything while we were at the hospital. We have lots to keep us entertained this weekend.

Updates

Hannah - Hannah's surgery went well. She was in surgery for 2.5 hours and recovery for about an hour. We saw her after about a half an hour in recovery. She was pretty out of it for the rest of the afternoon and evening. She had a few rough spots during the night the longest I was able to doze was 2 hours then I was up at 3 because housekeeping came in to clean the bed next to us at 3am! Hannah was up every 2 hours or so crying for 30 minutes each time. Mom came in this morning to sit with me and Hannah's morning was extremely rough as well. She seems to have settled some this afternoon and evening but doesn't like me to be gone long. I was able to leave the hospital for the first time this evening to come home and take a shower. But I'm heading back in the next few minutes. She hasn't been handling being away from Mommy for too long.

Jill - this is the email I received about Brent's cousin who had a mastectomy yesterday.

Hello,
Jill's surgery went really well. Only 2 hours in surgery and about 1.5 hours in the recovery room. Her lymph nodes came back clean! Thank and praise God. Then they sent her home. Yes, you heard right, they sent her home. Everyone freaks when I say that. Thank you for keeping us in thoughts and prayers. Continue to pray for a speedy recovery as she is in considerable pain. We're managing it with some heavy duty pain killers and supplementing with Ibuprofen. Feel free to spread the good news around.
His blessings for you all,
Michael


I'm off to the hospital again - hoping for more sleep tonight!

Tomorrow

Tomorrow - Tuesday - Hannah has her surgery. We have to be at the hospital at 6:30 am and surgery starts at 8:30. She should be out of recovery after about 4 hours (2 hours for surgery and 2 for recovery).
Brent's cousin also has surgery tomorrow at about noon. Keep her in your prayers too.

It was a tough weekend on the pet front. Jingle, Brandon's hamster died this weekend. It was very hard on him. So, Fred, the red betta fish died the same day in the evening. We didn't tell Brandon about Fred because he took Jingle's death really hard. We had to bury him in behind the fence because of the dogs. It was not a fun experience. We found a little box from some humidifier medicine. Brandon carried it out and carefully laid it in the hole. Poor baby cried when I covered it with dirt. The fish was flushed. No burial for him. We didn't want to tell the kids because I thought that would send Brandon into hysteria at that point.

So, tonight after homework and dinner was finished we went to the pet store. Brandon adopted a little white dwarf hamster - he was free the rest of the "stuff" was not. Hannah got a new fish. The hamster is named "Spike". The fish, I'm not sure of the name. She has changed it a few times.

Bad day on the pet front.

Weekend fun

We went to a cultural event on Saturday morning - I won't say what it was called since it has the name of our town in the name but it was great fun! Hannah tried several new foods - Indian Fry Bread with Honey, Pansit (a noodle dish from the Philippines) and rose tea. Brandon was not so adventurous he had rose tea and a churro. Brandon did do some paper cutting taught by a nice Mexican woman.
He also made a beaded gecko. We got the kids names done in Chinese calligraphy. The man who did it did one for Sarah as well. We asked for Little Rose since that is what Xiao Mei means. He did MeiGui (may way) which is rose in Chinese. It still looks beautiful. I'll have to take pictures of them to post.

On Sunday we headed out to the pumpkin patch that my family has been going to for 12 years. I know some of the people that work out there so it is fun to go every year and see them. Brandon was looking for the biggest pumpkin, Hannah wanted the smallest pumpkin and I just wanted one that was a nice shape. I think we did well. Brandon loved the petting zoo - Hannah wouldn't touch any of the animals (not even the bunny which surprised me!) Brandon was really "ham"ing it up with the piglet.Hee hee!
Here are the kids with the pumpkins they finally picked - quite a bit of the pumpkins were still green. Brandon's is the big green one. No surprise since green is his favorite color. I hope it will turn more orange before Halloween. This was the first weekend the patch was open and usually we go later in the month but with Hannah's surgery next week we figured we better get it done when we can. They wanted to carve their pumpkins last night.

We are on the count down to Hannah's surgery. We are also dealing with issues with Brandon - apparently he has a massive ammount of feces in his gut that is causing issues. The doctor put him on some mild laxatives to get things moving but if he isn't cleared up before the end of the month the doctor is looking at other options. What is it with toileting issues with my kids!? I'm just praying thinks will work out with him so we don't have to go through any invasive things with him - I can only handle one of these issues a year.

Camping pictures

Hanging out at the campsite.

The kids loved climbing the hill that was near our site. We brought home a good number of those pine cones behind them.

I like this picture of Kodi. Unfortunately, I didn't get any good pictures of Maya.

The kids were mostly good. They had a hard time going to sleep and were up at sunrise. Maya ate through her leash and 2 rope ties before Brent drove down the mountain and picked up a chain. She also didn't do well at nighttime. She doesn't bark, she whines and "talks" and didn't want to be out of the tent. She didn't just lay down in the tent - she paced and climbed on everyone. It was a difficult night. We decided that Kodi is best to take camping. :)

A bonus picture of Brandon in his uniform. He looks so cute.

I was just checking the referral sites. One still says February 10 - of course that could mean March if referrals come before that date. The other page hasn't been updated.

I wish this would happen sooner. I have been thinking I should check our homestudy and our INS paperwork to see if we are going to have to update again. Another huge chunk of money into paperwork.

I'm feeling a bit bummed today.

Hannah's LAST consultation was done yesterday and the doctor agreed with our decision to go ahead and do the surgery - of course! So Hannah is set to go on the 23rd. He said that due to the severity of her reflux and the complication of the double ureter on the left and the unknown about how they attach this is the best option for her. We talked about the incision and the scar. Hopefully it will be in a natural crease on her body and will be fairly small - 2 inches maybe. I'm not too worried about the scar or anything - just that it isn't huge when she is small because it will grow in proportion to her growing.

Brent and Brandon went on a camping trip with the scouts - it will be cold up there tonight! Brandon is quite excited. Hannah is spending the evening with her Grandma and Papa so I'm on my own for the evening. I'm thinking of hitting a movie...

November 30

5 days! Can I scream now? At this rate it will be next summer before we get our referral and then the Olympics happen. Can I scream now? Anyone want to hazard a guess as to how much it is going to cost to fly to China during the Olympics? How about for a hotel for 14 days? I think I will just scream now.

Pink for Breast Cancer Awareness

yes, I know, pink and my beautiful terra cotta color just don't go well. But, I just don't have the time or energy right now to make adjustments to my banner - so you'll all have to deal with the clash :)

Brent's cousin won't have surgery as planned this week because they are coordinating the reconstruction surgery for the same day. So, the two possible dates are the 9th and the 23rd of October. Yes, the 23rd is the same day as Hannah's surgery and no they will not be at the same hospital. Our families should be nice and concerned that day if she goes in that day.

UPDATE: Brent's cousins surgery will be on October 23. Brent's family will be worried about these two all over town.