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Juan Pablo came home Sunday as expected.  This part of the process could not have gone any better.  He seems to be his usual self - although he did sleep 12 hours last night.  Being in the hospital makes you tired. :)  We are back to our regular routine.  School was done with the usual whining, meals were cooked and eaten, baseball was played in the backyard until dark and teeth were brushed before bed.  Ahhhh, I love "normal". 

Now we begin planning and praying for the final step - surgery on Nov. 1.

Karen

Saturday

Everything is going exceptionally well.  Juan Pablo got some sleep last night.  I think I slept a little between 4 and 7 am. :(  With the hourly vital and neuro checks, monitors beeping, sirens and the Lifeline helicopter coming and going it wasn't easy.  He feels good, is eating good and is just his normal self.  No pain at all.  He just wants to go home.  Maicol and Andrew are here for a visit.  I'm going to go home with them and Dan is going to stay tonight.  If his blood pressure stays where they want it to he should be able to go home tomorrow.

Thank you for your prayers.  They have certainly been answered.

Karen

Juan Pablo Update

Juan Pablo had his embolization this morning.  He had a hard time waking up from the anesthesia, but is doing good now - eating ice chips and watching TV.  He should be able to sit up in a couple of hours and then can have some real food.  He is hoping for Taco Bell, but I think we'll start with something a little milder. :)  Thankfully they were able to do what they needed to in this one procedure, so he will not need another one.  We spoke with the neurosurgeon this morning and have scheduled his surgery for November 1.  So for now we are just hanging out at the hospital for a couple of days and watching his blood pressure to make sure it stays low.

Thanks for your prayers. 

Dan and Karen

Juan Pablo

On June 26 Juan Pablo had a seizure.  After a trip to the ER and some tests we discovered he has an arteriovenous malformation (AVM).  This is something he was born with and we would not know about it until he had symptoms - such as a seizure.  An AVM is an abnormal connection between arteries and veins.  These can occur anywhere in the body, and Juan Pablo's is in his brain.  There are two options - either treat it (if possible) or wait for it to rupture and bleed.  Fortunately, in his case it is something that can be treated.  After lots of doctor appointments and tests we are now preparing to begin treating his AVM.  This Friday he will be going to the hospital to have the first of probably two preliminary procedures.  They will be doing an embolization.  Basically putting him to sleep, inserting a very thin catheter into an artery in his groin, "snake" it up to his brain and then very carefully guiding it into the AVM.  Once they have the catheter where they want it they will begin to put glue into the veins and arteries involved to cut off the blood supply to the AVM.  Assuming all goes well it will take a couple of hours and he will stay in the hospital for two days.  He will probably have to go back in about two weeks and have it done again.  After that we will schedule his main surgery.  They will actually go into his brain and remove the AVM.  This will be a big surgery and involve a week long stay in the hospital. 

While this is certainly not something we would have wished for there are some blessings in it.  An AVM is a very scary and dangerous thing to have.  Many of them bleed, but his has not.  We are thankful.  Many of them are too large or in an area that cannot be treated.  His is a medium size and in an area of the brain that is easily accessible.  So, while the surgery is not simple, the percentages that he will be cured are good.  We are thankful for that.  He has had two seizures, but nothing else.   We are thankful for that.  This has not been an inexpensive thing.  We do have health insurance and have almost met our maximum $10,000.00 out-of-pocket amount.  After this his treatment will be covered 100%.  $10,000 is a large sum, but with savings, our Health Savings Account and what we saved from the adoption tax credit we received last year it will be paid for.  We had planned to add onto our house, but Dan felt like we should save part of the tax credit - "just in case" and wait to build.  So we have not had to go into debt to pay the bills.  We are thankful.  Our "big" kids live close and will be able to help care for Maicol and Andrew while we are with Juan Pablo in the hospital.  We are thankful.

We ask for and covet your prayers on our behalf.  I will update the blog on Friday after his procedure. 

Karen

Beach!

 

 

Wow, where did the summer go?  Swimming, walking, schooling, lots of backyard baseball and the beginning of bathroom remodeling.  It's fall and we're still doing much of the same. :)  Here are some recent pictures about what is going on at our house.

 

 

Andrew came in with a very cooperative (not very healthy) butterfly one day.  He had it on his finger and all over his face.  Creepy, but also kind of neat.

 

 

 

For school we made goop or whatever you want to call it.  The most popular version was a yellow-green color that we called fake snot.  Gotta love having boys. :)

 

 

No post is complete now without an adorable grandson picture.  Aidan is 11 months old and such a sweetheart.  We think he's pretty special and smart just like his parents (and grandparents).

 

 

On September 10 we celebrated the 5 year anniversary of officially becoming a family of 7.  We met each other on August 27, 2007 and it became official on the 10th of September.  Since we were gone for that day we bought an ice cream cake to celebrate.

 

We are currently enjoying our fall vacation to Laguna Beach, FL.  The weather so far has been wonderful and the boys have done really well.  The drive down went very well.  iPods and The Little Rascals on DVD were a great help.  We also "celebrated" our 30th wedding anniversary yesterday by taking them with us for a steak dinner.  Not terribly romantic, but the food was good and there were no food fights. :)  We call that a successful dinner out! 

 

When we went to the ocean yesterday the waves were very calm and it was a great day to see what was in the ocean.  Maicol and Juan Pablo are checking things out.





 

 

This is what we saw.  There were up to three of them in a group swimming around us.  We also saw them jumping out of the water and doing flips.  Very cool!



 

 Here are Dan and the boys.  Somehow they seem to be getting taller and more grown up every year. But then, I guess that's what they're  supposed to do.  We still have days that are difficult, but for the most part things move along smoothly.  We do school year round, so they are having school even on vacation.  I did try to include more interesting and fun things so it wasn't met with quite as much resistence. 

 

Juan Pablo will be going to see the interventional neuroradiologist on Sept. 21.  He will be doing the embolizations on his AVM and when that is done we will go back and see the vascular neurosurgeon to plan his actual surgery.  I would guess that the surgery won't happen until toward the end of October, but we won't know when until the preliminary procedures are done.  Please continue to keep us in your prayers.  We'll update the blog when we know more.

 

Karen

 

 

 

 

 



Spring/Summer 2012

Long time, no blogging.  Guess it's time to catch up.  So, here is the last 3 months or so in pictures.



We have been trying to get out regularly and walk.  Some for fun and some because we're old and need to get out and get some exercise!  There are a couple of parks that we really like to visit.  One has a nice, paved trail and the other is a wooded area where there are lots of bugs, birds, turtles, sticks etc. to pick up and look at.  Dan has had the boys keep a notebook that lists all of the things they have seen there. 

There's nothing quite as cool as the Weinermobile when you're 7.  Andrew and I went to see it.  Pretty cool, but you couldn't get inside and see what was going on in there.  Andrew was pretty disappointed.  But, he did have a good time looking at the outside.

We made a trip to Grandma's.  While we were there we got to check out the baby barn swallows.  Not very cute yet, but I'm sure by now they are.  It was lots of fun to check out the nests in the barn and see which ones had babies.

We also went to a park while we were there.  This is Andrew climbing a tree to try and see what might be inside the hole in the tree.  As far as I know he didn't find anything.  He sure is a climber tho.  He has also discovered he loves to do cartwheels.  He does them all the time.  Everywhere.  While we're walking, playing baseball, doing chores, walking in the parking lot.  Everywhere.

Dan took the boys for their first canoe ride.  We have an old canoe that still holds water and have been saying for a long time that we would take them canoeing.  They were so excited they could hardly stand it. :)  He took them for a 15 minute ride down to our neighborhood swimming pool and then after a little swimming they paddled back. 

Maicol played little league baseball this year.  He had only played in the backyard with the neighborhood kids.  He ended up being one of their main catchers.  He also got to pitch and play 2nd or 3rd a little.  We really enjoyed watching him and he had a wonderful time.  He is signed up to play ball in the fall too.  For someone who had not played organized baseball before he did really well.

Checking things out from the dugout.

We made a trip to see Dan's dad and spent the night at a state park.  Not sure why they're saluting.  Just silly I guess.  We were out walking and found wild raspberries to eat.  Yum.

Andrew "not" getting in the lake. :)

Maicol celebrated his 13th birthday.  He had a baseball cake and a family dinner.  We still need to take him to a Reds game for his birthday gift.

We also finally did something to celebrate Andrew's birthday.  (It was in March)  We went to a place that had bumper cars, laser tag, rides, and this neat thing that let you shoot small, relatively soft balls at your brothers.  Lots of fun for everyone.

I love this picture.  Maicol may be 13, but he will still grab his brothers hand and walk.  In fact, he still sometimes reaches for my hand and we walk together.

Juan Pablo.  About 3 weeks ago he had a seizure.  Something new for him.  We spent several hours in our local ER and then transferred to another hospital.  He has an arteriovenous malformation in his brain.  Fortunately, it has not bled and is not causing him any problems yet.  We are still waiting to have one test done.   After that, a group of neurosurgeons, vascular surgeons and interventional radiologists will meet and they will let us know what the plan of action is.  There will be at a minimum some type of minimally invasive procedure done and at a maximum actual brain surgery.  We covet your prayers as we wait to see what will need to be done.

We have also been doing lots of swimming.  The boys play baseball in the backyard everyday.  Even if there are no neighbor kids to play with the three of them play. 

Karen

The Winter that Wasn't

In Indiana we didn't have winter, so no sledding, building snowmen or beautiful snow pictures. :( While I know that most everyone is happy about the lack of winter, the boys and I missed it. They kept asking me when it would snow and I assured them it would. :) How was I supposed to know this would be a no-snow winter? Dan even bought a new sled and we didn't get to use it. So, the winter toys have been put away and we are on to spring. But, we did have Christmas. Here are a couple pictures.

Everyone got a new hat for Christmas. Unfortunately, they didn't really need them this year.

One of the fun things they received for Christmas was boxing gloves and headgear. Jonathan got this for them. What a great idea! They have boxed each other without getting hurt. There was even a boxing demonstration in the living room in their underwear one night!

Bethany got them this big, heavy box. They were so excited to open it. They were expecting some great gift, but it was a little bit of a trick. Inside was a 24 pack of orange soda. The other part of the gift was a trip to an indoor amusement center.

For school we studied about California. The state flower is the poppy, so we made poppies out of pipe cleaners and crete paper. Don't they look cute?

Maicol and Juan Pablo.

February brought a visit from my brother and his family. My Mom came and stayed with us too. Since it was so nice out we went to a local park and hiked. This is the boys with their cousin. It only took about 4 takes to get a picture of all of them together, looking the same way, holding still, etc.

Grandma and Maicol playing basketball.

March took us to Grandma's for a visit. It was 80 and warm enough to play in the water. She has a little pond that isn't more than 18 inches deep and they had a great time playing there. Of course they were just going to walk out on the log and a little and not get wet. We all know that eventually they would all be in the water. :)

Our dogwood tree is beautiful this year.

The new favorite activity this spring has been fishing. Maicol is the leader, but the other two like to go too. They have been mainly catching bluegills about 5-8 inches long. After many days of trying Maicol finally caught a big carp.

Andrew's 7th birthday was in March. Here he is opening his gifts. Notice the fancy wrapping paper. :) Hard to believe he is 7.

"The boys"

Life continues to just fly along here. Everyone keeps getting older. Maicol keeps reminding me that in just over 2 years he will be 15 and able to get a driving permit. Yikes!! School is going reasonably well. They much prefer to play outside, watch a movie, play the computer, etc. You get the idea. :) I'm always trying to design ways to add those types of things into school, but there are things you just have to do even when you don't want to. They all still have their strengths and weaknesses and we keep working on those things. Maicol is playing (for the first time) baseball. His first game will be Saturday, so the next post will no doubt have pictures of that. He is very, very excited. With the good weather we have already started having hotdogs and marshmallows outside. We may go throught a record number of hotdogs and marshmallows this year.

Thanks for reading...

Karen