Last night in PA!

Well it's officially here...

Our last night living in Port Angeles.

I needed to take some pictures of my kids

before I left because they are so dang cute.

Ok I love this girl! I can't even begin to

explain to you how much! Tonight she said

"Grandma you have chocolate? I said no, She said "I love chocolate".

now I know it's official she's mine! I love chocolate too!

 I know you think I only have four kids...

The reality is here in this picture.

Marty, Cody, and Chelsey's best friend Chelsea are also my kids.

 I love this one...

They turned out great! (The kids and the pictures).

Tomorrow starts a new adventure we are excited for!

Stay tuned for updates!



7 in 7...

Officially I am moving in 7 days.  : I

But technically I am moving everyday.

Tuesday it was a large load to the Goodwill.

Wednesday it was the Piano

Today (Thursday) it was the log bed to Amy's.

Friday it's a Large load of extra VW parts.

Saturday Eric's Mustang is moving to it's new owner.

(See photo below)

Yes that is Chad moving (kindof) a piano.

He ends up suffering from these kinds of actions but

He likes to feel helpful so we argue over it. Guess who wins?

 

This is Chelsey & Chloe :)

(spy the unpainted VW in the garage).

This is what my house has looked like for about

3 weeks. (Moving UGH!)

7 in 7... 7 hrs away in 7 days from now.

Yes we are moving in 7 days.

How is is possible that these cars will be functioning

in 7 days? I believe it will be a miracle :) 

The extra parts we are selling at the

VW show this weekend are left overs from these two cars.

 The blue convertible on the left is

Eric's car. The green car on the right

is Chad's car.

Were moving ...

I am sorry that we (I) have not been posting much.

My life is pretty chaotic right now and I get a little

overwhelmed.

We are moving in two weeks and two days!

Eric lost his job, his last day was May 24th.

We sold our house, it was a short sale so we get to leave with bad credit.

Eric was accepted at Eastern WA University  and starts this fall.

I have to say it has been one hell of a year!

In the last year we have both lost our jobs,

Had fibroid and brain tumors,

Sold our house, we have to move.

Had 6 hospital visits.

And other heart breaking things I won't blog

about to protect my children's privacy.

So you can see... I am trying to keep my head above water!

We went to Spokane (Cheney) this weekend to find a home.

We have applied to rent a place but have not heard back yet.

We also took a load of stuff and took Blake to wrestling camp.

On our way to Spokane we went back to Swedish Hospital to see

the Audiologist to check up on the Cochlear implant.

Still nothing...

The audiologist wants him to wear it even though he can't hear

 anything because it burns off bubbles in his brain from the surgery.

They are hoping he will hear eventually.

I can't believe how quickly SO MANY things can change.

  

:( It's not working....

  I wanted to take a picture today of Chad with his

Cochlear Implant transmitter on and working.

However that was not to be...

Chad could hear nothing.

Two weeks ago when he had the surgery to install

the implant we waited and waited and waited.

It was very stressful so when the doctor finally showed up

he said "what normally takes 45 seconds took 45 minutes.

There was so much inflammation that if we would have waited

it probably would not have happened at all."

Today they did all the testing and Chad had no response at all.

The audiologist said it's possible that as the inflammation

goes down he might start to hear.

So we are hoping for that is the case for Chad.

 

Brain surgery is not for wimps...

What do you do the night before brain surgery?

Go to the Outback and eat what ever you want.

This is just before... he's looking at the screen,

I wanted one last picture of his head.

After five painful, grueling hours

 we came here.....

This what it looks like the day after

 you get a tumor removed...

his head was soooo swollen I was scared...

however it was almost gone

 2 days later (Thank goodness).

Spent alot of time with the barf bucket.

He had huge problems with

balance, disorientation, nausea. 

Blake thought Chad was having fun....

so he decided to get Intussusception.

Don't know what that is?

Look it up...

 Poor kid, Intusseption is very painful.

He spent one night in the hospital but came

home to a strict diet.

                              
                               Back to Chad...
                               This is what his head/scar looks like...


  still in the hospital                                  10 days later
  2 days after surgery.                               Stitches come out.
                                                                                                                             

This is 7 weeks post surgery,

the day of CI surgery.

Here's the same smiley kid (with mom & dad)

 Here is that kid the same day....

 7 weeks after brain surgery he got

Cochlear implant surgery.

I walked into the recovery room and saw

a suit case on the floor. I said "Did some one

leave this behind?" They said "No it's yours".

It was $150K worth of

Cochlear Implant processor and

accessories, etc. (YIKES!)

This is what it looks like 1 day

after Cochlear implant surgery.

They used the same incision site.

 Where is the implant? you can't really

 see it in this picture.

So more to come as things progress.

Thanks for your prayers and well wishes!

He's on the mend, this will be a

much eaiser recovery.



Our time at the hospital

Chad has been home from the hospital for a week.

It has been a really rough week.

I have some intense pictures I could show

but I am not sure how Chad would feel so I

guess you have to come visit if you want to see them.

We have had some setbacks this week which are a

huge bummer. More later on that.

Chad resting...

This is the Med students. He was interviewed by one

of them and then presented to the others.

The start of our 3 hr drive home. We didn't make

him wear his seatbelt.

I also suffered a pulled muscle from sleeping on

the "lounge chair" at the hospital.

This resulted in my own visit to the ER in the middle of the night. 

The pain has been incredible.

So I am taking some strong medication to help,

this had made an even more difficult week for Eric.

Sorry Babe :(



What a difficult couple of days...

Each day as the surgery drew closer my emotions were on the surface.

It was difficult to talk about the upcoming surgery to anyone
 because the tears would start.

Monday night on our way to Seattle it was all I could do
 to not let Chad see me cry.

We let him listen to what ever he wanted to on the radio,

we changed the channel if he didn't like the song,
 even if we had just changed it.

Driving to the hospital in the morning was just as hard.

We checked in and they took him back to prep. Then he started to get nervous.

Dr. Backous came and talked to us after about 5 hours,
then Dr. Mayberg. They said the surgery went great.
The nerve that the tumor had grown into should look like a rope.

Thick and round, it was flat like cellophane.

The nerve that indicated weather or not he could have a cochlear implant looked great,

It however didn't respond well to the stimulation. Dr. Backous said
 he would not be able to hear out of that ear.

We had lost our 20% chance of keeping his hearing. And

It looked like the nerve would not respond well to the cochlear implant.

It was devastating, no matter how much we tried to prepare

 ourselves there was no preparation good enough.

Eric and I both burst into tears.

I couldn't stop crying.

We got to see Chad about 3:30 pm. They finally got him into intensive care

 and we could go see him. When we got up to the ICU

the nurse said he wanted to see us, and to please touch him

when we got there.

 It was good to see him, he was in good spirits and wanted to know
 "when he could go home."

He also didn't like the catheter.
He says he can hear fuzzy out of that ear.

 Is this a good sign?

We shall see...