AZDonna

Not too much going on in my life lately to warrant a blog entry. Spring is here in full force with evidence of summer just ahead. We haven’t quite hit triple digit temperatures yet, but they are close, I’m sure.

L.I.F.E. held it’s Second Annual Golf Tournament, and raised about $60,000, which was $20K more than last year. I took the day off work to help care for Lauren and Nathan since Brian and Carrie were at the golf course all day long. I spent the night, and slept with Lauren. Rather, I laid in bed with Lauren. No sleeping. She had a dozen “seizures” before 2:30 a.m., when Carrie came in to switch places with me. She settled down a bit after that, since Carrie knew better than me how to hold her and ward off the severe tremors.

Things have settled down at work, and no one has turned in a resignation for a couple of months. I’m working on a project that will tape out in about two more weeks. I’m afraid I’m going to be assigned to grunt work for a while after that, but hopefully something interesting and challenging will come my way soon. I have heard through the grapevine that Intel may open a few more requisitions, so I will have to seriously consider if I want to apply or stay at Marvell and hope for a financial explosion. Management still thinks the stock is going to do well this coming year. We celebrated the one millionth Monahans shipment this week. Monahans is in several cell phones, blackberries and GPS systems, and I drew part of it. You can thank me as you navigate the city streets, call your friends, or check your email. They also settled the recent SEC investigation this week with a $10M payment.

I’ve been to the Broadway Palm Dinner Theater with Jan and Glenda twice lately. We saw Hello Dolly on my birthday, and the Buddy Holly Story for Glenda’s birthday. Loved Hello Dolly; didn’t care so much for Buddy Holly.

I’m taking a trip up to Boise over Memorial Day weekend. Megan has her annual ballet/tap recital that weekend, and I try to attend every year. We usually celebrate her birthday (9! this year!) and Mother’s Day when I am there.

Everyone’s talk of cruises this year has spiked my longing to do one. Glenda and I are considering trying one out sometime in July. Neither of us has ever been on a ship. I think we might try a 4 day cruise to Baja as our maiden voyage.

Tomorrow is Mother’s Day. I’m going to take Mom out for breakfast. Brian and Carrie have been out of town (more on that in a future post) so I probably won’t get with them until next weekend. Happy Mother’s Day to Mom and to all my special friends and family who are mothers.

I didn’t like this game as much as Sunday’s.

Go Diamondbacks!

I like today’s game better than Friday’s. Go Suns!!

In recent posts, I’ve told you about Lauren’s sudden onset of sleep seizures and rapid decline in her physical strength. After a week in the neurological hospital, she was released to go home and complete a strong dose of antibiotics with plans to schedule an adenoidectomy and sleep study. During these past couple of weeks, she has had some slow progress and a significant reduction in the number of seizures each night (from 10-20 to 3-6 each night now). Her daytime strength has improved little by little and she is receiving therapy at home every day.

On Thursday, she suddenly had another bad day. After only 3 episodes that night, Carrie was expecting her to have a great day. However, when she awoke that morning, she was so weak she couldn’t even sit up. This puzzling situation really discouraged Carrie. Lauren got a little better through the day, and was walking a bit by afternoon, but it’s very hard to figure out what is going on when her condition fluctuates so much with no apparent reason.

Additionally, the ENT surgeon has backed off from wanting to do the adenoidectomy. Lauren’s disorder puts her at very high risk for anesthesia, and he feels the risk is not worth the possible benefit. He is convinced her adenoids are not the cause of the problem (night seizures). He feels just getting the swelling and infection cleared from her sinuses will help her breathe and make her healthy, and the seizures are not related.

I was watching an Oprah episode last week where they showed videos of people having night terrors, and they really resembled what Lauren does at night. Crying out, gasping, shaking, sitting up wide eyed, kicking and jerking, and going into a fetal position are similar to Lauren’s symptoms. However, Lauren can’t tell us what is going on in her little mind, and so diagnosis is very difficult. Add the fact that her disorder is so extremely rare and no doctors have any expertise, and it’s nearly impossible.

Summarily, we still have no good answers, and no end in sight to Lauren’s current condition. Carrie and Brian are holding up, but they sure appreciate your continuing prayers.

Robin, Megan and Steven are coming for a visit. They arrive tomorrow afternoon and will be here through the weekend until Monday evening. Megan is on spring break, but will miss one day of school next week.

I told them to pack their swimsuits. We are having 85° days here, which should feel very good to them after the cold snowy winter they have had. We’ll do some shopping, playing with the cousins, tour L.I.F.E. and Central’s new facilities, and catch up on gossip. Nathan gets to spend the night on Friday. I just wish Lauren was feeling well enough to enjoy their visit.

That’s where Lauren is going to be for the rest of the weekend. In fact, if the doctors have their way, she’ll be in-patient for a few weeks. Here’s the latest:

Lauren’s adenoids have grown back again. She has had them removed twice, but there they are, as big as life blocking her air passage again. One theory is she is having sleep apnea (Derek, you hit it!), and her struggle to get oxygen is setting off these seizures. Since this is such an obvious issue, they want to start there. She’ll have her adenoids out and see if that improves her sleep pattern.

When, you ask? That’s the $64,000 question. If Carrie had her way, it would have been yesterday. But nothing moves quickly in the hospital. The ENT surgeon has not even seen her yet. He is supposed to come in Saturday morning.

The other thing that is concerning Brian and Carrie is the doctors want to place Lauren into in-patient rehab after the surgery and keep her there until she is strong enough to walk again. But Carrie knows she can provide better rehab for her at home and at L.I.F.E., and is going to [try to] convince the doctors of that.

They’re not positive this is the root cause of all of Lauren’s difficulties, but it’s the easiest place to start. Following the surgery and full recovery, they’ll do another sleep study to see how Lauren is doing and go from there.