Two daughters in college...

We finally have hot, sticky summer weather and instead of turning on the air conditioning at home and staying inside we're in Denver walking around Johnson & Wales University with Amy for summer orientation. But this is actually a good thing. She's so excited about being here! Today she took a capstone class called "making homemade pasta" and she said it was a blast. And she and her roommate, Emily, were happy to find out their room on campus for the school year will be on the courtyard side of the dorm instead of the noisy street side. After lunch Brian and I picked Laura up in Golden and brought her back to stay with us at the Hilton. She'll get a break from the non-air conditioned dorm, and we get the joy of having her to ourselves for a night. We showed her Amy's campus for the first time. (The girls have been scheming for awhile on how to get to each other's campuses in the fall.) Laura & Ian bribed Amy..."if we buy the ingredients, will you come and cook for us and for Ian's roommates? We'll even do the dishes!" Our culinary daughter is only too happy about the arrangement. And it's practically a straight shot thru Denver on I-70 from one campus to another. If only either of them had a car...!

Cinderella needs to come home!

Brian and Bethany come back from San Diego tomorrow night and we're ready to have them home. It's been a calm, peaceful week, but we're ready for some noise and hugs! Rumor has it Bethany has become quite a California girl and she's not too eager to leave that beautiful state. I hear she's had a pedicure, a spray tan, highlights in her hair, and she's eaten shrimp, lobster, and king crab legs all in the same meal! Gina and Andy have spoiled her rotten and have been absolutely awesome about sharing their time/resources. I can see why she loves it there. Time for Cinderella to come back to reality!

Family updates...

Well, the Dr was right. Amy's extreme nausea only lasted about 1 1/2 weeks for the most part. She's still a bit queasy until about 10 am but otherwise is finally able to eat and carry on a somewhat normal existence. Now if only she'd begin getting some pain relief. But the Dr thinks it might be a month or so before she'll be able to tell if this medicine is working, so I guess we'd better be patient awhile longer. We ran into Amy's wound care Dr today at lunch and he was so impressed by how well she's bouncing around and how great her scar looks. He filled us in on how the staff is doing, too. They were like family to us for almost 7 months, so it was nice to get caught up. They were awesome friends at a time when we really needed them.
On a lighter note, Brian and Bethany are in San Diego this week and Bethany has decided she was born to be a California girl. She's having a blast with her Aunt Gina doing "girly" things like getting highlights in her hair and a pedicure. It might be a bit hard for her to come back to reality at the end of the week! My little Cinderella will come back to the home where she empties the trash and takes the dog out instead of being pampered. But for 5 days, I'm glad she's having a blast!
On Wednesday,. Amy and I are headed to Golden to see Laura for a few hours and it will be great to see her smile. She's had a rather interesting summer so far and I know she enjoys what she's doing. But a visit from home is kinda nice, too. She didn't get to see Ian this weekend since he was at a cousin's wedding in Virginia, so I'm sure she's missing him, too. Maybe we'll be a good distraction till she sees him next weekend.
Thanks for your continued prayers. Keep checking for updates!

morning sickness

This medication they're trying on Amy has one side effect that she's not loving. It seems that about 22 of 24 hours a day she has "morning sickness" that lasts and lasts. She doesn't even get to look forward to a baby at the end! Hopefully this will only last for a week or two, and it'll be a month or more before we know if it's going to help with her nerve injury pain. She's a trooper, though. About 3pm every afternoon she's ready to eat cheeseburgers or anything else that sounds good to her. And then by 5 she's taken her next dose and by 5:30 she's sick again. I remember that feeling...thinking if I could only throw up I'd feel better. But I never did, and I was queasy for weeks at a time with each pregnancy. It's awful! I know I complained, so it amazes me that she's trying to talk herself out of it and pressing on with life. That's one strong, determined girl we have!

Thanks to my resident genius!

What a week this has been! I did an update on my computer last week and began having trouble with it afterward. Usually such things are user error...I'm just not as geeky as the rest of my family and computers are still a mystery to me at times. Since Brian was out of town he suggested I take it to the Mac Superstore so they could troubleshoot for me. Never in a million years did I think it was going to be a big deal, so of course I didn't back up my files. Big mistake. Huge. Turns out my hard drive was "failing" and needed to be replaced. So after paying for data recovery (with no guarantees) and a new hard drive I now have my lovely blue Macbook home again. Brian spent most of the weekend working on it....trying to recover and reorganize my files. And yes, he backed it all up to our Time Machine. So far he's recovered everything up to January 2009, and now he'll begin searching for things from January till now. I'm mostly concerned about pictures (i.e. Amy's graduation, Laura's trip to Ian's home, etc) that hopefully are in there somewhere just waiting to be found. I have most of the girls' writing, and that was a top priority. So while this whole experience has been a major headache, my silver lining is that much has been recovered and my resident genius is willing to keep searching for even more. AND I know now to be diligent about backing up my files! Learn from my mistake, people!!!

It was kind of a crazy morning in the OR. We'd never actually met this Dr before our procedure today, so they scheduled a consultation in the procedure room before things were underway. He had a chance to review Amy's history beforehand and we wanted to be on the same page regarding her care. I have to say that this man was amazing...spent all kinds of time with us reviewing things and making sure he was clear on what she's currently dealing with on a daily basis. He doesn't feel she actually has RSD, so now we've been told yes and no by several different doctors. He feels she has a nerve injury instead and when he explained his thinking, it made a lot of sense. There are a couple more things he'd like to try which are more conservative...always a good thing. He said he'd be happy to do the lumbar injection but honestly didn't think it would help. That sounded good to us! He's very cautious in his treatment and while he feels there are some aggressive things we can try as a last resort later on, he wants to start with simple, mild therapy. He feels that at age 18, there's no point in being too invasive if we can avoid it. Yes! Amy really would like to say "no" to everything, but for now she's going to humor me and at least try one or two more things. I still think that miracle for pain relief is just around the corner. But I'm also thankful for the miracle of a Dr who wanted to spare Amy any unnecessary procedures. And did I mention he loves it that she's going to study culinary arts? yeah, I think he'd love some samples :-)

I still believe in miracles!

FYI...Amy is having another lumbar injection procedure tomorrow morning. She's rather tired of such things...feels they're a waste of time. But I keep hoping our miracle is just around the corner and after one of these she's going to be home free. And what a blessing that would be! This Dr is pretty much our last hope in the Springs. If he's not able to provide much relief from her ever-present pain, we'll call it quits. She'll be off to culinary school soon anyway. The pain she lives with on a daily basis has been with her for so long that she probably forgets it's not normal...at least it wouldn't be for most of us. Perhaps it's HER normal...who knows? I'm still going to pray for that miracle.

Too much peace and quiet...

Quiet, too quiet. Brian spent the day traveling to Salt Lake City by way of a tornado in Denver. He arrived safely, but he's still waiting for the airline to find and deliver his suitcase. Laura and Ian are in Golden, and Amy & Bethany are on computers in their rooms. Even Annie, the wonder beagle, is sound asleep. I'm missing the crazy commotion we had during the graduation celebration. It was fast paced and crazy, but I loved it. This "calm after the storm" is just too darn quiet.

Real Men Can Cook!

When Laura and Ian arrived to celebrate Amy's graduation and birthday with us and asked what they could do to help, I put them to work. I happened to know that Ian is great in the kitchen, and since I still had a couple of things to do I asked if he could help. He jumped right in and tackled a recipe he'd never set eyes on before, and the finished product was wonderful! (Laura's really thankful that Ian is a good cook. He spoils her often with wonderful baked goodies.) This time we were the recipients with his yummy Texas sheet cake. I love it when guys can bake!!! Thanks, Ian!

Joined in heart

In 2006 one of my dearest friends in the whole world came out for a visit with her family and we had such an awesome time. Little did I know 3 years would pass before we would hug each other again. We made up for the lost time, however, when Susan and her daughter, Shailyn, came out to celebrate Amy's graduation with us. We laughed and cried and hugged and had the most amazing time. Susan is such a joy to me in so many ways. We lift each other up, we pray for each other, we take time to listen...really listen...we love unconditionally. I adore this woman! She's one of the greatest gifts God has ever given me, and I'm so very thankful to call her my friend.