End of Summer

As school gets ready to fire up, the Nolands invited everyone out to Rosie and Kenny's neighborhood pool. A fine time was had by all as the beautiful midweek summer night rolled by. Check out the picts

Welcome back!

Well as you can see, Ritaville is still here, just a little stale. ;-) Sherri was looking it up and dissappointed that it hadn't been kept up. I still try to keep up another family blog (for my Dad's side of the family). It's hard to find time to maintain it, and since interest in Ritaville seemed to wane, it went by the wayside. Honestly, my other blog is usually only commented on by one aunt, but that is all it takes to keep me motivated! ;-) Actually I do it to maintain a history of family events so that I can look back and see what happened when. Even the small things are nice to document as they go by so fast and are impossible to remember. So I invite you to join in and add to the rich tapestry of our lives and preserve them for everyone to have for years to come. Email me at tim@barelyblue.com if you need any help getting hooked up.

The Eagle has landed

Clicking on the picture will take you to a Quicktime movie.If you have Quicktime already(you probably do) Choose "Open with" and choose "Quicktime" when it comes up. (or you can save it to your computer and then view it) It is a large file and will take some time to download.)

Well Dallas is "in the can" as they say. I can't begin to detail the stress and... stress involved with the decisions and coordination in relieving the pain and stress of Amy's L4-L5 disk. After two failed discectomies our KU Med Center back surgeon suggested spinal fusion as the next alternative, due to the limited remaining disk material and the beginning stages of the vertabrae of the back starting to move out of alignment due to the injury. He then went into the details of the 6hr surgery, using 2 pins and 4 screws, accessing the spine from the back and the front. And let's not even go into the details of the recovery process trying to remain as still as possible while waiting for the two vertabrae bones to grow over the rods and "fuse" them together. Faced with this seemingly barbaric option, we asked him of other options. While "live with the pain" was one of them, it wasn't one for us. I had seen firsthand how the pain had affected Amy's health, disposition and outlook. We jokingly asked about an artificial disk that should surely be available and he mentioned that they were experimenting with them but there were too many risks associated with them. Mind you, these discussions were taking place before her second discectomy, and he stated that we were getting ahead of ourselves due to there only being a one percent chance of a re-herniation this time. Last time, there was supposedly only a 5% chance of re-herniation. Amy's brother has had three discectomies, so I am wondering what his odds are? ;-) Anyway evidently Amy is a very lucky girl to hit on 5% odds, and 1% odds. I guess I should take her to Vegas! With Amy's terrible luck with the odds of her back surgeries I began to explore options other than spinal fusion. I searched for experienced orthopedic surgeons that were trying other options and found a couple different artificial disks that were being used in LA, Dallas and Cleveland. The disk have been used in Europe for many years and have been FDA approved in the States since 2001. I searched for someone experienced in using them and the Texas Back Institute seemed like a good choice.

(The slideshow needs explaining and hopefully I will have time to do that shortly. It's also pretty large and may take a while to download.)

Amy's Surgery

Amy has been thoroughly tested(mentally and physically) over the last three days and she seems to have passed all tests. She is scheduled for an artificial disk replacement tomorrow morning at 8am. My mom is taking the girls home today. They have played more miniature golf, driven more go karts, gone swimming too much and eaten more mall food than they should have, but oh well. They have worn me out! ;-) My mom and the girls all have hacking colds, so I am hoping and praying Amy stays well until the morning, as everyone coughs it up in this hotel room. She is pretty scared considering how they have been telling her over and over that this surgery may or may not reduce her pain and that one of the possible outcomes is death (I know they have to say that). But since she has been having so much pain lately, at least the choice of whether to have surgery or not seems obvious at this point. We are scheduled to come home Monday after she meets with her surgeon for a follow up visit. That was scheduled for 9am but he bumped it back to 2pm, so I had to change flight arrangements and we'll be getting in late Monday night.

I'll keep you posted.