June 27, 2008

Tainted Love - No!

For some reason that I cannot completely nail down, I can no longer read or hear the word "tainted" without associating it to having had someones taint applied to the object being referenced. Thus, tainted food takes on a whole new meaning. So, as a result, "tainting" anything is outside the boundaries of propriety in my view.

June 24, 2008

Bobbie Update

Today is day 2 of her interferon treatment. Day 1 went pretty much as expected. IV dosage during the morning, slept from 10:30am - 8pm, up for about 1.5 hour for dinner and then back to bed until 7am today. Her fever cranked up to 101 degrees and she was covered with 2 comforters, a sheet and another blanket and still had the chills. The Benadryll did a good job alleviating that effect. They have her alternating Tylenol and Ibuprofen every 3 hours to help with the fever.

We also met with her surgeon (finally) yesterday afternoon. He does not believe that he actually severed the nerve and is fairly confident that functionality should return to her lip over time as the nerve is likely just injured or traumatized. If the damage is permanent, which remains a possibility, then he will refer her to a speech therapist (to help train other muscles to take up the slack) and/or a plastic surgeon to evaluate repair (a nerve graft may be an option). She will meet with him, the surgeon, again in a month to re-evaluate. He gave us an 8-10 week range after which he would decide on the speech therapist/plastic surgeon route if no improvement was shown. So, though that was not fantastic news across the board, it was nice to at least be able to put some time frames on it so we can grasp the idea a little better.

Killian went back to Newport News with his grandparents for the first couple of weeks of Bobbie's treatment, so that should be helpful in making the transition smoother. No doubt we will miss him during that time (already do), but it is nice to have family to assist there. Today is his official 4th birthday! Hard to believe that he's already 4. Yeah, I know people say that all of the time, but it really is crazy how much faster time goes when there is a kid involved. I think it is because they change so quickly in the growth stages that it either makes you realize that time is flying by or just makes it seem so with all of the changes. In any case, he's a fun kid. See the Killian & Me blog for a picture from the party.

June 20, 2008

Bad Netflix... Bad!

I have a scream of "not fair, not fair" to offer Netflix in reference to their decision to eliminate profiles. What this means is that subscribers can no longer divvy up their rentals among family members. In our case, we currently have it setup where we subscribe to the 3 movies out at a time plan where 2 slots are allocated to me and one to Bobbie. This means we can have separate queues, so when I send back one of my movies, they send back the next one in my queue or if Bobbie sends back her movie, they send out her next queued item rather than forcing us to share and manage a queue. Additionally, we are able to maintain independent ratings lists which offer us personalized suggestions that match our preferences. Netflix is taking this option away from subscribers which is obviously very frustrating to users like ourselves. Is it an effort to trick us into subscribing to two separate accounts? If so, it won't work for those of us watching every penny. It will only push us to other services that may implement similar features. In any case, "Arrrgh!" and "BOO!". It's a bummer to see this from a service that I have been touting the beauty of for years now.

June 15, 2008

Lesser Things

On a lighter note, I finished Penny Arcade... Episode 1 last week. I enjoyed it and am looking forward to Episode 2 when it comes along. I was happy that the final boss battle only took one attempt, but it was a doozy and took about 15 minutes, I'd guess. Next up is to make a decision between starting Assassin's Creed or GTA IV. I also borrowed a friend's Nintendo DS for my waiting room time during Bobbie's hospital stay and played some of Professor Layton and the Curious Village which provided an entertaining distraction.

Oh, I also finally finished reading The Golden Compass and enjoyed it very much as well. I am eager to see the movie and begin reading The Subtle Knife (book 2 of the trilogy).

Part One Down

Sorry it has taken me so long to get a status out, but it has been a little bit of a hectic weekend. Bobbie had her surgery on Friday at 3pm. The estimated 2 hours and 20 minutes for the surgery, but were done in just under 2 hours. They removed a tumor from just under her jaw line on the right side of her neck. The surgeon felt comfortable that they pretty much got all of it, but she will still need to follow-up with systemic therapy with Interferon, as we already expected. They kept her overnight at the hospital and I stayed with her.

The incision was very clean, unlike the garbled mess from last time - in terms of how it looked immediately following the surgery and for a few days after, and she looked great when I first saw her. The only negative is that during the surgery there was apparently some nerve damage to a nerve that runs along your jaw line (can't remember the name of it). The impact is that the muscles in the right half of her bottom lip don't work. So, it makes it hard for her to eat and such at the moment, but her speech appears to be unaffected. We have no idea on the permanence of this condition. She will need to contact the surgeon on Monday to setup an appointment to discuss the condition and her options. My guess is that they will be A) tough luck, that happens sometimes, B) she will need physical therapy to help the nerve repair itself or C) she will need an additional surgery to attempt to repair the nerve. The surgeon that assisted in the surgery that met with us at the hospital the next day said that it is possible that it will repair itself if it was just injured or that if it were severed that her primary surgeon would need to decide the course of action. She is obviously bothered by this quite a bit since it affects her ability to eat, smile, etc. So, hopefully it will be a relatively easy fix. It doesn't bother me in the slightest other than the fact that she is bothered by it.

She is in a little pain today at the incision, but her primary complaint is a sore throat from the breathing tube that was in place during the surgery. It hurts for her to swallow. She chose not to take any narcotic medication and is making do with a mix of Acetaminophen and Ibuprofen every three hours. She's been sleeping quite a bit at the house, but that is expected after regularly interrupted hospital sleep along with the body recovering from the surgery.

Of course, the big takeaway here is that the tumor was seemingly successfully removed and Bobbie is out of surgery safely. We certainly have plenty of challenges ahead with her preventative treatment and who knows what with the nerve damage, but if it all means that she will be around for years to come, it is certainly worth it. I think Killian would agree.

June 08, 2008

Bad news, good news and "bad" news

Those that have been reading for awhile will remember back in 2006 when my wife was diagnosed with melanoma cancer and went through a significant surgery followed by almost a year of preventative treatment. That was a horrible and frightening time.

Bad news: Well, the scare returned on Monday this week when we were told that it appeared that the cancer has returned.

Good news: On Friday, she had a PET scan and we got the results today. Fortunately, the tests indicate that the cancer is contained to the same area as before so surgery and preventative treatment should take care of it.

"Bad news": The preventative treatment will be the same Interferon treatment that she had to endure before include a month worth of daily hospital visits for intravenous treatments.

Bobbie is mostly concerned about the Inteferon treatment as it is definitely rough on the body, but the depression side effect bothers her most. Though I am certainly concerned about that as well, I am *far* more relieved that one direct effect is that she gets to be around for years to come.

So, we have a tough several weeks ahead of us, but we'll have to take it one step at a time. We have a couple of advantages this time around that we didn't have the first time around: 1) we've been through it once 2) Killian is almost 4, so he's easier to deal with than last time 3) we have several neighbors with kids that are willing to help us through and 2 of them are stay at home moms. It doesn't mean that it's going to be easy, but it does offer some comfort.

June 05, 2008

Elevated Aromatics

So, I fell into a cousin of the Dangers of Association from an earlier post. It is the dreaded travelling stink box. I was leaving work the other day and happened to arrive at the elevators on the 3rd floor just as someone was exiting. As I stepped into the elevator car, I immediately took note that someone, assumed to be the guy who just exited, had managed to populate the place with gaseous fecal spray. I had little choice but to endure the frightful odor for my whopping two-story ride down only to have someone waiting to enter the car as I fled for fresh air. As the door closed behind me, it occurred to me that "Oh great, now that guy thinks that I am the culprit of the fartisserie chicken in there." So, of course I had to question my own assumption that the guy exiting when I entered was the bomber. It is now a mystery to us all, but I have no doubt that the guy in after me isn't questioning the flatulence as closely as I am. Thus, I suffer the consequence and unjustified shame of silent blame.

June 03, 2008

Not Built for Pitching

At the completion of Mass Effect, I picked up playing two lighter games as mentioned; Penny Arcade Presents... and Burnout Paradise. I am enjoying both. Penny Arcade's game is entertaining and light RPG pretty much. Burnout Paradise is a drive the way you wish you could (well, all except for the outlandish wrecks) free-for-all. I played some of the multi-player mode online and completed all of the 2-player challenges. That really adds a lot to the game and is a blast to have others around to witness when you do the impossible.

Rich picked up Boom Blox for the Wii. We played on Sunday and my arm is still in pain (sad reflection of my state of fitness). That could be because we played for about 8 hours! It's really addictive and really fun. If you have a Wii, I consider it a must buy. Basically there are 2 game types. One is more or less giant Jenga and the other is throwing balls (baseball or bowling ball) at giant Jenga stacks. There are variants of both of these, but that pretty much covers the bulk of the game. 8 hours in one day - did I mention that? Check it out if you can.

June 02, 2008

New sub-blog

Not that I exactly blog like a champion, but I've decided to create an additional/sister blog to Paulblog dedicated specifically to my chatter about Killian. I have two reasons behind this.

1. To offload kid banter from this blog (which is oh so active otherwise).
2. To inspire myself to write more frequently and openly about my feelings and experiences with my son. I always feel a little reserved on this blog because I don't want to bore folk with incessant "Isn't it cute when your kid does this..." type comments.

In any case, no promises that it will be any more active than this blog, but here's hoping since it focuses on a far more energetic and perpetually moving topic.

That said, here is the URL for the new blog: http://killianandme.blogspot.com/ Too late to ramp up any posting tonight other than the quick intro I tossed on there.