Whirlwind Trip

I know I promised to update this as soon as we got back from Seattle, but I am sorry, I did not get to it until now (still recovering I think).

We drove to Seattle Tuesday for Jacob's appointment that was scheduled for Wednesday at 6:40am. It was an uneventful drive, but of course with any drive when you have kids, it took at least 2 to 3 hours longer than it is supposed to. We got to Seattle and luckily had our very great friends Liz and Gary waiting for us with food, beds, and (most importantly) drink ready to go.

We did not get to bed as early as we should have for our early appointment and wouldn't you know it, Jacob decided we needed to get up at 3:30 in order to be at our appointment on time.


We got to the hospital and the glued all of the EEG leads to the top of Jacobs head so they could monitor him all morning and throughout the PET scan. It was a lot of hurry up.. and wait, which made for an exhausting day. He is a little trooper though, and did not complain nearly as much as I wanted to. After they finished the scan and he woke up form the anesthesia, we had just about enough time to go and meet Liz, Gary and Josh (who was being entertained by them while we were at the hospital -thank goodness) for lunch. We needed that break especially since Jacob, Rick my Mom, and myself had not eaten much at all that day and all realized we were very hungry for Ivars fish and chips! We also got to go and see the troll under the bridge in Fremont before heading back to the Hospital to meet with Dr. Novotny, the director of the Epilepsy Program. He had not had much time to review the PET scan, but did show us some of the test and told us that Pediatric Neurologists, neurosurgical residents, fellows, attending and researchers would be getting together in the next couple of weeks to go over all of his testing (MRI, PET, EEG, etc.) and come up with the best ways to approach treatment for Jacob. He will be going back at least one more time for some neuropsycological testing to determine development and to see how much of a candidate he is for surgery to remove the troublesome area in his brain. So for now it is more waiting to find out what they think and when they want him back (possibly in July?).

Meanwhile Josh was out having a great time seeing the sight of Seattle with Liz and Gary. We hear he even got to ride in the front seat next to the monorail driver and to honk the horn of the Train. He also went to see the Space Needle and to Pike Place Market to watch them throw around some big fish. He had a great time and we are so grateful to Liz and Gary for taking care of him so well. He would have hated being in the hospital with us and all of that waiting (I know Jacob and I would have preferred to be on the tour of Seattle).


So there you have it for now. Hope all is well with all of our friends and family! Love to all!

We got the call

We had a little bit of nice weather on Saturday and so we did some things we have not done in a while, like go to the farmers market that morning. Of course, even though it was not extremely warm, Josh had to do what all of the other kids were doing and decided to run through the fountain. Jacob just decided to watch him do it. On Sunday we decided we needed to go to breakfast someplace we have not been since we moved out to Meridian, so we went to the Trolley House and had a delicious meal. Jacob especially like the blueberries, and I could not give them to him fast enough, so I finally gave up & he just did it himself.

This week though we finally got the call from Seattle Children's Hospital that said "Can you come next week? We of course said "Yes!" so we will be making a quick trip to Seattle for Jacob to have the Pet scan combined with an EEG and then we will speak to the director of Epilepsy at Seattle Children's Hospital. It will most likely not be our only trip to Seattle, but it will get everything started on our way to stoping Jacob's seizures (I hope) and seeing maybe why he is having them.

We had more rain again this week, but this weekend looks to be a nice one (finally!), so maybe we will go up to the mountains and hunt some mushrooms, or see what is going on around town, who knows. At any rate we will be getting ready for our trip and will keep everyone up to date on our trip next week. Hope everyone has a great weekend!

Those darn impulse buys!

Well, we were at costco on one rainy weekend recently (we seem to be having a few of those lately), and on and impulse purchase we went and bought a Wii. I have to admit, it has been fun playing all of the games with Josh when there is not much to do outside without getting wet, but Josh seems to have picked up a lot of the games very quickly and does have some that he beats both Rick and I a lot (like boxing). Any way, at least we are getting some exercise and not just moving our thumbs. Hopefully all of the nice weather will come back soon.

Jacob, the "little Mommas boy", has also been starting to take more of a shine to his Dad lately, which I have to say, I don't mind too much.

Since we have done the bowling on the Wii, Josh wondered what a real bowling alley was like, so we went to check one out. First we went to one that we used to always go to BK (before kids). Josh had a hard time throwing the ball they had because it was a bit heavy for him. Then we went with my Mom to one she plays in a league at and they had smaller balls, and bumpers. I am a bit rusty, Rick is not too bad, but Josh was getting pretty good at the alley with the bumpers. It is just too bad they would not let me play with the bumpers too, I think that would really have improved my game a lot. Jacob was not quite as impressed as the rest of us & decided to just nap. Rick had to show how good he was though, and bowled while Jacob slept on his shoulder. I think he even bowled better, he picked up the spare and it was a split!

On other news, we are still set for July 19th and 20th in Seattle. The nurse in Seattle called us back and said she tried to get it moved up, but with no success. She did say there was still a possibility it could get moved up with the help of Jacob's doctor here and the one in Seattle working together to get it moved. So I mentioned that to his office, and we will see what happens. Whatever happens, happens though. We can't do much about it so I guess we just have to wait and see. The only bad part is that the new medicine is not working, in fact it works even less than the last one, so I don't know what the next step there is. Hopefully they will figure that part out soon. Maybe try for medicine number 4, or a combo of all the last 3? I don't know how many more of them there are for a little boy to try.

Jacob is still not quite walking, but gets around pretty quick. We are always having to keep one eye on the stairs, because he seems to like to climb them by himself whenever you aren't watching. He seems to be close to walking, but just has not dared to take those first few steps. When he is ready he will, and then we will really be chasing him around.

I hope all had a great Memorial weekend and I hope everyone has a great week!