Springing a leak.

Back at OHSU, after 4 days one of the incisions had sprung a leak. So back to Pill Hill for a re-stitch. Will spare you the details of a 5 hour stint through the bowels of emergency (no you may not re-enter a hospital any other way). Or the sleep that finally came at 4 a.m., when the prods, pulls and pricks ended. Here is the B-man 4 hours in, awaiting the cat scan results and probably thinking of an escape route.

Just have to keep in mind that all these tribulations are just distractions...... The potholes in the road are shallower and the bumps not as jarring, and we are well on the road.

We returned to the big E for rehab yesterday and got back on that bike too.

What's the difference between a terrorist and a physical therapist?
You can negotiate with the terrorist.*

*With due apologies to Nursemyra

Not every paddle-out is picture perfect.

Pic: NM

Sunday I felt like getting slapped around for a session and I was. Took a few beatings and still felt refreshed afterwards.

Moving on up to the eastside!

Thanks to ALL the good people of the OHSU PICU, the O.R. unit and the Oncology floor*, Bailey gets to move on to the rehab unit at Emanuel across the river. Aggressive rehab that he needs.

It's hard to put into words the relief that everyone felt at his departure for the big E, we've been trying to push this bird out of the nest for a long time!

* If you're a part of either team of good souls, Bailey's family and friends thank you from the bottom of our collective hearts for your great efforts.

Midnite at the Oasis.

That is a European roof rat(Rattus rattus (Linnaeus)) sitting in the B-man's lap. His favourite pet by far it seems. "Will jump for food" should be his motto. Known to leap from my shoulder to his at a distance up to 3 feet. Takes up residence in his bed if I'm not paying attention. Eats anything, father of 9.

The coolest thing is the way B can lay him on his back and somehow put him in a suspended state where he will be unresponsive to any stimulation for up to 10 minutes. This kind of control over another sentient being is intoxicating stuff! Hmmmmm, wonder if Pavlov would approve of that experiment?

Still on hold for the big move to rehab, he really needs to go but the incision is not healing as well as liked, so we wait....... crossing fingers.

Ropy signs of fall.

A quick trip back to clear the mailbox and the mind. Saturday morning was a glassy inconsistent head high west swell, just a few heads in town. Two big football games and a regional beer fest took it's toll on the weekend crew, plus the Either/Or surf contest down the road in LC, had a good handful of the locals down that way.

Beauty afternoon though as Andy, Nm and I headed over the dune for the righthanders. Long lulls punctuated with solid sets of 3 and 4 waves, just had to paddle like hell to stay around the take-off spot. Decent rides of 75 yards were available on the good ones.

Later in the afternoon on the full tide, a peak with a few guys on it was throwing with authority. Sets outside the crab pots were in the 1 1/2 to 2x overhead, big indicators were giving signals from the north and then layed down lines like uncoiled ropes to us on the next peak south. A wicked south bound sideshore current kept trying to keep us out of the zone. Some screamers on the fish took me to the 2nd to last house on the dunes and then the bitch paddle back up against the gut....... The pots and the murky water as well as the sealions hanging around, kept me aware it's fall and it's that time of the year again, shivery time.

What am I mumbling about? This is an email that I got from a friend today..........

"we had a shark scare saturday. a friend was just getting ready to jump in when he saw a sea lion getting bit. the guy made it in, but lost one of his flippers. another sea lion was outside freaking out. even made the news last night. i was still at work, but was going to be there within the hour."

and then I checked the news, sure enough...........

"i got the call it was going off at 4 and i would have been in the water by 5. the sighting call came in at 4:15. it was a big one too. the sea lion he got is still alive because he also was a big one and must have put up a helluva fight. i feel like i knew that damn sea lion because he was always out there with us, actually surfing the waves. i surfed it alone the day before for about 1.5 hours in murky waters too. the sighting made the news (kptv) last night."

Keep your eyes peeled.

Birds of a feather.........

Within the context of the previous post, B has found a soul mate and his mood improved considerably. The therapy cat stopped by for a little loving and gave as good as he got.

Still on hold in the oncology ward, hoping to stabilse some temp spikes so we can head over to rehab.

"This kid has 9 lives."

That was the phrase that one of the doc's uttered when he saw B at the beginning of his 2nd surgery. Here he is the after the 3rd surgery where they put in the piece they had taken out. The kid has been an amazing trooper.



Parts of his brain are still sleeping and he's going to have to undertake a lot of PT in order to reawaken those areas. But they're the parts that let you walk and do the fun stuff we tend to take for granted like hand/eye coordination.

He is doing better each day. Small steps.

Some sanity.

Thanks for all the prayers and thoughts and offers of help. They have been gratefully needed. Cheers, Gaz and NM.

The comeback kid

Just a month ago, he celebrated his 14th birthday and his first jittery year of high school was approaching. Big stuff in it's own right. Two weeks later he was in ICU with a tumor discovered in the back of his head, taking up a third of the space. Shocking, scary and large. "Bigger than him" is what I thought, a terrible thought - one that scared me but it came through anyway.

The previous blog showed him the day before his marathon neuro surgery, just after they had put a drain in his head to relieve the pressure of the spinal fluid that was not draining through the ventricles. Pretty brave smile considering......Three weeks and three surgeries later he's about to make the move toward rehab.

The numbers are easier to absorb now,15+ hours of surgery, 3 neuro-surgeons in the same O.R., 2 vascular surgeons, 2 anesthetists, 75 units of fluids in the initial surgery, I'm just thankful he's alive, it was the most harrowing experience I've gone through as a parent. He has a road map criss-crossing his head now, but it should look fine when the hair grows in.

Meningioma and choroid plexus tumors are now part of the vocabulary, ventricles and shunts, drains too. Folical bacteria barriers, biopsies, concepts that were of no concern to me before, now are of prime importance.

BUT.......... he is doing well. His cognition is as sharp as ever it seems. Language skills are the same thank god and his sense of humor is the same as it was before. We got him to laugh about an old incident when his pet rat bit me and he smiled when I called him a ladies man for getting a hug out of his nurse at the end of her shift the other morning.

It's going to be a long road back, that is what I'm surest of in a sea of uncertainty.