New Car Seat

Casey is growing so fast. We finally moved from the baby car seat to the forward facing seat. She is SOOOO much happier. She will actually chill out and sleep in her new seat. She is able to use the DVD player now too. Her and Tim watched one of her videos on her first trip in the new seat. They seemed to be having a good time. We had a pretty busy past few weeks. Casey saw her ortho and we have scheduled her foot surgery for October 2nd. We will have the surgery at Children's and her normal ortho will be the one doing the surgery. He has done more of these surgeries than other ortho's in the area and seems very confident that Casey will do well with it. I am sure it will be hard for the first few weeks after with pain and the cast, but once she recovers I know she will be so much happier. She wants to roll over so bad right now. Casey also met with her GI team. She has not been refluxing on her new food so we were able to get the GI team to say we can hold off on the repeat GI surgery. We will do another upper GI in September, but for now we don't have to worry about it. Casey is nearly 19 pounds now and growing like a little weed. Her teeth and hair are really coming in now too. She has been off the chart for size for so long and at her last appointment she has finally made it back on. She is on the bottom of it, but she is on it.

Tim has been doing much better too. He is going back to work tomorrow. We have been going on walks and getting out to run errands almost every day. He and Casey are both really tired by the end of the day.

Tim and Casey both have a few more doctor appointments this week. Casey's nurse is coming over on Thursday so we can go out for Tim's birthday. Other than that we are just trying to get back to normal.

Recovering Well

Tim is finally starting to feel a lot better. He is still taking some pain pills, but much less than before. He is able to walk some and stays awake downstairs most of the day now. The only bad side is that he is also starting to get very stir crazy. We went out yesterday to get him a new video game so he has something to keep him busy other than TV. On the way home he was feeling so much better he suggested we stop at the Farmer's Market. He and Casey both did great walking around in the market for a little bit. We didn't stay long, but they both did great.

On the way home the car seemed to be driving funny so I pulled over to check. Some how I ran over a nail and bolt. I could see the bolt sticking out of the tire when I stopped. Luckily it had not gone flat yet. Being that I can't change it and I am surly not going to let Tim change it I decided I needed to get right away to have it fixed. I brought Tim and Casey home then started calling around to see who was open on Sunday. After about 3 calls I found a Discount Tire open on Pico and 24th (very close to our house). As soon as Casey fell asleep for her nap I took the car in. They needed to keep it for a few hours so I ended up walking/jogging home so I could get here before Casey woke up from her nap. Then when the car was ready Casey and I took a cab (her first cab ride) to pick it up. We had to wait about 15 minutes when we got there. While we waited we met another man waiting for his car. Such a small world. It turned out that he works for the Westside Regional Center where we get a lot of services for Casey. He is a child advocate. He has a 7 year old disabled child and said he got fed up with the way people treated him and her and decided to change his entire career/life to work in a way that he could help other families. He was a really nice guy. When our car was finally ready they told me not to worry about paying. They said I had to wait longer than planned and it would take another 5-10 minutes to get paperwork done. Rather than waiting more, since I had Casey and needed to get home to Tim and being that they just patched a hole they told me to go and just come back for my next tire needs. What a nice thing to do. If anyone has tire needs I highly suggest going to Discount Tire.

After the day finally came to an end Casey and Tim were both fully exhausted. We have a week full of doctor appointments this week. Casey's new car seat should get here today. I am sure that will make the rest of the week much easier. We ope everyone is doing well.

Casey Stuff

Casey has been such a good girl. She really prefers to stay home and cuddle all day, but she has been going out for over a week now. We are using the stroller attachment for her feeder seat now and it seems to help when we have her out. She is MUCH more comfortable. We made at least one, ofter more trips to the hospital each day while Tim was there and often would be there all day. Casey did great. She didn't have any big fits, she took her naps, she was just a perfect little angel. She has been having a hard time sharing attention with Daddy. She is used to getting all of my attention as well as Tim's and now that he is getting a lot she doesn't seem crazy about it, but she is adjusting.

Over the weekend Casey and I went to a Cranial session/training where she was able to get multiple hours of therapy. Her usual therapists gave her an outfit to wear (in the picture) with a Bee Well Kidz logo. Tim said Casey is like a sponsored athlete, but I just say she's cute. She had three people working on her and they all said that she responded very well. She slept the entire way there which made the drive to Redondo pretty easy. During the lunch break Casey's therapists treated us to Cheesecake Factory and she did great there too. I put her on the seat next to me so I could hear her and she went to sleep. Then after the afternoon session was over we headed home. Since she was being so good we were able to stop on the way home at Target. Everyone that saw her had to come up and say how cute she is. She whined a little on the way home, but not bad.

We had stopped at Target to try and find a new front facing car seat. She is getting so big and is hanging out of her rear facing seat. I am hoping a new seat will make the car a little easier for her as well. We didn't find one at Target that I liked so we ordered one online after we got home. It should be here in the next few days. Now that we know she is a girl we were able to find one with her signature color this time. The princess needs her pink.

Back Home

Tim came home on Thursday evening. He was sent home with a lot of pain, but he was able to get out of bed, eat and all of the things he has to do so they said he was able to go home. Megan left Thursday morning and Molly came out in her place that night. Theresa decided to extend her trip through Sunday. I don't know what we were thinking to assume that we could handle that on our own. Thank goodness we had family come out to help. Casey has always been a full time job, and up until just the past day or two Tim had become a full time job as well.


Tim is doing much better. He was able to get into the shower yesterday. He has also been coming downstairs (alone) a few times during the day. He is still heavily medicated, but that's to be expected. We went yesterday and bought a recliner so he has a place to sit comfortably downstairs. It will be delivered tomorrow. I know he misses being near Casey all day so he will be much happier downstairs. It will be easier for me as well to have them in the same room. Running up and down the stairs all day is hard work.


Tim has a few appointments next week, but all in all we are just taking it slow. Each day he is a little stronger than the one before. Hopefully in a few weeks he can get around on his own.

Tim recovering at home

I am now continuing my recovery at home from surgery. Pain management was a real issue at the hospital, which is mostly what slowed my release. It feels better to be at home, but most of my time right now is spent in bed in specific positions that are comfortable. Getting out of bed is very difficult, and will be until the incision on my stomach heals a little more, and the inflamed tissue around my fused vertebrae gets better. The bone morphogenic protein that is used to promote bone growth/fusion also causes some additional swelling in the first 1-2 weeks that can be painful in some people, and that has definitely been the case with me. So many little things like coughing or sneezing can be quite painful, and I have to watch what I read or watch on TV, since laughing can also be escrutiating.

Since I am still not able to do most simple tasks for myself and the doctor's feel progress will continue to be slow, I plan to return to work (from home) on July 30th instead of today as originally planned. We feel like by then I will be able to take care of myself and sit up in bed well enough to use my laptop and phone all day without pain.

That's all for now - thanks for everyone's get well wishes!

Back Surgery

Tim had his back surgery yesterday. The surgery went really well. They took him back around 7:30 AM and told me they would be back in 2 hours. I ran home while Tim's mom (Theresa)stayed at the hospital and I was heading back up at 9:00 when Theresa called me to say he was already done and they doctor came out to let her know things went well. Then he was to be in recovery until noon. So I was going to go back up at 11:00 when again Theresa called just before 11:00 and said they were moving him to his room. So the surgery went well and everything was moving ahead of schedule.

Tim had a lot of pain. Megan (my sister) and I took Casey up to visit him for a while last night. I talked to Tim this morning and he did get some sleep, but he is still having a bit of pain. I am about to head back up for a visit with Casey. Hopefully they will let him start drinking and maybe eating again today. They did hear some slight bowel sounds last night so I am pretty sure he will at least get something to drink today. The funny thing is that a lot of the meds he is getting are the same ones Casey is on. Those 2 are more alike every day :)

I will try to post again when we know when he is coming home. Right now we are guessing it will be Wednesday, but nothing is confirmed just yet.