Fun Little Friend

Rhett and I were laying in bed watching a little SVU last night and I looked up at the ceiling over by my bedroom window and saw something that looked a little out of place. I was wearing my glasses, which I don't see well out of, so I wasn't sure if I was seeing this correctly, and it wasn't clear what it was. So I pointed to it and said "Rhett, what is that?" He said, "Oh my gosh. That thing is HUGE!! You better go out of the room..." I freaked! I was trying to muffle my screams so I wouldn't wake everyone up but I was pretty scared. So I had to go get a jar for Rhett and some other stuff to help him catch the fuzzy guy. I just came to the door frame and threw them to Rhett =). The spider was on the other side of the room but I didn't want to be anywhere close! This guy put up a good fight! He almost made it in our closet and under some blankets. Once we had him in this jar Rhett poured some rubbing alcohol on him to preserve him (and I think it was a painful way to die- poor spidy...). Bennett has a bug collection and they're all in alcohol to keep them real looking. Anyways, he took the lid off the jar and poured a little in and the spider almost got away. Rhett slammed the lid back on the jar and the little guy lost a leg ={. Oh well! Anyways, here he is. We think he's a wolf spider but he's HUGE. This picture doesn't do him justice. He was seriously the size of our hand- like if you open all your fingers. HUGE! We think it might be a brown recluse or a desert recluse but probably a wolf. Either way, he wasn't some little thing that Rhett could just catch and put back outside. No Way! Enjoy...







Have any of you had any new friends try joining your family this summer? I can' wait for the new types of bugs in Ohio!! Blah!

Reptiles Anyone?

We're trying to find a good home for a couple of our pets. I'd rather give them to someone I know rather than sell them on craigslist to anyone...

We have a water turtle who's really quite easy to maintain. He'll come with a really big tank (I think it's 20 gallons??), a heat stick thingy (you put it in the water to keep it warm...), a light for him to bask in, and then of course all the rocks and stuff in the tank, and all the food. His tank has filters, which we have some extra right now (and you'll get those too) and those should probably be changed about once a month or so and then we use distilled water to prevent hard water build up in his tank. If you have soft water you might not have to buy distilled. I'm not sure though. Bennett loves to feed him and watch him swim. Let me know if you want to come check him out! And I can send pics too. I don't think he's a red-ear slider because his ears aren't red but he's some sort of poisonous turtle- but only if you were to eat him. So just wash your hands after you touch him and you'll be fine.

We also have a fire belly toad. This guy is pretty old. We've had him since we lived in Utah (almost 3 years ago...) and their life span is only 3-5 years (I think). But he's really easy to take care of too. He comes with a 10 gallon tank, lots of rocks, and some water bowls he basically lives in. You'll need to feed him small crickets once a week but those are really cheap at Petco or Petsmart. It's under $2 a week to buy him food. He's fun to watch also. Bennett likes dumping the crickets into his cage and watching him catch them. Oh, he also has a heat lamp that'll come with his cage, and a filter if you want to make his cage mostly water, with a little rock. It's opposite of that right now.


Anyways, let me know if you want to come look at either of them. We really need to find homes for them before I start stressing about it as the move gets closer!!

Ohio, here we come!

The rumors are true! We're moving to Ohio! We are SOOO excited to be starting this new chapter of our lives. We're really scared too, for pretty obvious reasons (Jordan and all her unsolved issues...) but we know it's where we need to be and for that reason we're ready and willing. Rhett was accepted into a few grad schools. We were first accepted into The University of New Mexico to pursue a Masters in Medical Physics. The tuition is out of state (REALLY high!) but it's so close to AZ! Then we were accepted into Idaho State University to pursue a PhD. in Pharmaceutical Sciences. Again, really high out of state costs, but really close to all our family in Idaho, and especially, my little sister and her hubby are in Rexburg and are probably going to be moving to ISU next year. So, we emailed the other schools we had applied to, just to see if they were going to offer us anything. We really needed to make a decision and wanted to hear from everyone before we did that. The day after emailing them, we got an email back from Wright State University saying that they loved Rhett's application, and were excited to offer him acceptance into the Masters in Physics program, with an emphasis in Medical Physics, plus wanted to offer him a teaching assistantship to give him a monthly stipend (living money) and also free tuition/fees!!!!!!! WooooHoooooo! SSSSSOOO far away from Arizona! And lots colder =(. But after a lot of fasting and praying we decided this is where we need to be. Rhett has to report no later than September 8th to start his TA position. We're not sure yet when we'll be making our cross country journey but we're going to start packing things up to get ready. Bennett is REALLY excited to "go live where it snows" but I'm sure after living in it for a couple days (once it actually comes down in the winter...) he'll want to head back for warmer weather, his cousins, grandma's, papas, and all his friends.

So, if you have any boxes you want to get rid of, let us know and we'll take them off your hands!

Also, if you know anyone that lives in the Dayton area, have them contact me!

I already warned Rhett that I'll probably cry a lot as the time gets closer for us to move. It's going to be really hard on me but we're planning on moving back here afterwards, and I'm trying to convince myself that 2 years isn't that long. It'll be a nice little adventure and it'll be great to see a new part of the country I've never seen before. I'll really miss all the friends we've made since we've been here. We really live in the BEST ward and have the strongest support system I could ever imagine. With me being pretty shy, it's always been hard to go out of my way to get to know people. I know that in Ohio I'll really have to put myself out there to make friends and find people that can help if the time comes that we need it (and I'm pretty sure we aren't out of the clear with medical stuff...!)

I really want to keep in touch with everyone. If you haven't already, leave me your email or email it to me so I can send you an invite to our blog when we go private (soon hopefully...). Love you all!!

More free kitties!

We've got a new litter of kittens to give away. These ones are so adorable =). I guess they always are! There's 5 of them. They're great with kids and really like to roam around. They're even starting to purr for us which is amazing since they are not happy campers when they get taken away from their mom, which was about a week and a half ago. They're eating hard food and are litter box trained. Let me know if you want one or want to come look at them! I think they're all male...

Delayed update

Some cute pics before I get into the nitty gritty!Jordan's so silly! She left this on her head for like a half hour =)
Bennett looks kind of dopey!

Jordan during an OT session. She LOVES this mirror! She looked in it and laughed at the girl in the mirror for quite a while.

I'm always apprehensive about posting updates about Jordan. I like to keep everyone updated but I really feel like there are more sick kids out there and I feel I'm a whiner sometimes and I'm not wanting to draw attention to us, hence the reason this post is quite a while after Jordan's neurosurgeon appointment.

We met with Dr. Rekate (Jordan's neurosurgeon) probably 2 weeks ago or so (I don't keep track of time anymore...). He didn't really have a whole lot more information than last time but this time Rhett was able to come so that was nice. I was very impressed to see my list of about 20 questions I had emailed the Dr. neatly paper clipped on the top of Jordan's chart. He' really wants to find answers to all our questions which is such a relief. He was honest upfront- he doesn't have a lot of answers. He did talk to a neuroradiologist about Jordan's scans and understands the anatomy a little better and they don't think the cysts are in her spinal cord, but just basically all around them. And I didn't ask him this question but in my estimation and from us looking at the scans again with the Doctor, I'm estimating around 100 cysts or so. I could be way off but that tells you the amount of damage that's done to her spine. These cysts are EVERYWHERE. It's really a shocker. He showed us on the scans where she had her back closure and that it was located in her upper Sacral region of her spine. He said that she should have hip flexion, knee flexion, and should really be doing a lot more than she is. He's really thinking now that the cysts came from the mixing of spinal fluid with the amniotic fluid in the womb. We mentioned to him that Jordan didn't have a "sack" around her lesion in the womb. That's why they didn't know about the spina bifida until she was born. This is probably the reason so much fluid was able to mix. There wasn't any barrier. Basically there was a whole in her spine that freely allowed the amniotic fluid to go wherever it wanted. He also showed us that there are cysts as far up as the T4 level. If you look at that diagram I posted a few posts back, you can see what those nerves are attached to. You can see where this is going...

One of our 20 questions was about life expectancy. The Dr. brought this question up to us. He had us lay Jordan down on the exam table (thankfully she had fallen asleep...) so he could watch her breath. He watched her breath for a good 1-2 minutes. He said that the nerves that affect your diaphragm are up in your neck. She doesn't have any problems with those, thank goodness. He said that there are nerves that go down your Thorasic level of your spine affect how your ribcage helps you breath (he explained it really well but I haven't been able to find the exact words for it... hopefully it makes sense...) or how the muscles in your ribcage help expand/contract to help you breath. Dr. Rekate didn't see these working. I guess when you're older (not a toddler) your body obviously needs more oxygen. The diaphragm can't provide this alone. So as far as life expectancy goes, he says this is a definite concern. He's happy that Jordan has good oxygen levels right now but said that he'd like us to see a Pulmonologist to look at that a little bit more in depth.

This was the majority of the new information we found out at our appointment. So really there wasn't anything new, just more information about what could be looming in our future. He got our permission to pass around Jordan's scans to get more opinions on what to do. He said that at first he thought about going into her back and popping each of these cysts and see what happens but then he thought also about the weak condition of her spine, and he would have to remove layers of muscle and tissue that's basically holding her back together to get to these cysts. He's really worried that it might be a big mistake tampering with her back structure at all. The risks are definitely outwaying the possible, but not likely, good that might come from it.

Fun Pictures

More Easter Pics!

The Easter Bunny was hungry!

His feet were pretty muddy too!

Bennett did a great job coloring eggs

Easter Morning

Where the Bunny hid Bennett's basket

"The Easter Bunny jumped way high up there!!"- what Bennett said when he saw his basket

Bennett LOVES this. Anything that crashes = heaven to him =)

And the Easter clothes (actually bought for my sisters wedding but she let us use them early!)

This was Bennett's first time wearing a tie and he wasn't happy about it! By the end of church everything was honky dory!

And here's a fun little video of Jordan at the Easter egg hunt. Short and sweet =)

More on Jordan

We're excited to meet with Jordan's Neurosurgeon this week. We were also excited about being healthy and happy and doing well for now. Did you catch the "were" in there?! Thursday night Jordan fell out of her high chair. I didn't secure her tray on right and of course she loves to lean on that tray! So literally 5 seconds after walking away from her, down she goes. Her forehead hit our Mexican tile flooring with a thunk. The rest of her face hit her tray which she landed, for the most part, right on top of- except her forehead that is. So, with a bloody nose and a quickly growing baseball size (this was no "goose egg!") bump on her head, Rhett and I took her straight to St. Joseph's. It's amazing how well a car runs when it's speeding when it doesn't even work correctly at the speed limit! The took her back almost right away which was a blessing. The CT showed that she fractured her skull. They put her in the PICU overnight. We got to our room around 2, got to sleep around 3, had another CT done at 4, and then some neck xrays done about 5. It was a long night! Both the CT's showed that there was just bleeding between her skull and her skin, and no bleeding in her brain. The xrays showed that her neck looked great. We're so lucky. Thinking back on the fall, she should have a major concussion, broken nose, and all her teeth busted up. We're really blessed. She was released from the hospital the next day around noon. She's had a headache a lot since then (who wouldn't!) but is doing pretty well. Hopefully it'll be a while until we visit them again. =)