Saturday, September 18, 2010

Riding Roller Coasters (Life Metaphor)

On Tuesday, Rinat had pain all over his abdomen. On Wednesday, Rinat's stomach ache decided to localize itself to his right lower quadrant. He was not hungry. His dad took him to the ER at CJW Chippenham. His WBC count was quite high. His CT showed acute appendicitis. He met Dr. Ruth Felsen, a very nice surgeon who removed his appendix with a laparoscope. On Thursday, Rinat was discharged home where his recovery continues. He is doing just fine.



This is Hannah. No news is good news.

Alabama played Duke. Alabama won. It was football, not a spelling bee.



Noah is in the Dynamo Soccer Advanced Development League.


Many of you already know that Jacob has recently been diagnosed with Fanconi anemia.

Thanks to all of you who have kept us in your prayers the past few weeks. Jacob is enjoying life and is surrounded by love. He is doing quite well at the moment.

His platelets are low but not so low that he is at risk of serious bleeding. He is anemic but it doesn't interfere with his current active life. His white count is also somewhat low but he is not at risk of serious infection and is okay to go to public school each day.

His bone marrow biopsy did not show anything concerning, just the expected low cellularity.

We are hopeful that he is at a plateau and that he might stay there for a long while. On the premise that it is better to have a plan in place well before it becomes urgent, we will get a referral to see some doctors at the University of Minnesota, Fairview. They seem to have great success with unrelated bone marrow transplants for Fanconi anemia patients.

Prayerfully consider being a marrow donor:



Our family took a break from medical stresses to go to a medical celebration.

Radiology Associates of Richmond had a fun family picnic at the Faunce's house on the James River. There was great food, camaraderie, awesome bluegrass music, and a talented man who made amazing things out of balloons and who also did face painting.

The children, young and old, enjoyed themselves immensely.

In honor of Rinat, Grace got her face painted to look like stitches.
Sholpan preferred a butterfly.

Annabelle also picked butterflies while Lucy chose a tiger face.

Sometimes tigers attack!

Noah washed his off before I got a chance to take his photo.

Grace enjoys hair spray!

And hats.
Wait! Are those leaves coming out of her head?


Anakin Skywalker is no match for Jacob.


Lucy attempts to convince Jacob that perfect love casts out all fear (and boys without fear have no need for weapons, including this silly sword).

I am not sure what was happening here. Some sort of Hair Unity ritual, I think.

Love
It is stronger than any other force in the universe.
Give it a try and you will see.


1 comment:

  1. Sorry to hear about Jacob, but glad to hear he is doing okay for now. Keep us posted you super fun loving family that makes us look so boring!!!! :-)

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