R&R

Here is Linny enjoying the amenities of the Children's Hospital playroom. Shortly after this strenuous play session, Linny retired to her bed for a big snooze.

Bandages Off!

Here are Linny and her doll with no more bandages and disconnected from all monitors and IVs--yay! The line is still in her hand, but if she keeps drinking her fluids they will take the whole business off. As for her ear, you can see all the tiny stitches where they reattached it, but you really have to look hard. They are supposed to heal to almost invisible. The real work was done much deeper in her ear, and that will take some time to really heal up.

But she is enjoying her journal and books and toys that everyone gave her. More thank yous to everyone!

She's Out!

Sorry for no updates there for a while. At 3:45 I came back from the ladies room to see Dr. Whittemore sitting there talking with Mark. Dr. W. showed us some footage from the procedure and described the complex and microscopic work he had to do in order to clean out the nasty cholesteatoma completely without damaging her tiny ear bones (which were unharmed by the growth, so that's great!).

From there it was directly to recovery where we spent another 90 or so minutes while Linny came to and while we waited for a room to become available. Sooooo....here we are, up in the room, watching Madagascar Penguins and drinking ginger ale. As you can see, Linny's doll also fared well.

Thanks to everyone for their prayers and good thoughts--they worked!!!

Second Update from the OR

Good news, bad news. I'll give you the bad news first. The nurse who is giving us the updates let us know that we should add a good chunk of time to whatever the surgeon told us. So what we thought would be a 3.5 hour event will more likely be 4-5 hours. Having started at 11:15 we expect to see Linny by 4:00. That's the bad news.

The good news is that she is handling the anesthesia well and the surgery is going forward as planned, with no surprises or unusual discoveries. And that we have all of you guys out there pulling for her! Thanks!xoxox

First Update from the OR

Linny went in to the OR at around 11:15 and, with the help of 'strawberry air' drifted off into Lala land with me and her dolly by her side. About an hour later we got an update telling us that they got a little late start because it took longer to do the mini spinal block she needs for post-op pain relief. However, once underway, they said things are/were going great. We're expecting more news momentarily.

Auntie Meredith came to see us while we waited and provided us with yummy food and better company. Thanks Mer!

Surgery Update

Mark and I are at Children's Hospital in Boston, just completing our second hour of waiting for Linny to come out of her surgery to remove a cholesteatoma from her right ear. Here is a picture of Linny a few weeks ago:

Complete the Old Create the New

Every New Year for the past five years or so, I have enjoyed going through an exercise called 'Complete the Old, Create the New'. The original form of this was developed by life coach Virginia Kellogg; I will share an abridged version of it here. I hope you will use it to get your year off to the best start yet!

1. Complete: Being complete with the events of the past year helps you to clearly see the lessons you have learned and allows you to move on to new opportunities that await you in 2008.
Draw a line down the middle of a piece of paper. On the left hand side, write Highlights of 2007. Under that heading list all of the highlights (wins, successes, breakthroughs, etc.) of 2007. On the right hand side next to each item jot down what it means to be 'complete' with each one. On a new page, do the same thing for the Lowlights of 2007 (losses, failures, breakdowns) of the year.

2. Create: This is the fun part. Articulating your intentions for the year ahead immediately improves your chances for success.
Draw a line down the middle of a piece of paper. On the left hand side, write Highlights of 2008. Under that heading list all of the wins, successes and breakthroughs you would like to experience in the coming year. Write this list as if it has already happened, and make it as specific as possible (i.e. Instead of 'I took a vacation' put 'I went on a 5-day Carribbean cruise'). On the right hand side, write down one action you can easily take toward making it real.

Finally, I sometimes like to give the year a theme. For me one year it was The Year of Going Out of My Comfort Zone. It can even be very specific (The Year of the Clean House) or totally abstract (The Year of Soaring Eagle).

Keep this document handy so you can easily refer back to it over the year. Gotta go, it's time for me to do my own list! I wish you the best for this year.