We finally made it!  We got up at the crack of dawn and somehow made it successfully on the Metro to D.C.  (I was NOT happy with the Metro.) and 1/2 hour early to our appt. at Rep. Sandy Adams' office for our Capital tour.  We came up from the Metro station and were met with this incredible view:

Here we are, at Rep. Adams' door!  It was so fun walking through the office building, looking at the names of the Representatives on each door.

Here we are, behind Rep. Adams' desk!  The intern asked us if we wanted a picture here, and of course we said YES!  Oh -- an important disclaimer is needed here: Reese has a shaved head because the week before our trip, he went to wrestling camp and ...well, that should suffice as an explanation.  The kids got kind of crazy...  I wasn't too happy about the shaved head, cause we were going on this trip, but what could I do??  The boy simply wouldn't wear a hat...

Here we are with Sam, our intern.  He personally gave us a tour all throughout the Capital building.  Nice guy!  He said he'd put in a good word for Reese with Rep. Adams about Reese working as an intern one summer.  Neat, huh?!?

This is a 2X replica of the statue that sits on top of the Capital building.  It's in the new Visitor's Center in the Capital Building.  (I think she looks a bit lost...!)

A neat, and rather artsy view of the dome from the Visitor's Center.

Speaker Boehner's door.  No, we weren't looking for it, but when we passed by it, I thought I'd take a picture.

I just LOVE the Capital rotunda!!!  (Inside the dome)

Here's Reese, directly under the rotunda in the "crypt", standing on the spot that is the exact center of Washington, D.C.

Here is the original Supreme Court room, where famous decisions like the Dred Scot Decision, were made.

(I'm too tired to figure out why I can't move this photo up)  Here is a closer shot of the inside top of the rotunda.

Sam, our intern, took this in the Capital Rotunda.

This is for my Iowa and Illinois family.  At the top of some of the columns were ears of corn, and the stalks of the corn made up the length of the columns.  (Others had tobacco leaves at the top.)  This was to honor those who supported our country with agriculture.

After our tour.  The future Congressman (President?) in front of his future office building.

Moving on, we went to the Supreme Court.  Unfortunately, it was under construction of some kind, so it was FULL of scaffolding everywhere and was not at all beautiful.  :o(  Still, we went in of course, and it was really neat inside.  We did not want to wait the 1/2 hour for a new tour to go into the courtroom (we'll go back another time, hopefully) cause we didn't want to miss the Senate session about to go and we still had to go to the Library of Congress.

Reese, heading up the steps to the Library of Congress.

The architecture in there was incredible, as is so many of the buildings in D.C.  The mosaic ceilings were unbelievable and the names of the greatest poets were inscribed as well as some really neat quotes along the borders of the ceilings.

All of the color and designs you see are all tile mosaics.




That, in a nutshell was our day!!  We had fun exploring the tunnels under the buildings, and exploring the House of Representative's offices, looking for names we knew.  The weather held up (it was supposed to rain, but didn't) and it was all and all a VERY good day!!  Tomorrow, we think we'll do the Smithsonians mostly, as it's supposed to rain, but Wednesday is supposed to be really nice, and we think we'll "do" the monuments/Arlington Cemetary on that day.  Not sure.  We're playing it very much by ear! 

I hope you enjoyed the photos!!  Glad I was FINALLY able to load and post them!  Whew!!

We made it!  We arrived at 12:30 today (at our hotel in Manassas, anyway) after a really nice and uneventful trip!  Our rental car FLEW down the highway, quietly and with a great a/c and we made it 2 hours faster than planned.  ;o)  No troubles at all.

Reese requested that we NOT go to DC today for a "preliminary quick look" as he wanted to get settled in and take his third, fourth, and probably fifth nap of the day.  He's still recovering from wrestling camp, I guess.  That's okay.  There is a TERRIFIC shopping area very nearby and so we'll look for a cord for my camera, look for another pair of shorts or two for him, and eat "lupper" (lunch/supper).  Reese eyed several restaurants (he's amazingly good at that) that he would like to eat at.  So I guess our adventures begin tomorrow!  :o)  Hopefully, I'll have a camera cord by then and hopefully we'll make our 9:30 Capital building tour and I'll have bunches and bunches of pictures to share!  :o)  I love pictures.

Not too exciting of a report for today, but I want to blog each day about our adventures, and that was today's entry!  ;op

When Reese was 6 years old (in 2000), he was visiting with my grandmother.  She was asking him some questions:

My Gram: "Reese?  Who lives in Texas?"
Reese: "Daniel and Julianne."  (his cousins)
Gram: "That's right!!  And who else?" (meaning, his aunt and uncle)
Reese, with enthusiasm, "GEORGE W. BUSH!!"

My poor Gram!!  She looked at me and said, "Did he just say, 'George W. Bush'??"

LOL!!  It was then that I knew that my son was going to be interested in politics.  Boy, did I underestimate him!!  Not only did he know who George W. Bush was before he was even named the candidate for president, but he listened closely to BOTH the Democratic and the Republican Conventions that year!  He followed the election with MUCH interest, and filled out his little US map all evening with the votes each candidate got, per state.

Since then, he has remained interested in politics, but he also developed a keen interest in presidential history and early American history.  The boy proved to be a whiz at presidential trivia and used this skill several times in talent shows!  LOL

So it didn't take me long to develop the desire to get him to Washington, D.C. for a visit.  Year after year I tried to get him there, but something always stopped me: time, money, opportunity.  Each year I mourned the efforts lost in getting him to the place that he must, at all costs, visit, before he graduated.

FINALLY, this year, the Lord paved the way for us to go!!  He provided the money in giving me tons of extra visits at work and the start of my Visalus business (which has paid out handsomely so far for the tiny bit of work I've actually done with it!), He gave me the time in that I was able to afford the time off work, and He gave me the opportunity in that my mom sooooooo generously donated her time to come from Seattle to stay with Erik while we went!!!!  Everything lined up beautifully and we knew his time had come.

SOOOOOO... early this afternoon, we packed our gear and set off!!  Tonight we are staying in a hotel in Fayetteville, NC, about 1/2 way to D.C. from our house - we are so excited and so pumped up for this trip that has been 11 years in coming.  :o)  God's timing is perfect, and I feel that this is the perfect time for us to go - right before the start of his senior year in high school.  :o)

I will try to update my blog each night after our big day and hopefully upload some photos!!  (If I can figure it out - I left my cord at home and this laptop doesn't have a memory stick gizmo like my desktop at home does...!!  Can you buy cords for cameras like that easily?  Like at W*l-Mart??)

So I'll talk to you tomorrow!!!!  We hope to arrive at D.C. early afternoon and will scope it out briefly before hitting the pavement hard Monday morning!

I didn't realize how many people would be so concerned about me when I went in for surgery, but wow! The outpouring has been amazing, and so I thought I'd tell the story of this miserable chapter in my life. Thank you, everyone who has sent encouraging words and prayers my way!! It has been MUCH appreciated!!

Okay, here goes (this is probably going to be very long...):

Back in the summer of 2011, I was frustrated with myself because my ankles had been swelling for a few years. I went to my doctor about a year earlier, but he said I was simply overweight and told me to walk more and take these diarrhetics to make me pee. Well, that was stupid because the swelling had started when I was much lighter, and at my young age, something had to be up for something like this to be starting, but I was a compliant patient and did what he said. Until I couldn't take it anymore and out of frustration I changed doctors last summer. I told my new doc about my ankles and he was not too concerned, but agreed that it certainly wasn't normal, so he ordered a CT scan. I got a phone call a few days afterward from the nurse, saying that an MRI had been ordered. Hmm... So I'm at the MRI place, lying on the table and the tech said something about an "abdominal mass". What?! A mass?! She said that that was sort of a catch-all phrase and I shouldn't be worried about it. Mm, hmm... I eagerly awaited a follow up appt. with the doc to find out what the results were of these tests. A couple of weeks later (ugh) I found out: there was a possible mass on my pancreas. I was being referred to a GI doc.

The next week was one of the most terrifying weeks of my life. A big mass on my pancreas. A cancer. Pancreatic cancer. I had cancer insurance but it wasn't all that great of coverage, but it would help. I researched pancreatic cancer and was off-handedly told by a beloved uncle that my great-grandmother died of pancreatic cancer - he didn't know I might have it. I did a lot of crying that week... VERY few people survive that fast-progressing disease... :o(

I saw the GI guy, who was extremely sweet and caring, and he told me that he would be VERY surprised that if it was cancer, as the report didn't really sound like it. It sounded to him like it was just a large aneurysm (ballooning in the weak place of an artery, that can burst) in a very hard place to get to. He referred me to a radiologist at the hospital who would perform an angiogram (they run a catheter tube up a large artery at the hip/groin) and try to "clog" the aneurysm that way. This was great news! No cancer!! And this guy can fix the aneurysm with a simply angiogram!

So the big day arrived (I believe it was September about this time) and I happily prepared for my test. I would be sedated, but not put under, cause they needed me to breathe deeply at different times for the contrast/radiation, and I needed to be able to cooperate. The sedation was terrific and I tolerated everything fine. I was out of it though, so I was not really comprehending what was going on and didn't worry about it, but later, I realized that there were quite a gaggle of doctors in there all talking fast, naming this artery and that artery (did I care? No, I was enjoying the meds!). In recovery, hubby Mark told me that they couldn't do the surgery at this hospital as it was far too complicated and that they quit half way through as they were afraid of killing me if something went a tiny bit wrong. Huh?! No easy fix?? He said doctors were scurrying in and out of the room and everyone looked very worried. Yikes... So the doc told us that in no way could anyone at that hospital or even in this county handle my situation as the artery was huge and in a terrible location - behind my pancreas, very near my aorta, in a place that was unheard of. Lovely!! They would try to contact a doctor in Miami that might be able to handle me, and they would let me know. :o{

Over the next couple of weeks, my leg/hip/groin hurt terribly, and I was covered with a huge bruise, but my main concern was finding a doctor that could help me!! It seemed to take forever for a referral to Miami, so I asked for my medical records and referred myself to Mayo up in Jacksonville. Hubby has been seen there and we were both very impressed with it. What could it hurt?? I called and asked if they had a vascular surgeon who could see me for a Superior Mesenteric Artery aneurysm fix, and they said yes and to send the records and they would see if he would agree to take me on. I did and he did and we had an appt. Yay!!

A couple of more weeks later (this was taking forever!) Mark and I went up there. The doc was extremely nice and caring and very interested in my case. He showed us the images from the previous angiogram and indeed, the aneurysm was very big (greater than 5 cm). He said he would take my case, but he wanted to consult with other doctors. The long and the short of the story is that an appt for another angiogram was made so they could pinpoint the area better, and on their own machines, and he wanted to send these images to the other docs at the Rochester and Arizona Mayo's so he could get their opinions on how to handle all of this. Obviously, I was very much an anomaly, as he got sooooo many other surgeons' opinions!! I appreciated this a great deal, as he did change his mind about how to proceed a couple of times.

One surprise that was found on the Mayo angiogram was that not only did I have 2 aneurysms (the huge one and a smaller one on a nearby artery - the Celiac artery) but I had a very bad constriction on a third artery leading to my liver!! Apparently, the constricted artery was requiring the other arteries to work overtime to supply my liver, and hence the aneurysms had formed. This was good to know, as all of the doctors were quite stumped as to why I had them in the first place!

Eventually, a plan was formed: they would do another angiogram (this would be my third!) through the left groin/hip and also inside my left elbow.  They would "clog" the aneurysm that way.  They would also place a number of stents here and there.  The next day, the head honcho from up in Rochester would fly down to do my second day's surgery, which was a laporoscopy of my abdomen and it was his job to clip the restricting bands that had formed around that third artery.  That all went well, but apparently, a couple of the stents they placed on Day 1 had cracked or something and they needed to go in again and fix them!  That was 3 days of surgeries in 3 days.  God was SURELY watching closely over me cause I actually tolerated everything pretty well!  No, I was not comfortable, and not without pain, but the nursing care Mayo gave me as I spent several days in their ICU was wonderful and Mark never left my side.  I don't remember much, but what I do remember is fairly vivid.  I remember being so weak that physical therapy had to help me stand - my legs were so weak that standing on them felt foreign to me!  (Gives me a better appreciation for some of my patients.)  I was so weak that they had to use a Hoyer Lift to get me from bed to chair (for those of you who don't know, this is a sling that carries bedbound people from place to place because they are too weak to stand).  I tried eating after my 4th day and it was not my favorite thing to do, but I did try.  Mom was home taking care of the kids and dogs and I was able to focus my attentions on resting.  ;o)  On Christmas Day, I got to go home straight from the ICU.  Later, we all decided that was a day or two too early, but I had kids and I had to get home for Christmas.  Moms, you understand, I know...

The first several days home were tough, as I was EXTREMELY weak and miserable from everything, but Mom and Mark were absolutely terrific and I had few cares other than myself, of which I am grateful beyond words.  I am never really sick, other than a cold (I don't believe I've ever even had the flu...) so being really and for truly laid up was a new experience!  I needed help managing my clothes to use the bathroom; I could hardly take a shower as my arms were so weak I couldn't wash myself (and our shower is too small for a helper - not that I would have allowed one...!  lol)   Steadily, however, I did get stronger and stronger and eventually was able to tolerate short trips to the grocery store and the like. 

When I was still in the hospital, the vascular surgeon came in one day and told me that because of the massive amounts of radiation they needed to use for the marathon angiograms, I might suffer some slight "sunburns" on my side and back.  No sweat.  After what I'd been through, I could handle anything!  And sure enough, just as I was feeling good again, I noticed a very large but slight burn mark on my left abdomen (between bra line and waistline).  This must be the burn he warned me about, I thought.  The next day, a small blister had formed near one corner and sort of peeled.  I put a bandaid on it and several hours later, I took it off to find that the adhesive on the bandaid had peeled a solid chunk of skin off with it!  Oh, no!!  Over the next few days, the burn got bigger and deeper and more and more raw.  The dermatologist gave me some silvadene and some bandages and told me to keep it covered and moist.  Then the burns on my back appeared, and my right waistline.  The one on my abdomen eventually because HUGE and DEEP, measuring about 4X8" (just the exact size of the bandages we bought!) and the one on my back was of similar size, but not as deep.  The one on my right waistline was smallest, about the size of a cookie. 

The arrival of these burns meant my return to work would be impossible.  This was the beginning of my fourth week off work, and I really needed to go back!!  Disability payments aren't much!!  But there was nothing anyone could do.  I was doing 4-6 dressing changes per DAY, and going through gobs and gobs and gobs of bandages.  The pain was ridiculous.  We made many trips to Mayo for followups and those were torture.  The only way I could tolerate the 2+hr. trip was to recline the seat way back, wrap myself up in Mark's coat, put the "C" pillow in my neck and go to sleep.  Moving was torture; getting out of the car was torture; walking the halls of the building was torture.  Forgetting Mayo, just lying down was almost impossible.  With a huge wound in the middle of my back, one on my right side and one nearly on my left side, and not being able to lie on my stomach due to my surgeries, sleeping was always a challenge.  Eventually, I figured out that I could situate my pillows in such a way and lie on my right side as long as my pajama bottoms were not at the level of the burn and the sheets were smooth and if my right arm (which was suffering terrible neuropathy from the last angio) was positioned in such a way and if my left arm was resting in front of me and not on my left side...  then, I could sleep.  Or, at least lie that way for hours until I had to get up to use the bathroom or do one of my UMPTEEN dressing changes.  This was my life for about 4 weeks.  Don't envy me. 

EVENTUALLY, the burns healed.  The ones on my back and right side healed fairly quickly, but the one on my abdomen, while dry and mostly healed, still hurts and isn't quite healed.  It is the 10th of May now.  The burns erupted the 3rd week of January.  :o(  Instead of my anticipated 3 weeks off work, I ended up with TEN WEEKS off.  UGH!!!  STILL, despite it all (and I left lots out), if I had to do it all over again, I would.  The surgeons at Mayo were TERRIFIC, treating me like I was their one and only patient, Mom was SO generous to spend 5 weeks here taking care of me and my family, and Mark was absolutely wonderful, practically never leaving my side.  And today, despite this stupid abdominal burn that just doesn't seem to want to give up and some continuing residual neuropathy in my right arm, I am doing TERRIFIC.  I feel great, I'm 100% at work and home and I'm into as much mischief as I have time and money to get into.  :o)

And that's my story.

Every so often, I enjoy updating my blog on how little Erik is doing. Yes, I know I haven't blogged in AGES (though I have a very, very, very long blog post I've worked on about my illness but now I'm thinking I may not post it - I don't know if anyone is interested), but I loooove bragging on my little guy so here it is:

This is what I wrote a year ago about what Erik could and couldn't do when he first came home. I thought I might as well copy it so that memory wouldn't skew the facts:

When we first met him, at age 5:
• He couldn't walk one step without a death grip on both of our hands.
• He grunted a deep grunt, like a growl. He verbalized, but not much.
• He could not feed himself, nor did he want to.
• He drank out of a bottle.
• On one of our first visits, he grabbed a leaf off of a bush and ate it - something he wouldn't do today, and a story we still laugh about because it shocked us so much!
• If you sat him someplace, such as on a blanket on the floor, he would NOT move from that spot. You had to pick him up and place him somewhere else.
• He would not reach for a toy - he loved to LOOK at toys, but no touching or holding. And certainly no playing! He had no idea what toys were or that they were for fun.
• He would happily watch the heavy "snow" on the orphanage TV, even though images weren't very easily seen at all. (Why they even had that on, I have no idea.)
• He was happy to be alone, to sit or lie down and rock, rock, rock.
• He shook with fear with every new situation. For example, we gave him a little toy that played classical music, and though he loved listening to it, he would shake and quiver the whole time.
• He could only eat pureed food, or else it would get stuck going down and he'd scream and cough until he either swallowed it down the rest of the way, or he got it up.
• He had absolutely no clue about anything having to do with ADL's (dressing, bathing, etc.).

This is what he looked like, shortly before we adopted him, at age 4 3/4:
Two and a half years later at 7 1/2, he is THRIVING! He is clearly attached to his home and family and apparently really, really missed me when I was sick and hardly saw him for a couple of weeks. He acted out a LOT and gave my poor family and my mom a really hard time... Then, when I started joining the family at the dinner table again, not even really paying attention to him cause I still felt SO LOUSY, he got so happy and was happy ever since. :o) That did this mom's heart good. Okay--! Here are some bullet points as to how he is doing NOW:

• He still doesn't talk, but there are times when I think, "He's gonna say it...!! He's gonna say it...!!" He gets this look in his eye, but then it doesn't surface. Still waiting...

• He is still signing, though he only has a few more words. HOWEVER, just in the last week or two, he has shown a much greater interest in signing and, when motivated to say something, he learns it almost with only one or two prompts! I.e. the "bus". He simply LOVES the bus (he's all boy!) and likes to "talk about" the bus. I think we are on the verge of seeing lots more signing coming from him. Yay!
• He has this funny little run that he does in his low-tone sort of way - when he's excited (it doesn't take much!) he waggles his arms all crazy and does this "slap foot" sort of run and it is the funniest thing to watch! It makes me chuckle just sitting here writing about it.
  
• He follows directions SO much better than he used to, and LOVES to be a "helper"! He loves to put his dirty clothes in the basket, carry his socks to the table in the morning where I can help put them on, and put his spilled food back onto his plate at dinner. After pottying now, he can often do THREE things without ANY cueing - flush, put the lid down, turn out the light! YAY!
• He has also turned a corner in school - I went up there the other night for a conference and was ASTONISHED at what the teacher told me!! She said he could identify his written name (amongst other names), he could match letters 1 - 10 (even in different size and type!), and was beginning to sight read other words!! Whoo hooooo!!! I was VERY happy to hear this, as these are things we didn't necessarily see at home. He is in a VERY good classroom (albeit without practically ANY technology, which I think he would really respond to...) and has a GREAT teacher and GREAT aides!!
• He still has lots of "stimming" behaviors - pretty much the same ones: staring at his hands, chewing on things, tapping to hear the noise, etc. Oh, well...
• He apparently was having some problems with a bacterial infection awhile back (and probably ever since Ukraine...!) but some simple antibiotics have cleared it up! He hardly EVER "chokes" on his food anymore and he eats all kinds of textures of foods (except lettuce type foods - he doesn't like that). He eats almost ANY KIND OF FOOD you could think to give him, except lettuce or other leafies. He is a GOOOOOOD eater!!!! WOW!
• He's still not too crazy about the dogs, but they love him because he is a good provider of all things delicious.
• When we got him, he weighed 25 pounds if he weighed an ounce, and now he is almost 40 pounds. He's also gotten TALL!! He is still skinny, but nicely filled out. :o) Of course, sometimes his belly looks like he has swallowed a basketball, and it's perfect for poking. ;op
• I love you so much, Erik!!
  

Here is a current photo of him, that I think is particularly cute:

Last week, I figured out how to save 40-50% off my grocery bill - my Wal-Mart grocery bill (the total would be more like 50-60% if I shopped at the "regular" stores)!! The idea has been there all along, but I didn't think about it until last week.

All I do, is I go to our neighboring grocery stores' websites and look for their weekly ad. I go through it, clicking on whatever item they have on sale to add to my "grocery list" that is generated for me automatically. When I'm done, I print the lists. I staple them together. I grab my coupons, and off to Wal-Mart I go!

How it works is, Wal-Mart price matches almost every ad you can find. The other 2 grocery stores offer lots of "Buy one get one free" sales, of course, at much higher original prices than Wal-Mart. I get that item, use a coupon if I have it (boy, is THAT fun when I do!), and voila!!! At check out, I have my list (with items that I got circled to help me find them) and as the checker took each item, I'd tell her what the price or deal was.

Yesterday, my shopping list from a neighboring grocery store offered Uncle Ben's wild rice "BOGO free". I found the bags of rice and they were $3.24 each (ouch). With my BOGO ad from the other store, I got two bags for $3.24, making them each $1.62. Then, to my absolute delight, I noticed that each bag had a coupon stuck to it (you know what I mean) for $1.00 a bag, making each bag only $0.62!!!!

I'm not an "extreme couponer" like seen on TV, because I haven't got 30 hours a week like they do to mess around (plus, in FL, stores don't double coupons), but I have found a very easy way to save 40-50% on my groceries and it only takes 10 min. online to do it, and a little concentration when in the store!

I had so much fun yesterday, that in the canned fruit aisle, two older ladies were debating on what kind of fruit to buy. I told them that P*blix had a BOGO ad for Del Monte canned fruit, and we stood there and I showed them my list and told them how they could this and that free just by mentioning it at the register! Soon enough, a gentleman showed up and we let him in on the deal, and a mom with a little boy chimed in, too! We had a little crowd of "price matchers" in the canned fruit aisle, all conspiring to get a good deal! It was fun!

Anyway, I thought I'd pass on this tip to you! Hope you try it and I hope it helps! :o)