Friday, April 24, 2009

There... and back again

It's been a busy week. Paul, Kendra and I made the trek up to Birmingham to meet with a plastic surgeon and with her (Kendra's) urologist to discuss the next steps that need to be taken. Really liked the plastic surgeon, still on the fence about this new urologist. He seems a bit flip about Kendra's concerns. (eye roll) I think he doesn't care to have his "authority" challenged.

Kudos to Kendra for standing her ground and making sure he understood her desires. I have to say this week has been an interesting roller coaster of ups and downs. It's heart warming to realize that Kendra is getting more mature all the time. As she learns to handle more and more about her condition (with doctors), I feel better about letting go.

We didn't get all the answers we wanted and we have another trip up north in May for more tests. In the mean time, I am composing letters to our preferred surgeons (one is in Texas, two are in DC). These three doctors are the ones that have been giving her care through the military since she was a week old. Her local urologist lacks the experience in bladder exstrophy patients that I think we need for certain aspects of the next surgeries.

I am hoping that the e-mails I send out will answer a lot of our questions and either start the ball rolling to get Kendra back to these surgeons, OR help us find "local" surgeons with the experience necessary.

What I really don't want is for Kendra to have to have repetitive corrective surgeries if we choose the wrong surgeons.

Sunday, April 19, 2009

Cookbook Chaos

Many moons ago Paul gave me a blank cookbook. (a gift I asked for) It's been sitting on my bookcase ignored and mostly empty. I love cookbooks and collecting recipes. My plan for this book was to make it a gathering place of all my favorites that we use again and again and again. My thought was that by gathering those family favorites in one spot, the chidren would have easy access to the recipes that they'd most likely want to take with them to their own homes.

My plan for today is to work on the cookbook. We're trying to get the house ready for this move and I have so many loose recipes flying all over the place that I thought this would be a good use of today. Organize the family favorites cookbook!


glitter-graphics.comOf course, I'm now sitting at my computer, the mass of loose recipes and the cookbook binder behind me spread out on the dining room table. What chaos!! This seemed like a really good idea when all this stuff was stuffed in the bookcase (I have one small bookcase dedicated to my cookbooks). Now that the slips are all over the table... WOW! do I ever collect a lot of recipes!

I think I need to call in the calvary (Paul) to help me get this organized.