Off to Green Bay

In my last post, I mentioned that Natalia was diagnosed with moderate to severe scoliosis in September. She has been being treated at Children's Hospital in Seattle. We have received excellent care there, however, Natalia's scoliosis has continued to progress rather rapidly. At our last visit in early December, we met with the head orthopedic/scoliosis doctor. From a medical standpoint, Natalia is a candidate for spinal fusion surgery to straighten her spine and stop the progression. While we believe that the doctors at Children's are among the best in the world, and trust that she would receive excellent care there, we also know that spinal fusion is a major surgery that would impact Natalia for the rest of her life. We want to make sure that we explore all other viable options before proceeding with spinal fusion surgery. After research, we have decided to go through the "Scoliosis Boot Camp" program in Green Bay, Wisconsin. This is an intensive 2-week treatment program developed by a group of chiropractors called the Clear Scoliosis Institute. We feel like this is our best chance at avoiding spinal fusion surgery.

Natalia and I fly out to Green Bay tomorrow - Sunday, January 1st, and will be there through Friday, January 13th. Natalia will be in about 7 hours of treatment per day, Monday through Thursday, and 4 hours on Fridays. We'll come home with a set of exercises, and probably a traction chair as well. We hope to be able to do follow-up treatment with a chiropractor in Bellevue that has been trained in the Clear methods.

I hope to update this blog during our trip to give updates on the treatment and how things are going. We are hoping it isn't too cold!

Happy Holidays 2011

May this season fill your home with joy, 


your heart with love and your life with laughter.

Another year is nearly done, and so I will attempt to reflect and share the highlights of our year and family.

Natalia is 12 ½ and in 7^th grade. She enjoys school and is a great student! She has continued to play the piano and participate in Girl Scouts. She got braces this spring and is growing like a weed – by this time next year (and probably much sooner) I am confident that she will be taller than her mom!

Johanna just turned 11 and is having a great year in 5^th grade. She gave up Girl Scouts this year so she could play volleyball and basketball. She is still playing the piano as well. She got braces this fall to keep up with her sister!

Rob’s mom, Cheryl, is fairly stable and continues to live at the Careage Care Home. She works hard to communicate and we do our best to understand! She has not regained much use of her right side since her stroke in 2010 but certainly has kept her spirit and determination, so we have hope that she will make further improvements over time.

We enjoyed a “road trip of a lifetime” down the Oregon and California coast this summer with our travel trailer. We loved the beautiful scenery and having precious time together as a family and the camping experience – even if it is camping in comfort! It was special to spend time with the LiaBraaten family while we were in California.

We had a short trip to the “happiest place on earth” in January – was so fun to experience Disneyland with the girls – their first time there (that they can remember)! Thanksgiving week was spent in the Phoenix area soaking up sunshine and time with dear friends.

Rob continues to work for Roland and Christina for the library. We are thankful for stable employment!

Natalia was diagnosed with moderate to severe scoliosis in September and has been wearing a brace, however it seems that the brace is not working to slow the progression of her curve. We are considering the options available and are hoping for the best possible outcome.

May the love of family and the joy of the holidays bring warmth and peace to your home. Seasons Greetings from our family to yours!

Love, Rob, Christina, Natalia & Johanna

The Best Thing...

Holidays Greetings from our House to Yours!

Don’t just go through life…grow through life! Some of the lessons we’ve learned (or relearned) this year…

Life can change in an instant. Our health is truly a gift. It’s important to tell our loved ones we love them every day. We cannot put off things for “later” because there may not be a “later.” Our 2010 year will be remembered as the year (Rob’s) Mom had her stroke. At the young age of 66, it was a huge shock. It’s been four months since Mom’s stroke. She spent three weeks in the hospital and has been at a skilled nursing facility since then. Her latest MRI shows there is still swelling and blood in the brain. Her right side is largely paralyzed and communicating effectively is difficult. We are thankful for each day we have with Mom and are optimistic that over time, progress will continue to be made.

Make time to visit aging family & friends while you can. We lost Rob’s grandma in March and are very glad that we visited frequently while we had the opportunity. Christina visited Grammy in Montana and will always treasure that visit.

Middle school can be a positive experience. Phew! Natalia is in 6^th grade and began middle school this year. Natalia has a great teacher, who is very interested in teaching technology alongside the traditional school subjects, so that has kept Natalia engaged. New responsibilities are balanced by new privileges.

Don’t take for granted the value of good, consistent teaching. Johanna is in 4^th grade this year. Unfortunately her teacher has had health problems this year, and has not been in the classroom much. We are hopeful that following Christmas break, she will be able to return full-time.

Camping close to home is fun…camping in the rain…not so much. We thoroughly enjoyed our second season with our travel trailer. We had a couple rainy trips in the spring, but our summer trips were dry! Birch Bay State Park and Lake Pearrigyn (near Winthrop) were a couple of our favorite destinations this year.

Don’t miss family reunions. In July three generations of the Carlson family made special memories at a reunion/camp in Curlew.

Spending time with special friends does the heart good. Sunshine doesn’t hurt either. We spent Thanksgiving week in Scottsdale, AZ again this year with the Hewitt family. There is something thoroughly pleasing about escaping the November gloom of Western Washington to sunshine and blue skies. Although it wasn’t as warm as last year, we didn’t enjoy it any less!

The best Christmas of all is the presence of a happy family all wrapped up with one another. We are looking forward to family time over the holidays, spending time both on Whidbey island with the Read family and in Oroville with the Harvey family.

May your holidays be filled with the love of family and friends and may 2011 be a wonderful year for you and your family. Love, Rob, Christina, Natalia & Johanna

A little photo fun with the girls

September Update

It has now been almost 5 weeks since Cheryl's stroke. She was at Sacred Heart Hospital for about 2 1/2 weeks. Once she was medically stable, the hospital discharged her. The family made the decision that having mom on the west side of the mountains would be very advantageous for all, and so she was transported via ambulance to a skilled nursing facility nearer home two weeks ago. Although mom still does not have use of her right side or any language, we have seen many improvements, most recently including some swallowing, conversation comprehension, following some simple directions and things like that. We continue to hold hope that as the blood dissipates from the brain, that further progress will be made. We have been traveling to visit as often as possible to encourage mom in her recovery efforts and give her incentive to make progress! For anyone who would like to better understand brain functioning and how a stroke affects the brain, we recommend the book "My Stroke of Insight" by Jill Bolte Taylor. This book is written by a brain scientist who suffered a stroke. It really opened our eyes to brain functioning and what mom might be experiencing. We continue to update the Caring Bridge blog a couple of times per week (http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/cherylread). The love and support for mom has been so encouraging for us.

In other news - our family is adjusting to middle school (Natalia) and both girls are settling into the school routine. Natalia has passed the 5 foot mark and is rapidly catching up to mom! Piano lessons are back on the schedule as are any high school football games that we can make it to!

I'll post their first day of school pictures too! Johanna - 4th grader

Natalia - 6th grader

How things can change in a moment of time...

We have unexpectedly been in Spokane this week...Rob's mom suffered a hemorrhagic stroke on Sunday and was airlifted from Chelan, where she had been staying, to Sacred Heart Hospital in Spokane. Many indications are positive, and we are thankful for that. Both of Rob’s siblings are here, as well as Cheryl’s brother, and of course Bill too. We met with the neurologist today, who is apparently one of the best in the country. She was unwilling to make predictions, but said that for the size of the hemorrhage, Cheryl is doing better than she would expect. They did take out her breathing tube today about noon, but are monitoring her closely, as she is laboring a bit to breathe on her own. She had some heart abnormalities over night last night, but they did an EKG type procedure this morning and said it came back normal. Cheryl is more alert today and does respond to familiar voices by opening her eyes and squeezing our hands with her left hand. Her right side is the affected side. So far she does not have any response on the right side, but the doc said that it will take up to 3 months for the bleeding and swelling to go down, and there will be improvements through that time. They have been unable to evaluate her speech and cognitive processes, as she has been intubated and also has a feeding tube. We are working out a “schedule” of coverage – unfortunately we all live in western WA, so will be learning the road to Spokane well over the next months. It is unlikely that they would transport her back to the west side just for convenience sake. It is too expensive to air transport and too risky to transport via ground. Rob has set up a caring bridge website to provide updates: http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/cherylread. Our prayer is that this experience will draw each of us closer to God, and that we’ll have the patience we desperately need.

New cousin photos

There, I did it

My bi-monthly blog update! LOL! It's just that blogger is so clunky and slow compared with some other, ahem, sites, such as, say, Facebook! By the way, do you like my new spring background? Isn't it fun? Hotbliggityblog.com!

Kite Day with Cousins

The girls and I enjoyed a long weekend in Oroville during spring break. The weather could have been more "springish" but we had a fun time anyway! We attended the local "Kite Day" which proved to be very fun and colorful. The girls had so much fun learning to fly kites, and getting their exercise running up and down the field trying to get their kites in the air when the breeze let up! And we had a few belly laughs watching them when they were running for all they were worth down the field and unbeknownst to them, the kite failed to catch air and was dragging on the ground behind them!

Natalia, Brooklyn, Johanna and Charlee

Johanna

Brooklyn

Natalia

Charlee