Sugery Sucess!

Hello everyone! So sorry that I have been such a slacker with blogging lately! It has been a REALLY crazy couple of weeks! But before I get into all of that, let me get to the important stuff.

Olivia's surgery was this morning and all was good! Grant could not be there on such short notice since we scheduled it only 2 weeks out, so my wonderful friend Sara came with us to help me out. (Thanks so much, Sara! I REALLY appreciate you coming with us! It really meant a lot to me!) Anyway, the doctor was able to get the balloon catheter probe in there to open up her ducts and got the tubes put into place. Now we just have to hope that they *stay* in place for the next several months while they heal. (Apparently sometimes the kids will rub them out and such!) The doctor did say that this time when she probed her eyes that Olivia's left eye (the one that was SO bad last time) had one BIG blockage in it that she had to clear, but this time the right eye duct was filled with gravel that took her 20 minutes to get cleared out. So needless to say, she definitely still needed to have this further surgery in BOTH eyes. So let's just hope that this is the final one for her little eyes!

And much like last time, she was pretty upset when we went back to get her after the surgery was over. But once we got her home and she had a good nap and some lunch - all was good in the world again. She just needed to sleep off the anesthesia and get some food in her belly. They did have to do an IV on her this time, with a breathing tube and everything but even with all of that, by this evening, she was playing and watching cartoons and acting like her usual self! She even had some ice cream after her dinner!

Here are some pictures from the hospital before she went into her surgery:

They actually found a hospital gown that sort of *fit* her this time. At least we tied it tight enough to make it work. It had bugs bunny, taz, tweety and all the loony tunes characters on it. Doesn't she look cute in her little gown?

Look at her little tushy hanging out:

Here's just a little video from us hanging out in there (I took it on my phone so the quality isn't great):

Then she fell asleep while we were waiting for them to take her back!

Ok, so let me back up a bit! So a few weekends ago my parents came to visit and hang out. Here's a picture of them with Olivia:

While they were here, my mom taught Olivia that a doggy says "woof-woof" since her new favorite toy is her stuffed animal doggy. Check out this video:

I also have just some random cute pictures of Olivia with some cute little bows in her HAIR!!! YES! She now has enough hair to wear bows! YEAH!

And the moment you all have been waiting for . . . ok well at least I have . . Olivia has started to say Mama! Ok, so maybe she still calls me Daddy most of the time, but she will at least say the word mama on occasion and even knows that it is me! Here's a video of her saying the highly coveted word:

Ok, that's about all for now, I'll try my best to blog more often. Things have been quite crazy with work for me lately. They announced a couple weeks ago that they are closing my entire division so, we have been scrambling. We will be ok, though. My boss and my co-workers (I am in a small group of about 5 people) are going to all move to another company as a group. We are actually going to open a new office here in Raleigh for a company out of NJ - so we are going to be pretty busy in the next couple of months as we start that new venture. I will probably be moving over to that company sometime in September and we have been working on bringing all of our clients with us - hence me being out of touch for the last couple of weeks! Sorry about all of that! Well, until next time, take care and keep in touch! I'll do my best to keep you all posted on Olivia's status - but be patient with me if I fall down on the job again! :)

Surgery Scheduled

Olivia's surgery has been scheduled for Friday August 28th. They could have squeezed us in this Friday, but I just felt like that was too soon for everyone to get their act together. I'd rather wait a week or two to make sure we have all our ducks in a row. The doctor can't do next week, as she will be at a conference - so it will be on the 28th. I will keep you all posted on how she does that day once we get home from the hospital. In the mean time - just continue to keep Olivia in your thoughts.

We appreciate all the support we have gotten from you all through this so far and are so grateful to have such wonderful family and friends to lean on.

One more surgery to come. . .

I wanted to share with you the news from Olivia's doctor's appointment this morning. Yup, she's going to have another surgery. The doctor just had to take one look at her poor little eyes to know that they were still in need of some extra care. Her poor left eye is still really bad. The right one is better, but still not great. The doctor said again how bad her eyes were when she had done the 1st surgery. That normally during a probing, you just have to pop through a single membrane to open up a duct, but with both of her eyes, there was just gravel-like stuff all through the ducts and that both ducts were both narrowing, too. She said that they weren't the worst she has seen, but were pretty bad - so needless to say, she was not surprised to be getting a phone call from me that we may need to proceed with other options.

So onto to the other options . . .

The next step that we are going to do is the Balloon Probing where they insert a probe with a balloon that they blow up to a certain size and hardness and pull through the duct to try to open it up, then they are going to do a second step to this surgery (like 2 surgeries in one) and they are going to insert tubes into each duct to help with the drainage initially, but mainly to keep the ducts open while they heal. The tubes will eventually be removed several months later, once the eyes have completely healed. (This can be done in the office so we don't have to go through a 3rd surgery!). So now the only question is whether or not she can fit the balloon into the ducts to open them up . . we'll have to wait and see.

Now for the when . . .

Well, since we wanted to get this all done with as soon as possible and since the economy is the way it is where you can never tell how secure any one's job is - I told her I'd rather do it sooner than later while I still had my insurance and it was already maxed out of pocket for her
(the next surgery would be on the insurance company) - SO, it may be THIS FRIDAY . . . oh my goodness! or next Friday . . . either way, they are going to try to get us in as soon as they can. They feel really badly that it didn't work for her and want to fix her little eyes as soon as they can so she can go outside and enjoy the sunshine with her friends.

Well, as you already read, Grant's business partner just had their baby (early) so, he most likely will not be able to be there for this surgery unfortunately. So, my mom is going to drive up to help out that day so I don't have to try to handle it all on my own. I think I am going to try to push it to next Friday if I can - this week seems a bit too soon to juggle everything - but we'll do what we need to do. The scheduler is going to call me within the next couple of days - I'll keep you all posted.

So, that isn't the news we wanted to hear, but more or less what I was expecting. At least we may have a better solution to get her eyes fixed this time. I'll just keep my fingers crossed that it will work this time.

Baby Chassin Decided to Come Early!

Congratulations to Olivier and Sam Chassin on the arrival of their little baby girl:

Alexandra Chassin

Born on August 8, 2009

at 9:42PM

weight: 5 lbs. 13 ozs.

length: 18"

She decided that she didn't want to wait any longer to meet her wonderful parents and that 35 weeks was plenty of time and she made her appearance last night. Apparently Sam even went into labor at Grant and Olivier's Clinic yesterday afternoon - then off to the hospital they went.

We went to visit them today at the hospital to see how they were doing. Mommy and baby were doing wonderfully. Sam had a pretty good (and short - only 6 hours) labor and all is well. Sam should be coming home tomorrow and baby will be coming home the next day. (Daddy is doing well, also - a little surprised at the early arrival, but doing well!). Here are some pictures from today:

Isn't she just adorable??

See the proud new papa!

The happy new family

Eye Update

Just wanted to give you all a quick update on Olivia's eyes. Though they looked good the last couple days, they were running again tonight . . . both of them - and running pretty bad. Needless to say, I'm pretty bummed about it. Fortunately, I had already called the doc today to see if I could go ahead and bring her in next week just to see what was going on instead of waiting another week. They wanted her to come in on monday - so, I guess we'll get to see if it worked or not - for sure! I'm quite nervous about what they are going to tell us. . .

Just wanted to keep you all up to date. Keep us in your thoughts and I'll let you know what we find out.

Monkey Joes

Hello again! I wanted to fill you all in on our fun trip to Monkey Joe's from this past weekend. But first, here are just a couple of cute pictures of Olivia:

Check out her awesome new shoes that I got her when Grandmom was here! She LOVES these shoes. Even when she's not wearing them, she'll just carry them around - she thinks they are toys!

And here is the little one cheesin' for the camera in her little purple star shades from her birthday party:

Ok, on to our Monkey Joe's trip (for those of you in the dark about Monkey Joe's - it is an amusement place that has a bunch of inflatable obstacle course type stuff and slides and bouncers for the kids to play on). Anyway, Olivia wasn't quite sure what was going on when we first turned her loose in the little toddler bouncer area - but once she figured it out - she was off and running . . . err, well attempting to run on the bouncy surfaces. Needless to say she had a good time.

Here she is in the little toddler area:

Now what you don't know until you're there is that when you have a little one that is too little to do it all by herself - you wind up taking her through all the obstacle courses yourself (and carrying her through parts of it . . . meaning climbing up walls and over walls like a little inflatable boot camp . . . yeah, we were pooped by the time we left!!!)

Here is Grant taking her through one of the big obstacle courses there:

Then we took her down a REALLY big slide:

And through another little obstacle fun house thing . . .

And over the river and through the woods . . .

The only problem we had the whole time was that she was scared of the HUGE inflatable monkey at the entrance to the biggest obstacle course. So we had to sneak her around him to get her through that one - see how BIG it was:

Anyway, it was a lot of fun for her and we were all wiped out when we left - it was really funny to see the parents of the really little ones bringing the kids through the obstacles and climbing up to the big slides - we were all wiped out!

(By the way - her eyes looked good again today . . . maybe we are getting our prayers answered after all!!!)

A whole week with Grandmom!

Olivia had a real big treat this past week - she got to spend the WHOLE week with Grandmom! Our wonderful daycare ladies went off to Jamaica to visit with some family and go to a wedding so Grandmom came to help us out. (Thanks so much for the help, Susan!) It actually worked out pretty good because I was able to be home for some of the time due to having a light load at work and even got to go to the Marbles Kids Museum with them! (More about that in a minute)

First, let's show you guys some fun pictures from when Alan and Nana came up with Susan to *drop* her off for the week. (Really Alan just couldn't stand the idea of Susan getting to see Olivia for the whole week without him getting in on some of the Olivia lovin'!!) :)


Here's Nana playing "Horsey" with Olivia and she just loved it! Every time Nana would stop, Olivia would jump up and down on her knee to try to get her to go again . . .


Here's a video to show you guys what I'm talking about. It was so cute!

Here's Olivia with Granddad. I think she got his nose!


Here's a video of Granddad *boring a hole* into Olivia's tummy . . .

Ok, so as I mentioned earlier, I got to go to the Marbles Kids Museum with Susan and Olivia this past week and even though it is for kids a little older than her - she had a fun time checking everything out. I can't wait to go again when she gets just a little bit older and can do more on her own.


Here are some pictures of her in the part of the museum that has a miniature town with all sorts of fun stuff for kids to play dress up and pretend.

Check her out in her little red convertible!

Here's the little ballerina on stage for her dance debut!

Ok, so maybe the dress up was more for Mommy and Grandmom, but isn't she cute??

There was a little grocery area and she was playing make-believe that she was a cashier and checking out all the customers . . .

Look how cute she is at her first job!

Here's a little video of her at work:

Then she had to get a few groceries for the house when her shift ended! ha ha

Here she is playing with the trains in the little train section:

There was a water area with REALLY big water tables and she just had a blast splashing around in them. She was pretty upset when it was time to move on to something else.

Then we went to check out the outdoor garden and she got right to work. She grabbed a couple of trowels and headed off to do some gardening (Grandma Noreen would be so proud!)

And before we left, we had to check out the ball pit. There weren't very many balls in the little kid one (the bigger kid one was pretty big with tons of balls in it), but she still enjoyed it.

All in all we had a good time at the museum. It is pretty inexpensive to go and Olivia was pretty worn out by the time we were done. I think she'll REALLY enjoy it a lot more when she gets to be 2 or 3 and can understand a lot more of it, but it was fun to watch her explore and try everything out.

Here are some more cute pictures of Olivia hanging out with Grandmom. We managed to get another bow in her hair (only for a little while before she pulled it out - but long enough for a couple pictures!).

Thanks again for coming to help us out, Susan. I know you loved spending time with Olivia and we really appreciated you coming to hang out with her for the week.

On a side note - Olivia's eyes have looked pretty good today - but every time I think they are looking good, within the day or by the next day they look leaky again. So, although they looked good from the time I got home from work until bedtime - I hesitate on getting my hopes up that it has all cleared up - but my fingers are still crossed. We did get to go hang out with our friends Amy and Addison tonight for dinner (and Daniel too!) and Amy did say a prayer for her eyes tonight, so between that and everyone else's thoughts and prayers, maybe we will get our own little miracle after all!

Anyway, that's all for now - but I will be posting again shortly (getting a little backed up on my blogging - sorry about that!) I'll talk to you all again soon and keep you posted on how her eyes are doing.