Blog

My blog. Personal thoughts, anecdotes, and musings.

Carissa has a blog now Published May 14, 2008

Carissa’s getting in on the internets action. Go check it out here.

Done with casting? Published March 25, 2008

I can’t believe it’s been over 8 weeks already! We just finished removing Lisa’s final leg casts in preparation for her new set of shoes. We’re excited, but she didn’t like the cast removal this time It seemed to be quite painful for her which was hard on us. She’s also finally done with eye surgeries. For those that don’t know, she had to have two additional surgeries (making four total – two on each eye) because some scar tissue was in the way of the pupil so her eyes couldn’t dilate.

One Month Published February 24, 2008

It’s been a month now since Lisa was born and we’re still balancing everything. The house needs a good cleaning and I’m getting ready to return to work in the middle of the week. Lisa’s already on her fourth set of casts (two more to go) and we’re ordering the shoes with the bar this week when we go in, so we can be sure it will get here in time.

Lisa’s done with cataract surgery! Published February 22, 2008

Last week, on the 13th, Lisa had her first eye surgery and it went very well. She’s had a shield on her eye at night for the last week just so she doesn’t accidentally put her hand in her eye. Today she had her second surgery and it went just as well. We’re so glad that’s over. We have to come back to Marshfield soon to get her fitted for contacts sometime in the next few weeks.

Going to RailsConf 2008 Published February 13, 2008

I’ll be heading to Portland again this year to go to Railsconf 2008. I’ll be giving a talk there again this year too called “Design For Developers” where I’ll teach developers how to design a pretty-looking web page. Should be a blast.

Update on Lisa Published February 13, 2008

I’ve been putting off writing an update about Lisa’s eyes and legs for some time so I could deal with everything personally. Now that things are finally settling down a bit I’m going to get back to regular updates to the blog. Lisa has been doing well with her clubfoot treatments. She’s on her third set of casts and things are looking very good. When we were in the hospital, the doctor who takes care of the casts made a big deal about us making sure we never miss an appointment.

Lisa has cataracts. Published January 29, 2008

It’s been confirmed that Lisa has cataracts in both eyes. We have an appointment set up for Wednesday in Marshfield to have the pediatric optometrist take a look so we can come up with a plan of attack. I’m not ashamed to tell you that this was extremely difficult for me to deal with. Even though I knew it would happen, I still hoped that she would be able to dodge this one.

Staying another day Published January 26, 2008

The pediatrician and the nurses want to keep Lisa for one more day. There’s problems with the feedings, similar to what happened with Ana so we’re just gonna get her going with formula. To make things more interesting, we’re still waiting to hear about the eyes. The pediatrician (nice guy by the way) didn’t get a good look at her eyes, so he wants to get an opinion from an eye doctor.

One problem down, one to go. Published January 26, 2008

The pediatrist was just here and explained Lisa’s condition. It’s found in 1 out of every 1000 babies and it’s pretty treatable through a serious of castings and bracings. Lisa will have six different casts which will be used to reshape the legs. The last cast will stay on for three weeks. After that, there will be 14 to 18 months of shoes with the bar between them, 23 hours a day.