earth to gilhouse, earth to gilhouse!

so, after a mere 28ish days since our last post (so much for that new year's resolution), eric and i have slowly emerged from the "dark side of the moon" ... one of my professor's recently shared about her and her husband's years in grad school bearing children and referred to that season as being on the back of the "dark side of the moon" where she and her family had no communication with planet earth. indeed, that is how it has felt the last 4 weeks or so. they have been so full and eventful we have certainly lost all cyberspace communication. a few events during this time: my parents (THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU!) came to visit to support me during my particularly busy midterm season (read: 8 assignments due in one week - gross), and while they were here we hosted ezra's 2nd birthday thomas the train party - which was rescheduled due to the events of his actual 2nd birthday.

spring break proved to be eric's worst week of the semester. i was MIA as i attended NASPA in chicago for five days, leaving my sweet boys on their own fending for themselves while eric was up til 3 and 4am to finish his paper for SBL. i returned late wednesday night, only to turn around and work 10 hours on thursday for our local consignment sale - which as usual we TOTALLY scored big! in between hanging children's clothes and sorting toys, i was fielding no less than about ten calls back and forth with the hospital after discovering around 3pm that they had cancelled ezra's MRI and had FAILED to inform us. how's that for customer service?!? the nurse wanted to know if we could just come up on monday (which would entail making a 2nd trip to fort worth, more $$$ for gas and ANOTHER hotel room!, missing my staff meeting and stats class and eric failing to teach his class!) after informing them that this was beyond unacceptable and terrible customer service, the nurse thankfully worked us back into the schedule for friday. no sooner had i gotten off the phone and finished clothes sorting, the fam and i hopped in the car and headed to Cook Children's Hospital.

we spent most of the day there friday. as usual, ezra's resilience and bravery was more than we could have asked or prayed for. we got to the hospital at 10am. ezra was STARVING, and he was weepy and clingy asking to eat because i promised him that there would be food at the hospital. poor little fella. (he wasn't allowed milk or solids after 6am since he was being put to sleep. the last he had eaten was at 6pm the night before.) we were worked through about five rooms and finally ended up around noon in a dark, quiet room waiting for anesthesia pre-op. munchkin fell asleep (nap-time!), and so they wheeled him literally into the anesthesia room sleeping ... where they put him to sleep while sleeping! when he fell asleep, the doctors and nurses declared that the process could not have been easier (compared to the typical scared, screaming child, etc). although ezra's morning hunger pains were difficult, the actual process of putting him to sleep was painless! i have to admit that when i left him after they had just put him to sleep, i teared up and cried. he is just SO little to be going through so much already.

the actual MRI lasted about thirty minutes, so we were only in the waiting room for an hour total, for which we were so thankful because we were told it would likely take up to two hours. when we got back to the recovery area, ezra was so happy to see us!! the nurses said the first thing he said when he woke up was "blankie!" and extended his arms for the nurses to hand it to him. this action was quickly followed by a cry of "i want my mommy!" ezra quickly proceeded to scarf down TWO popsicles because he was so hungry!!! when i got there, he was pretty fragile and buried his head in my chest. i crawled up into bed with him, and he just hid his sweet little face. i think he felt confused and funny as he was coming out of the anaesthesia. thankfully he kept the popsicles down quite well, so they let us go home relatively quickly. the nurses at Cooks really were incredibly kind. they oohed and ahhed over ezra and told us how sweet he was. they also told us what beautiful babies we made and asked if we wanted more. :)

eric drove us home, and ezra and i camped out in the dark hotel room watching cartoons while he dozed. eric headed north to pick up ezra's "special present" - an awesome thomas the train set that he found for a total steal on craig's list ... complete with a new cranky the crane! we gave ezra his new cranky on sunday, and ezra STILL talks about his "special present" from DADDY!!! (i was video taping the bestowment ...) this makes eric very proud of course, since he did all the research for the set. :)

saturday ezra and i spent the day at a day out with thomas (future post to come), while eric was presenting his paper at SBL, which went better than he could have hoped! we headed home sunday, to a guest waiting for us literally in our living room ... the new grad jenny from asbury who i will likely supervise next year! she stayed with us til tuesday night, and it was a blessing to host her as she made this significant decision about where she would pursue her graduate education. (crazy coincidence? she is also a pre-pt major at ac just like i was?!)

OUR PRAISE: Ezra's mri came back clean on tuesday (2 days ago) ... which means ezra's sweet little brain is healthy and structurally normal. this also means that he does indeed have a 70% chance of outgrowing his seizures. he has been diagnosed with a non-specific epilepsy disorder; however, he has not had a single seizure for almost two months now! (PRAISE GOD!) we have gotten a second opinion ... and this physician repeated what the first pediatric epileptologist stated saying that we should put ezra on anti-seizure medication, but eric and i have not had a peace about that. this is in part because the doctors told us that ezra's seizures did not cause any brain damage (they would have to last like an hour or two at a time) whereas the medication that they prescribed would possibly have side effects, ie, liver damage. we feel like placing ezra on medication now would honestly be more for US (limit seeing/experiencing our child seize which is naturally very scary and terrible) than for ezra. also, since he has not had another seizure for almost two months, we want to wait and see what his little body does. what if he doesn't have another seizure for 6 mos, or a year, or never?!? we figure that waiting until the next seizure to start him on meds will give his body the chance to develop chemical-free as long as possible. we have filled his prescriptions (both for the daily medication and the rectal valium in case he goes into "status" where he does not break from a seizure), and if he were to have another seizure, we will start him on the medication. but for now, we are hoping and praying that it never happens! this is the end of the medical tests and procedures related to the four seizures ezra had on his birthday, so we are grateful this journey over the past 2 months is coming to a close and life can return hopefully "back to normal."