Surgery Update

Well all went great with the port surgery. We went in around 7:20 am on friday to vandy and they took me back around 7:40 to the recvoery /prep room. Nick went back with me and mom stayed in the waiting room they only allowed one back at a time. They went over everything and gave ma a regular iv to draw some blood and check my clotting time. The then told me that I would be awake for the whole thing and that they had to also do an incision in my neck to pull the guide wire thru in my juglar and that at certian times they would have me hold my breath then breath and do it again to make sure there was no air in the line. Also the only surgen Iknew at vandy the only I specificly set up this surgery with was out that day b/c his kid was sick. The doc looked at me and was like did your anexity just jump a couple of knotches I said oh yea just a couple, so they gave mea valum to calm down, I wasnt that impressed with it after all the hype I hear about it, not so impressed by this girl. So they took me back got me all cleaned up and drapes and sheets all over me the doc came in and the started to lidocan me up so it would numb the area, they gave me 3 iv shots of verset to sort of calm and relax you so you dont really feelmuch and a shot of a pain med thru the iv. I swear it was great, I was awake the whole time talking and never felt pain just pressure and him tugging on the wire in my neck. I was so impressed I woud do that again any time. Not that I want to have another port soon! He asked me on the table if I had brest implants b/c if so he would have to guide the wire a differnt way at that poing, I busted up laughing and said have you seen heckno I dont. He laughed and said well I handt seen that low yet so I wanted to ask b/c the wire could pop them its happend before. Wouldnt that suck they pop your boob :) But I told him since he already has an opening in my chest if he wanted to put something down there Iwould complain, I thought the nurse was going to pee her pants she laughed so hard at that. He its worth a shot to ask :)

So needless to say I was expectin like a little hole in my neck/collat bone area and when I came out I asked nick if you could see a spot and he said nope but you can see the 1/2 cut they did. I was like WHAT????? So yea that one is almost more pain at the moment b/c I cant really turn my neck or bend it down. Hopefully it will get better and just sore and no pain the next couple of day. I am attaching some pics if your faint at heart dont read down. You will see the cut on my collarbone and the stickes with the glue over it and then the stiches for the port with the glue over it. The black thing is the needle that acceses the port so I can get my ivs. After the 3 weeks of Iv's the needle will come out and they gacvene a mini port b/c its smaller and doesnt stick out as much and you really cant even see that I have a port its still swollen now so in a couple of qweeks we will see the real look. The next pic is of my frist flush and drw back at home, it had been over 7 hours since it was flushed at the hospital and no SHEATHS ( small kind of clots ont he end of the line). Its so amazing that it had no sheaths with a pic I couldnt go 4 hours without flushing and getting sheaths. The last pic is jayden snuggling with me on the couch, shes my snuggle bunny :)

Update On Alisha - Surgery on Friday

Hey everyone,

As of right now we are still in the holding process of the adoption, no new news. On the other had with me there is. I havent been feeling well recently as most of you know. I called and asked when I go back on June 4th if Im not doing better are we going to do Iv's b/c if so then I want to look at a port again. I know it scares the poo outta me to think about a port again after what happened last time but I just have to have faith. So she said tell me what day and we will schedule it. Long story short I am having PFT's done on thur to see if I need IV's but I know I do I can feel it. Then we are scheduled for port surgery at 8 am on friday. I talked to my hemotologist at an appt last week and we decided to do this as outpaitent. No lovenox(blood thinner) shots and go on an asprin routine and see how my clots go day to day on how much to flush it a day. My last 2 piccs were placed my a intervenous radiloigy surgeon who told me each time that I need to get a port and he would place it for me. The nurses kept tellng me he was the best around here. So I made sure to have him as my surgeon. So I am as happy as I can be about everything. Mom is comming down thur to sat which will be amazing! Thanks so much mom, I only hope that I can be as good as a mom as you are to me. Nick will be off b/c it is a holiday for them at work and then mon he is off so that will be great to have someone with me. Last time I had the surgery the combined it with sinus surgey and I just remember being really really sore and not being able to move my sholder/ arm much for a week and then it was limited for about a month. So thats the latest with us. I will send out an updat thur afternoon before the formal and let you all know how my PFT's went.

Love,
Alisha

Update On The Chils Search

I got ahold of donna today and talked to her about tabitha. She has the access to look at the real profile on the children not just the edited version they put on the website. Long story short she is a child that would need experienced parents and would need much more then we would be able to give her. She would also require to be the only child and if in the future we would like to adopt again we wouldnt be able to do that with her. I love donna so much she kept saying I dont want to scare you off but I want to be honest with you, we couldnt of asked for a greater case manager. So I gave her heathers case number this morning and hopefully I will hear back from her maybe tomm and see what the situation is with heather. She is listed under mild for all catorgires so maybe this will be a child that will work with us :) I will send out the next update as soon as I hear something. If you called today I am sorry that I didnt get back to you it was a long bad day, went to clinic at vandy and on the way got a ticket, unreal then my numbers were way down but she thinks its only asthma so steriods and more meds and a follow up in a month. So the whole day was spent their then nick had said he had a surprise tonight and he took me and maddie bowling it was really fun to have some us time of course with maddie too :)

ALL HOMESTUDYS ARE DONE

YEEAAAHHHHHH the day is finally here. Donna came out to do her last homestudy today. She was literally here only 5 mins if that and did a quick run thru of the house, she didnt even walk into the kids room. She just sat down and checked everything off pretty much. I am guessing that she knows how we are and how on top of everything that we are, and she isnt worried :) So the visits are done with and now all there is to do is have her type her paper on us and send it up the line to her 2 bosses above her. We are hoping for a approval date of around June 1st. I asked her today if I gave her a case number if she could see what the status is of the child. She said yeah I can look it up but you cant do anything until we finsh the paperwork and I said of course. So I gave her the case number of the girl below and she took it and put it with our paperwork. She said we are all done and that if she needed anything she would call. She has recieved 2 of the 5 refrence sheets, she has nicks mom's and shauna's so far.

Well tonight maddie and I were out trimming the willow tree and nick came home from work and came out to help us. We didnt come in till around 6. I left my phone inside and when I came into check it I had 3 missed calls. All from Donna. She left a voicemail saying that she checked on the child I gave her and asked me to give her a call back so that we could have a little brief dicussion with me. So im thinking this must be a good thing b/c she already told me that we really cant do anything until after our paperwork. But when she looked at the case on the internet this afternoon with me she kept saying that child looks familiar. So who knows. I called her cell tonight but it was around 7:30 and im sure she was with her family. So tomm morning on my way home from taking maddie to school I am going to call her and see what is up. Who knows??

I will give you an update tomm :)

Here is the link to Tabitha................ scroll down the page until you see her name

http://www.adoptuskids.org/states/tn/browse.aspx

also just posted this afternoon was the little girl heather on page 10, we are going to ask about her too.

2nd Homestudy Finshed, 3rd and Final Next Thursday

Well 2 down 1 to go :) Last night went fast and good. We are set for next thursday at 5:30 for the final one and she will go thru and check out our house. Dans family will be in town so it might be a little crazy but it will all work out. Well we know that she approves of us the first thing she said when she sat down was I have a question for you. She told us if we sid no it wouldnt hurt her feelings or us in any way we were just one of the few that met this criteria. She asked if we would be intrestered in adopting a sibling group of 4, yes I said 4. a 8,7,5,4 year old, two boys and two girls. So if she would have our homestudy done to be sumbitted by tomm if that was somethigng we wanted then I believe that we have no problems with her finding us fit, it just the 2 that need to sign off on it above her. Needless to say with dan we dont have room for 4 kids and 4 is alot to start off with :) We are hopefully looking to be totally approved and done by end of May begining of June. Of course it depends on the higer ups. So thats were we are at.



Oh I also included some new pics of my new hair :) Leave me some comments on what you think. * Just a side note this was after the salon and it will of course never look this good again*

1st Homestudy

Well it finally happened, we had our first homestudy tonight. It was set for 5:30. I got out of work arond 5:07 to pull into my driveway at 5:10 and see a car in my drive way. Man if you havent seen me run you should of seen me running up our drive way. I walk in and say am I late it was 5:30 wasnt it. Donna was sitting at our kitchen table and said oh no your not im early, im usally late but got here early, Whew im thinking, what a bad start that would have been! So we all sat down and for about an hour and a half we talked. She went over some questions about the quesionaire that we had filled out that she had for us. Over all we think it went really great. She said that we will do only 3 visits not 4, yeah thats a good sign. She is really upfront and honest and I really like that about her. So we have our next appt next wed night at 5:30. So things are looking good, everyone kwwp your fingers crossed :)

Homestudy Set For Wednesday

I talked to Donna today and she just called to double check that wed at 5:30 was still good for us. I was like darn right it is :) WHEEEE WHOOOO. She was so thankful for me bringing her down those papers to her, she said it was a huge help. She said that we will start on the interviews on wed so im not sure how many more meetings we will have but she did tell me last week that she wants to puch us thru this b/c they want to get us done with the paperwork fast and they know we want to also. So we have another date and are running with this one.

No Homestudy

Well we know that everything happens for a reason and this one we dont understand fully but I know God knows why. Donna didnt come for the visit tonight b/c we already had the paperwork that she was going to give us and go over with us. So I am dropping it off at her office tomm morning and we will read it and call me tomm afternoon. Looks like we may set the next date for next wed. Kinda a good thing, I got all my jitters out and stress about worring about it and am feeling alot better about it. We were disapointed that it didnt start tonight but after some roast and choclate cake it felt better ;)

It'd Offical

Yep its true we got the call this morning for our first homestudy visit :) This thursday at 5:30 p.m. We are so excited but nervous at the same time. We are finshing up that last to do's around the house and I have the cleaning lady comming on wed :) So fingers crossed everyone!!