By: Ann
Jason and I have noticed that we always start our posts with how busy we’ve been. The same is true for this post. It has actually been a whirlwind of events in the past 3 weeks. We’ll start first with Ryan’s visit.
Ryan arrived very late on Friday night. When Athena woke up and found him in the living room, she gave him the biggest hug. It was great. This is the benefit of Skyping all of the time. Even if Athena doesn’t see people daily, she at least has the opportunity to get to know you on webcam. Jason, Ryan, and Athena soon afterwards headed to the Little Gym where Athena could show how well she runs around and does some acrobatics…getting into all sorts of things.
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| From Little Gym and Oakland Zoo with Uncle Ryan |
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| From Little Gym and Oakland Zoo with Uncle Ryan |
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| From Little Gym and Oakland Zoo with Uncle Ryan |
Later on that day we decided to go to the Oakland Zoo. It was Athena’s first zoo experience. She absolutely loved it. The bigger the animal, the more she liked the animal. She roared at the elephants at good amount which made us think she liked the elephants the most. When we were around the chimpanzees, we were saying “chimpanzee” a lot. She picked up on it and said “chimpanzee.” All three of us heard it. It was probably a fluke, though, because we couldn’t get her to repeat it.
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| From Little Gym and Oakland Zoo with Uncle Ryan |
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| From Little Gym and Oakland Zoo with Uncle Ryan |
The next day we decided to go to Mission Peak Trail, which is kind of on a campus of a college. It wasn’t too hefty of a hike because Athena’s cold symptoms were really starting to get bad that day.
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| From Mission Peak Trail with Uncle Ryan |
Later on that night we went to the Tied House for some good food and drinks and ended the evening at home with some more drinks. In hindsight, it was probably too many drinks. Let’s just say it was enough to put out Ryan and I for the next day. Ryan left late Monday night, but not before getting a nice home cooked meal of my veggie masala.
Most of you know already that Jason had a little stomach trouble last weekend. We didn’t think anything of it because it eventually went away (after a really long time). Two days later, when my brother and I were visiting Jason at Google for lunch, I noticed that Jason’s eyes were pretty jaundiced. We made a doctor’s appointment that same day in order to run a huge battery of blood tests. Jason had an abdominal ultrasound the next day along with a gastroenterology appointment (and an even more extensive battery of blood tests). The ultrasound showed gallstones (which I was a little relieved to find out) in his gallbladder. At this point, I was kind of hoping they would find gallstones in his common bile duct, also, which would probably rule out some horrible liver disease and explain the jaundice. The MRI on Wednesday did confirm gallstones in his common bile duct.
So the good news is that there is no horrible liver disease. The bad news is that he has to have 2 surgeries this week. The first surgery is going to be Tuesday afternoon in order to remove the gallstones from his common bile duct. This is through a procedure called an Endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography (ERCP). Click on the link for a description, if you’d like. The second procedure is going to be on Friday evening to remove his gallbladder. The 2 surgeries can’t be done together because they’re going to be making 2 separate entries into the body. It’s just too risky. But, thankfully, the gallbladder removal surgery is going to be done laparoscopically.
“Part Two: Visit With Oregon Newmans” is soon to come. Jason is going through the pictures as we speak. We feel bad because we didn’t get as many nice pictures as we were planning on getting because Jason was so sick. Jason even scrambled and searched high and low for a fancy flash for his camera just so he could get really nice pictures of the 2 cousins together.
I’ll post more about my brother’s family’s visit in a few hours. We’re going to go for a mini hike today. Today will probably be the last day for a little while where we can actually do something like this together because of the surgeries. We’re also moving at the end of the month within Mountain View. We’re hiring movers because Jason will probably still be out of commission (or out of commission enough to not be able to help with packing and moving).
Our new address will be:
181 Centre St., #3
Mountain View, CA 94041
I may have given the wrong zip code to a few of you who have asked in the last couple of days. This is the right address, though. We’ll give you more details of our place that we’re just about to start renting in the next post, too.
Good vibes, well wishes, and prayers welcome this week. I’ll keep you all updated on the up and coming events.