Time for a Post

It's not that yesterday's news was bad news, it just wasn't what we wanted to hear. After months and months of dealing with trying to come to a close to Karsie's defect we have to wait more. Dr. Gossman came in and looked at Karsie's flanks. Karsie has grown a lot since Dr. Gossman saw her last, and she has a good front to work with, but the sides that the tissue expanders will go has not grown as much as would be ideal. Gossman measured the space between Karsie's hip bone and rib cage, where the expanders would go. If you measure yours it really isn't that much, maybe a few inches. Karsie's is about an inch and a half.

Gossman did say that the decision is negotiable, and it's possible to do it. However, the surgery and procedure is painful, and it's possible that if we started it now, the expanders would not really do anything anyway since there's not a lot of room for them to go. In other words, we might be putting Karsie through a lot of pain and not a lot of gain. She advised that we wait another 6 months and then reassess. We figure if it's negotiable now, then Karsie should be good to go in April.

An added bonus to the waiting is that we were able to schedule the next appointment during vacation. Also, the surgery is looking like it will happen the first week we are off for summer vacation.

We also had a feeding appointment. Karsie has just been a NO on eating. Everything else has been progressing at an amazing rate, but eating has not. In fact, Dr. Gossman, Karsie's plastic surgeon, is concerned with the lack of eating as well because as soon as Karsie gets her expanders, she will most likely have a setback in eating. With her not eating at all, it could spell a huge setback on her progress for many months to possibly years.

The good news with Karsie's eating is that she loves to taste food (and everything else for that matter), so it's not unthinkable that she could start eating more and more in a short period of time. What needs to happen is that she associates swallowing food with good feelings. That's what we are going to focus our attention on in the coming weeks and months. We've got until April.

Update 10/19

After a week, not much has happened. We're still going about our business of working and raising a child.

Karsie has definitely kept us on our toes lately. She is walking everywhere. She probably walks about 90% of the time now. She stumbles here and there, but it is controlled even when she goes down and she gets right back up. It's hard to imagine there was a time we were really concerned with her legs and nerve connection. She can almost keep up with us now. Every day seems to be enormously better than the last.

She seems to be really piecing things together lately. She's starting to talk a little better now. She's been able to say words, but she's starting to make connections with the words. Yesterday she said her first sentence: "Hi Doggie." She was inside looking outside at the dogs through the sliding glass door.

A week from today we see Dr. Gossman, Karsie's plastic surgeon. We're hopeful some news of her next surgery will be available then. Maybe she'll say they don't need to use the expanders and we will only have to have one surgery. Lots to pray for then. Until next time...

For the Grandparents

A Sick Week

The Turner family has been plagued! Kevin has been pretty sick all week, and is just now starting to shake it. He has been banished to a room and only allowed to come out with a mask (we have a few leftover masks from the NICU that we saved during the swine flu saga). Michelle was put out of commission for a day today with a migraine - the first she has ever gotten, and it was a bad one. Karsie has thankfully gotten the least of the illnesses, and just has a runny nose and is teething. She goes through the day flip flopping between being happy and being real mellow. Both are good, but mellow is not her style.

As far as updates - everything still is going well. Karsie is starting to stand up on her own (with no help from furniture) and still walking. We're still looking forward to (in a bitter sweet way) the plastic surgeon's appointment in a couple of weeks. Karsie still isn't eating much, if at all. She enjoys playing with the food in her mouth, but she won't swallow.

We went apple picking today, and Karsie was pretty mellow with it. But we did get some cute pictures of her picking some apples. She really just wanted to be held today and look at the apples. Who wouldn't?

More Walking

So Karsie decided that today was going to be the day she walked. A little over a week ago she took her first steps. Today she took many. Not yesterday mind you. Just today. As if she was like "Okay...I'm ready!" Enjoy...

Some Fall Pictures