Lindsea's heart biopsy and report on our field trip to Charles Paddock Zoo in Atascadero, CA
Posted on 2006-Feb-25 at 12:04 - Post Comment
Feb. 24, 2006
Lindsea's heart biopsy and report on our field trip to Charles Paddock Zoo in Atascadero, CA
And don't be afraid of the dark.
At the end of a storm is a golden sky
And the sweet silver song of a lark.
Walk on through the wind,
Walk on through the rain,
Tho' your dreams be tossed and blown.
Walk on, walk on with hope in your heart
And you'll never walk alone,
You'll never, ever walk alone.
Author unknown
A poem shared with me by Andrew Cook, a friend from the central part of
England. The girls and I hope to walk across the Golden Gate Bridge in
San Francisco in early June with Andy and his fiancee, Lynne. It's
been a longstanding dream of mine to walk across that bridge.
Andy received a heart transplant in 1998.His weblog:http://www.transplantandy.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/
“What students would learn in American schools above all is the religion of Jesus Christ.” --George Washington in a speech to the Delaware Indian Chiefs May 12, 1779
People
have been asking how Lindsea's heart biopsy went on February 16th. Her
heart is completely normal, God be praised. No evidence of heart
rejection shows in any lab report, or seen during the catherization.
Before Lindsea was led to the operating room, I signed many papers
giving consent for the surgery. It's always unnerving to read the
possible risks of the procedure, including death. I am allowed to stand
beside Lindsea as the anesthesiologist preps her on the operating
table. Lindsea asked for chocolate-flavored gas. Shivan (heart
transplant January 29, 2001) also requests chocolate, but one time the
doctor didn't have it, so she thinks she ordered watermelon-flavored
gas.
Lindsea and Shivan are now more than one year
post-transplant, so they receive biopsies only once, or annually. Their
doctor, Juan C. Alejos, inserts catheters through the neck and groin to
check both sides of the heart, the carotid artery, more.
One
of the major problems with heart transplant patients isn't the donated
heart, but, in time, clogging of the arteries leading to the heart.
Both girls are taking cholesterol medication, aspirin, drugs that help
prevent plaque build-up. They take an anti-rejection drug, Prograf,
also known as Tacrolimus (see:
http://www.astellas.us/docs/prograf.pdf). That drugs weakens the immune
system, making the girls more susceptible to infection. That's one of
the big reasons I've decided to homeschool the children, rather than
risk their exposure to ill kids in a regular public school classroom.
Many kids (even adults) don't cover their mouth and nose when they
sneeze and cough. Kids don't wash their hands enough. It's easy to
pick-up a nasty bug. So far, since the girls were transplanted, they
haven't been too ill.
I read about two nearly one year old
identical twins, Nate and Nick Draper. Please keep the twins in your
prayers. Both babies were diagnosed with the same illness as two of our
girls: dilated cardiomyopathy. Nick received a heart transplant on
February 21 and is doing better. Nate is in the ICU, seriously ill,
desperately needing a transplant. See this website:
http://www.newsroom.ucla.edu/page.asp?RelNum=6852 or
http://www.nickandnate.org/
Homeschooling is a wonderful
blessing, as the girls are learning about subjects in-depth, take field
trips, build close sibling relationships, as well as deeply bond with
Ken and I. I feel happy to see their joy in learning and creating. The
girls particularly like writing, studying scientific topics (especially
zoology, botany, and oceanography), and reading.
I thought
I'd share about our field trip today. We're getting premature "Spring
Fever." The weather--sunny, warm--beckoned us outdoors today. I'm going
to initiate regular Friday field trips again. Today I drove about 40
miles from home to reach the Charles Paddock Zoo and Atascadero Park.
http://www.atascadero.org/cs/zoo/ I bought a family pass, which will
get us in to many zoos across the USA for free, or half-price.
As it would bore you hearing about every animal in the zoo, I will share the animals that kept our rapt attention.
Red ruffed lemur:
http://www.thewildones.org/Animals/rrlemur.html These guys know how to
scream and cackle their discontent. They have ruddy-colored fur, white
on the collar, and black faces. If you're curious what they sound like,
go to the website and click on the MP3 audio clip.
Two-Toed Sloth The
sloth hid behind the Titis, monkeys similar to marmosets and tamarins.
The girls were excited to see the sloth, as they studied this creature
last year. Their poems about the two-toed sloth were published at "The
Glorious Sloth" website:
http://www.niagara.com/~jax/GloriousSloth/poetry.html (See the poems by
Shivan, Alaina, Lindsea.)
Slender-Tailed Meerkat http://homepage.mac.com/rstacy/meerkatswild.html
One of our favorite animals is the meerkat. I've even posted one
photograph of a meerkat colony as my desktop background. The zoo had
three only three meerkats, so it's not exactly a large colony. Two of
the fellas ran, wrestled, and teased each other the entire time we
watched; while one lone meerkat stood on a tall boulder, a sentinel.
Shivan thought it was like an alpha male protector.
Fossa http://www.greenapple.com/~jorp/amzanim/fossa.htm
When we visited The San Diego Zoo a couple of years ago, one of our
favorite animals there was the fossa. It looks like a cross between a
cat and a dog, with a long catlike tail, and a chihauhau-like face. The
fossa was sound asleep, so we came at naptime.
Aldabra Tortoise
http://www.whozoo.org/students/ceydel/turtle.htm I was surprised at the
size of this tortoise-- humongous! I had to do a doubletake, expecting
to see a desert tortoise, which is a fairly large tortoise in its own
right. But this tortoise was at least twice the size of the desert
variety. A sign posted one other tortoise is larger than this, the
Galapagos Tortoise. The Aldabra Tortoise can live over a century, is
found on the Aldabra atoll, off the Indian Ocean, east of Africa.
Here's a beautiful satellite photo of the atoll:
http://www.worldheritagesite.org/sites/aldabra.html
After our
walkabout in the zoo, I went through the A&W restaurant
drive-through and purchased burgers, onion rings,and chili fries. We
returned to Atascadero Park and Lindsea chose a picnic table. The girls
ate quickly, as they'd developed an appetite with all the walking
around. They ran to the playground, one of the best ones I've seen on
the central California coast. The girls made sand structures under the
jungle gym, while I got some exercise and walked around the lake.
It
felt like Spring seeing the first wildflowers of the season. The
California Golden Poppy, a bright orange flower, looked like a present
from God on the trailside. I hope we can trek to the Southern Sequoias
this Spring to see the poppies in wild profusion on the Kern Canyon
meadows.
I still need to share about our trip to the Reagan
Presidential Library and Huntington Library and Gardens. We visited
those places February 14 and 15.
If you've been blessed reading this blog, I'd appreciate a comment in the comments section. Thanks! Susan
Untitled Comment
Posted by kayinpa on 2006-Feb-26 at 08:24 - Link
Hi Susan!
Welcome to HSB!
Hi
Posted by jinyeah3 on 2006-Mar-8 at 04:50 - Link
Beautiful page. It sounds like you have a lot on your plate. I hope you are weathering it in the grace and peace of Christ. In Christ, Jenette.
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