Happy Halloween

Ammy got to go trick or treating today on the ninth floor she was a little leery at first till she found out her cousins could go too. She was the most beautiful Cinderella I have ever seen!
She was not to sure if she really wanted to smile for her picture.

Little Miss wanted to help her "IM" by pulling the wagon with Aunt "sissa".


LIttle Misters "job was to be right next to Ammy. He told her they could talk together because he was good at talking. Ammy smiled in agreement. I love to watch them together. It's a relationship that is so special to them both.


Other big news Beth was telling Ammy that she missed her hugs and Ammy said she could try. So Beth lend in and got a great big hug from Ammy. Then I got the phone call to make sure we tell everyone Ammy can hug her mommy. She worked really hard today in Physical therapy. She stood with little help with out her stander!!! She kicked her legs and bent her knees. She is even beginning to feed herself. I feel like I can't keep up with all the updates because she does so much. The doctors are very impressed with her progress, one even called her a little miracle. I truly believe God is working miracles. Thank you for your prayers.

A glimpse at Physical therapy

I asked Ammy today if I could take some pictures of her therapy time and she agreed to all photo's shared today. I am trying my best to respect her privacy and keeping everyone informed, sometimes a fine line. She likes her physical Therapist just not the work they make her do. Today she showed them all the things she can do different from yesterday. She touched her nose, lifted her legs up and different things she was asked to do.

She sits up but hates it the whole time. It is a bit scary for her and she is afraid it is going to hurt like before her surgery. I was kind of surprised she asked me to take a picture of it.



This is her playing a game with the occupational therapist she had to slide the cards around and make a match while in her stander. Another thing she is not so fond of.


Walking around the hall in the stander. Again she was not to happy about it but she still did it anyway.


Is that a smile for the therapist? No, Aunt Sissa is helping her practice pushing the buttons on her princess wand.



Ammy listening to a story with her friend from church read by the one of her teachers at OHSU.


All of these things plus all the doctors checking in on her have her pretty warn out by about noon where she eats a little then tries to get some rest. If you do come to visit between 12 and three please keep in mind she is very tired. Beth has noticed she does not want to sleep while visitors are there so she ask if you could keep your visit brief during that time it would be much appreciated. Ammy and Beth both enjoy the visit and seeing friends and family it is uplifting to them both. THANK YOU!!!

Thursday updates from sassy Ammy

Spending the day with Ammy and having so much fun! She is doing so well today. She is lifting her legs on her own. bending her knees and moving her arms. The doctors face was pricless he was so surpised at how fast she is recovering. I took some pictures today so I will post them later tonight. She is doign so much I know I am going to miss something.
We did not find out the official results of the tumor but what we did find out is that they are pretty sure it is not malignant. So they will decide the corse of treatment hopefully this weekend. It will either be radiation or observation. The doctors seem hopefull when talking to us.
I will try to post pictures of her physical therapy.

Wednesday updates from Ammy

sorry no update sooner today. We spent the morning at home with the kids carving pumpkins trying to keep some normal things in their little world that seems to have turned upside down too.
Ammy called me late last night and she was able to move her thumb to her hand and tell that she was touching her skin not a bandage. She also was excited that she thought she wanted to move her hand up closer to her and her hand did it with out her having to concentrate and work hard at it. I was very excited!!!
She is in a new room now on the 10 floor but is still having a hard time sleeping at night. Her dad got her a nightlight today so she thinks that might help tonight.
She has her IV out right now but is not wanting to drink much. So we are encouraging her to drink as much as possible.
She had PT today and did great as usually. I am so proud of how brave she is. We have been reminding her that being brave means doing something even when you are afraid. Please believe me when I say this is a very brave little girl. She got to be in a stander today and blow bubbles throw a ball with help and lots of other things. The therapist were very happy with how much she is gaining each day.
She got her bandage for surgery removed today and it looks good according to the doctor.
We are hopping to hear about the biopsy tomorrow and start a plan regarding treatment. I know I have not spoken much on that but really we are busy making plans for physical therapy and not thinking much about the tumor as we really are not sure what that medical road will look like till we know what kind of tumor it is. Honest moment I am not really ready to write to much about it yet either. So I promise to let you know as we find out.
Ammy loves seeing all of you and we appreciate so much all of you. We have put a note on her door to remind us mostly and if you could helps us out that would be great. The note states that we are only discussing what Ammy can do and her progress she is making while in the room with her. We would like to refrain from any talk of what she is unable to do. Also Any of the family would love to answer any medical questions you might have but please ask to speak with us outside of her room . Ammy is being informed of her medical situation as needed and in terms she can understand. So Beth would like all of us to be careful that we are not using words she doesn't understand or things she hasn't had explained. Thanks to all of you for being understanding and I hope I explained this as kindly as it is intended. We want you to feel welcome to visit and ask questions .

Ammy just called again and she wanted everyone to know that she played with her princess wand that has buttons to push and she did it all by herself. Ammy knows we are keeping a blog and the things I update on for the most part is what she wants people to know. I think she looks forward to telling everyone the things she is learning and likes the idea too that somethings she can keep private. Really though most everything she wants to share with her friends and family.
Thank you seems so little that is why we say it so much. So again I say Thank you too all of you for your prayers support and encouragement.

Tuesday progress

Today Ammy made some more progress with Physical therapy. She was very happy to see her cousin K and G so she asked them to stay with her during PT treatment. I also got the privilege of staying with the little girls. Ammy worked so hard she was able to move her arm a little bit, shrug her shoulders, and turn her head a bit. She was able to tell if the doctor was touching all over her arm and, on her upper leg and foot. The therapist was happy to hear that she could tell them where they were touching her leg. She is still struggling a bit emotionally , and trying to figure out just what happened and why her body is not working when she wants it to. Other Kids and crazy adults seem to perk her up and keep her mind off things. Night time seems to be the hardest for her.
We were originally told that we should find out the results of the biopsy on Wed. but it sounds like it will be on Thursday or Friday.
Beth would like to thank all of you for all of the many things you have done for her and Ammy. She wanted to thank each of individually but the list is growing so fast and her time is so full of medical stuff. I told her I would post it here please pass on the thanks to those you know who are praying and have done so many things for all of us.
I would also like to thank those of you who have played with and watch over my kids so I could be there with Beth and Ammy. What an amazing family and friends we are privileged to be a part of.

good news

Ammy ate cereal,fries, a little bit of a hamburger. She seemed to really perk up and started to respond to people more and even was laughing and making jokes. She is enjoying the cards and pictures other kids have sent up. Her room is looking very bright and cheery. Last night she started screaming out in pain about her legs while a bit scary and sad to hear it was a good thing. She moved her feet on her own while yelling out and they think it may be due to feeling returning to her legs. You know that tingle you get after your legs are asleep, that what the think she was feeling.
I just got a call and this morning she was able to bend her knees on her own!!! All these things are so amazing as I was told yesterday that the chance was very high that she would not be able to use her legs again. She still has a long road ahead but each movement is a cause for celebration.
If you have any questions please feel free to ask in the comment section and I will try my best to answer them.
please keep praying for her and her parents.

Ammy and Little Mister with the Child Life Specialist Mrs Joan. Who was amazing not only for Ammy but really helped Little Mister and gave me lots of answers on how to ask his every growing questions. He came home with two stuffed animals and doctor stuff. Last night he helped his Spider get better. Ammy even let him practice on her. He asked her with deep sincerity when he was done giving her pretend shots and bandages if he made her feel better. She respond with a smile and said yes. It's these moments that really get to me.

MRI information

We found out more results on the MRI today and to be honest not really sure what to think. It seems the tumor is so large and because of the position it would be inoperable. If the tumor turns out to be cancer they will treat it with chemo and radiation. We should know the result of the biopsy on Wednesday.
Ammy meet with the Physical therapist today and he made her work pretty hard so she is very tired. I am not sure what the PT had to say on how she is doing.

monday morning update

Spent the night at the hospital with Ammy so Beth could get some much needed rest. She was running a fever most the night so they are checking to make sure there is no infection anywhere. As of this morning the fever was gone and she had some reflexes in her feet. Which as the Dr said not an answer just a good sign. She was able to give a thumbs up to the Nuro surgeon, which is the most we have seen her use her hand. Our concern this morning is now she is off sedation she is beginning to realize something is wrong and her body is not working like it should. Her spirits seem low and she will be meeting with a child life therapist this morning who will be able to talk with her and enplane to her what is going on. around 4am she asked me where she was and then has been very quite but awake for about an hour after that. I did however hear a laugh as we decided to watch Cinderella to take her mind off things. I will update again later when I know more about her meeting with the life therapist. Right now I am off to some needed time with my two little ones. Thanks again for all your love and support.

MRI completed and the surgeon did a great job! all the fluid build up is gone. Ammy is in her room now fast asleep. The ventilator has been removed and she is receiving warm moist air to help break up any mucus in her lungs. Beth is sleeping too. thank you for your prayer and to all of the many of you how called , e-mailed and stopped by. you have no idea just how much it means to us!

Ammy is waking up and early this morning she could move just her right arm and nothing else. However about 20 min ago she moved her toes on both feet! YEAH!!! The doctor did warn me however that is not really a sign that her legs are going to be fine but it is still a good thing to see. Hey at this point it's all about celebrating the small things. She will be having another MRI today to make sure there is no need to do another surgery today. It will be probably another 5 hr before we know anything else. Thanks again for your prayers!!!

out of surgery

Cousin A got done with surgery around 4:30 it is still kind of hazy to me so sorry if the times are a little off. It seems the tumor is larger and much more in the tissue then they thought so they were only able to remove some. The thing we do now is wait. They were waiting for her to breath on her own before they woke her up from the surgery. We will not know probably till tuesday when the PT looks at her if she will be able to walk or what the damage may be. They tried to remove the fluid from where her sensory nerves are rather then where her mobility would be. We will know on wednesday what the results of the test on the tumor is. From there it will be decided what corse of action to take. I will continue to update as they day goes on and we know more.

update on Cousin A

Cousin A is currently in surgery to remove fluid from her spine. Bear with me and I will try best to give the most current information without getting to technical. It's kind of hard to write as that makes it real. She has a large tumor that starts at the base of her neck to her chest. They are unsure if it is cancer or not but as this time that is not what they are focusing on. It seems the mass is causing some blockage and fluid on her spine. They need to remove it ASAP as it could leave her paralyzed.
Another update as in the operating room the tumor is bigger then first thought they will have to remove some around the spinal cord along with the fluid. They fear that if they do not remove it. It could calasp onto the spinal cord causing permanent damage.
I will keep you all posted as we hear more updates. Thank you so much to all of you who are praying. We have seen so many blessings already from Gods people showing his love to A and her mom.

please pray

My Niece is in the hosptial with back and neck pain and loosing some felling in her feet and legs. We are currently up at OHSU awaiting results from the spinl tap and MRI. Please pray I will kepp this blog posted as we get more info.

pumpkin patch

I had a hard time picking out which pictures to post as we had so many to chose from so I found a few favorites or the day. We went last weekend with most of the Palmer clan and had so much fun. Little Mister insisted everyone get their face painted and most of us obliged. He even picked for all of us what we should get. They got to ride a train. go through a hay maze, jump off hay, ride a boat, and picked out there own pumpkins. It was a great family day!

Watching the shark in the lake until daddy called them to go pumpkin hunting...


Let the hunt begin...



Little Mister was looking for the perfect pumpkin to carve star wars figures out of and little miss, well she was looking for the perfect pumpkin to sit on...



perfect pumpkins found and now we are off to explore some more. Little miss to tired to walk went for a ride instead in the wheelbarrow.


A little hay maze which for as small as it was it was sure hard to keep track of little mister because he loved running through it over and over
Cousin and friends (we missed you E,A, and Al) I am not sure what they are looking at but it got all of there attention :)

What a fun family morning.

A week of review

This week we spend reviewing the letters we have already done. It also gave mom a break to work on some other things :)
We did make banana bread and lots of fun Halloween decorations.We also got to visit our friends at Miss Melney's this week. The kids and I loved it. Thanks for the sewing tips :)
We have also started a new tradition that I need some ideas from all you . So if you have time please help me out . One night a week we are going to cook a family meal together most likely Fridays. Some families do pizza each week but my family is not huge pizza fans. So I am wondering what are some things you make together as a family or want to try(we are willing to try it for you)?
Here is little Mister having a blast making pizza. Little miss even got in on the mess and we had lots of crumbs and sauce everywhere. They had so much fun it was worth it.

Little Miss is getting 4 teeth in and is chewing on everything. You can often find her walking around the house with her tooth brush in her mouth. Today it was her sleeve that did the trick.

One Halloween costume sewn just one more to go. He just needs his boots and light saber and this Luke Skywalker is ready to trick or treat.

Little Miss has a new love for Veggie tales. If she see any thing with Bob or Larry she yells Bob really loud. We went to the library this week and she picked out a silly songs video. She loves the hairbrush song and dances and sings to it. It is so funny!!! we will try to get it on video sometime soon.

Today we went to the pumpkin patch with most of the Palmer gang. Here is a cousin picture, it is so hard to get them to smile and look in the same direction at the same time, I am just amazed we got them to stand still together in one place. We will post more pictures of the pumpkin patch later.

Hope you all had great week!

exciting e's

The letter E was full of fun but not as many projects as the weeks before. We went exploring in the park, had elephant ears for snack, estimated how many blocks it took to build our castle, and we read a cute book and made our own Elmer the Elephant.
This also was when I finally got around to taking down our black patience squares and adding our orange self control Circles. The circles seem very hard to earn lately but as you can see Little Mister is doing a great job of trying.




Exploring the park

Yes here it is the eating dirt picture I promised.

Yummy! Elephant ears are good. So good Little Mister ask for them everynight.

It took 48 blocks and about 5min to build our castle, less then 30 seconds to knock it down

lesson learned...(again)

Today we had the special treat of cousin A spending the day with us. We went off to little hearts club at church lots of fun for all of us! I really enjoyed the lesson today I felt like I was really hearing something that God has been trying to tell me for weeks ok years but it has been on my mind the last few weeks a lot.I left motivated in so many ways but also feeling like I still had not heard all I was supposed to. So I set out about the fun plan I had to take pictures of the kids. My hope was to get some artsy type pictures outside. Well that is not what I got. Ever feel like you have the idea in your head but what actually appears when your done is not the same. Well that is what happened here...



Cute but not the look I was going for....


Please look at mommy.


Feeling frustrated I kind of gave up posing or should I say having aunt M pose them and decided to do what comes natural to me. I let the kids just play and tried to get the best shot I could. I had no idea I would get a picture like this of Little Miss with such a big smile. She peeked through the tree to say hi to Aunt M.

Then It hit me as I was looking through the pictures at home. There was something to be learned here...
1. When trying something new use models that can be posed and stay still long enough to get a picture :)
2. most important I need to relax and just let it happen and I mean that in all areas of my life, when I stop trying to control things and trying to do them my way something beautiful can happen. Yes Lord, I heard you, if I let go you will make my mess something beautiful something more beautiful then I can imagine.

thats what brothers are for....

"sister say dirt? can you say dirt?... you can taste dirt" whispers Little man so loud but he thinks mommy can't hear

just put your finger here like this then put it in your mouth

Wait thinks little man is mommy watching?

And yes she did try a little dirt. What can I say the pictures were to cute to stop the little bit of dirt.
More pictures from exploring the park to come latter.

delight

So you would think with my first week home we would of had many adventures with the letter D. Well we did but not the kind I planned on. The kids and I had so fun and thanks to my friend Lisa's advice we had a clean house, dinner ready each night and lots of fun together.Here is a review of our week.
Doughnuts with dad and mom on Saturday.


Drawing has become little misters favorite pastime. This is one of the many picture he made last week. On the left is a fire truck with a fire man and his hat. They are putting out the fire in the first building while a "fire" dog watches.

Destruction was the other D word that we had this week. Little mister accidentally spilled dark pink nail polish all over the bathroom and we had to have someone come out and clean the floors. The walls still need to be sanded, re textured, painted with a special paint then repaint the whole thing. The wood finish may have to be redone on the side of the cabinet and the bathroom stool will never be the same. In all the craziness I didn't get a picture but I did get later that day this one of little miss and her new favorite pastime. She loves to take all the movies off the self and "read" the booklets inside.She did this mess in a matter of minutes.

dancing princess...

Crazy duck puppet that really quakes when you open it's mouth.

Other delightful things not pictured...
friends, church family, late night talk with dear friends, late night talks with wonderful husband, sisters, and seeing my kids smile and learn new things.

DADDY.....

I love how our kids have some little thing that they do for each of us that they are so unaware of but it melts my heart when I see it. Little Mister gets this little head tilt and smile right before he is going to tell me he loves me. Little Miss get this smile when she says daddy that is like no other smile she has. It is hard to put into words just how you can see such love and Joy fill up her eyes and smile. I wonder if it is because I tilt my head and smile when I tell them I love them or because Brian's face lights up at the site of our kids...What ever the reason I will treasure it while it last!
I have yet to capture it on film but I am trying. I happen to catch Little Miss and her wonderful daddy tonight, it is not the exact smile I am talking about but you get the idea :)