random update

in case there is still anyone out there looking at this blog, here are a few pictures of how we spent halloween. cheree and paul are sporting their literally last minute "runner" costumes. cheree is wearing tags from many half marathons she's run. paul ended up as a somewhat 70's or 80's runner. we're at cheree's school halloween carnival fund raiser. we volunteered and were in charge of a couple of attractions during the day. there's also a picture of the pumpkins we carved (again, last minute) and well, chili eating a bat.

a half is still a lot

Cheree completed her fourth half marathon of 2007 last weekend. She ran the Nike self guided half. We mapped out a course that started by my old place in La Jolla, went down to PB, around Sea World and back to PB, finally ending at our old favorite breakfast place in PB. It was just me on a bike escorting Cheree through the 13.1 miles. She later uploaded her race from her Nike chip up to the Nike website. Proceeds from this half marathon went to fight leukemia.

If you look closely in the picture, you'll see Cheree keeping pace behind me on Crown Point Drive in PB. After these 4 half marathons Cheree is ready to take a break from half marathons. She'll still go running, she's just gonna keep it to 6 or 7 miles max (which is still a heck of a lot in my book).

ring of fire

We've got fires going south of us, to the east of us and north of us...but we're ok. The fires have affected close friends of ours. Some have been evacuated, some have lost homes. We're hoping for the best, prepping for the worst (though we're about 20 miles from any evacuation areas and it's not expected to get anywhere near us -- however, we keep hearing the different fires are 0% contained)

Check out the trip gallery!

No annoying login or account signup or anything like that. Just click and view.

http://picasaweb.google.com/sandiegoreds/ExploringThePacificNorthWestElliottAndElliott?authkey=m5GbS0l6q6g

trippin'

The tour of the Pacific Northwest was great. We had a great time at our cousin's house in Portland, a nice train ride to Seattle and a great time in Seattle visiting with my Aunt and taking in a Mariners game. I'll be publishing a web album soon with photos, but here is one of us with Aunt Armie in the new family wine bar.

a turn of events

well...got good news today. The unlikely has happened...It turns out that the CT scan showed things look much better than they did in the x-ray. No OR for me, just another x-ray in 3 months to check on things. Hooray screws!

un-screwed

Saw the Neurosurgeon yesterday. After I reviewed my x-ray from last week I thought yesterday's Doctor visit was just a formality where he'd say "It looks pretty much like it did a month ago, let's keep things the same and check on it again in a month or so."

However, the Doctor came into the room with a scowl on his face. Knowing that wasn't a good sign (I'm pretty intuitive) my heart quickly increased it's pitter patter in my chest. He took me into his office and showed me on the x-ray where the top screw looks "looser" and the middle and bottom screws look like they have "void areas" around them, possibly indicating that they've been doing some moving of their own. He wants a better image of everything that's going on, so he filled out a slip to get me a CT Scan ASAP next week. Once he's able to look over the CT Scan he'll be able to give me his recommendation. The way I understand it, our options will be:

1. Go back in and put in a bigger screw on top
2. Go back in and take out the whole plate and screws. I'm not sure if this involves replacing it with a whole new set or not.
3. Leave things as they are, because it's not as bad as the x-rays looked (not likely)

The GOOD news he had for me was that since I'm not experiencing neck pain it's a good sign that I'm healing properly.

So, in summary, the saga continues and it's looking like once again I'll be "Back...to the OR". That would make 4 trips this year. Yikes. I should have gotten one of those frequent customer cards where they could punch out a hole each time I get cut open and I get a free MRI or something after 5 surgeries.

I don't know if this involves going back into a neck brace. I really don't want to be back in one, so I'll do what I can to avoid that. The recovery from the plate operation was a PAIN last time. I couldn't eat, sleep or swallow for like 3 or 4 days.

Well, after work today we are off to explore the Pacific NorthWest. I figure it should be a lot like the "Oregon Trail" game lots of us played back in elementary school. Oregon Ho!