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We are doing well the last two days, and are now out of the ICU. Today, the last of Griffin’s various tubes and wires came off, so it feels monumental and freeing. We may be discharged as soon as Friday, it sounds like. So, indeed, we are thankful and glad, and have appreciated all your friendship and support and good thoughts and words. The last weeks, and especially the last two weeks, have been hard ones.

In so many ways this has been an extraordinary year, and as the holidays approach and take us in, I hope to muse on that with you all soon.

Happy Thanksgiving.

They discovered that he has congenital subglottic stenosis— essentially, he is rapidly outgrowing his windpipe. They are recommending surgery and suggesting we do it soon, as his windpipe is the size of a preemie, which may result in an emergency airway restriction. So we need to avoid that, and hope to avoid a tracheotomy.

From what we understand so far, they will take tissue from his ribcage and reconstruct a larger airway for him. Then, he’ll need to be sedated for five days and stay in the ICU. Then he will need up to two to three weeks for recovery, as he rebuilds strength and muscle after being under anaesthesia for so long. So we’re expecting to be in the hospital for most of November.

We’re letting this news sink in and also feeling grateful that we live in a time and a place where this is “fixable” and he can go on to lead a normal life. We have a lot to be grateful for, and we’re hopeful.

We do not yet know when they need to perform the surgery, but will be talking with the surgeon on Monday. He suggested “sooner rather than later.” The surgery will be done at Children’s Hospital, and we feel we’re in the best medical hands we can be. They have performed this surgery over 500 times, we’re told, and in Griffin’s case, success rate is high.

Thanks for any good thoughts you can give us. I will report in as we know more.

Jeff

Isle Royale

Aligned Intentions | On Look Films from Scott F. Busch on Vimeo.

You may recognize the interview location as a place dear to us all.

I’ve finally created a web site that is more than a forward splash page.  Thought you guys might like to see my favorites over the past ten years.  Let me know what you think, if you’re so inclined….

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Good 2010 to all of my fellow Hollow Souls.

I’ve been in a particularly reflective mood in this New Year, and I want to explore some of those reflective moments with the rest of you, if possible.  It’s been a decade since the calendar flipped over to the year 2000, a lot of fears never materialized in flipping over and a lot of fears we never realized we should have materialized in the haze of the past ten years.  The more I ponder it, the more I realize we’ve seen a lot.

Over the next couple of weeks, I’d like to post some conversation starters in the articles and have people contribute to the main idea with thoughts of their own.

For this one…I’d like to hear from you all about the things that have happened in the last ten years that have been memorable.  They can be significant or trivial, just something worth noting. 

Ten years ago, I felt like I had been in Kansas City for ages.  Nursing a broken heart made things go unbearably slow, even though I had only been here about ten months.  I actually remember wondering on New Year’s Day of 2000 where I would be in 2010, if I’d even be alive to be cognizant of it.  Happy to say, I am.

What happened for you in this decade in the making?

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Until then, enjoy this, as spotted in a coffee shop:

On a second note- I am going to do some work on a graphic novel (semi-inspired by Maus) based on a character I will call Promi the Squirell, who steals a flaming marshmallow from a suburban fire pit. My initial sketches ceertainly aren’t of the caliber of Ned’s but, whacha gonna do?

Jen, Beckett, and I will be going to Washington State to be with my parents and sisters. It should be great, and it will be nice to get together with them in our new “home” headquarters. It will be the first time taking B on a plane, so I’m sure it will pose interesting challenges. Any flight advice would be welcome, from those of you who have flown with one-year-olds…

I hope you’ll all have good holidays. Let us know what you’ll be doing to celebrate.

I have to admit to all of you, though it’s no surprise, I have probably been the worst about keeping in touch with all of you by phone. I’m sorry for it. I’m the same way with my family and with other friends. Some of this is my laziness; some of this is my busy-ness; some of this is probably a reliance on this blog, facebook, and email to make communication more convenient for myself, perhaps even at the cost of “real” conversation. Some of this too is also a disposition against the telephone, which seems to run fairly deep in my family.

So I’m curious about what to do about this. I bet I talk to my little sister once, maybe twice a year on the phone, and then probably see her in person around once a year. I’m a little better with my older sister, but not a lot better. I talk to my parents probably once a month or so on the phone, to catch up, make plans, whatever. We’re really not that involved with each other. Part of that I chalk up to a Scandinavian reserve; part of that I chalk up to long distance (the four groups of us are literally spread out into all four time zones in the lower 48 states). Part of it has to be something else–a feeling of not wanting to interfere or comment too much on anyone else’s choices or ways of living.

I guess it’s somewhat the same with the HM, you all–although I have probably been better in the past of staying in touch with many of you at various and specific times even more so than my family. I always enjoy talking with each of you when it happens, but it’s become rarer and rarer. Yes, we’re all married now, some of us with children or on the way; yes, we’re all busy; blah blah blah. I’m always a little saddened when I hear from Toby, say, that he just talked to Peters, when I haven’t spoken to Peters in quite some times. I’m saddened to know I was last to find out that Peters and Amanda are pregnant, and that was largely because of my unavailability or very slow way of responding to a phone message. I’m also saddened but understanding of the fact that I’ve had a voice message in with Peters for at least a week, maybe ten days now, and haven’t heard back. I have fostered a kind of no-call zone, and I’m sorry for that, if that’s the feeling among the group.

In the way of a question and conversation, I guess I’d like to know how much you all are talking with each other–via phone and in person, especially–but also via email, facebook, whatever. I don’t know, maybe you’re all out there faxing each other daily reports. And I’d be interested in knowing how you have handled distance and communication not only among ourselves but also among your own families and other friends.

Maybe a lame way to try to get some conversation going on the blog, but it’s been on my mind.