and -Surgery is scheduled

[Guest guest]

Hi Crewbies,

First let me say welcome to all of our new members. I'll try to write

several of you privately, but it probably won't happen until January. I'm

pretty swamped. I've been lurking and reading as many of the Crew Digests as

possible. Still have a few that are on hold.

Second, a handful of you already know and it's time to let the rest of you

know. We have made it throught Kaiser Permanente's appeals process and have

approval for and to have surgery in CA. Their surgeries will

be done on December 8th at the Kaiser Permanent Hospital in LA by Dr's

Brackmann and Hitzelberger. I'm in the process now of making the practical

arrangements for flights (possibly paid for by the Miles for Kids in Need

program), hotel (or Mc House if we are lucky enough to get a

spot-we have applied) and a wheelchair accessible rental van so that Fred

will be able to drive while we're out there.

Fred and I got Motorola T900 pagers about 10 days ago and are finding them

overall to be worthwhile. These are the little pagers with keyboards on them

in case you're wondering. We can page directly to each other or send and

receive brief emails using the pagers. Unfortunately, they don't work from

some locations, but I understand that is a universal problem with pagers.

Back to the kids, just had another audiology test done and it

showed more hearing loss in her left ear. The losses this time are

concentrated in the frequency range that includes voices. If you pray,

please pray that Lord-willing, what she has will hold up and that they will

be able to stop her hearing from getting worse at least for now. We realize

that her chances of holding onto hearing are not very good, but it would be

good if they could buy her a couple of more years. She's 16. It's a tough

enough age as it is. Is there any such thing as a good age to go deaf?

Probably not.

is scheduled for decompression surgery.

is scheduled for removal of one of his ANs, but which one is still

up for grabs at the moment. Both are small. We're really going to depend on

the surgeons to make the best call on which one to go after.

That's the basic run-down.

On a brighter note, I sent an email but never saw it hit the list so maybe

it's on one of the digests that I haven't gotten to read yet-but (trumpets)

Fred has his van! It has made a lot of difference in all of our lives

already. He has his independence back, I'm not on the road as much, etc.

I'm even getting used to the bright red color of the beast. :-D

The van has a ramp, manual tie-downs for his wheelchair, and hand

controls. He's getting the hang of it. At first he was a bit jerky on his

starts and stops, but has gotten much smoother. Oh, and the driver seat

moves back and turns so that he can transfer easily from his wheelchair.

It's also nice for him to be able to drive the kids and me places again for a

change. :-) (Contented Sigh).

Y'all don't be offended now if you email me and I'm slow to respond. I'm

getting the California ducks lined up and they don't all speak Virginian.

:-)

Take care & God bless.

...Donna