real quick update before bell rings- Dean family

Brian, Emma and myself all have a cold right now- that attacks our voices.  The doctor at Kaiser thinks I might have kidney stones- had strange happenings yesterday with constant discomfort involving my urinary tract…and then progressively worse blood in my urine- it looked brown in the sample I donated last night.  Boys are both healthy…Gabe has wrestling in Oregon City on Saturday.  Nicholas has a break from sports until January.  We’ve had two late starts due to the weather…we still have frozen snow at our house.  That’s it in an nutshell…time to rush to my classroom.  J I’ll think of more positives to share in my next posting.

Yes I am home

So I got my abdominal drain tube removed last night and then got to go home. I am feeling alright today, just a little beat up. I finally got a pretty good nights sleep last night. Greyson went into town this morning and got my pain meds and pizza which is helping me feel better. Apparently my last hcg test (which tests progression of a pregnancy) increased at a normal level and higher then my last tests. So at this point it is still ok and I will just have to wait and see what happens. I am supposed to try to go back to work tomorrow but I don't know how that is going to go. For one thing, I am leaking fluid out my side hole. I tried some bandages but it soaked through those in just a few minutes. So I have switched to laying with a handtowel folded up next to the hole. I have already gone through 2 towels and am working on my third. But I think it is actually keeping the pressure off my stomach so I am not to eager to close it up.

So enough of all that. What are all of you up to?

HOME!! (post by Mom)

Melanie is on her way home from the hospital at last.

Up and about

I was feeling well enough today for a trip to the Starbucks (pushed in the wheelchair) to check email and get a smoothie. Those dang Starbucks are everywhere. This one is in the neighboring Doernbecher unit. I still get really tired if I walk around much. My tummy is getting slowly better. We were draining off 4 liters of fluid a day in the beginning but am now down to between only 1 and 2 liters a day. The only drawback of not having much fluid in me is that if I run out of fluid while drawing it off it will suck random internal body parts against the holes of the tube instead. And that really, really hurts. My latest baby related bloodwork levels are a little concerning so there is a fairly big chance at this point that I may get some sad news with the next blood draw tomorrow. We will just have to deal with that as it comes. We have a bunch more embies frozen for more tries.

Other than that I am pretty bored and really tired of the food here. Since I am feeling a bit better I may try to get out of my room more and check the blog. So get to writing so I have something to do.

Mel

Happy Holidays (from Mom/Janice

Had a good time at the Deans. Brian has another skill we knew nothing about until today when we undertood Melanie wreath-decorating activity. Brian knows how to tie beautiful bows. Learned it at his Mother's knee apparently. You just never really know a person.

The boys preferred pumpkin pie to chocolate cream. Odd, I thought. Not Sharp-like. However, they certainly can pack it away so no concern about their appetite. The girls are so cute and full of energy as usual.

Melanie is still in the hospital, but looks a lot better. I feel sorry for her now, but am not so worried. For awhile there she had all my motherly instincts at high alert. Hopefully she will be out in a few days. The tube they put inside her belly is huge - like 6 mm in diameeter and about a 10 inches long -- clear across her belly. Hurt like crazy going in and probably will not be much fun coming out.

Jennifer had lots of food for us plus what we packed. More than we could begin to eat, of course. Jennifer showed the utmost in generosity by suggesting to the boys that they invite Vic because she didn't think he had anywhere to go for Thanksgiving dinner, and he didn't.

Greyson gave us his king-size bed for the two nights. Very kind of him considering he has been sleeping on a very uncomfortable hospital bed the last few days.

Hope the Porters had a yummy Thanksgiving. Any snow yet?

Mom/Jan

Scare (from Janice)

Melanie gave us quite a scare. Her follicles went into super overdrive after the implanting & she ended up with a gallon of fluid in her belly and very little in her blood stream. The kidneys don't work well in that situation. This was a known risk, but we were hoping it wouldn't happen. Anyway, we made a mad rush to Portland to see her. She was better by the time we got there but still looked beat up. She has had enough shots and blood draws and IV's in the last couple of months to last a lifetime. Poor baby.

She's at OHSU and will be for a week or two. We are moving Thanksgiving to Jennifer's house.

The wind is blowing and its raining tonight. Makes me freaked out that the trees will topple.

I'm baking pies, cooking giblets & Larry is chopping veggies. We'll pack it up and take it all to Washougal. Hope there are no disasterous spills. Compared to the scare we had today though, it kind of puts everything else into perspective.

I am very thankful for my whole family, blood and by marriage. May they stay well and happy.

j

The Mangers are having another baby!!

From Uncle Phil and Aunt Chris,

No, no , it's not what you think. You already know Stephanie and Nate ( the newlyweds) are having a baby; due next april.

No, that's not it... The house is too quiet since our Raleigh dog is gone.. So we are getting a new Golden Retriever puppy. I know.. it will be a lot of work, but a lot of fun. So here's Murphy.

We were going to get an adult dog through the L.A. Golden Retrieve Rescue organization. But everytime we found one that seemed to be a good fit, it was gone overnight. And I just happened to find a local breeder in Simi Valley and they just happened to be available. And they just happened to have 9 adorable puppies...... end of story.

We chose between there two brothers........ Murphys the one on the right. It was tough choice, but the one on the left was whining, so forget that one.

Anyway........ Grandma is so happy with her new apartment and off to play Bingo today. She's going to dinner with us tonight, because Phil and I like to leave town for Thanksgiving. This year we're going to San Diego.. need to get away from my work. And it'll be the last getaway without the responsibilitites of a dog.'

So have a happy thanksgiving to you all. Hi to Larry and Jan.

Love,
Chris

thanksgiving plans

We plan to leave after Brian gets back from work.  I missed the blog invitation to mom’s house…so mom if you didn’t want company or wanted to drive- we are more than happy to do the celebration at our house.  We will be bringing our own sleeping arrangements.  In addition- I will try to bring some favorite foods- a dessert or two, and maybe a pasta dish of some sort.  Well volleyball is officially over- and today is the last day of bball try-outs.  It looks like I’m going to have a great team.  This time I’m going to take lots of pictures and have parent assigned statisticians …so I will have lots to say at the awards banquet….although the presentation went much better this year…that’s the problem though with my public speaking- I never know when it will be horrible and when it won’t.  Take care everyone- looking forward to seeing a lot of you over the holidays! 

Thanksgiving

Hey all, I want to know who all is going to mom and dad's for Thanksgiving. Greyson and I are coming. We may actually wait until Thursday morning to come down. We always do that Wed. night traffic fighting but I just don't think that I am up to it this year. I am assuming we will have a bed for Thursday, Friday and Saturday?? Is there something that I should bring? You know I am not going to cook much but if you want me to pick up something from Costco I can do that or make something simple. Has anyone been by Costco lately to see if they have the plain wreaths in? I plan on going by next Tuesday.

Are there going to be any special activities or just food. I have had a terrible time eating the last week. All my belly bloating/swelling left very little room for stomach expansion. So the minute I ate anything I felt like I had already ate a complete Thanksgiving dinner. Two days ago I woke up feeling much, much better and have been working on getting my stomach stretched back out in preparation for the big meal.

See you many of you soon,

Mel

Playing catch-up

Howdy all. I have been sitting in bed trying to catch up on some work since I have missed quite a few days last week with all the Dr. Appointments. For any of you outside the "inner circle", I have polycystic ovaries which prevents me from making babies the old fashioned way. So anyway, we completed the transfer today of two IVF embryos without a hitch. The others are all being frozen in case this one doesn't take and we have to do some more cycles. The chances are at about 50% right now and if I do get pregnant I have about 35-45% chance that it would be twins instead of just one. But even if this cycle doesn't work the hard part of making the embryos is done and we could do a good number of frozen cycles which would be much easier on my body (and considerably cheaper). I have been lucky to have so much financial support from both my and Greyson's parents.

The retrieval of the embryos on Tuesday was the worst part. They put you under light sedation and then stick a large needle through the vaginal wall and pierce the ovaries about 60 times. I was pretty much asleep for the first half hour and didn't feel much. But for some reason the anesthesiologist lightened the load for the last part and I came back to earth and could feel it all as they shoved this large needle over and over. But the pain is forgotten quickly. My ovaries are still the size of softballs and will stay that way for awhile. It is almost time for my evening intramuscular shot that Greyson has to give me for the next 5 weeks (if I get pregnant). All the previous sub-q shots where pretty much painless, but the intramuscular ones hurt. And the medicine is oil based which doesn't absorb very quickly and leaves me with sore butt cheeks. I am in the "two week wait" now and will go into the clinic for a pregnancy test just after Thanksgiving.

What else... Greyson is doing great. He is busy with his graphic design contracts for a restaurant website and a online city business map. He also has a couple other bids out on some promising projects. I don't really know many details. I have been pretty self involved lately and haven't given him much spousal support so I will have to get on that.

Well it is time for dinner and a shot.
Melanie

collections and elections

Okay. Mel went through the procedure without a hitch. We didn't get our favorite doctor. This one was more of a technician. Very good with her hands, but tight-lipped in the doctor-patient relationship depaartment. We are now the proud owners of 37 eggs. That's quite a clutch. Let's give melanie some blogplause (gotta love blog wordsmithing). Haven't gotten the count on the sperm yet, but perhaps we'll get that good news along with the election results. Of 2008. Melanie's doing well, and has some pretty fierce pain killers to get her through the next couple of days.

Just heard that big business paid 75% of campaign contributions this year. wal-mart tops the list. Wonder who is getting that money?

Sorry for the non-sequitor, but that was on the news in the background.

So le menu includes instant mashed potatoes and sprite if certain folks can stomach it. We should have some mixing of x's and occasional y's this evening in a petrie dish as we speak.

Oh I should be working right now. Got another project. It's a pretty big website redesign of the chamber of commerce. I may have enough work in the first quarter of 2007 to pay for the rest of the year, and maybe not enough time to do it.

I'm back in the gym with a new routine after a week off due to sickness. Hey how's that weightset, Tim? Keeping it dusted? Ya know. We might have a place to store that. I took an incredible walk yesterday. Must've been 70 with warm winds swooshing through very colorful trees. The sound was beautiful. And these big ominous clouds rushing overhead. On the way back, the rain pelted Ada and me. And it was so warm. Almost like a shower. Felt wonderful.

Holiday Wreaths

So I was thinking that we should make wreaths at Thanksgiving this year. Costco usually has those plain (live)wreaths. I could pick up one for each person that wants to partake and then the rest of you could be responsible for bringing the glitz. Ribbon, berries, pinecones....
What do you think? And who is going to make it this year?
(Greyson and I will be in Lousiana for Christmas.)

The Sharp/Rudd sniffle scene

Greyson and I both woke up with a scratchy throat a couple days ago. I fell asleep that night at 6:30pm and got up the next morning at about 5am feeling fairly good. Greyson didn't fall asleep until midnight and woke up sniffling and sneezing. So I think my quick action got my white blood cell working and I feel pretty good. Greyson is still fairly miserable.
I had a doctors appointment this morning and all's good so far, I will get more info when my labs get back this afternoon.
The kittens are fine. They are still annoying my husband and I tend to find them outside quite a bit.
I am still taking a class at PSU in the evening and I am learning a lot but the time and stress that goes with it is fairly high so I will be glad when it is over.
We had our first freeze two nights ago and my flowers are almost all gone. I may get out the Christmas lights early to cheer things up.

Brief and to the point.
-Mel