First Trip to the ER

Our streak lasted 19 months. That's how long we made it without having to take Amelia to the ER, or even to the doctor except for check-ups. But it came to an end last week when we got to experience the Portuguese socialized medical system first-hand for the first time.

While playing in our backyard she took a tumble off of the 4-inch step from our patio area onto the grass. When I picked her up her mouth was bloody and I couldn't see one of her top front teeth. I thought it was knocked out, but couldn't find it in the grass. As she settled down I saw a little white in her mouth, so then assumed the tooth was broken. Dan left work and met us at the hospital and a nurse saw her right away and gave her some pain medication. After that the waiting game started (a common thing in hospitals, but especially where the care is free). About two hours later a dentist at the hospital looked in her mouth and said that the tooth was actually pushed partway back up into the gum (I didn't know that could happen), and he assumed it was still whole, but he wanted to do an x-ray to make sure. Since the x-ray machine in Aveiro was broken they wanted to send us to the pediatric hospital in Coimbra, an hour away. No problem, but we weren't allowed to drive her there (liability concerns). Instead it was more waiting. An hour later the ambulance was ready to take us. Only one of us was allowed in the ambulance, so Dan had to follow in the car. At the hospital in Coimbra we experienced the Portuguese specialty of "Oh, you have a baby...to the front of the line you go." So we saw a dentist very quickly there and the x-ray showed that the tooth is still whole. They told us they see this in toddlers daily, and it should come back down on its own over the next few months. So lots of trauma but it was okay in the end. Poor Dan had to hold her down for the x-ray while I had to stay outside of the room, due to my pregnancy, listening to her yell "mommy, mommy" as loud as she could. No fun for any of us.

So 7 hours later we made it home and were able to put our exhausted baby to sleep. The next day her upper lip and gums were pretty sore and swollen, but she looks normal now. Well, normal for a professional hockey player since when she smiles there's a tooth missing. She also shakes her head and says "no, no, no" whenever anyone approaches her that she thinks might have any interest in poking around in her mouth. Poor little thing. Anyway it was a happy ending to our first trip to the ER. And I must admit it was nice to simply walk out of the hospital at the end with no need to stop at the cashier's office and have to decide how on earth we'll manage to pay the bill. We spent $0 and zero minutes filling out paperwork which helped ease the trauma of an otherwise difficult day.

Baby Update

Our most important current news is that our next arrival will be a little BROTHER for Amelia. All indications so far are that he is doing well, and we are expecting him to make an appearance around the end of July (my money is on an anniversary baby, July 31).

Amelia is thriving in the spring weather that has finally arrived after a very dreary and wet winter. All I have to do is mention going to play outside or going for a walk and she is at the door collecting her shoes, hat and jacket and ready to go. She loves to go for "nature walks" in the woods by our house, and explores flowers, grass, pinecones, dirt, candy bar wrappers, and anything else she can find. She is also quite the animal lover, and her first request upon getting up from her nap is for Blaze, Tazzy, "new doggy" (more on that later) and Biju. She can make quite a few animal noises on request, and Tazzy, also known as the most tolerant dog ever, has been standing in for a pony on pretty much a daily basis.

Her communication skills are growing daily, but are starting to lead to growing frustrations as well. She knows what she wants, but we're not always able to understand what she's saying, despite our increasing proficiency in yet another foreign language, e.g. an apple is an "osh" and an olive is an "arf". So she gets frustrated until we finally guess right and then everything goes back to normal. Plus while she generally only knows english, she does throw in Portuguese words for us now and again as well, so we get "mais (more in Portuguese) juice."

All in all, we're having fun playing in the sunshine with Amelia and waiting for the next one to arrive, although admittedly with some trepidation. If any of you are willing to offer some advice for coping with a newborn while a 2-year-old is running amok, we'd be grateful.

Dan and I are both working more than we should be for the month of April, so are looking forward to a much deserved family vacation in May, we just have to figure out where we are going!

For a few additional spring time photos, click here.

A Birthday Present?

Happy 33 to me. I'm not really in the mood for celebrating, with Blaze's recent diagnosis and the anniversary of Alec's death approaching. However, through a combination of denile of Blaze actually having GME (it is hard to accept a disease that is diagnosed by exclusion of other possible causes), and wanting to give him the best treatment options possible, I sent his records to a neurologist in Boston who is known as the expert on the disease. His answer? Probably not GME! He has recommended testing for some additional infectious diseases, which if positive are treatable and he can have a full recovery, or, if they are negative, he believes that Blaze has had a stroke, which while he may not ever recover his full neurological function, he shouldn't get worse, and he should be with us for a while still. On his advice, I stopped Blaze's GME medication, and if he does not relapse in the next few weeks he thinks we can safely assume Blaze is in the clear for this one. And that would be something to celebrate!

After showing all of this to Blaze's vet here in Portugal, she asked if she could send all of his records to another neurologist in Bern, Switzerland as well. So no matter what, Blaze seems to have a team of vets in 3 countries spaning 2 continents worried about his well-being, not many dogs can say that.

Blaze

From Dan: It’s been a difficult month of vet visits and sad times. Our beloved first pet together, Blaze, has been diagnosed with GME (granulomatous meningoencephalitis). It is a progressive autoimmune disease of unknown origin. On the morning of February 13 when we woke up he wasn’t quite himself. He had a very low energy level, wasn’t eating, was a bit unsteady on his feet and had lost some vision in his left eye. After lots of tests, including a CT scan and a spinal tap, the vet’s best guess was GME (it’s a diagnosis by process of elimination), although she was not ruling out other causes like a stroke or a brain tumor. Through some connections (that’s still how things work in Portugal) we were able to get him an MRI at a human hospital yesterday. The result was lesions consistent with GME.

We got Blaze, a 7-year-old Australian Shepherd, from a rescue program. His early life in West Virginia included beatings, and those of you who know him know that he still never quite got over that and has forever been skittish around strangers. When Katrin and I first met him he was being fostered in Washington Heights in New York. We took advantage of a trip to the city for Ben and Sohui’s wedding in 2004 to introduce ourselves, and of all the people who had considered adopting him we were told that we were the only ones he even thought about approaching to greet. So after a short walk around the city and some contemplation about taking on a dog with such “issues” we decided that he should move to Burlington.

We’ve had some great years with Blaze. From that first nervous walk around NYC, he became a great pet and even learned to do agility with Katrin. He never became comfortable around strangers, but is extremely loyal and sweet with those he knows. We still hope to have many more years of his trying to do anything he can to please Katrin (and by association, me), but the disease unfortunately has no cure and so we don’t know much about his future. We will keep helping him live the full life he deserves and stay forever hopeful that he will be with us long enough for Amelia to remember him when she grows up.

From Katrin: We are told he will likely be with us less than a year, though it could be much less, and it could be much more, depending on how he reacts and responds to the various treatments. We have put together a team of veterinarians to help us do whatever we can to fight this and give him the best possible life for the time he has left.

I've never been told beforehand that I have a limited amount of time left with a loved one. What a hard place to be, caught somewhere between starting to grieve before they are already gone and savoring every moment you have together. As Dan mentions it has been a rollar coaster of a couple of weeks trying to figure out a diagnosis. Yes he is a dog, but he is a member of our family, and a very special member at that. He will do anything in his power to please and protect those he loves, and even though his energy level is at an all time low right now from the disease and the medications, he still finds it necessary to lift his head and howl every time Amelia cries, and to alert me if I am not quick enough getting up when she wakes up, he still goes crazy when the doorbell rings, and gets excited when Tazzy and Biju start playing, though instead of joining them as usual, he just goes and supervises the play session from near by. As I write this he is curled up on the couch comforting me because I am sad for him.

Home for the Holidays

So now that it is February, I am finally getting around to posting an account of our trip home for the holidays. Amelia and I started the journey with just the two of us, and I was rather nervous making the trip from Portugal to Oregon on my own with a 16 month old, but there was no need to be. She was such a great traveller on the starting leg, that I told her I wouldn't care if she screamed the whole way to Vermont the next week (in hindsight probably not the best thing to have told her, and I am really glad she didn't take me up on it). We arrived in Portland tired, but relatively on time and with all of our luggage, so a good start to the trip. We spent the next week visiting with friends and relatives, Amelia loved seeing everyone, as did I of course, and she took quite well to the very social routine that is so different from our fairly quiet life here in Portugal.

Dan joined us after a week, a day late thanks to the snow storm in Newark stranding him there for an extra night. We celebrated Christmas eve with my family and got up early on Christmas morning for the cross-country flight to Vermont. We made it in time to join in Christmas dinner, and it was great to have all of the little cousins together (Isabel 10, Calvin 8, Jasper 2.5, Nathan 2, Coco 19 months, Amelia 15 months, and Oliver 3 months) and to distribute and recieve the news of the two newest cousins scheduled to arrive at the end of July (that's us!) and in August (Julie and Jim).

We spent the rest of the week with more catching up with friends and family, sledding, lots of appointments, and topped it off with the big New Year's party at Mary and Pierre's. Amelia didn't quite make it to New Year, as she finally went to sleep at 11:40 pm, maybe next year.

After all the festivities we had to say our good-byes and get on the plane for home. Amelia treated us to another hassle-free trip, she slept the entire flight from Newark to Lisbon! We loved seeing everyone, and since we don't know when Amelia and I will be able to make it back to the US, we will have to be satisfied with all of the great memories we have from this one. For a few photos of our trip and some more Amelia shots, click here.

Roma, Italia

It seems like a long time ago now, but before the holidays we took a trip to visit Rome. We decided to make a Tuesday holiday into a 4-day weekend and go somewhere. Katrin had been there once before but this was my first visit, despite a half-dozen trips to Italy. The goal was to find somewhere fun we could go without changing planes, and Rome was the winner over Amsterdam and Geneva.

When Katrin and I moved to Portugal we had grandiose plans of visiting all corners of Europe. Ski trips to Switzerland, summer holidays in the fjords of Norway, and beach vacations to Ibiza. Well, a baby came along and sort of altered our agenda. But we’re still trying to get out and about.

Walking around Rome was all sorts of fun. It is truly an easy city to see on foot, even while pushing a stroller. Amelia will surely have wonderful memories of the coliseum, forum, Spanish steps, Trevi fountain, Vatican City, Sistine Chapel, etc., etc. The whole city felt like an outdoor museum of archeology, history, art and culture. But the two highlights of every day were lunch and dinner. We all know how fabulous the pizza and pasta are, although until you’ve tasted the real thing in Italy (or at Peter and Jane’s house) you don’t know what you’re missing. But the ambience and comfort inside a restaurant are harder to describe. Sort of like the feeling of home, while casually eating a delicious pasta dish with porcini mushrooms and sipping a tasty Chianti.

What made the trip all the more enjoyable, though, was the ease of traveling with Amelia. She’s a good traveler (after all, she averages more than one plane flight per month of life so far), but the Italians are truly a baby-friendly populace. We get sort of spoiled here in Portugal, which is a very baby-friendly culture (getting ushered to the front of every line, parking spots designated for parents with young children), but in Italy it was the individuals themselves that were head over heels for babies. No matter where we were, whether restaurants or subways or museums, Amelia was given tons of attention. Everyone wanted their turn to smile at her and help make her comfortable. Italy certainly has its political and economic troubles, but when it comes to children and quality of life, they are a very advanced civilization.

For more pictures of our trip to Rome, click here.

Our Little Helper

Amelia has become quite the little helper lately. She loves to help load the washing machine, and now that she has nearly mastered putting things "in," she can also be asked to help pick up, and we have quite the bucket brigade going as we grocery shop and I pick up the items we need and she throws them into our cart. Here are a couple of pictures of her helping her Daddy stack up our wood as we prepare for winter. Well, maybe not so much stacking, but she did take several small pieces from the pile on the driveway and throw them onto the garage floor. You can see her contribution in the background of the top photo.