This is Nebraska

We took a family outing up to the pedestrian bridge over the Missouri River in downtown Omaha a few weeks ago to see the flooding first hand.  From the news stories, I doubted the bridge would even be open, but it was, although the sidewalks along the banks of the river were all closed and heavily flooded in certain places.  The bridge typically spans half water, half land, but with the flooding, the bridge is ALL over water now.

And as if we didn't have enough water, a huge storm rolled through one night as we were getting packed for our trip.  These thick, black clouds started billowing in and in a matter of a few minutes, the sky was black and the still air had 70 mph winds.  As we were packing, we noticed a wailing sound.  Justin and I looked at each other and realized we were hearing the tornado sirens, which I've never heard go off here unless it was just a drill.  We quickly turned on the news and saw that our small city was under a tornado warning.  With the Joplin disaster on our minds, we pulled all our kids out of bed, carried Annie downstairs and decided to wait out the storm there.  Molly was absolutely terrified, but we said a prayer and everything was ok.  It's amazing to see storms like this roll in so quickly and unexpectedly.  They definitely make life exciting!

All this rain, however, has definitely helped our garden this year.  We were surprised last year at how easily things grew here in Nebraska, so Justin decided to start an even larger garden this year!  Twice as large to be exact--it's 6' x 24'.  From left to right we have tomatoes, peas, cucumbers, beans, carrots, peppers, cilantro, onions, and cantaloupe (that haven't sprouted yet in this picture).  It's been 3 weeks since this picture was taken, and since then, every plant has about tripled in size!  Justin is also growing oregano and rosemary in pots on our deck.  His plan is to make a lot of salsa!  Our cantaloupe have sprouted now and are growing quickly too.

Tolman Reunion in Draper

All 19 of us

At the 4th of July Parade

Molly playing a Minute-to-Win-It game

Justin loves grilling!

Watching fireworks

Molly washing clothes at Pioneer Heritage State Park

Oldroyd Reunion in Bountiful

All 25 of us!

Golfing at Cherry Hill

Molly playing the Minute-to-Win-It Game--trying to get the cookie in her mouth without touching it with her hands.

Lexie sleeping in Grandpa's trailer

Grandpa dancing with Lexie to jazz music at Bountiful City Park

Molly's turn to sleep in the trailer

Lexie at the "fishing pond"

The 6 year old cousins!

Annie at Thanksgiving Point

Motorcycle rides

Justin trying out the BB gun.

Ranula Surgery

We made our second trip to Ohio this past week for a second round of injections on Annie's sublingual glands where she had developed a ranula.  Fortunately, since the submandibulars didn't need to be injected, they were able to inject both sublinguals at the same time--keeping the swelling in the front of her jaw and away from her throat.  Annie tolerated it all well and even got discharged just 10 hours after the procedure!  We stayed at the Ronald McDonald House again, and continue to be impressed with all the good they do and the kindness and generosity we received.

A week before surgery

Just after surgery--her tongue became pressed to the roof of her mouth with the swelling of the glands.

She looked great after surgery!

Healing--1 day after surgery.

One day post-op.  Happily watching TV in our RMH room.

At the Ronald McDonald House after discharge.

Pop tops brought in to the RMH from a local school, collected over the school year!  SAVE YOUR POP TOPS!

Our poor muffler broke during the drive to Ohio.  Gladly, we got it fixed before the drive home.

Annie's 9!

Each birthday is a blessing!  I can't believe this sweet girl is 9!  We celebrated with cake and ice cream, balloons, music, dancing, and presents.  Annie's favorite was the darling flower hair clips from her sweet Aicardi sister, Brooke!  Thanks so much for all the kind birthday wishes for Annie!  It fills us with joy and warms our hearts to see so many people show her such love!

Annie's Ranula

Annie's salivary gland ablation has been an absolute miracle in our lives!  Since recovering from the procedure, Annie is able to go all day without a bib!  We have been SO thrilled!  However, the other day when I went to brush Annie's teeth, I noticed that the area under her tongue was swollen up again, just like it was shortly after surgery.  I immediately knew that something was wrong and suspected a ranula.  We took her to the ENT here who confirmed it was a ranula and suggested a rather invasive surgery to take care of it.  However, he did not recommend the procedure that would have eliminated the ranula from coming right back.  I left the appointment with a bad feeling and knew I wasn't comfortable with this doctor's plan.

I then paged our doctor in Ohio who did the salivary gland procedure.  He immediately called me back and talked to me for about 45 minutes about all our options and how to best go about treating the ranula.  What a wonderful doctor!  He basically told us that we have two options...

The first option was to stay here and have a qualified ENT do a very invasive surgery to completely remove both of Annie's sublingual salivary glands--a risky procedure that could cause facial nerves to get accidentally cut, causing Annie to lose her smile or have paralysis of her tongue.  This was the exact procedure we were avoiding by going to Ohio in the first place for her salivary gland ablation.

The second option was to return to Ohio to have our doctor give Annie another set of injections into her sublingual glands which would treat the ranula and prevent the ranula from developing again.

I guess I should explain what a ranula is...  A ranula is a build up of fluid from the salivary gland causing lots of swelling under the tongue.  Usually they are caused by a clogged duct from the gland.  In all the salivary gland ablations our doctor (the first and only in the world to do this procedure) has done, never has a patient developed a ranula after.  Of course, leave it to Annie to present an unusual case!  What he thinks has happened is this... when he injects glands for the ablation, he only kills off about 80% of the gland to help prevent over-filling the gland which could cause the solution to seep out and kill surrounding tissues.  So what he thinks happened with Annie is that the remaining 20% of her glands that are still producing saliva are trapped by the "dead" portion of her glands, causing the fluid to be stuck in the gland and swell up.  So the plan is to go back in to each sublingual gland and re-inject each gland to try to kill off the remaining 20%.

If left untreated, the ranula will continue to grow to the point where it ruptures (we had our first rupture already), then it will slowly start to grow back again, rupture, and continue that cycle.  Over time the ranula will start growing deeper into her jaw and pose a risk of infection.  The sublingual glands also don't produce a nice watery fluid that you would expect.  The sublinguals are the glands that produce mucous, so the fluid that drained when the ranula ruptured was more like honey.  Annie had a rough couple of days trying to deal with that drainage and vomited a lot, and now the ranula is growing back.

We didn't want to have to go back to Ohio, but we know our doctor there is the absolute pro on all of this--his new salivary gland ablation method came about because he originally devised that method for the treatment of ranulas.  So we feel much more comfortable with him and are opting for the much less invasive and less risky procedure.  And we'll just keep our fingers crossed that the ranula does in fact stay away!

Lexie's Such a Sweetheart!

Lexie is growing up so fast!  She's such a little sweetie!  Lexie is becoming so helpful, especially for Annie.  She loves to give Annie hugs and will run to Annie and snuggle up against her arm!

Lexie is making huge strides with her speech delay too.  Her therapist continues to be surprised at each visit at how much better Lexie is speaking.  She's still rather delayed, but she's working so hard and showing excellent progress.  This August Lexie will be transitioning out of her current at-home therapy program to a classroom setting.  She'll start attending a Language Group program--a special preschool for children with speech problems.  As a part of that, she'll also continue to have one-on-one therapy sessions with a speech therapist there.  We are so sad to have to say goodbye to her current therapist soon, but are grateful for all the work she's done with Lexie.