We Have a Match

For anyone who was interested in how my grand-nephew is doing we have just heard that they have found a match. They still have a very long road ahead of them but the news of a match is cause for celebration!

If you contacted One Match or the equivalent in your area thank you. If you would keeping Linden and his family in your thoughts please continue to do so. We appreciate all of them and they helped to bring about something wonderful.

It Comes Down to the Bone

I'm sure you remember a few weeks ago when I posted about my Niece's little guy, Linden going in for surgery. 

The surgery went well, the swelling in his head has gone down dramatically and we have been waiting to hear back about whether anyone in the immediate family was a bone marrow match and to hear the results of the testing that they were doing to find out what health issues he is going to face. The results are in, and I'm afraid they are not good on either front. Linden doesn't have a match within his immediate family and he's been diagnosed with a very rare bone disease.

I'm quoting from the facebook page that has been set up for Linden here:

Help us find a match for our baby linden! He was diagnosed with osteopetrosis; a rare bone disease and needs a bone marrow transplant! Please donate today! You could be a match for our little guy! www.onematch.ca

 Half Filipino half Caucasians have a better chances for matches.. but we need EVERYONE to become a donor, please spread the word and become a donor today!!

If we cannot find a match, there is no other treatment for this disease and eventually the bones will become too thick restricting the nerves to his eyes and ears causing him to become blind and deaf. Eventually he will die.

Children who do not get treatment for this disease don't make it past childhood. Linden is only six months old.

If you live outside of Canada you can become a donor in your own country. Matches can be made from all over the world. To list a very few:


In Canada visit One Match
In the US go to Be The Match 
In the UK go to the British Bone Marrow Registry


Even if you aren't a match for baby Linden you may be a match for someone else who's life could be saved by a donation. I signed up as a donor and am waiting to hear back about becoming a donor. If I can help out my nephew or anyone else who needs it I will do it because it is the very least I can do. 

Like any baby, Linden is loved to bits, he's adorable and a cheeky little monkey. He likes to flirt with the ladies and loves his Mama to bits. I am asking you for help here too. Please consider becoming a donor. If not  pass on information about becoming a donor to your friends and family. If you could help save the life of somebody's loved one wouldn't it be worth it? Please help spread the word.
Thank You

There's a party in my tummy

if you watch Yo Gabba Gabba then you know where that's from. The party in my tummy isn't a friendly play date though. It the one where the biker bar heard your parents were out of town and that your older brother was having a party. It's that party where the uninvited (and even a few that were asked) trash the living room and start a bonfire in the middle of the living room. It's the party where your parents liquor cabinet is smashed, all the booze jugged and then everyone either stands on your parents bed to pee out the window or pukes in the hallway.

that's the party that's going on in my tummy, or at least it was yesterday when I almost set up camp in the bathroom after lunch because I was barely making it to the ivory receptacle in time. On my menu today is a nice bland assortment of easy to digest foods and plenty of clear liquids and a great big huge wish that yesterday stays there and today is a little easier on my tummy

Updates and a litany of woes

from the sounds of my title you'd think this post is going to be a pretty negative one. Well, it may be a little on the long side, but I like to think that I can usually find the positive in most situations. I'm pretty sure I've been able to do so here. To make up for the lack of photographic illustration I'll be posting a word free post to make up for it.

Before we get started, help me celebrate one whole year on Etsy and enter my giveaway! The deadline to enter is rushing this way, you don't want to miss out.

Besides the news of my Step Dad's heart problems last week we've been hitting a streak of weird bad luck but more on that later. My Step Dad is home and on the mend. It turns out my Mom saved his life by getting him to the hospital as fast as she did and there are going to be some changes in lifestyle and diet there. It was very hard to be out of the loop last week in regards to wanting to be there getting the blow by blow after they got home and knowing that he's going to be OK make up for it.

In other news over the last three weeks I've lost my mobile phone and had it stolen. How is this then? The phone slipped out of my pocket on the bus and was found by an unknown and dishonest girl who; after answering my phone and assuring me that she would give it to the bus driver to take to the lost and found instead took it and made $60 in texts and phone calls in two days. Lesson learned? Cancel the mobile if or when it gets lost again. Fortunately, when we finally called to cancel service to the phone our provider was good enough to delete all charges to our bill that were not our own.

The day after the Peanut's birthday party we decided to hit the Jazz festival at David Lam Park in Vancouver. We used to go every year for an afternoon of good music and people watching. When I was pregnant we decided on the Gastown venues so I wouldn't have far to waddle and we'd be closer to the Seabus if the Peanut decided to show up a week early. Since then we've missed the festival, and this year was no exception. After we moved into the new place after the fire, the ball joint in the left front of the car broke causing $400+ to fix. On our way to this years festival we passed the library downtown and lost the right side tire to the other ball joint. One very loud noise and some fancy driving by my husband later we were double parked on Georgia with tourists posing in front of the car and pointing at the tire. We've since donated the car and joined the Car Co-op with very positive results.

Have you ever been awakened from a deep deep sleep by a creepy crawling sensation? Like say some unknown insect type thing has somehow entered into your ear at the ungodly hour of 3AM?

For those who have pondered this and other survival questions I will tell you:

You get that little bugger out by any means necessary, as fast as you can.

Then you attack your ear canal with an arsenal of things that should never be put into your ear based on years and years of professional medical opinion ie. elbows, q-tips, hot water and hydrogen peroxide if you have it; among a few other things.

What this does, is give you a little peace of mind while you stew over the possibility that the bug you squished out of existence while trying to get it out of your ear canal did not

A: have a friend who got in undetected and is setting up house out of reach of the above mentioned ear contraband.
B: bite you in the ear while you were mercilessly removing it from existance.
C: start to nest in there because you really value the ability to hear things.
or in a related to C option D: come from a nest that was (as in option A) previously undetected by you.

Then you visit a Dr, who thinks your story is very interesting ie. something he's going to tell all his friends in order to make a sensation at his next cocktail party; and examines your ear with that really nifty ear and throat instrument so that he can tell you that everything is clear up there, not even a thin coating of earwax to be found.

Then, and only then do you consider the irony of reading about someone who had a bug crawl into their ear the week before and being totally grossed out by it, and having the same thing happen to you and being totally grossed out by it (or is that irony? Ever since that Alanis Morrisette song I can never tell for sure)

deja vu all over again

When my brother called us on Sunday (something he never ever ever does) it was deja vu all over again for me. I was a little confused for a second or two when he let loose with the news that Dad had had a heart attack. My first thought was of my Dad and then my brain translated for me that Barry, my Step Dad was who he was talking about.

My step Dad has been around for almost 1/2 of my life and I couldn't have asked for a better second Dad. He's rough and gruff and he's treated my sister and me as if we were his family from the start all the while being careful not to try and take my Dad's place. Hearing that he'd been struck down like that was a blow. Not being near enough to know what was going on first hand was really hard.

I've mentioned before that my Dad passed on when he was 36. He had his first heart attack when I was pretty young and heart problems followed him the rest of his life. He had a fairly rare condition that caused his body to produce obscene amounts of cholesteral which would collect in his arteries; which was the cause of death in the end, all of his arteries slowly filled up.

Barry comes home today. With a list of things that need to be changed in his lifestyle and a small handful of pills that need to be taken for a little while and a smaller handful that will be needed for the rest of his life, he's been cleaned out (only the main artery going into his heart was blocked, the surgeons went to work and shunted, ballooned and scraped it out; the rest were all clear and any damage to his heart is at bare minimum) and needs to take a month off of work. It's a hell of a way to add more R&R to his schedule. We are just glad and breathing deep sighs of relief that he's recovering well.

And this, among other things is why my posts this week are a little sparse. I'm hoping to be back on track with my regular posting schedule by next week, in the meantime there is still time to enter my Etsy Anniversary Giveaway. I promise it's a fabulous prize; tell your friends and let me know you did.