Nothing Says, "Ready for International Travel," like, "Shayna Needs a Liver Biopsy."

I wrote this at 8pm on Thursday May 12, 2011 but blogger was down for maintenance so I'm posting it now.

I've been wanting to do a quick update for while so I'd at least have something recent before our trip to Israel.  Well, there's nothing like a little stress to make me want to write.  Since I'm short on mental capacity and need to preserve a little for some packing/planning tonight, I'll give a short version of the last 36 hours.  Keep in mind, we're planning on leaving for Israel this Saturday.

We did labs with Shayna on Monday.  Yesterday afternoon I received a call from her stand in coordinator Nicole, "Shayna's [liver numbers] are elevated.  The doctors want her to have a liver biopsy."  Luckily, I've learned how to function well in a dead panic.  We were able to schedule a biopsy in Roanoke for 8:15am today with a 6:15 check in time.  Nahum and I packed the kids into the car at 5:30am and the 3 of us set off on this mornings adventure.  Elijah chose today as the day not to sleep well in his car seat but Shayna was an angel with the nurses getting her ready.  Once Shayna was out, Elijah and I went to our room upstairs on the pediatric floor so he could nap (a whopping 25 minutes after being up for 3 hours).  As expected, Shayna announced her return well before I could see her (that girl has some lungs).  (She had to be carried back as she tried to climb out of the crib to escape the nurses and look for me.)  This was followed by Dr. O, "We couldn't get the biopsy."  He couldn't get a clear enough picture around all the big veins in the portion of an adult liver in a toddler's body and the people with the special ultrasound equipment aren't available until Monday.  I then track down Nicole, she works quickly to get us another biopsy appointment for tomorrow (Friday) in Pittsburgh at 10am with an 8:30 checkin.  (As I lay out the new plan for Nahum, I am greatly relieved when he tells me he's coming with us.)  With the new plan in place, we head home to wait for the LFTs taken this morning with her pre-surgery labs in the hope that they will be better.  Halliluiah!  All 3 numbers improved enough to cancel the new biopsy, but the 3rd not quite enough to totally get us out of the woods.  We will be doing labs again on Saturday morning and packing like we're all going to Israel.  The lab results will probably come back as we're driving to the airport or checking in.  At that point one of 2 things will happen: 1) the numbers will have continued to improve and we will all happily board the plane.  2) The numbers will be worse.  A biopsy will be required.  Elijah and I will board the plane and Nahum and Shayna will go back home to go to Pittsburgh Sunday for a biopsy Monday.  They will then join Elijah and I later in the week.  The airline will move the tickets but will move us to a day that's convenient for them.  With just space needed for 2 people, this will allow more flexibility in the date but they would probably come a full week later according to what we learned today.

So, as you can see, our life continues to hold a small bit of excitement.  At least Elijah took an unusual 2hr nap in the afternoon so I could nap also.  

Besides that Elijah continues to be a beautiful, healthy, smiley baby who adores his Ima and Shayna gets smarter every day.

My wonderful thumb sucker.  I love it that he sucks his thumb as it's such an effective self-soothing mechanism.

Check out the mobil.  He gets freaked out by it pretty quickly but it's fun to watch him watch it before that point.

We spend a lot of time out side playing with water and a little time peeing in the grass (no pants).