Ok, So I am back from my two weeks off. I really took them off too. I rarely checked my email and didn't do any blogging at all. Too bad for you I know! Darius has made a fantastic recovery. At our two week appointment after the surgery, the doctor said that his mouth is healing perfectly. That is good news for us for sure. It has been a little difficult the past two weeks keeping him from putting his fingers and stuff he picks up in his mouth but we have persevered. We still have to go until November before he will be allowed harder foods, but he doesn't seem to mind all the pureed stuff:)
I have a nut cake recipe for you today, in fact it is Mrs Wilder's Nut Cake. I asked my grandmother who Mrs. Wilder was, thinking that it was some exotic french chef of some kind. But no, just the lady down the street, Mrs. Wilder. Nice, she does have a mean nut cake recipe though, so here you go:
7 eggs (separate yolks from whites)
1 1/4 cups sugar
2 cups walnuts (ground)
1/2 lemon (juiced)
3 1/4 oz semi sweet chocolate (ground)
1 Tbsp Rum extract (or if you want you can use real Rum)
3 Tbsp bread crumbs
Some kind of jam to put between the two cakes. I have used apricot, raspberry and fig jams, and I have to say the fig is my favorite.
Combine 7 egg yolks and sugar and blend. Add in the remaining ingredients except 7 egg whites and mix. Whip your egg whites and then fold into the mixture. Poor into two 9-inch cake pans. Line your pans with parchment paper first, or your cake will fall apart when you take it out of the pan. Bake at 350 for 30 minutes. It is going to come out very soft so be careful when you take the cakes out of the pan. Once the cakes have cooled a bit, spread your jam over one of the cakes and then top with second cake. Proceed to chocolate sauce below...
Top with a chocolate sauce:
6 1/2 oz semi sweet chocolates
2 Tbsp butter
1/3 cup milk
In a double boiler, melt chocolate, butter and milk together until smooth. Poor over the cake.
I am thinking that the best way to eat this cake would be slightly warm. So enjoy. Picture soon:)
Friday, September 28, 2007
Thursday, September 13, 2007
Recovery
Darius is doing great and has tons of energy. He woke up this morning and was ready to eat, he ended up finishing off a whole jar of sweet potatoes in one sitting around 11:00AM. That is good and might mean the we will be able to head home a little early. We'll see though. We have gone on a couple of walks and he is saying hi to everyone that see him, and even waving as people pass by us. It is pretty cute I must say.
The doctor has not yet stopped by, so hopefully once she sees how well he is doing she will be inclined to let us go. It is kinda tough to be in the hospital room all day, pretty boring for ViviAnne and I and very boring for Darius. There is not much for him to do here and he is getting pretty antsy.
The doctor has not yet stopped by, so hopefully once she sees how well he is doing she will be inclined to let us go. It is kinda tough to be in the hospital room all day, pretty boring for ViviAnne and I and very boring for Darius. There is not much for him to do here and he is getting pretty antsy.
Wednesday, September 12, 2007
Surgery
8:35AM - My son is in surgery. Right now. They (the doctors) took him away about a half hour ago. I kissed him on his head as he went in to have the cleft in his pallet repaired. The surgery is suppose to take around 3 hours. I am happy that so many people have called us and talked to us today and yesterday offering up prayers for Darius and ViviAnne and I. It warms my heart! I took a picture of him this morning before he went it to surgery. 
Amazingly, he slept through all the pre-op for the surgery. They even had to draw blood for an HnH test and he slept through that as well. (My friend Mike just called too. We have good friends, no doubt.)
11:36AM - Darius is still in surgery, but will be out shortly. Updates say that he has done well and the the surgery has gone well. It is a little over the estimated time of three hours, but not unusually long for this type of repair. Right now ViviAnne and I are sitting in the waiting room and waiting for the doctor to come in and tell us how everything went in some detail. Maybe in 30 minutes or so.
1:05PM - Well, it was more than 30 minutes, but he is done with his surgery. We spoke with the doctor and she was very pleased with how well it all went. She said that she feels that the repair is very good and that he was just great throughout the whole process. Right now we are still in the waiting room anxiously awaiting Jan, who will take us back to see him once he is starting to wake up. The doctor said that he did wake up, but he tore out the IV, so they put him back under general anesthesia to put a new one back in. So he is at least as feisty as ever:) So, his total time in the surgery was around 4:30 hours. A little long for two fretting parents, but we will survive. Luckily, there is a bed in the room that he will be in, so ViviAnne or I will be able to stay the night with him.
We also know that for the next day he will be on liquids and then tomorrow afternoon, we can start to introduce some pureed foods. If all goes well we may be able to leave a little earlier than we thought. It all depends on him, he is tough!
4:19PM - We are now in the recovery room at Sacred Heart. He is in the intermediate care unit. His pain is pretty high, and he is on a pretty steady cocktail of drugs to keep him pain free and sleepy. I have a picture of him here... Let me explain all the cords. First, after getting out of surgery, he pulled out the IV. Then he got really pissed and it took the nurses 7 tries (30 minutes) to put it back in, so he has quite a few needle pokes in his arms and legs. They ended up getting an IV into his neck and have taped it up and even sutured it in place. Yes, that's right, they stitched his IV to his neck. Fun. There is also a suture in his tongue with the thread still attached, so that if there are some breathing problems they can pull his tongue out of the way to help him breath. He managed to already get his fingers tangled up in the thread and started to pull on his tongue. That was not pleasant either. Now he is sleeping though and the discharge and mucus from the repair site is subsiding. We also put socks on his hands and taped them on so he can't get them into his mouth or get his fingers tangled up in the cords or stitch in his tongue. We will try some liquids tomorrow morning I think.
8:50PM - Well, good news for us, Darius started drinking liquids already. He had kinda woke up for a bit, but was pretty fussy, and we just kinda decided to try it. He ended up drinking about 5oz of pedialite. He did great too, actually taking drinks like a normal person with a normal pallet. It was fun to watch and then he was in a good mood for a couple of minutes and I was able to play peek-a-boo with him for a little bit. He was smiling and everything. Very good!
I am signing off for tonight, will talk more tomorrow and post a recipe for a couple of days ago:)
Amazingly, he slept through all the pre-op for the surgery. They even had to draw blood for an HnH test and he slept through that as well. (My friend Mike just called too. We have good friends, no doubt.)
11:36AM - Darius is still in surgery, but will be out shortly. Updates say that he has done well and the the surgery has gone well. It is a little over the estimated time of three hours, but not unusually long for this type of repair. Right now ViviAnne and I are sitting in the waiting room and waiting for the doctor to come in and tell us how everything went in some detail. Maybe in 30 minutes or so.
1:05PM - Well, it was more than 30 minutes, but he is done with his surgery. We spoke with the doctor and she was very pleased with how well it all went. She said that she feels that the repair is very good and that he was just great throughout the whole process. Right now we are still in the waiting room anxiously awaiting Jan, who will take us back to see him once he is starting to wake up. The doctor said that he did wake up, but he tore out the IV, so they put him back under general anesthesia to put a new one back in. So he is at least as feisty as ever:) So, his total time in the surgery was around 4:30 hours. A little long for two fretting parents, but we will survive. Luckily, there is a bed in the room that he will be in, so ViviAnne or I will be able to stay the night with him.
We also know that for the next day he will be on liquids and then tomorrow afternoon, we can start to introduce some pureed foods. If all goes well we may be able to leave a little earlier than we thought. It all depends on him, he is tough!
4:19PM - We are now in the recovery room at Sacred Heart. He is in the intermediate care unit. His pain is pretty high, and he is on a pretty steady cocktail of drugs to keep him pain free and sleepy. I have a picture of him here... Let me explain all the cords. First, after getting out of surgery, he pulled out the IV. Then he got really pissed and it took the nurses 7 tries (30 minutes) to put it back in, so he has quite a few needle pokes in his arms and legs. They ended up getting an IV into his neck and have taped it up and even sutured it in place. Yes, that's right, they stitched his IV to his neck. Fun. There is also a suture in his tongue with the thread still attached, so that if there are some breathing problems they can pull his tongue out of the way to help him breath. He managed to already get his fingers tangled up in the thread and started to pull on his tongue. That was not pleasant either. Now he is sleeping though and the discharge and mucus from the repair site is subsiding. We also put socks on his hands and taped them on so he can't get them into his mouth or get his fingers tangled up in the cords or stitch in his tongue. We will try some liquids tomorrow morning I think.
8:50PM - Well, good news for us, Darius started drinking liquids already. He had kinda woke up for a bit, but was pretty fussy, and we just kinda decided to try it. He ended up drinking about 5oz of pedialite. He did great too, actually taking drinks like a normal person with a normal pallet. It was fun to watch and then he was in a good mood for a couple of minutes and I was able to play peek-a-boo with him for a little bit. He was smiling and everything. Very good!
I am signing off for tonight, will talk more tomorrow and post a recipe for a couple of days ago:)
Monday, September 10, 2007
It happened at the Fair
Hey Y'all!Me and the family went to the county fair this weekend. It was fun. We started off with some tractor climbing activities and then moved over to the rides. I think this was Liam's first roller coaster ride. I was going to go with him, but the seat was so small that I couldn't fit. It was just for little kids anyway:)
He went right to the front and sat behind a big dragon head. It was pretty cool! Luckily, our neighbors were also there and Liam and Kiara rode on a car together with Asa. His very first ride also. Now that I think about it, they went on bumper cars a couple of weekends ago, while we were in Joseph, OR. Lots of rides lately for them:)
After we used up all our tickets, we headed back to the tractors and got some food to eat. I like fair food, everything is fried! We headed back home around bedtime. It was a good trip.
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