One might think there haven’t been any updates in awhile because I’ve been so busy, but one would be wrong. During this last month, I’ve been doing a lot of avoiding actually. Avoiding cleaning out the playroom, avoiding switching the kids’ clothes over from winter to summer (though with weather like this, sometimes sweatshirts and pants have been warranted), avoiding going anywhere I absolutely don’t have to go, avoiding any number of other chores, errands, excursions that probably should be accomplished, and avoiding updating a certain site. Through all the hard work of doing nothing, I’ve now become quite a pro.

While I’ve been busy with nothing, the kids have continued to ask me every single day, without fail, what’s for supper. They are keeping up their end of the family bargain of needing me as soon as I sit down, yelling into a room when I’m on the phone, and leaving as many reminders of their presence in every nook and cranny of the house as possible. They practice music before 8:00 AM, raucously conduct rollerblading hockey games for all the neighbors to hear, request rides for pool playdates, decide anytime after 10pm is the right time for a deep discussion, and some even have the audacity to say they need to be driven to work. 

If you think all of that sounds bad, here’s a short story that’s worse:

There had been a very emotionally and mentally disastrous occasion one evening with one of our children. This unexpected situation was so out of the ordinary and my heart was crying out to the Lord for grace and help. Going to bed with the situation not quite resolved was definitely one of the harder things I’ve had to do lately. 

The morning didn’t seem to bring any new mercies that I could see with my clouded vision. Not only was there no repentance, but now some of my other children were acting out and I was standing in my kitchen wishing for a tropical vacation for one.  Or a redo on parenting–about five year’s worth! Sometime mid-morning, there was a loud crash and then a sprinkling sound coming from the pantry door. Not wanting to immediately rush over to the scene of the crime, both for the sake of the guilty child and myself, I called out, “What spilled?”  

“This thing,” my littlest one replied, holding up my 12” cake pan, “fell over and now there are eyeballs all over the floor.” Naturally. If you don’t have candy eyeballs in the closet that can easily be spilled all over the floor, can you even see the Lord’s mercy in your life? All I could do was laugh and recognize that it was the Providential comic relief I needed in that moment. 

I’m happy to report an apology was issued by the child with the attitude and forgiveness given in return, but I’m leaving some candy eyes on the floor of the pantry. I’m bound to need the sweet reminder of God’s love and care to His own all too soon.

Now that I’ve updated this, I can go back to doing nothing. 

You hear the admonition, “get a second opinion”, a lot when it comes to medical prognoses. Since we listened to Dr. Google first, we figured it was wise to get advice from a real, practicing neurosurgeon before we put all our faith in search result #4. Which turned out to be a good idea because her perspective over the information, symptoms, and scan results was calm, conservative, and competent. 

While Caleb certainly has Chiari Malformation and while there is a bit of fluid around the tip of the spinal column, she isn’t convinced the headaches are caused by these issues. Certain positions of his head didn’t trigger on-the-spot aches in a way that they typically would if you were getting headaches from pressure caused by build-up of cerebrospinal fluid and the crowding of the area by the cerebellar tonsils. 

The doctor would like him to have another scan in six months to catalog any changes, this time with more detail of the spinal canal. Meanwhile, we are to get an appointment with an ophthalmologist to rule out sight issues and continue treating the symptoms on an as-needed basis.  I know I should be happy that Caleb doesn’t need surgery at the moment, but the waiting game is so hard for me. 

Generally, I’m not a go-getter, mission-oriented kind of person like my husband is (how did we end up together?), but now that I know there is a medical issue and my child is suffering, I’m ready to storm the hospital and lay him on the MRI table myself tomorrow. I need answers now and I need Caleb to feel better! I would like to stop asking him his ‘number’ (on the pain scale) every time he asks for medicine. I would like for him to get better sleep and not fall down all the time. I’d like to know definitively if he needs glasses or surgery. I would like to not go through tribulation to gain patience! Please pray that I can rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, and continue in prayer and that Caleb will have a measure of relief from his maladies.

Kids. They keep you busy. They keep you guessing. They keep you humble. They keep you on your knees. And boy have we been on our knees this year.

The road to life and health has been bumpy, to say the least. Jake’s departure for university definitely put a kink in my emotional health, as I learned to navigate life without the lively firstborn around. I had difficulty calling any outing a “family” event since we were minus one. Wherever we were that required me keeping a count and close eye on where all the children were, my tracking would feel off because I couldn’t ever start from the top down: Jake, Isaac, Ellie, Anna,… My prayer life changed as I had to relearn to rest in the knowledge that Jake was (and always has been) in the Lord’s hands, not mine. Jake going off to college seems to be the beginning of a new stage of life for us that involves relinquishing our former role as “law and order” parents and becoming close advisors instead. How thankful we are that he still comes home to eat our food and use Danny’s car.

Following Jake’s exodus to Florida, Anna decided she needed some attention, so she broke her arm. In two places. We did not need to wait in the ER very long as they realized a person with an extra joint in their forearm probably needs immediate medical attention. A long evening was spent in the hospital while x-rays were taken, IVs were inserted, pain medication delivered, sedation administered, a radial bone set in place, and a splint created. The orthopedic surgeon said this type of reduction has a 75% success rate and to wait ten days when another set of x-rays would tell us whether Anna’s procedure fell into the successful category or not. Because Anna likes to be uniquely difficult, the alignment came in at a frustrating 26%.  At the surgeon’s suggestion, we agreed that surgery to insert a pin would give Anna’s bone the best chance of healing straight.

From a full-arm splint, to surgery, to a second splint, to a full-arm cast, to a short arm cast, to an extraction surgery to a brace, Anna spent the entire autumn with her arm protected and useless. Well, not quite. Though she couldn’t bend her arm at the elbow for many weeks, Anna was undeterred in her efforts to learn violin. The full-arm cast served as a prop on which to set the violin, and when her arm was in the short cast, she could just get her fingers to rest on the fingerboard, allowing her to bow several notes and tunes.

If Anna’s ER reduction, surgery to insert a pin, and then a second surgery to remove the pin seems like a lot to you, just wait, because there’s more. During the medical ordeal that was Anna’s broken radius and ulna, James made a very bold statement, “Come on, Anna, it can’t hurt that badly,” to which Anna responded by telling him broken bones were contagious. Modern words were never so prophetic because a month after Anna broke her left arm, James broke his left arm. Though it was his humerus, it wasn’t funny. Would you go out in public with two kids in casts?? James made sure to leave his imprint on our health insurance bill by taking his sweet time to heal. Instead of the quoted “three weeks in a cast”, his arm took a full five weeks to mend. In that time-frame, he had three different casts and I was earning frequent, yet unwanted, flier miles in the orthopedic office with our weekly visits.

When you have multiple children, you run the risk of having multiple gray hairs. Though we are so thankful for the complete healing of those three broken bones, a new concern has arisen. Caleb has been suffering from constant, chronic headaches since September ‘22. His journey began at the pediatrician’s office, moved along to a neurologist, and now he’s being referred to a pediatric neurosurgeon after the results of an MRI he had this past week. It seems his cerebellum extends into his spinal canal, where it clearly does not belong, dipping roughly 5 mm below the base of his skull. This condition is called Chiari Malformation.

Since our appointment with the surgeon hasn’t yet occurred, we do not have many more details about what will happen next, but we have asked Dr. Google all the pertinent questions, which is absolutely always the best idea. Oddly, its bedside manner is fairly poor and the information is confusing at best and scary at worst. In all of my reading on the topic, Caleb’s case is slightly unique given that this defect is more commonly found in women than men, typically discovered while a patient is being seen for other issues, is usually discovered in adolescence or adulthood, and a majority of people with CM are asymptomatic. Caleb clearly doesn’t fit the profile. As we wait for the next doctor’s visit, we value your prayers for clarity on treatment moving forward and for Caleb’s sustained health and comfort in the meantime.

There is encouragement in the fact that our Lord knit Caleb in the womb this way and being “fearfully and wonderfully made” is just as true for him as it is for everyone else. Our family is not the first to experience trials and tribulations, nor will we be the last, but boy do I ever feel like we have some unique children! Truly, these Limited Edition Allans keep us simultaneously on our toes and our knees.