Sea World Photos

San Diego

Today was a travel day, after a terrific day at the San Diego Zoo yesterday.  What a great place.  It is the best zoo we’ve ever been to – including a great one in China and the awesome Sydney Zoo.  San Diego blew them both away (although Amy really liked the Sydney Zoo too).  They had a ton of animals, there were about 2 zillion people there (based on the parking lot) but it didn’t seem crowded, the place was super clean, and it seemed like every square yard was either filled with animals or was carefully landscaped with botanical gardens. 

One cool thing – it is built into hills so a lot of the exhibits have multiple levels – look at the hippos from ground level, or go down below and look through the glass to see the other hippos swimming around.  We were there for six or seven hours and there are big chunks that we didn’t even begin to see.  Only major issue – easy for a Magellan like me to get lost J  There was a small bit of left wing indoctrination, but nobody claimed that my brother is a killer whale (see Sea World post).  This was piker propaganda compared to Sea World, which was so over the top I was embarrassed for them.  Back to the zoo – it was DEFINITELY worth the exhaustion that resulted from the day.
Today, we travelled from San Diego and took a leisurely journey up to Anaheim, a stone’s throw from Disney.  We rolled through La Jolla, which lived up to its rep as a beautiful place.  We stopped and showed the kids the ocean, and almost lost a couple in the process (sometimes those waves turn out to be a little bigger than you think when they’re rolling in J).  We walked out onto the beach and the kids got to stick their feet in the ocean – though it was only about 65 degrees outside, and the water was a wee bit chilly, so it was not even tempting to jump in.  Three and Four foot breakers were coming in and they must have seemed huge to the kids, from their vantage point – not the best place to swim anyway I guess.  We started out wet to our ankles…knees, and then a biggie came in totally unexpected and we all had to change pants in the van...the kids loved it though and hopefully we get a chance to go back to the ocean before we leave.  They would love to hunt for sea shells... 

From there, it was on to Oceanside to see the not so famous birthplace of…me.  I would say that our former house now looks like a crack house, but I don’t want to actually insult any crack dealers that try to keep their place up.  The area is a valley that leads to the ocean, and the mountains on either side are beautiful still, but the valley has been paved over with strip malls and people that don’t take much care of their property.  I got a photo in front of the house, but we skeedaddled before any shots rang out (I forgot, guns are illegal in this crime-free state, so I’m sure crack dealers don’t have anything like that.  I guess they would have shot spitwads or thrown water balloons at me, which I did NOT want to stick around for either).

We went on one other historic stop on the Greg Falkowski personal history tour.  This one was awfully cool – we visited Mission San Luis Rey de Francia, which means Saint Louis King of France (same guy who got the town with the arch named after him).   He was Saint King Louis IX, to be exact, and was a Crusader King in the 13^th Century known for his care for the poor of France.  He gave up his comfort and much of his fortune, as well as his life, in trying to take back the Holy Land from the Muslims that ruled it, terrorizing and enslaving (and worse, if you were a young woman or a child) the Christian occupants and pilgrims.  The crusade failed and Louis died in the process, but he was such a well-loved, holy Frenchman that he was canonized within 25 years of his death, and the Spaniards named this place after him.  Interesting in our current day when few (I can’t think of any, can you??) Frenchmen are well-liked outside of France. 

This Spanish Mission was founded in 1798, 48 years before this territory belonged to the good old U-S-A.  It’s a beautiful mission church, wonderfully preserved.  They built a larger church on the grounds because the parish has 5,000 families – wow – and it is too small to use for Sunday Mass, but they use it for weddings and funerals.  Franciscans monks still live on the grounds, and run a retreat center and a cemetery there.  We spoke to one of the monks and some of the old folks that were there to show people around, run the museum, assist with the retreat center, and run a very impressive little gift shop. 

From there to dinner in Laguna Beach with Amy’s lifelong friend Lisa Hadley.  Laguna Beach is a much more picturesque little seaside town just inside the southern edge of Orange County.  Average net worth:  4 zillion dollars / Average working hours per day: Zilch (hence the large number of surfers and people sitting around drinking in the middle of the day – I certainly cannot blame them – this place was very cool!). 

Anyhow, it was a beautiful beach and town.  Kids enjoyed their seaside hot dogs and grilled cheese, and I enjoyed the hot fudge brownie (covered in vanilla ice cream of course), even though I was forced by a guilty conscience to share it with some little kids who thought more of my dessert than all the ocean views and Land Rovers in Laguna Beach combined.  They may have been on to something, because it was a darn good dessert. 

On to Peter, our whole reason for this trip.  He has been doing great and recovering well.  The first thing he did when he met Amy’s friend, was whip up his hat to try and show her his ear!  It will be so interesting to witness his reaction when he can see it in the mirror.  Tomorrow (Friday) all of the dressing comes off and he gets washed up (I think) which is good because he is really starting to get an itchy head!  We are excited to see it and I know Amy will get some photos, whether she can get them posted to the blog though is different story!

Photos on the blog...

Sorry,  I am having a frustrating time trying to upload photos to the blog and it is driving me crazy...will post some photos when I can ~ for some reason, it is taking a long time to load one photo and I can't even get that to happen...

Our Weekend Update

We spent the weekend in the same Hollywood condo that we have been in, and left Monday afternoon after Peter’s doctor’s appointment.

The weekend was pretty uneventful – on Saturday we hopped in the car and drove to the main strip where they have all the stars in the sidewalk, and places where people put their handprints / footprints in the cement.  Some very old ones in there.  The awe and reverence with which people view some of this stuff is pretty disturbing.  Honestly, I can’t think of one person who is that darn impressive.  There were performers out there who want you to give them tips to take pictures with them – some dope dressed up like Spiderman (we got a photo with Samuel but Amy played dumb about the tip, since he didn’t say anything until after we took the photo), and a super dope who gussied himself up to look just like Michael Jackson.  There was a huge crowd around that cat, and I murmured perhaps just a bit too loud “I thought we were done with this weirdo”.  Insensitive, I know.  Anyhow, we stopped in a Disney Store there for some ice cream.  I think it’s such an irony that these three kids who are oh so colorful, when confronted with a menu of endless chocolate sauce/whip cream/craziness, all wanted vanilla ice cream in a bowl.

Other than the celebrity worshippers, stars on cement, weird people and the ice cream, the only other thing were the same stores that are in every single shopping mall in the country.  If you parachuted in there you wouldn’t know if you were in Novi, MI, Nome, AK, or Hollywood.

On Sunday, we decided to go to Griffith Park, which I found online.  It is in the mountains overlooking the Hollywood area – the website said there was a train for kids, a merry-go-round, and the Griffith Observatory.  We never made it to the observatory – there was 5 jillion people there – but I can tell you that when we were in Griffith Park there was no doubt that we were NOT in Novi or Nome.  Tijuana maybe.  Let’s just say that it was a little slice of the 3^rd world. 

When I got terribly lost the kids’ anticipation built up and when we finally found the train we had no choice but to go ride it.  It would be best termed the “Poo-Poo Express”.  It was a one mile loop around the pony stalls, and while most of the passengers probably didn’t notice the smell as being any different than their neighborhoods, it was a bit on the yucky side.  The train itself was dirty, rickety, with chipped paint, and it seemed to waddle down the track, going especially slow when it neared the biggest piles of pony poop.  I couldn’t help thinking that that is what mass transit would belike in America.  Please somebody drill, or find a way to pop a ball of uranium J.  We all felt (well the grown-ups  anyway) icky afterwards, but at the end of the ride, Peter threw up his hands in the air clapping it was worth the suffering…I think…

On Monday we took Peter to his appointment and he did a fantastic job.  First of all – the doctors are great, but they are not exactly “people of the clock” (in other words, we had to wait an hour and a half to get in there) and we had the whole clan with us.  By the time we got in there, we had already had to drag Isaac out of the little playroom in the waiting area a couple of times (he has been a bit of a pain in the dupa on this trip, incidentally.  I think Peter is enjoying this in his own little way J)  Anyhow, the Chinese Taz (we are in a Looney Toons phase around here) did awesome.  They took the drainage tubes out of his head and he hardly even winced.  They also took some of the bandage off of his head, so he no longer shines bright green.  He now has a very fly black Nike head cover thing, like the rasta dudes wear on their heads under the football helmet.  Poor kid, he went from looking like he popped out of a lamp to looking like a (Chinese) Black Panther.

One fascinating thing that we noticed while waiting at the office was that Peter very carefully studied an older kid who had one normal ear and one ear with microtia-atresia (like Peter).  Peter was staring at his atresia ear, and then walked around (at a distance, such that the kid didn’t seem to notice) to the normal ear, then back again.  It was the first sign of any real awareness from Peter, and I think a sign that this is as good a time as any to start this process.

Peter is feeling great – he was jumping off the couch (ignoring the blood and goop-filled drainage bags dangling out of little holes in head his) on Sunday already, and really has snapped back fast.

Monday night, we drove down to San Diego from LA.  It took nearly 4 hours, most of it sitting in LA rush hour traffic.  Wow was that fun.  Words can’t even say – everything was just ugly, dirtly, and crammed 5 lanes wide with cars that were just sitting there.  It was funny – once we got to Orange County, though, the traffic opened up and it looked like someone took a fire hose and case of lemon pledge to the joint.  Our experience proves that the most unrealistic thing in the show “24” was not Jack Bauer disarming nukes with a ballpoint pen MacGyver-style, it was the fact that he didn’t spend several episodes each season just listening to the local soft rock station in LA traffic.

Today we went to Sea World and enjoyed it.  We got a bunch of stern, condescending warnings about taking care of the environment, the ocean is our friend blah blah, and that animals are our brothers (that one seemed like a stretch).  It struck me as interesting that we were getting this stuff from people who make millions keeping 5 killer whales in a 100 foot wide fish tank for their whole lives.  I don’t feel guilty, but it seems like they might???  Anyhow, silly progressive platitudes (they even had songs playing during the whale show) about brotherhood with fish aside, it was a great day and a very nice park.  It was big, but not too big, crowded but very clean, and there were tons of things to do and look at.  A funny moment on the way there, we drove past a beach area and Isaac said (to Samuel) “look at all that sand!”.  Samuel, in a very “you’re such a silly young kid” tone, said, “That’s why they named this SanD-iego Isaac”.  Isaac seemed to accept his logic and neither one asked why we were cracking up.  How fun.  Samuel is very excited – 3 more sleeps until Drew and Aunt Lisa show up to go to Disney!  Amy will do a seperate post with some Sea World photos but here are some from Hollywood and the last photo ~ the boys have a picnic breakfast in the hotel room since there was no table (Samuel's idea).

Peter's Surgery Update

So, today was THE big day for Peter, and by extension, for us.  Today was the day he got his ear!  We got an early start this morning up and out of the house by 5:45 AM to get to the Cedar-Sinai outpatient surgical center, which is about 15 minutes away.  Last night, Peter’s birthday, he had a big dinner so didn’t really quibble about not eating when he woke up. 

We got him in there and they started their usual barrage of questions…”you have insurance, right?  Can we see your card?  Who is your employer?  How about that card again?  Sign Here.  If you don’t have insurance pleas sign here and certify that you are undocumented so we can perform whatever you need anyway and send the bill to Sacramento” (like the 42 people who already photocopied our card would have let us get to this point if we didn’t??  I wanted to tell them to send the bill to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, or maybe to Bart Stupak’s house, but I refrained.)   Actually, they were all very nice today – this is more reflective of my overall experience with these folks.

Dr. L bounded into the room full of energy at about 6:30 this morning – her enthusiasm is as infectious as it is unnatural, but hey, this lady loves what she does and it (along with the several hours we’ve already spent talking to her) gave us great comfort to hand Peter over for this procedure.  Just like with the atresia repair (that wasn’t really repaired) in March, he got absolutely loaded from the loopy kool aid they gave him at the start.  Stick him in East Lansing in a flannel shirt and a Budweiser cap, and he was me circa 1993.  Smiling at all the ladies, blubbering about nothing in particular, laughing at his own mumblings.  At least he was cute, though, and adjective which I cannot claim for myself J  Let’s hope he gets it all out of his system by the time he has two ears – it will save him a boat load of embarrassment and money that would otherwise be spent on Shark Bowls (don’t ask Mom).  Here are some photos of our loopy boy before surgery.

When they examined him, the anesthesiologist asked if anyone has ever mentioned that he had a heart murmur.  He asked “does he have trouble keeping up with other children?  Has he ever turned blue when he runs around?  Is he a low energy child?”  We politely suppressed a belly laugh and explained that these symptoms didn’t apply.  Anyhow, his pediatrician noticed this some time back as well, but wasn’t concerned.  The anesthesiologist said we should have an ultrasound done on his heart when we get home though as he felt it was a fairly loud murmur, something they would keep an eye on during surgery. 

Peter officially went back with Dr. Lewin at about 7:15 AM, after she traced Amy’s ear on a piece of clear plastic (remember, she was NOT interested in giving the boy my ears J) and that was the last we saw of him until about 5 o’clock.  Throughout the day they called us periodically to let us know how things were going, and were always very reassuring.  Everything turned out great – they were able to get a great slice of skin from his scalp because he has lots of very active blood vessels in the right layer (e.g. with no hair follicles).  I couldn’t help but think that the Iroquois would be impressed with how much more precise a laser is than a tomahawk.  Then again, I think they had a different objective, but I was dazzled by it.  Dr. L actually showed us a picture of his ear before she bandaged it all up and it looked amazing.  She will email us the picture, probably sometime over the weekend, and we will post.   The photos were nice because there was no swelling yet, no purple bruising yet, no dry icky scabs yet…all things to come.  It will look worse before it looks better.

She is a great doctor but also great with kids.  Peter brought his little stuffed dog which he calls “Puppy” with him, and she actually took the dog and bandaged him up the same way as Peter.  It was hilarious, and Peter was pretty excited.  When we got home though, Samuel was very confused.  “Why does the dog have a bandage?” as he tried to rip it off and see.  “What happened to the dog’s ear?” (Meanwhile Peter is being carried in half mummified with bags of blood draining from his scalp into not-so-little  balloons and Samuel barely noticed.)  We explained that they just wanted the dog to look like Peter so he would smile, and Samuel just didn’t’ get it.  “But WHAT IS WRONG WITH THE DOG’S EAR?!!!”.  He finally gave up, concluding that we had a screw loose for giving a healthy dog a bandage.  He finally asked what the red balloons were dangling from Peter’s head.  We told him “blood”, and he immediately grimaced and turned to the cherry flavored pedialyte on the table and asked very seriously “What is in the cup?”.

After being under for so long today, Peter was pretty groggy, but he was in good spirits overall.  He had a little to eat, barfed if up, waited a while, and then tried some more which he kept down, but was really doing well.  The skin graft spot on his head and groin seemed to bother him which nothing else in particular seemed to at all.  He is really a trooper.  He just took it right n stride.  Really amazing.

One bit of good/bad news was that, while she was able to repair the outer hole on the left ear that he had done in March, she noted that the ear canal was very tiny and suggested that before we get his left ear done that we consider actually having it filled in.  She said that it is so narrow, she can't imagine much sound getting in.  If she’s right, this could complicate our timeline significantly, and also involve more surgery for Peter.  On a day when so much was accomplished for him, it’s hard to get too down on this note, but we are very disappointed about this.  We will have to balance whether the risk and maintenance of keeping it open (e.g. cleanings, possibility that it closes back up after he has an ear there – which would complicate things) against the potential benefit (we will have to test his hearing and see whether any real amount of sound is getting in there.  

Anyhow, we are very grateful for your prayers, and Peter could continue to use them of course as his ear, ear, and stomach/head (where the skin grafts came from) continue to heal.
  
Tomorrow, if Peter is feeling OK, we are going to get out of dodge, since the pride march rolls through town and I do not want to see any more dude-on-dude PDA (the other day pretty much exceeded my lifetime quota). Of all the weekends. I believe I speak for the silent majority when I say that I want the rainbow back. Anyhow, enough ranting.  We will let you know how he does through the night and tomorrow but so far, so good!

We are in California! (By Greg)

Here we are in West Hollywood in the Golden State of Mexifornia.  If you could have only seen/heard/smelled LAX yesterday – I’m telling you that Emma Lazarus would have recanted out of sheer revulsion, though after 5 hours on a strangely warm, yucky (like gum under the armrest yucky), old  Spirit Air plane with the 3 little hoodlums (who barely slept) we weren’t exactly representing too well for the natives ourselves J.  We were so ragged I probably would have kicked us out. 

It took a while to get to the house / apartment we rented, and I was relieved that about 3 miles before we got here the Bud Light billboards suddenly turned to English.  That would have been good enough for me, but the ads for sudsy refreshing beverages were quickly replaced with weird fashion billboards everywhere.  They were apparently advertising clothes, but clothes seemed to be strangely absent in most cases. (I am glad the boys are 2-5 years old and not 12 to 15).   Samuel made the comment 'boy there sure are a lot of 'things' in California!', I am sure a reaction to all of the signs, billboards, colors, lights, and just 'stuff' everywhere.

We had to drive right through Beverly Hills to get here, and almost every place had a giant rainbow flag out front (even Wells Fargo for goodness sake).  Anyhow, it’s easy to make a list of restaurants to avoid at least.  I do believe that this place could make even a proud resident of metropolitan Sodom / Gomorrah blush.  The only indication that there are any straight men here were the giant neon signs flashing “Totally Nude Girls” outside one place.  When that is the most respectable business in town you really know you are somewhere special.
 
Today, on our way to the doctor’s office I saw what might be one of the strangest things I’ve ever seen.  It was certainly the grossest (even worse than when I saw the Chinese lady in Guangzhou encourage her kid with buttless pants go poo-poo in the park-park – I believe I stated my revulsion in the old blog archives back in January ‘10).  We drove past a bar that had a large patio right out on the street, and there was a dude showing another dude his abs (seriously – you can’t make this stuff up).  Well, creepy dude #2 literally bent down and kissed creepy dude #1’s stomach.  It made me throw up in my mouth.  If the window would have been down I would have leaned out and made it official.  Also saw a store called the “the leather & fetish shop” and it had mannequins doing things which would shock Boy George.  I couldn’t believe it.  It made me long to go back to the neighborhood with Bud Light en Espanol. I don’t think those folks would have put up with this!  As soon as we leave, this place can break off and float on over to China!

Anyhow, enough about the culture of depravity and on to the happy, slightly nervous business at hand!  We are gearing up for Peter’s big day on Friday.  We had his pre-op appointment today and the doctor and her P.A. spent about 90 minutes with us going over the plan for Friday’s 8-hour surgery, and making some tactical decisions, like where to get the skin graft from, and how to minimize scarring, etc.  It’s quite amazing the kind of time they put in – and they seem like truly wonderful people. 

One thing is clear, they do good work, and they sure seem to enjoy what they do (from the looks of the office, with fancy hardwood floors, granite countertops, and jazzy art all over the place, they are well-compensated for it, too – and I don’t mind a bit, since it’s a bit of a niche skill but awfully handy if you happen to be born without ears).  We met a boy and his mother that were there to get ready for his second ear to be done as well.  The kind nurse translated since they only spoke Spanish, but this kid’s ear looked GREAT and they seemed very nice ~ I think he was about 3 months post-op. 

Looks like the plan is to use some skin from Peter’s head and his abdomen for the surgery.  Back-up plan should they need more skin is from the arm.  The stomach skin is usually avoided since it can grow hair when the kids get older, but they said the risk is minimal for Asian kids.  They like the stomach since it is a very similar skin tone to that of the ear, and it will be used to cover the back of his new ear.  The skin from his head will be sliced so thin and with such precision as to take a layer that contains no hair follicles.  Amazing!  This will be the skin on the front of his ear, again due to skin tone.

A funny moment occurred near the end of the appointment, when the doctor looked at Amy and I for a second and said that she normally uses one of the parents’ ears as her model for the child.  She paused and looked at me, clearly worried about my reaction, and said “…I think we are going to use mom’s for this”.  Amy and I burst out laughing.  I told her that if we came this far and went to this much trouble and expense for him to have ears like mine, we’d be a bit disappointed.  Talk about going from one extreme to the next!  From nothing to a 3-inch wide ear shooting out the side of his head might be too much change for any child to bear J  At least we know that Doc L has good taste in ears! J   

Tomorrow, we are taking the boys to Universal Studios ~ and it is Peter’s birthday so hopefully, he has a fun day before his surgery!  Please keep him in your prayers!

(by amy) ~   I will try and get some photos tomorrow to post of the boys at Universal Studios...

Post atresia repair update! (by Greg)

It’s been a while, and we’re right here in the thick of things so it’s a good time to update everyone on what’s going on.  Last post indicated how upset we were that Peter’s left ear hole was so small and appeared to be closing up before our very eyes…I don’t have to be an MD to know when a hole is not a hole, but just to remove all doubt, Dr. T (who performed the procedure) confirmed that it ain’t a hole no more (shocking).  Essentially, it has to be opened up, which could derail his ear construction surgery on that side by several months.

Luckily, the physician that is performing Peter’s right ear construction has agreed to make the modifications (i.e. make the outter hole bigger) necessary while she’s in there building him a right ear.  In the end, it’s very frustrating but it will work out for him, hopefully sooner rather than later. 

It has been pretty interesting how the U-M folks have become quite sour toward us ever since we decided not to get the rib graft surgery to build Peter’s ears, which would have required at least 10 surgeries and have forced us to wait to even begin for several years e.g. long after Peter is old enough to notice / be bothered by his situation, and long after the fraud-pedaling, politician-greasing, racketeering joint that I work for sees its “client” (CEO Barack Obama) go officially bankrupt and decline to provide half decent health insurance (or perhaps they will take one for the team – er client – and just sign us all over to Obamacare).  Long and short of it…waiting around for the U-M folks to craft ears that look like pork chops and put junior through years of painful and unsightly surgery would be completely stupid.  Yet the same people that stroll into work with 50 more IQ points than I’ll ever see and who do mostly incredible things (pork chop attachment being a notable exception) inside people’s heads can’t seem to see it.  They’ve been cranky with us lately over our decision to go vegetarian and have the Medpor procedure done.

OK – enough of the rant.  Dr. Lewin from posh Beverly Hills (as in Jed and Granny rather than 13 & Southfield, for you mitten-minded folks) will save the day, and do it before the sky falls and Peter realizes that he has yet another hurdle to overcome.  Amy had talked to Dr. Lewin several times prior to leaving for CA and was impressed and liked her more each time.   We truly feel this is the right decision for our family.

Stay tuned...

(by Amy) ~ By the way, Dr. T rated Peter an '8' on his left ear and said he wouldn't have marked down any for a 'narrow' ear canal as Dr. Roberson's evaluation stated.  Dr. T said he has opened areas with less room than he had for Peter and been successful in recovering hearing...we can only wait, hope and pray Peter is one of those people...what is done, is done.  The reason for Greg's rant above, when I took Peter for his 2nd follow up, that is when Dr. T told me the meatus (outer ear part) needed to be opened more and asked if Dr. Lewin might do it in CA (UGG, I was NOT happy about that either) when she does the right Medpor...he graciously (and was very genuine) wished us luck in CA.  When I expressed my nervousness, he said ...'well, I tried to talk you out of it'.  GEESE!  Come on!  Enough already.