Our big fat, Medical Vacation....

Whew! What a trip: take 2 highly opinionated, creative, active adults and put them with 2 crazy, learning-to-do-everything toddlers and shake 'em all up. Put them in one room at the Ronald McDonald House in Pasadena, California for over 2 weeks and intersperse their stay with medical appointments, a surgery and a procedure and what do you get? Almost but not quite murder...

It was wild but we did have some fun.
Upon arriving, we were checked into our 10' x 10' square room at RMH. It had 1 double bed - that's it for 4 of us. "There must be something wrong!", I assumed, "I called ahead"! But there was literally no room at the Inn for several days so we hunkered down and snuggled up. Zelda slept in a Pak n'Play and well, Creed: he slept in the closet! We made him a little pallet of blankets and after he would fall asleep on our chests at night, we would move him into his little hidey-hole and just leave the door ajar until morning. Of course under the circumstances, he was only 2 feet from our bed so we could see him as he slept. After the first night, the New Jersey in me came out and I immediately put in for a room change. This was not acceptable!

We checked in with Dr Tawansy who delighted in seeing the progress of the twins. Zelda smiled, did her little 'River Dance' steps while Creed charged around his office. Zelda's surgery was scheduled for the next day. It went off without a hitch. He performed a vitrectomy to clean a hemorrhage out of her left eye. Theoretically, her left eye is her 'bad eye' with little chance of vision. The retina was never properly formed and there is little or no vascularization. We have the surgeries to keep her eyes healthy. They seem to be growing despite her micro-opthalmia and Dr Tawansy was able to measure her eyes, photograph them and estimate an appropriate prescription for some new spectacles. Luckily her retinas have remained re-attached (she had retinal re attachments performed last summer). The most difficult part of this most recent surgery was her waking up from the anesthesia - it was harder than ever. She was miserably writhing, crying, trying to rip out her IV and refusing to eat. Of course, you are not allowed to leave the hospital after a day surgery until the child can drink something and Zelda simply refused. I think it's a toddler thing. Creed had a similar reaction this time as well - and never before, in all of their surgeries, have they ever reacted like this. The poor little pumpkins!

We decided to drive to Las Vegas for Memorial Day weekend and stay with Michael & Sean. Michael is Evan's cousin and he lives in an amazing house in an old Vegas neighborhood called the Scotch 80's. They have done a gorgeous job remodeling this over 5000sq ft house and they are excellent hosts. Evan had a few contacts to make - he sold 2 vintage neon signs as home decor - so it was both business and pleasure. We spent a lovely day at the Turnberry Country Club and the twins enjoyed swimming in a very chic and extremely warm swimming pool. Evan & I enjoyed margaritas! The road trip/traffic was hell on the highway from LA to Vegas and back as it was the holiday weekend. Notable sights along the way included: the Converse sneaker outlet in Primm, NV where they twins aquired their first pair of All Stars, the aging "lot lizards" (that would be prostitutes) in Barstow, and the Alien Jerky shop (I loved the combination of selling beef jerky with a Roswell twist) in another little town whose name I have forgotten.

Back to RMH, safe and sound after a long weekend, we readied for another week of day trips around the LA area and visits with Dr Tawansy. (to be continued...)