I Am My Husband's Muse

Most of you know my husband (Joel) is the guy who made the Poo-Pourri commercial. What a lot of people don't know is that the commercial is inspired by me! (He even directed them to color the main actress's hair even more red than it naturally it is to be closer to mine.) Here he is directing Bethany Woodruff in the manure pile at the dairy farm:

But, fortunately--for me and my posterity--I've inspired Joel to write other things, like poetry and a  children's book about how a Lion, the king of the jungle, chooses his queen. Now if Joel will just get it illustrated!

Family Pictures 2018

Taken at Crystal Springs Rhododendron Garden in Portland.

Oskar's Procedure

Oskar hadn't seen a GI doctor since we lived in LA, so for more than a year.  When we moved here that was on my list of things to do so naturally it took six months to get it done.  But I finally did and when the doctor learned how much Zantac Oskar has been on and for how long he wanted to do an upper GI scope to see how things were looking.  

Since we had done this two times before I wasn't too nervous about it, until the night before and then I got emotional.  I didn't really think anything would go wrong but it was still an emotional time and I just felt bad for him.  He's gone through a lot of tough stuff for a guy his age and I felt bad that he had to experience more.  But the anesthesiologist called me the night before to go over everything and that helped calm me down a little.  He went in early in the morning and got put under and got the scope done.  Upon initial inspection the doctor said everything looked good.  I was confused.  Like looked good there were no problems?  No reflux?  What does that mean?  

Last we checked there were no ulcers anymore and no precancerous cells but he still had reflux.  The opening to his stomach was also wide open and we were worried it would have to be fixed with surgery.  That was what we knew with our last scope done in 2015.

But this time he didn't see any evidence of "pathological acid reflux."  I was shocked.  He had been on this medicine for four years and it was so bad it was changing the lining of his esophagus.  The doctor still wanted to see information the probe would give before we developed a new plan for his treatment.

So while he was under they stuck a tube down his nose and throat and into his stomach.  Attached to the probe on the outside was a machine where we recorded when Oskar ate and laid down.  There was also something attached the internal end that measured reflux episodes so we could have an accurate picture of how much reflux he was experiencing.  When he woke up from the anesthesia and the probe was in his body he lost it.  He threw a fit and told all the nurses he hated them.  Joel said it reminded him of when I was in labor.  But after he fully woke up he did much better with the probe and hardly complained about it the whole 24 hours.  

The doctor called me at the end of the week to give me the whole prognosis.  The short of it is that he doesn't have reflux anymore!  It was so crazy and a complete miracle.  There was evidence of some very mild allergic reaction in his upper esophagus but that was it.  I couldn't believe it.  So now we're very slowly weaning him off the medicine and as long as he doesn't have any resurgence of symptoms we don't ever have to worry about it again.  I'm still quite overwhelmed by it all.  Half of the stress that I'm feeling about his health problems have just been taken away, and that is no small thing.  I'm so so grateful he's better and am thankful for all the prayers and fasting by friends and family for him this time and over the years.

More Pictures

More pictures of things that I'm going to want to remember.

Oskar took this picture of Ivy in the backyard.  I think it's quite artistic.

Easter Dinner

Visiting Joel on set of the Zuma Juice commercial when I visited him in LA in April.

The last picture of Oskar before he lost his top tooth.  A week before this he got hit in the face by a swing at the park.  He didn't complain or have any problems until a week later something else must have happened because it got real loose real fast and he kept saying he was eating his tooth.  So we took him to the dentist in GP while we were visiting and he did a quick X-ray and said it was coming out, there was nothing we could do at that point.  So he's going to be toothless for longer than he would have if he lost it naturally but it was coming out sooner or later so it wasn't too upsetting for any of us.

3 months old

Oskar's nearly finished room.  I've changed the curtains since this picture but other than that it's the same and it's DONE!  Now on to the rest of the house...

A beautiful day at the park

One of the flower bushes in our backyard.  Since this is our first spring in the house every time something bloomed in the backyard it was such a wonderful surprise.

His breast friend.

My office area.  I think it turned out quite nice.

They came to visit me while I was going to the bathroom.

Brothers!

We took a break from OMSI and ate our lunch outside on the river.

May 2017

We spend a lot of time out in the backyard when it's not raining, so not nearly as much as we'd like to.

Joel had to take a picture of him in his office for a magazine article so we went through a couple options.  I think they look really cool actually.  You can really get a sense of Joel with these pictures and the carefully placed knick-knacks. 

Date night at Powell's.

Went on a beautiful hike near our house.

Alvie in his Sunday best and Joel trying to give an Alvie expression.

Sweet baby!

Sweet babies!