Tummy Wog / Beach Condo / Brain Surgery / National Novel Writing Month

#1 · May 1, 2006, 9:17 am

Quote from Forum Archives on May 1, 2006, 9:17 am
Posted by: homenews <homenews@...>
Dear friends,

I hope you enjoyed the "Our Readers Write" edition that I sent a couple of days ago. I am sending out a review of Systematic Mathematics in a few minutes, and will try to send out more reviews by the end of the month -- at least before the Florida home school convention! After that, I plan to take the summer off from any significant amount of writing. You may get a tidbit or a book excerpt from me, but that will be about it until September. I've got a lot to do over the summer to catch up on home projects, behavior issues and lesson planning!

Our family seems to be over the "tummy wog" (as Australian reader Joanne Sadler calls it), though I did stay home from church with the little ones yesterday just in case. Melody's tummy is still wobbling, though not wogging. 🙂   We're hoping that we can make it to the beach for a few days next week, Lord willing.

Becky Kelly wanted to let you all know that, "Praise God", her condo in New Smryna Beach is now booked up through mid-September, so you don't need to call about any rentals before then. She still weeks open from then until December 31. You may contact her at 407-221-0947 or 407-321-8313, visit her web site at www.kellyskondo.com or e-mail her at [email protected].

I have a prayer request for our family.   On Monday, in the midst of my children being sick, I got a call from my sister Barb Dell that she has been diagnosed with a brain tumor, which is presumed benign but needs to be removed. As soon as the surgery is scheduled, I will be making plane reservations to spend several days up in Maryland with our family. (I'll take Melody with me, since no one has seen her except my Mom and Dad.) Please pray the scheduling is resolved quickly. We are really hoping for May 16. It would be easier for me to let Barb explain the exact details, so I am enclosing her e-mail which had the subject line of "I'm going to give that doctor a piece of my mind..."

Dear family,

   Contrary to recent rumors, the MRI and CAT scans I had in February did NOT show that I have no brain. They did show, however, that there is something there that's not supposed to be. The doctors think it is a "Schwannoma of the Vidian nerve" - in English, a benign tumor growing on a nerve, behind my right eye socket.    http://www.emedicine.com/RADIO/topic7.htm

   It's fairly small, about 1.5 cm. They gave me the choice of "wait and see" or "go forth and conquer." The problem with the "wait and see" approach is that there is a small chance that the tumor is malignant, and even a benign tumor can cause serious problems. The problem with the "go forth and conquer" approach is that the tumor is in a fairly inaccessible location, and the surgery itself has some risks.   They'll have to go through my nose and rearrange my sinuses to get to it. The doctors feel that the risks of the surgery are less than the risks of not having
it, so we've decided to go forth and conquer. "I'm going to give that doctor a piece of my mind..." Get it?

   There is lots of good news here. I have the chairman of the neurosurgery department at the University of Maryland AND the chairman of the ENT department both doing the surgery. I'll be in the hospital for one night, and out of work for about a week. Even if it's malignant, they can do something called Gamma Knife radiation to blast the rest of the tumor.

   This may or may not be related to the severe, long lasting migraines I've been having the last few months.

   For those of you who are praying people -- now would be a good time to do so!

   I don't have a surgery date yet. The two doctors have to get their schedules together. It will probably be some time in May, though. I'll let you
know.

~~~

My friend Donna McFarland in Oregon, whom I've known since 7th grade and was my very first Christian friend, sent the following idea: "Since you are talking about ideas for writing workshops, etc., I thought you might be interested in knowing about NaNoWriMo, if you haven't already heard about it. It stands for National Novel Writing Month, and the idea is that you write like crazy for one month (November) and at the end of the month you have a rough draft for a novel. The goal is 50K words. I did it last November and it was a lot of fun. The website has forums where people can encourage each other and I think something like 70,000 people were involved last year. They have a special division just for kids, and apparently it's really big in the homeschool sector. If you want to check it out, the website is: www.nanowrimo.org Also, if you want to know more about it, I can tell you about my experience. The short version is that I actually wrote a 50K word children's book in one month, and now I am in the process of rewriting and editing. I'm hoping to publish it eventually.   I enjoy hearing about your family life in the newsletters. Makes my job with only one toddler seem pretty easy!

~~

Thanks for reading!

Blessings,

Virginia Knowles

www.TheHopeChest.net
  --  To subscribe, send ANY message to: [email protected]  To unsubscribe, send ANY message to: [email protected]  Visit my web site at www://thehopechest.net  

Posted by: homenews <homenews@...>

Dear friends,

I hope you enjoyed the "Our Readers Write" edition that I sent a couple of days ago. I am sending out a review of Systematic Mathematics in a few minutes, and will try to send out more reviews by the end of the month -- at least before the Florida home school convention! After that, I plan to take the summer off from any significant amount of writing. You may get a tidbit or a book excerpt from me, but that will be about it until September. I've got a lot to do over the summer to catch up on home projects, behavior issues and lesson planning!

Our family seems to be over the "tummy wog" (as Australian reader Joanne Sadler calls it), though I did stay home from church with the little ones yesterday just in case. Melody's tummy is still wobbling, though not wogging. 🙂 We're hoping that we can make it to the beach for a few days next week, Lord willing.

Becky Kelly wanted to let you all know that, "Praise God", her condo in New Smryna Beach is now booked up through mid-September, so you don't need to call about any rentals before then. She still weeks open from then until December 31. You may contact her at 407-221-0947 or 407-321-8313, visit her web site at http://www.kellyskondo.com or e-mail her at [email protected].

I have a prayer request for our family. On Monday, in the midst of my children being sick, I got a call from my sister Barb Dell that she has been diagnosed with a brain tumor, which is presumed benign but needs to be removed. As soon as the surgery is scheduled, I will be making plane reservations to spend several days up in Maryland with our family. (I'll take Melody with me, since no one has seen her except my Mom and Dad.) Please pray the scheduling is resolved quickly. We are really hoping for May 16. It would be easier for me to let Barb explain the exact details, so I am enclosing her e-mail which had the subject line of "I'm going to give that doctor a piece of my mind..."

Dear family,

Contrary to recent rumors, the MRI and CAT scans I had in February did NOT show that I have no brain. They did show, however, that there is something there that's not supposed to be. The doctors think it is a "Schwannoma of the Vidian nerve" - in English, a benign tumor growing on a nerve, behind my right eye socket. http://www.emedicine.com/RADIO/topic7.htm

It's fairly small, about 1.5 cm. They gave me the choice of "wait and see" or "go forth and conquer." The problem with the "wait and see" approach is that there is a small chance that the tumor is malignant, and even a benign tumor can cause serious problems. The problem with the "go forth and conquer" approach is that the tumor is in a fairly inaccessible location, and the surgery itself has some risks. They'll have to go through my nose and rearrange my sinuses to get to it. The doctors feel that the risks of the surgery are less than the risks of not having
it, so we've decided to go forth and conquer. "I'm going to give that doctor a piece of my mind..." Get it?

There is lots of good news here. I have the chairman of the neurosurgery department at the University of Maryland AND the chairman of the ENT department both doing the surgery. I'll be in the hospital for one night, and out of work for about a week. Even if it's malignant, they can do something called Gamma Knife radiation to blast the rest of the tumor.

This may or may not be related to the severe, long lasting migraines I've been having the last few months.

For those of you who are praying people -- now would be a good time to do so!

I don't have a surgery date yet. The two doctors have to get their schedules together. It will probably be some time in May, though. I'll let you
know.

~~~

My friend Donna McFarland in Oregon, whom I've known since 7th grade and was my very first Christian friend, sent the following idea: "Since you are talking about ideas for writing workshops, etc., I thought you might be interested in knowing about NaNoWriMo, if you haven't already heard about it. It stands for National Novel Writing Month, and the idea is that you write like crazy for one month (November) and at the end of the month you have a rough draft for a novel. The goal is 50K words. I did it last November and it was a lot of fun. The website has forums where people can encourage each other and I think something like 70,000 people were involved last year. They have a special division just for kids, and apparently it's really big in the homeschool sector. If you want to check it out, the website is: http://www.nanowrimo.org Also, if you want to know more about it, I can tell you about my experience. The short version is that I actually wrote a 50K word children's book in one month, and now I am in the process of rewriting and editing. I'm hoping to publish it eventually. I enjoy hearing about your family life in the newsletters. Makes my job with only one toddler seem pretty easy!

Thanks for reading!

Blessings,

Virginia Knowles

http://www.TheHopeChest.net

  --  To subscribe, send ANY message to: [email protected]  To unsubscribe, send ANY message to: [email protected]  Visit my web site at www://thehopechest.net