A little fun and a little prep

This weekend is the 3rd Annual Sitka Seafood Festival. We've posted about SSF before, but it's so neat to see how this community event continues to gain momentum and support from all of SE Alaska. There was a parade this morning, followed by merchants of every variety and food ranging from fry bread to Filipino. There were event competitions, including a cake contest, a "Sitka Signature Dish" contest, fish head toss, fish head bobbing, tote races, and more. After checking out all the wonderful vendors and activities, we took a tour of the USCGC Maple, the largest buoy tender in the Coast Guard, which is stationed here in Sitka.  This year a Highland Games event was added to the festivities, so Stephen & Porter went in style. (I apologize for the poor picture quality, I didn't think to bring a better camera than my iPhone.)

Stephen says this is the first time he was out-shined at a Highland event--Porter definitely turned some heads.

Men's caber toss

The Pub was among the food vendors. Here you can see them cooking up whole fresh-off-the-boat dungeoness crab, corn on the cob, and potatoes right on the lawn for $15/meal.

Live local musicians kept the party going. (To the right, out of this shot, was the BIBCO beer tent.)

Sheaf toss

Highland dancers

City of Juneau Pipe Band (How cool is their logo‽)

Porter was completely enthralled with the bass drum.

Women's stone throw

All of the athletic events were held on the lawn of the former Sheldon Jackson campus (now the Sitka Fine Arts Camp), which is currently undergoing massive remodeling and restoration. This being the first year we've had Highland events in Sitka, most of the athletes were first-timers as well. The community was very supportive, though, and we expect this event to grow in future years.

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In other news, Seren and I will be flying to Anchorage this week for a minor surgical procedure on her eye.

Seren, like me, was born with clogged tear ducts, a condition which doesn't affect eyesight or ability in any way, it just gets a little messy from time to time. Because of the blockage, the lacrimal sac produces more fluid in an attempt to push the blockage out and her eyes tend to look runny or mucusy most of the time. In my case, the blockages naturally cleared from both eyes when I was about 4 years old. However, Seren was not so lucky. The blockage in her left eye cleared naturally, but her right tear ducts still have a blockage somewhere between the lacrimal sac and the nasal passage.

This image borrowed from the Children's Hospital Colorado website

In the image above, you can see that you have two tear ducts, one on the upper part of the eyelid and one on the lower part of the eyelid, in the corner of each eye. These ducts run down the side of your nose, where they connect with the sinus cavity beneath the cheek bone and (eventually) the nostrils.

Seren's procedure will require full anesthesia because of the delicate work that has to be done, but it's actually a very simple and straightforward solution. First, her tear ducts will be flushed with saline. Then, a very thin tube will be placed in both tear ducts in her right eye. The middle of the tube will only barely be visible in the corner of her eye and will be completely painless. Both ends of the tube will run down the nasolacrimal duct and be stitched together with one dissolving stitch to the inside of her nostril. Even though this is considered a surgical procedure, there will be no cutting involved. The tube simply keeps the ducts open enough that they can heal properly after the blockage is removed by the fluid flush. After about a month or so, the stitch inside her nostril will dissolve and the tube can then be pulled out painlessly.

Our normal healthcare is provided by SEARHC, here in Sitka, but they do not have specialist facilities that handle this type of procedure, so we will be flown to Anchorage on August 14th, where she will be seen and treated at Alaska Native Medical Center on the 15th (pre-op), 16th (surgery), & 17th (post-op), and we will fly home on the 18th. We have housing arranged for us on the medical campus, which will make everything much easier to deal with. I am so very grateful that all of this - flights, procedure, & housing - are being paid for by the Oklahoma Cherokee tribe. Without them, we surely would not be able to afford the cost on our own.

I don't want any of you to think that we are worried about any of this at all. In fact, it's quite the opposite. Stephen & I are excited for Seren to have this cleared up and Seren is excited to be able to do all the things she loves without having to worry so much about keeping her eye dry and clean. We consider this event to be just another part of our adventures together as a family and, as such, I will be taking pictures whenever the opportunity presents throughout this trip and updating you guys from here, in the blog. So stay tuned and leave your words of encouragement and support in the comments. I know Seren will love reading them.

Porter's Traveling Harmonica Show

I was about to upload this video to Facebook, but then I decided it was worthy of its own blog post. It's less than a minute long, but here are some things to watch for:

• Continued blowing minus the harmonica
• A brief, yet incomprehensible mid-song introduction by the artist
• An up-turned chair
• Exit over the back of the couch

In other news, we went to a going away party for the niece of Sitka's favorite watercolor artist, Keith Greba, on Saturday. Ashleigh is going to college in Georgia and spent this summer in Sitka, working at Sea Life Discovery Tours, learning to paint under Keith's instruction, helping Keith stage his house for sale (which sold in under an hour of listing!), and occasionally coming upstairs to visit with me at work.

While we were at Keith's place, though, Porter was sitting in a folding camp chair on the deck out back and one of the legs of the chair fell off of the 12" deck, landing Porter on a pile of rocks with the chair on top of him. At first glance, he was fine, if not a little shocked by the fall, with only a bitten tongue. After a few moments, another person pointed out that there was blood on Porter's forehead. Sure enough, there was a 1/4" long puncture wound in his head, presumably from the chair falling on top of him. Stephen took him inside and cleaned him up and we put some ice on his head for swelling. There wasn't much blood and I wasn't all that worried, but we decided to leave the party early and take him to the doc for a once-over, bracing ourselves for this trip to include a couple of stitches.

If I haven't said it enough already, I absolutely love the doctors out here. I called ahead to the emergency room and they ordered Porter's chart while I was on the phone. Then, I went directly into the emergency room and announced my presence. The records clerk dropped off Porter's chart right after me and I was asked if I checked in up front. No, I didn't, but the nurse called up front and checked us in so we wouldn't have to backtrack. Within about 2 minutes, we were sitting on a bed and a nurse was fetching some baby shampoo and wet gauze to clean the wound. The longest part of our visit was waiting for the doctor to arrive, as he was on-call from another department (presumably Maternity, since all of our OBs are family practice doctors). He asked me what happened, checked Porter over in a thorough-yet-casual manner, and commented on how charming he is. The doc then told me that the cut was not in a place that warranted concern about scarring, that head-wounds rarely see infection, but to keep it clean and dry and go on as normal. The only reversal he had on this opinion was that I was to call him if Porter started vomiting. That was it--a quick swab with Bacitracin and a shiny new bottle of ibuprofen, and we were on our way home.

Keith and his wife, Martha, were both very concerned for Porter and have kept up with his healing progress over the last few days. Porter, on the other hand, has not shown the slightest bit of concern for his head since about 15 minutes after the accident took place and he and his sister are back to rough-housing as normal.

another trip to the e.r. and school at home

On Sunday afternoon, we took Porter to the emergency room to evaluate a cut on his upper lip. Porter was in his room playing with Seren when he decided that his cd player no longer belonged on his shelf and proceeded to pull it down by the cord... onto his face. (No heavy metal jokes, please.) He cried for all of 3 seconds before resuming whatever it was that he was doing previous to losing a fight with a small electronic device. Seren seemed almost entirely unconcerned with the event, as Porter usually kicks up a pretty good fuss when there's something serious going on. However, there was a bit of blood to be cleaned up, his lip was pretty swollen, and there was some defined bruising on the inside of his lip, so we decided to take him in to be seen at SEARHC. Stephen thought it would be a good idea if I called ahead while we were loading the kids into the car, just so that the medical staff could pull his chart or whatever before we got there (I did this, mostly to humor him because I've never had much luck with calling ahead with an IHS facility). After we parked, it took no more than 15 minutes to check in, let them see Porter's injury, and walk out with a topical antibiotic. These people are amazing. In the end, it's just a cut and Porter should still be able to grow a full moustache in the future with no problems. Afterward, he didn't let his battle wound affect his ability to polish off a burger and some fries at McDonald's.

In other news, Seren has started Preschool at home. Thanks to the wonderful materials and lesson plans provided by my mother, Seren is learning to read, write, and count to 100 under our own roof. This decision to home school was not an easy one for us to make because, though we like the idea of being the only ones to influence her development (read: poison her mind), we would actually far prefer her to be able to get the peer interaction she has been lacking since birth. Our hope is that she will work hard this year and possibly be admitted to Kindergarten next year. Only time will tell. For now, she has already developed a healthy habit of waking up, getting dressed, and asking me if it's "time for school." She's really enjoying it and I am too!

Seren's "classroom" area

Seren's calendar: she adds the number and says the date each morning

One of her first completed assignments

I've been enjoying Seren's schooling, too, since she's begun really looking forward to my return from work so that she can give me very enthusiastic hugs and kisses and then tell me all about her day. Because he copies all that she does, this means that I get really good hugs from Porter, too (he's even jealous when he doesn't get his turn fast enough)! --S