Patience is a virtue

Okay, so it's been a few days since I updated this little blog and I am happy to report that all is (mostly) well here at the Swarrell Life. In this update, we'll hit the high points of the last few days and re-visit a little incident here at the house. I don't think anyone was hurt in the process of making this blog. I only wish there was a movie. On with the goods!

We traveled to Boise on Wednesday for a couple of follow-up appointments for you-know-who. This time is was the neurologist and the ophthalmologist. It's interesting that the more specialized the physician, the more, uh, unique they become. It sometimes seems like you have to trade social normalcy for brilliance. Let's face it, these folks are genius. But they sometimes appear to have sold their soul (or social skills) to get it.

I have mentioned the pediatric infections disease specialist who never made eye contact in the three visits to our room. Don't get me wrong, he was a super nice guy. He even came by before we left to give us a few tips for down the road. He thought Trinity was cute, even in her MRI. I'm not saying there is anything bad about the guy, quite the contrary. I have a feeling he loves kids because of the way he addressed Trinity and her problem. But he was odd. The neurologist is less odd, but still sort of not-normal. Maybe he's just on another plane where us normal folk can't access.

His was the first appointment we went to. There was not a lot of new information in regards to Trinity's recovery that we did not already know. But we did come away with a small bit of encouraging news. Autumn, who is much better about details and questions than I am, asked about the time frame for recovery. It has been six weeks, so do we worry?

He said that the brain won't fully heal from the injury for six to twelve months. That means we won't know what her brain will look like for at least another four and a half months, maybe longer. That seems like a long time, but for us it means that her recovery has longer to take place. That's a good thing. Even more, he mentioned that her sight development will have good potential until she is five or six years old. After that, we can expect to not have much in the way of a break-through in her eye sight. But she's not even a year old, so that means she has four years before we'll know what her sight will be. That's GREAT! Yeah, it is a long time to wait, but this is our daughter, so the more chance she has to recover, the better. Needless to say, this information was a great relief for Autumn and me.

The second appointment was with the ophthalmologist. The nice thing is that all the specialists were pretty close together, so it was very convenient. The last time we were at the eye doctor, Trinity didn't do much, so this time it was encouraging when she followed the lights at least some of the time. We heard the same thing here that we heard at the neurologist, that it is encouraging because of her recovery thus far. So, not a ton of news, but some encouragement at least.

So, Trinity has received a plethora of those silvery metallic balloons. She LOVES them. Her first was a big rainbow given to her by Melody, who watched Trinity during the day. Here is a picture of that balloon:

You'll notice that it is tangled around the ceiling fan. There's a little bit of a story behind that balloon getting up to where it is. We had all the balloons sitting on the chair in our living room. They were all tied to a stuffed animal, or those little plastic weights that keep them from floating away.

We had turned the fan on because there was something that had been smoking in the oven or on the stove or something like that. I don't remember precisely what was smoking, but we needed to turn the fan on in order to clear the smoke out of the house. Autumn and I both looked at the balloons and thought that they would probably be okay, since they were weighted down. Uh, yeah. You know where this is going.

All of the sudden, Autumn and I hear this WHUMP WHUMP WHUMP of a balloon stuck in the fan. Then I look over to where I hear Autumn in the kitchen. She is reacting to the balloon, thinking to get to the switch to turn the fan off. It all seemed to happen in slow motion. At least it seems that way in my head. I see Autumn take off toward the fan switch. All of the sudden, she's gone with a thud! One second she was there, the next she was gone. It seems you can't get a good start on hardwood floors when you are wearing socks! She had slipped and fallen behind the kitchen counter. But wait, she reappeared like a dolphin leaping out of the water. Her legs are churning and arms flailing as she lunges towards the fan switch again. Whoop, down she goes again! By this time I am starting to feel sorry for her because, really, it's only a balloon. But she gets up again, this time making it to the switch and turning the fan off.

By this time I am trying not to laugh until I know that she is okay. When we're both sure that she is all in one piece we have a good laugh as I try to describe what I had just witnessed. Here are a couple of videos that sort of give you the idea of what Autumn was doing on the hardwood. Notice that the videos are on slip n' slides. Yeah, good stuff!

You'll have to tilt your head sideways to see this one:



Here's another:



And finally...random cuteness of the day: