No More Staple!

Tommy got his staple removed today! The doctor said that he is healing well, but there's still a little swelling on the back of his head. Tommy didn't even flinch when the staple was removed, Anna was the one that was screaming a crying. A nurse had to take her to a different room so she would calm down! Oh well, never a dull moment!

Just thought this was interesting...

Hey all-
I am back at work today and was reading the news this morning. I found this article http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewCommentary.asp?Page=/Commentary/archive/200604/COM20060427a.html
and thought it was very interesting. Just thought I would pass it on.
~Randi
PS- I have been having a few contractions this morning... still about 15 minutes or so apart but I am hoping it might turn into something real. Say a little prayer for me... I am ready to meet Mary! Love ya!

Thank You!

I just wanted to send out a quick thanks to everyone for coming to my baby shower. It was a lot of fun and everyone was way too generous! I'm very thankful to have such a wonderful family that is so supportive. I will post some photos from the shower when I get a chance. Keep your eyes open for them! It will be a day we will all remember as the day Tommy had to go to the hospital. Thankfully he's okay and it will give us something to remember for a long time!

Graduation celebration

As most of you know, Kenny's graduation ceremony is on Mother's day. He was only given 8 tickets, so our immediate family and Texas' parents fill up all the seats. Anyway, we would like to have a celebration for Kenny and Texas, who also graduates with her masters degree (but decided not to walk so she could go out of town for her anniversary). We were thinking it would be fun to have a picnic at a park on the evening of the 13th. We could have a big kickball game and have a lot of fun. Now this is mother's day weekend, but that's when Texas' family is here. Before we make any definite plans, we need to know if any of you are available to come. For those of you with multiple moms to visit, this could be a time to spend with your mom on this side if she can come. Please email me and let me know as soon as possible so we can make some decisions.

Thanks,
Suzy
suzy@burlesonisd.net

Mother's Day dinner

From Jared:
Mother's day is coming upon us, and I'm wondering what entrees should be offered at the feast. Grandma Shirley likes prime rib, but if others would like additional entrees they should make their suggestions now. Cordon Bleu (however the heck you spell that) is also a possibility. Other suggestions will be considered.

Our traumatic Saturday

So, as most of you know, I got a distressing message from Danny on Saturday, during Missy's baby shower, saying he was on his way to the ER with Tommy. As it turns out, Tommy had fallen off of a piano bench at Danny's school and his head hit the metal piano trolley thing. There was a lot of blood, and Danny rushed to clean it and see how deep it was. When he saw that it was pretty deep, he raced to the ER,( going almost 90, I might add), all the way trying to keep Tommy awake. When he was almost to the ER, he saw a PrimaCare, and thought that might be a faster and cheaper way to treat Tommy. Of course, he still waited 30 minutes before he was seen. Tommy got one staple in the back of his head, and was on concussion watch for a while. Tommy is taking Motrin every 5 hours or so when he gets really grumpy, but otherwise he's doing very well. He kept grabbing at his bandage yesterday, but today he's doing much better. We replaced the giant gauze and tape that they put on his head with a very large bandaid. It looks a little silly with all the hair, but it keeps it covered. He gets the staple out next Friday. Thank you guys for all your love and support!

Easter Pictures!

Missy told me to put these up on the family blog, so I guess I won't hoard them on mine.
First we have an awesome picture of Uncle Paul and his little tower of jacks.



















Next, a weird picture of Kenny and Texas...














This is a nice one of Randi...and Mary I suppose.


























here's a cute one of Anna and Tommy!





















James shooting his little airplane thing.




































awwwww, G-man and Tom-bomb!













I guess that's all for now.
Enjoy!
~Chrystal!~

Our new floor!

Hi guys! We just finished tiling our Master bath! It took forever to get the linoleum up, but tiling wasn't too much of a problem, (it was just our kids getting in our way that was the problem). The only major roadblock we had was that the concrete underneath wasn't exactly level, and we did all that we could to even it out with the mortar, but there are still some spots that aren't level. That's okay, because you can only tell if you look closely and step right on the spot. It looks like we are done tiling for now. This project was really big and it will take us a while to work up the gumption to do another one!

Baby Appointment

Sorry to be writing so much these days! I had a doctors appointment this morning. It was not that exciting of a visit but there were a couple bits of information that were interesting that I wanted to pass on. The first is that the doctor said that I am about one centimeter dilated. I think he was just trying to be nice and humor me. CJ thinks I may really be somewhat dilated because the doctor did also set a date to induce me if I do not have the baby by my due date. That is the second bit of information.... if I do not go into labor on my own, I have an appointment at the Medical Center of Arlington to have the kid induced on May 3rd, 5 am. Yeah... I am excited about that 5 am thing. They say it is because the first baby takes longer... especially if you induce. So, they are going to start it early in hopes that she will come out some time that day. So, if I cannot go in to labor on my own, I will definitely have the baby by May 3rd. Just thought I would give you all the heads up. :-) Love ya'll! Have a great day!
~Randi

Nursery

Hey All!
I know this makes me totally computer illiterate but I cannot figure out how to get a picture to attatch to this email so that you can see it when the blog posts. So, I am just writing to let you know that I have finished the nursery (pending perhaps a lamp) and have posted a picture of it on the vandfam.net blog. If you want to link to that blog, you can see a picture. :-) The wood does not all match but we like it none the less. One of my favorite things to do these day is to just go sit on the rocking chair in the room. It makes me happy. :-) Anywho, I love you all! Have a great day!
~Randi

Update: Hey Randi, I attached the picture on the blog for you so people could see it if they don't have a chance to go to the VanD blog (even though the link is right there!) I'm so glad you were able to get the bedding from craigslist, it really looks great!

It's Official!

Today Texas and I finalized the deal on our house. We will be closing May 23rd. I told Texas that this is all she gets for our anniversary... and her birthday... and for Christmas... We love the house and we are really excited about it. You can actually check it all out on the web at this address http://www.har.com/1865074 .
The house is about 1350 square feet and has 3 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms. It has pretty much everything we wanted and is in a really nice neighborhood. It needs a little bit of landscaping work and some minor repairs but nothing overwhelming. Now comes all the fun stuff of having to pack and getting ready to move. We are hopefully planning on moving all of our stuff down to the new house on May 27th. Keep that morning open if you can and no you won't have to drive to Houston.

Kenny

2nd Chance Run!

The Fourth Annual 2nd Chance Run is right around the corner. This 1-mile fun run/walk and 5K is Saturday, April 29, 2006. Participants are given the opportunity to run/walk in honor of an organ donor, transplant recipient or an individual awaiting a transplant. Many of you may be saying who cares. Well, the 92,000 individuals awaiting a lifesaving transplant care and so do I as the event director. For more information you can go to www.lifegift.org and click in the "Second Chance Fun Run" or call me.

(Missy was so gracious to design the race t-shirt. Thanks Missy.)

~Texas (Mrs. T)

Dan meet Stan

Some introductions are in order.
Everyone who has not yet met the infamous "Dangerous Dan" consider this your formal introduction. Dan is my family's long lost son; born in the depths of our garage out of a need for a dummy and my dad's creativity. Dan is a wooden frame, fleshed out with 10 or so old pairs of pants and 15-20 shirts. He has a set of old weights for innards that bring his weight up to a respectable 80-ish pounds, and he is held together by an old blue workers coverall. His head is an old milk jug; the kind with the screw on lid. The lid is attached to the frame and the head is simply screwed on (to simulate the fragility of a human neck). Dan was created to let my dad's boy scout troop practice emergency transportation of a human (as an aside: if ever stuck in the woods with an injury that doesn't let you move, DON'T LET THE SCOUTS TRY TO MOVE YOU! Send them for help! Poor Dan's field trips out of the garage have not ended well... not well at all). I have always assumed that Dan was a rather unique family member, but here in med school I have discovered that this is not so. With that said, "Dan... meet Stan." Stan is the big man here on campus. While the state offers each medical student ~$100,000 in subsidized loans over the course of 4 years, they have invested half a million to get a student with Stan's credentials here. Much like our beloved Dan, Stan has the remarkable ability to withstand the gross errors of young, budding professionals. In all seriousness (okay, so I have a reputation for the frivolous, I can be serious, too), Stan is the dummy's dummy. He has a heart beat, his eyes dilate, you can feel his pulse, he has normal heart and lung sounds, he even breathes. Not only does he breath, he actually exhales the anatomically correct amounts of CO2, H2O, N2, and O2, and the amounts change depending on his medical condition and on the composition of the air that he breathes in (Crazy huh). Stan also bleeds (but only if you cut an artery, and he only bleeds salt water-no red dye). You can give Stan an IV, a myriad of drugs, program him to emulate a thousand different illnesses, weights, hormone levels; just about anything you can think of. You can even revive him with a defibrillator. Pretty amazing stuff, if I do say so myself. I just wanted to take this opportunity to thank people like Dan and Stan and all the other dummies that make our lives so much better. We lesser beings wince in pain at the sight of things like scouts pulling Dan up a 15 foot wall, blissfully unaware that his face is hanging off the edge of the stretcher, dragging along the cliff face as they heave away (and I won't even mention when they finally realized that 'something' was stuck and decided to just yank as hard as they could without checking to see what that something might be). I'm sure that my professors watch with the same amount of disbelief as their young students look at the Stan dying on the ER table and ask, "which drug are we supposed to stop him from going into shock again?" I hope you can all take a moment out of our busy day and remember howwonderful your life is, for people love you, even though you are not an _an.
-C.J.

Ahhh...Spring!

I just wanted to take a break from working on my bathroom floor and I needed an excuse to get online. So, here is a picture of my beautiful tulips , daffodils, and Anna. Of course, Anna can't let me take a picture of anything without her in it!

Missy's Pregnancy Update

I decided to write this on the family blog since the Saunders blog doesn't exactly get a lot of traffic these days. Go check it out if you haven't heard about what happened to John's Jeep!

I went to the specialist today and got some really interesting news. I went to the specialist earlier on in my prenancy for sonograms to clear Ben of spina bifida, which he was. But since my tri-screen test levels were elevated, I have to start going back. I'm 32 weeks this week and I will now be going to them every week. Everything looked great. Ben is 4lbs 12oz. The interesting news is that since I have the elevated levels I will be induced at 38 weeks. Yep! That means little Ben is coming two weeks sooner than we planned. It's great to know exactly when he'll be born so we can plan ahead, but it's scary to think you don't have as much time as you thought. The reason they induce is because I'm at a higher risk for having a still-born baby and they want to control the process so everything can be monitored. Don't think my stomach didn't jump into my throat when they said that, it's every new mom's worst fear! But they said the odds aren't high that anything will go wrong and I trust them to take good care of us.

I wanted to make sure everyone was updated and will post any new info I get from the doctor!

Dexmethasone Inhibition of Trabecular meshwork Cell Phagocytosis and its Modulat

ion by Glucocorticoid Receptor B.

Sorry about that. I guess Hotmail isn't set up to allow subject lines long
enough to handle the demanding needs of today's science professionals. Oh well. This blog is brought to you by UNTHSC's Research Appreciation Day. It was last Friday, but I had a test today so now the test is over and I can write about the wonders of exceptionally long-titled research presentations.

The school scheduled no classes last Friday in honor of the research that is being done here on campus. The health science center has more research money pouring in than any other osetopathic school in the world. It also houses the FBI's DNA database and some pretty nifty gene sequencing equipment. Actually, from my usual study spot just down the hall from the front desk of the DNA unit I regularly see sealed evidence bags come in from all over the region (region meaning a multi state parcel of land; around these science types you always have to clarify what you mean by everything).

Anyway, before this turns into a PR piece for my school (although I do really enjoy it; I don't know how anyone ever tries to get through med school without the once-a-week visits to manipulation class) I just thought I'd share with you some of my thoughts and favorite posters from the research hall. If you would like more details on any of the soon to be mentioned (or one of the 100+ unmentioned) projects, yes, I did pick up the abstract book contaning summaries of all the research done at the school this year. First, yes. Dexmethasone significantly decreased phagocytosis of bioparticles in NTM-5 and GTM-3 cells. I know. You all are shocked and amazed. This is truely a bright day for science. Actually, even I'm not sure what exactly that means or what ramifications it holds for the medical community, and that's after staring at the poster trying to read all the 3-D graphs for like 20 minutes. Okay, so that's not exactly the stuff to impress in this blog. Something simpler you say? This was one of my favorites. Osteopathic Manipulative Medicine has been shown to reduce symptoms of Carpal Tunnel Syndrome. Pretty cool, huh? A simple wrist stretch was shown to help as much as really expensive pain medications. Better yet, it's a wrist strech that's so simple even I know how to do it. Speaking of expensive drugs, one experiment studied the substitutive effects of nicotine and Meth (switching back and forth to see if the same brain pathways are triggered). I'm not quite sure who came up with that one. It sounds like it might have been a pet project of one of our raised-in-the-sixties professors. Anyway, turns out there were some common pathways, but nothing really directly linking the two drugs. I for one, am glad to know that... actually I probably shouldn't say that. I mean, I know I'm being sarcastic, and most of you know that, too, but there are just some things that I don't need to project into the public sphere. In other research, more substantial relationships were established between trauma and mental illness. Bariatric surgery (where they put a rubber band around your stomach, or even remove a piece of it) was deemed an effective weight loss measure; this was a confirmatory study. And finally, the dumb gum-chewing California blond has been vindicated. In a meticulous study that charted gum chewing vs. concentration, it was determined with statistical signficance that mastication (chewing) does not have a significant impact on your ability to follow events around you. Any previously supposed link was purely coincidential. That's all from the great world of on campus research. Be sure to check back next year for what I am sure will be an annual update. Thank you and good night and I'm sorry for any misspellings.

I promise I'll learn english again after I learn medicine and the spanish that they say I should learn if I want to be a competent physician in Texas.

-C.J.

I also want to give a shout out to my brothers; Jeff (congrats on the Masters), Jon (congrats on the raise), Brad (Kudos for not killing Ben after two weeks of working with him, you're a good man; Ben, if you read this, I'm really kidding), and finally, G man (way to grow another inch, and also for now owning a suit jacket that goes down half way to my knees, and having hair that looks amazingly like Dirk's at the end of the season; just remember, he cuts his after the playoffs and shaves it every October). You guys all rock.

Sweepstakes!

Congratulations to Danny and the Carpenter Middle School non-varsity band for making a sweepstakes at contest today! They performed incredibly well, and were up against tough judges who were giving out many 3's and 4's! This is his first sweepstakes as a band director!

Blog Update

Just wanted to let everyone know that the blog has been updated with current dates and a NEW fun link of the week. I will keep trying to remember to fix it. For now, it's a really fun internet game called "Black Knight" where you get to go and steal gold from the citizens of the city!

Winners from yesterday's highly successful cook-off were: 5th Place, Kenny/Texas, Guacamole; 4th Place, Melinda, Cheesy Italian Rolls; 3rd Place, Missy/John, Bruschetta Pizza; 2nd Place, Kile, Pizza Pockets; 1st Place, Mandie, Green Chili Chicken Rolls.

It was all a lot of fun and we look forward to the next cook-off! Start thinking now about what category you'd like to have next time!