October Fun

What! You say it is not October? That was two months ago? I guess I don't really care. I still want to publish this on my blog in December so I am. Here are some of the fun things we did in October.

We enjoyed unusually warm weather at this corn maze. The corn maze was not the best and you can see how scraggly the corn is. We won't be going back next year. It was still fun to run around outside together.

We have a Volleyball pit behind our house at the park close by. The kids love to play in the sand and will often call me out to come and look at something they have built. Ben and Liz wanted me to take a picture this day.

Carving pumpkins is always a Finch Family favorite in October. Here I am helping Jake. Really he did a lot of it himself though. It looks like he's having fun!

Ben's final product. He really worked hard and independently on this. I was so proud of him! I think it turned out great. I love the pumpkin carving kits because the kids can use them so easily.

Lizzy showing off her handy work.

Anna and her pumpkin.

The girls having a little fun.

Anna's is on the top left and Ben's is the bottom right.

Lizzy's pumpkin.

Jacob's pumpkin.

Adam does one pretty much the same every year. BYU rules!

One day Lizzy had a friend over after school so we made some bones to eat. (pretzels with marshmallows on the end dipped in melted white chocolate, yum!)

Ok, I know you are now expecting to see pictures of all the kids in their Halloween costumes. Sad to say that some how escaped me this year. We did have a fun carnival at the church put on by the youth. Greg and his group of boys (really just one boy) put together this amazing "Angry Birds" life size game. It was a huge hit and had a line that never let up the whole afternoon. I didn't get a picture of that either. Trust me though it was awesome. October is a great month. It is always fun and exciting for the kids which makes it fun and exciting for Greg and I too.

Sick and Wrong

So on one of our trips to Iowa City to see Lizzy's neurosurgeon we were traveling on the freeway and we saw this truck in front of us. I just had to take a picture because I thought it was so disgusting! Let's pray this guy doesn't get into an accident!! Ewwwww!!!!

In the spotlight: Ben

I am always glad when it is time to give Ben some recognition. He is such a great kid. He celebrated his 7th birthday on September 18th (yes, I know I am way behind!). As usual he chose to do something fun with the family instead of having a party. He loves his family! We all went to Tokens Family Fun Center to play Laser tag and glow in the dark mini golf. We always have fun doing that! He got his favorite meals and we all told him how awesome he is.

He really is an amazing kid. He is so kind and tries so hard to do what is right. He is already good at standing up for what is right. You see it in school, on the soccer field, and at home. He doesn't like to see people being treated unfairly or unkindly. He is so encouraging of Jacob. He tries to help him make good choices and has come up with these elaborate reward systems to help Jacob. What 7 year old does that? His teacher at school told me how helpful he is at school. She said some kids are helpful in a "look at me" kind of way, but Ben just likes to help, without being recognized. While we were talking about him (his teacher and I at conferences) I even started crying (so embarrassing!) because my heart just was so full. I love that even though he is quiet other people can recognize the goodness in him. I am so proud of him.

Ben loves to play the piano, play soccer, cook, play games, and play with his brothers and sisters. Since we have moved he doesn't have any really close friends, but it doesn't seem to bother him a bit. He really feels happy playing with his siblings. He is working hard trying to finish "The Book of Mormon" this year before he is baptized next year. He is more generous than most kids I know. He tries really hard. We feel so blessed to have Ben in our family. He makes all of us want to be a little bit better.

Ben at 5 months.

Ben just before his 2nd birthday

Ben holding Jacob. This is just before Ben's 3rd birthday.

Ben at 4 1/2.

I just had to include this one. This is Ben on his birthday this year.

Ben in our present chair. Anna happy to pose while she presents Ben with her gift for him.

In the spotlight: Me

I celebrated my 36th birthday at the beginning of September. This has been a difficult year for me and I am grateful to have a new one to look forward to. I am starting to not feel invincible. In other words I am starting to feel like I am aging. I have seen more specialists and had more tests done this year than in any years past. Yet I still don’t know what is going on with my body. My weight continues to creep up (sometimes leap up), frustrating me in the process. Lizzy’s surgery was absolutely draining for me. I felt so strengthened during the hospital stay, but it has taken me months to get my feet under me again. It really took a toll on me. We continue to hope we will have another child, but as the years go by, feel it is less and less likely. I think I’ve had the hardest time adjusting to our move, too (yes, I know we have been here a year and a half now). Kind visiting teachers have made a world of difference, but I miss having really close friends who live close by. As Adam grows I have become more and more aware of my deficiencies as a parent. It has been a hard year.

Having said all of that, I still appreciate the many blessings in my life. We experienced a miracle of greatest proportions seeing Lizzy come through everything with flying colors. I feel as though her life (and her quality of life) was spared. My heart rejoices and I thank the Lord for that. There are many people who care about us here even if we have not reached the level of closeness that my heart yearns for. There are many more that are just far away. My family has grown so much this year. The difficulty of Lizzy’s surgery really brought us closer to each other and to the Lord. Even though we are not perfect, we find great joy in being together and helping each other along the path of life. Perhaps greatest of all, is a God who loves me, and I KNOW he loves me. His guiding and loving hand is a constant in my life. Sometimes I am not as close to Him as I should be, but when I pull myself back to Him, he is always there. He strengthens me and lifts me even in the most difficult of circumstances. He believes in me. I pray that someday I will become the person he knows I can be. Maybe I will be a little bit closer in my 37th year.

Here is me as a little girl.

Here I am as a teenager with my little sister April. We had just moved to Virginia, hence all the boxes in the background.

Here I am with Adam on my birthday. All the kids and Greg gave me presents. Greg made a great dinner for me, and we had French Silk Pie from Village Inn for dessert. On a different day, Greg and I went on a date to see the Body exhibit at the Science museum (my choice) and out for breakfast. My birthday was a good relaxing day.

In the Spotlight: Jacob

Our blog the last little while has been focused on Lizzy. I think now we are ready to shift it back to our whole family.

Nearly 3 months ago, our little Jacob celebrated his fourth birthday! I can hardly believe my youngest child is four. Jacob is awesome. I love having him home with me. He’s got spunk and spirit. He is bright and energetic. He speaks his mind. He works hard. He talks a lot. He laughs a lot. He loves to play with his brothers and sisters, especially Lizzy and Ben. Who needs toys when you have fun siblings and an imagination?

He loves to wrestle and run around. He believes just about anything the kids say, but only about half of what Greg and I say. He loves the kids’ friends, and is sure to find his way into whatever they are doing. He loves preschool. He loves being outside. He can be difficult at times, but his happiness and enthusiasm for life seem to make this fact more bearable. We love him and are so grateful he is a part of our family.

For Jacob’s birthday he wanted to go see a movie. We went to see the Smurfs. Then we headed to the Quad Cities for an event the next day. Jacob was thrilled to spend the night in a hotel with a pool. We all enjoyed swimming and ordering pizza for dinner. We had done presents and cake at home before we left. I think this was the first year all of the kids, on their own, decided they just had to buy Jacob something for his birthday (with their own money). We all have a really tender spot in our hearts for Jake. It makes a mother’s heart swell to see her kids loving each other. Jacob we love you! Oh, and one other thing. He has the best smile ever!

Here is Jacob as a baby.

Here is Jacob as a 1 and a half year old loving his dinner.

Jacob just barely 2 years old.

Jacob at three.

Our handsome guy at 4. Love that smile! We love you Jake!

Lizzy update - great news!

On Wednesday we went back to Iowa City for a follow-up visit with Lizzy's surgeon. This is the first time since her surgery that she had an MRI. Until now, we didn't know for sure that the surgery did what it was intended to do, but now there is no question.

While we were hopeful that we would see some improvement, we really didn't expect that she would be so far improved! Nearly all of the fluid that had filled her spinal cord has drained and fluid is flowing very normally.

This is a picture from her first MRI in April. You can see how her brain had grown down into the spinal canal. As a result, the fluid that would normally flow down the outside of her spinal cord was filling the inside of the spinal cord causing it to be much larger than normal. You can see the fluid extending down the length of her spinal cord.

Here's a picture from Wednesday. You can see how the surgery created space for fluid to flow normally outside of the spinal cord. The fluid is white and flowing down the outside of the spinal cord like it's supposed to. The spinal cord is looking much more normal. You can see a little fluid still inside the spinal cord, but soooo much better than before!

We are very, very happy with how things are going. We think her scoliosis is starting to straighten too. She's one and a half inches taller than she was just three months ago and she is looking straighter to us. She'll follow-up with the orthopedic doctor in a couple of months to get official update on that. Her reflexes are still mostly unresponsive, but the one reflex that was overactive is more normal now. She's also starting to be a little more ticklish.

We are so thankful for the miracle of modern medicine. In this case, it has saved our daughter's life. We're thankful too for the many many people who showed so much care and concern for our family this summer and offered prayers on our behalf. Lizzy kept all of the cards she received - it was so kind of everyone that sent them. Below are some pictures of Lizzy with her cards.

A summer to remember!

Well, the summer is over and school has been in session a few weeks. I think this is one summer I will be happy to leave behind. A week of it was spent in the hospital in Iowa City. Then we had two and half weeks at home where Lizzy wasn't allowed to go out at all (except to the doctor). Thank goodness we had family helping us for a few weeks. It wasn't just this that made things crazy though. It seemed like our normally very healthy, only go to the doctor for well checks family had an explosion of problems. It felt as though we were always at the dentist or doctor this summer. Between all of us, Greg and I included, this is what we have done since April 25th (only about 3 or 4 things happened until end of May and then....):

6 trips to the pediatrician

3 shots

1 draining of an infected toe

2 trips to the ER

3 x-rays

1 cat scan

4 MRIs

1 set of crutches

4 trips to our Family Practice Doc

1 neurologist visit

1 EMG

1 nerve conduction study

8 blood draws

2 hospital stays (yes they did overlap)

4 visits to the orthopedic

2 visits to the prosthetic place (for Lizzy's brace)

1 specialized EEG

1 trip to the anesthesiologist

4 trips to the neurosurgeon

1 posterior fossa decompression

1 frenulectomy

2 cavities filled

10 trips to the orthodontist (most in the last few weeks)

5 trips to the dentist

2 trips to the chiropractor

1 ultrasound (no, I am not pregnant; people have ultrasounds for other reasons)

8 trips to the pharmacy

Maybe I should have titled it a summer to forget! I hope our next summer is better than this one has been. But, we have made it through, and we are ever so grateful for the medical technology that has blessed us this summer, especially Lizzy.

We didn't get to go on any vacations this summer, so instead of vacation pictures you get these:

Anna shows off the handiwork of the orthodontist. She received an expander this summer to correct her bite.

The expander has caused her two front teeth to open up and cause a huge gap. She is still beautiful though, and the orthodontist assures us her teeth with drift back together.

Adam has an appliance called a distal jet in his mouth, along with the braces.

Adam's new metal smile. He was bummed they didn't have blue and white, the BYU colors, so instead he chose green and black.

Guess who is allergic to penicillin?!!

The kids (and I) played a lot of games this summer. This is a not so traditional playing of Blockus. Ben and Jake made up their own rules.

We had to find a lot of things to do at home. This was a day the kids all played with Playdoh.

Greg found the time this summer to install an in ground basketball hoop. It took several days of digging to finish the 4 ft. deep hole.

Adam spent a lot of his summer powerwashing our playset and then covering it with primer. He still has to do the paint coat. This is what we had him do to earn money for scout camp. When he wasn't working on this he could be found working on his magic tricks.

Although it has been a hard and unusual summer, we are grateful we have had each other to spend it with. Traveling even the rough roads of life is a little bit easier with family.

Lizzy update--end of summer

Hello everyone. I am finally feeling up to a blog post after months of quiet. It has been an exhausting summer. I know the thing that people are most interested in is how Lizzy is doing. The answer is: GREAT!! She really is doing great. Two weeks before school started we went back again to Iowa City. The neurosurgeon said she is looking good. He gave her the OK to swim and to run. He said she could go to school full day, but she can't carry a backpack:) (Her wonderful brother and sister share the task of that one). She still has to avoid too strenuous activities, lifting anything over five pounds, and playing on any playground equipment (swings, monkey bars, etc.), but the fact that she could run made her day. The difficult things are: no gymnastics (for how long we don't know), no trampoline (maybe never again), and no roller coasters (our family loves amusement parks).

This is Lizzy the day she got her stitches out---the last day to wear her bandages.

Here is Lizzy right after the bandages had been removed, before the stitches are out. Pretty impressive, eh? I forgot to count until they were out and I think there was about 28 stitches (I could still see the holes even after the stitches were out).

Here is Lizzy's scar today. Quite an improvement, yeah? No more Frankenstein. Here hair is growing in nicely, but I am not sure if there is always going to be a little bald spot right around the scar. Time will tell. The nice thing is her hair is long enough to hide it when she wants to, though she is more prone to be proud and show it off.

The real challenge of the day came as she got her brace for her scoliosis. Both she and I cried as the orthotist was trying to get it to fit just right. That thing is not the most comfortable thing and the initial thought of trying to wear it 14 hours a day, including sleeping, seemed all but impossible. It has been three weeks since then and Lizzy's dealing with it like a champ. We still have tears sometimes, but she is doing it! I feel like her attitude has changed so much through all of this. I have even wondered if it could be because of the physical changes fixing things inside her. Obviously it could just be she is totally awesome and has learned a lot from this trial, thanks to the Lord. We may never know. Either way it has been a great blessing to her and to us.

This is how Lizzy says she feels about her brace.

And the back. You will notice there are stickers on it. After the brutal morning of the brace fitting and then an incredibly long wait to see the orthopedic doc the receptionist took the time to talk to Lizzy and told her that next time she got a brace she might be able to get it in a different color and said that we could decorate with stickers. She gave Lizzy two to start her collection. Her kindness really made a difference for Lizzy that day.

See, she's still the same old Lizzy. It's not so bad.

Lizzy - A week later

It's been a week now. Lizzy is doing phenomenally well - far better than we had anticipated. We feel very blessed and happy with how things are going. A week or so before surgery, Lizzy handed me a copy the The Friend magazine (a children's magazine published by our church) that she had been reading earlier that day and said, "Here, read this." I thought she had wanted me to read something to her so I started to sit down to read to her. She said, "No, I don't want you to read it to me, just read it to yourself!". It was the story about a young man who had surgery. His family and friends prayed for him and many participated in a special fast for him. In the end, he was blessed with what his doctors termed a miraculous recovery. After I read it, Lizzy simply said, "Just like me."


We feel that way now. It has been, from our view, a miracle that Lizzy is doing as well as she is. Today she was up and about quite a lot. We had to keep reminding her to sit and rest. She's walking almost normally and sat at the table with us for a while during dinner time. She's complaining of the itching around her bandage, but no pain at all (unless someone touches the incision site directly). Her back seems rather out of alignment, but it may just be the scoliosis is more clearly visible now because she's not flexible enough to compensate for it like she had before. Other than that and the shaved head and big bandaid, you'd never know she had brain surgery a week ago.


Lizzy will be back in Iowa City next Thursday to have her stitches removed and then will return in August for her next set of scans and checkups. We probably won't know whether the surgery has made a difference until August.


This will probably be my last daily post about Lizzy as we return to our "once-every-three-month" pattern. We do want to express heartfelt appreciation once again for each of you for the kind words of encouragement, cards, gifts, thoughts, and especially prayers for Lizzy.

Can you tell that Jacob loves Lizzy?

Lizzy wanted us to post another shot of her 4 1/2 inch incision. She's kind of proud of it I think. Tammy got to see the actual cut while the docs were changing the dressing. She says its pretty impressive.

Some dear friends made this quilt for Lizzy and presented it to her today. It's beautiful and she LOVES it!

Lizzy and Jake showing how tough they are!

Home again!

We made it home yesterday afternoon. It is soooo nice to be home! Lizzy is doing really really well. She hasn't had any pain medication (not even Tylenol) since yesterday morning and says she doesn't have any pain. I don't get that. I think if I had my head and skull and brain cut open I would be feeling at least some pain less than a week later!

The drive home was fairly uncomfortable for her - she really doesn't like wearing the neck brace, and we had to stop and rearrange things halfway home, but we made it without incident. Some kind friends brought dinner for us and after unpacking we were able to relax.

I don't think we realized just how tired we really were until we got here. We all went to bed by 8:30 and slept pretty hard until morning. It was good to start catching up a bit.

Lizzy is getting around pretty well. She's still unsteady on her feet, needing someone by her side in case she stumbles, but every day we see improvement. The PT taught her how to go up and down stairs safely and she does pretty well with that. She ate and drank a lot more yesterday which was a big relief to us ... that's been one of our bigger concerns.

She will be able to gradually increase her physical activity, but can't do anything strenuous for 3 months. It will take that long for her neck muscles to repair and restrengthen. After that point, she'll still have some limitations, but should be mostly back to her old self. I think within a few more days she's going to get very tired of sitting and lying around - she seems anxious to do more, but we've been cautioned to not go too quickly - it's not uncommon for this surgery to have to be repeated if things aren't allowed to heal properly.

Jacob was Lizzy's escort out of the hospital. He spent the whole morning with her and walked her out to the car. Before that, while Lizzy was getting her hair washed, Jake kept Hospi company.

Buddies - ready to go home!

Going Home!

We just wanted to let you know Lizzy is going home today. Yesterday they unhooked her from the IV fluids and she has done well enough that they are ready to send her home. She did throw up again this morning, but that made her tummy feel settled enough that she ate the most she has eaten in days (some applesauce and some raspberry sherbet). When I have some of my energy and focus return I will write more about the hospital experience. Right now I am grateful to be going home. I know there will be challenges there too, but we will be happy to all be together again. I also hope it will help Lizzy want to eat more if she is at home with foods she is used to eating. Thank you all for your support, comments, and especially your prayers. We have certainly felt the loving hand of the Lord in our lives through all of this.

Lizzy update

Lizzy continues to do very very well. She's pretty much back to her old self personality-wise. She hasn't had much pain at all, is doing more and more on her own and is starting to eat more. She's been able to go out for some pretty long walks ... still very slow and somewhat unsteady, but making fantastic progress. The neurosurgeons came and redressed her incision this morning and it appears to be healing well. They unhooked all her monitors and IV's today and mentioned it might even be possible for her to go home this afternoon, but we think it will more likely be tomorrow.

Thanks to everyone for sending comments to Lizzy's post. She's REALLY enjoyed reading those and appreciates very much the many people that are helping her. The cards, balloons, and visits have been much appreciated as well.

Lizzy went for a walk with mom and grandma out to see the fish tank last night.

Lizzy is still using the neck brace for support when she is up and about, but doesn't like it much.

We even went outside for a few minutes this morning to get some fresh air!