thank you

3 years ago, about a dozen of my closest childhood friends and i planned a trip to the hills of west virgina. it was an all guys weekend. half of the group i had known since 3rd grade when i moved from balitmore to columbus, and the other half i had know since freshman year in high school. far away from civilization, we had little do other than play soccer, drink a little beer, and talk. at the time, only one of us had kids...but it was something nearly all of us were aware was in our near future. we were all near, or just past 30. it was time to grow up.

the following year, 2 of the group had their first child and 2 of us miscarried. but then in the second year, nearly all of us had our first (some of which are blog links here). there was a non-verbal commitment we made to each other over late night campfires, that along with the help of our wives back home, we would take care of each other and soon...each other's families.

that commitment was shown a few days ago when we received a card from 7 of our dearest couple friends in columbus. they sent us a check to buy jasper's first pair of glasses and help with the medical bills. to say the least, we were floored and at a lost for words at the gesture. the tears came quickly to mara. it's taken me a few days to write this, i just felt overwhelmed and very blessed. thank you from the deepest of mara's + i's heart and thank you to the other friends who have sent jasper stuffed monkeys, toys, + their prayers. i hope i have personally thanked you as well. the pic is the card's front cover.

carrusel

(carousel in spanish)

no patch

our doctor said we can leave the patch off for now, so we've given it a rest for the past 2 days. we can definitely tell it's a tad off and "lazy" so we are anxious to get the stitches out, and a contact lens in, so we can start rehabbing it.

ANSWER TO KIM'S COMMENT: we are very hopeful he will have sight from the eye. since the lens was lost in the accident, at most he sees light and dark at the moment. once the stitches are removed (the surgery date has been set to March 19th) , he will be outfitted with a contact lens that we will place in and out each day. at that time, we will have to patch the good eye for about 3 hours a day in order to force him to use the bum eye. the best news is that the scar, once thought to be directly in the center, has somehow moved slightly over and appears to be not exactly in the line of sight. so if this continues to heal nicely, it may not pose as a great hindrance as once anticipated.

daddy hug

watch out, mara's started to pick up the camera and snap some great shots!

SFMOMA

shadedbox is producing an animation for the future roof garden addition the SFMOMA is constructing, that my friend steve huegli designed. steve set up a personal tour up to the roof while i was up there and on the way i snapped this pic.

update

We were delivered some great news today. we saw the cornea specialist who, after looking at jasper's eye, said we do not need to proceed with a transplant. instead, we will remove the stitches in 2-3 weeks so that the cornea can heal even more. this is awesome news as a transplant surgery would have significant complications. thank you to all once more for all the thoughts + prayers!

blue bottle coffee in SF

i was up in SF for the past 4 days attending a game convention for shadedbox. my dear friend, steve, took me by far one of the most beautiful stores i have ever been in. although it's a coffee shop, + i don't drink coffee, the place was simply gorgeous. it's tucked away off a busy downtown street and called blue bottle cafe. they make each coffee individually, not by the pot, + use a $20k siphon machine to produce each cup. this was one of the best hot chocolates i've drunk.

congrats to the millers!

last weekend, we stopped in to see our dear friend julie + her new son: Warren Thomas Miller, one day old.

it dawned on mara + i that it 's been almost 2 years since we were in the maternity ward...+ will be back in three months time!

tough kid

passing on the skills

this is a rare occasion where i upload a photo of myself, but mara snapped a great picture this morning of jasper + i practicing grand turismo....

and more bubbles!

more ballon pics

this is the last of the balloons to survive from all the get well gifts

happy valentines day

word verification enabled...

...sounds like the chant we used to say while watching Voltron as a kid... but you may notice when leaving a comment, you'll have to enter in a "word verification" in order to process the comment. i enabled this after i noticed a few recent spam comments...that i caught in time. i still allow anyone and everyone to leave comments without having a log in name. sorry for the extra step, but blame in on the spam.

daily pic

daily pics

another tent...

mara put jasper down for a nap the other day. we can watch him from a small a camera mounted on the wall (you can see it in the upper left). she freaked out when she saw jasper nearly climb out of the crib, getting his body up on the railing and half of his body hanging out on the other side. she ran into the room just before he was able to fall out. you can see an attempt here. so we installed this tent. at first, he loved it and didn't want to get out...until he realized this was indeed...nap time.

doc appointment update

More good news to report. Thursday’s visit to the cornea specialist, Dr Song, delivered us more good news that the retina has continued to remain attached and the cornea is healing nicely. Jasper was strapped in the super Velcro harness once more, something he’s become somewhat accustomed to. The doctor was able to peel open his eye lids, a feat in itself with jasper strength, and noted that the scar might not be as centered as once thought. He says the scar is healing nicely and is slightly off center from the center of the eye. The scar will be noticeable for the rest of his life and the iris and pupil will appear a bit irregular. This can be corrected eventually with a cosmetic lens…although I will attempt to convince him how cool his scar looks.

We are to meet up again with the Doc in 2 weeks. At that time, he will make a determination whether we simply remove the stitches (if the cornea continues to heal nicely) or proceed with a cornea transplant. The cornea transplant would require 2 surgeries: one for the transplant and one a few months later to remove those stitches. The cornea transplant has other complications: infection, excessive bleeding, and the chance jasper’s eye would reject the cornea. In addition, young toddlers success rate is lower than adults. The rejection rate is about 40% for young kids while adults is about 15%.

As I’ve stated a few times, the best part is that the retina has remained attached. The doctor reiterated how important this is. “I can’t fix the back (retina), but I can fix the front (cornea).”

Dr Song also confirmed that jasper’s lens is gone. This means once the decision is made whether the original stitches simply come out or the transplant is performed, jasper will have to place, er…mara and I will have to place a contact lens in the eye. Otherwise, he won't be able to focus. This lens will have to be placed in each morning and removed each night…something mara and I can do in a heartbeat to help him see. His ointment and eye drops are now reduced to twice a day which will give us a bit of a break.

Many have asked me if the donor cornea comes from a deceased person. I finally found the proper wording to ask. Yes, once the surgery is scheduled, jasper will be placed on a list. If someone under 30 years has deceased within the previous 10 days, jasper could potentially receive his or her cornea. Dr Song mentioned he performs about 150 cornea transplants a year and approximately 2 a year have to be rescheduled due to a lack of a donor cornea.

Lastly, we most likely won’t be able to decipher how much sight jasper will have from the eye until he begins talking well enough to convey to us the degree. This might be a year from now. In the past week, he’s begun to open his eye lids much wider, giving us a glimpse into how coordinated the bad eye is with his good one. It’s still a tad difficult to tell, but he seems to be moving it quite well.

sorry, no pics from the visit. thank you all once more for your prayers, thoughts, and nice notes!

our tent

jasper's new game is to get under the bed sheet and create a tent.

fabiola has a blog!

attention all blog devotees! another blog has popped up! mara's brother, fabian, has started one for our beautiful niece fabiola and his wife milly! cruise on over here!

daily pics

he felt a great deal better latter in the day..and even began to open his eye.

jasper's got a cold

follow up doc appointment

we got more good news today! the retina is still attached and the eye is not infected. now, the chances of catching an infection in the eye drop significantly. the visit was another rough one on the little guy. we had to strap him once more into a super velcro straight jacket in order for the doctor to pry open his eye with small metal forceps. it took 2 nurses and 2 doctors with mara + i to hold him in. the kid's a fighter! mara got to see his eye and reports that it's still blue and she could even see the scar which appeared like a thin white line.
on thursday of next week, we meet with a cornea specialist to map out the next surgery which will most likely take place 2 weeks from now. thank you all again for your continued thoughts, prayers, and help!

our girl is getting big!

daily pic