Author: ryan

Categories
Art Family Travel

Pacific City, and some cars

It’s been an eventful few weeks since my last post, so here’s the recap.

For anyone who read the last post, I’m recovering nicely from my surgery. And I’m going to have a wicked cool scar. I’m going to tell people I got in a knife fight with a gang of baddies.

I’ve been diagnosed with diabetes (oh joy), so I’ve been working hard to lose some pounds (combination of a low calorie and low carb diet with a bunch of exercise) and taking my meds in the hopes that there’s a chance of reversing it. Time will tell I guess. I’m just falling apart. Stupid frail human bodies. Time to look into transferring my consciousness into a robot body. A strong one with metal claws.

IMG_2049A couple weeks ago Kelly, Max and I spent a weekend in Pacific City for our anniversary and had a fabulous time. We stayed at the Inn at Cape Kiwanda which was very nice (not exactly inexpensive, but worth it). The Inn was excellent for a few reasons; The rooms were very nice, the balcony with it’s ocean view, and most importantly it’s proximity to my favorite beach-front brewpub, Pelican Pub & Brewery, where we spent an good amount of time. Got some time in hiking around the beach and the peninsula, watched the dory boats cruise back onto the beach, spent a bit of time with Max on the beach (as much as he could handle anyway), and generally had a very relaxing weekend. It was hard to come back home.  More photos here.

IMG_2140This past weekend we went to the Portland Art Museum‘s exhibit The Allure of the Automobile where we got to see over a dozen really beautiful old cars. You can see the list of cars at this OregonLive article. My favorites were the 1937 Dubonnet Hispano-Suiza, the 1933 Pierce-Arrow, the 1955 Mercedes-Benz 300 SLR “Uhlenhaut” Coupe (pictured right), and the 1959 Chevy Corvette Sting Ray. After ogling at the cars for a bit we ran upstairs to look at the collection which, while not huge, is really nice. Anyway, more photos here.

Also, I recently updated my server, so hopefully everything works correctly. Anyone who knows how to get in touch via non-blog fashion, let me know if you have trouble commenting or whatever.

Categories
News

I’ve got a broken face!

For those of you who didn’t know (and I didn’t tell many people, so that’s probably most of you) I had some surgery on Monday. On my face. Well, neck. But it’s close enough for the Pixies reference in the title.

Several months back this gland under my right ear started swelling a bit, and then reducing back down to normal. I didn’t think too much of it, glands kinda do that, right? Well, shortly before Max was born, it started growing and not going back down to normal. Then it kept growing.

Due to Max’s hospitalization, followed by all the newness of a newborn around the house, I didn’t want to know yet about anything terrible. I couldn’t handle it. So I put off looking into it for a while. I know it’s stupid, but you just had to be me to understand I guess.

Anyway, a little over a month ago I finally started the process of getting it checked out. I first went to a ZoomCare near my house, they got me set up with some blood tests and an ultrasound, and then referred me to an ENT (ear nose & throat) specialist at Good Sam. After a visit with him (and a CT scan, which resulted in the image to the left) I was diagnosed with a somewhat common benign tumor in my parotid gland (one of the salivary glands). The tumor is more common with older folk than myself, but regardless, I had a tumor! Holy crap!

The solution to this was to have the entire parotid gland removed, which I had done on Monday. They had to make a pretty substantial incision to remove it (around/under my earlobe and way down my neck), and by doing so they had to sever some sensory nerve fibers that’s resulted in numbness of the right side of my face and neck, and my right ear is completely without feeling.

This surgery was my first time being put under, first time having stitches, being swollen, numb, misshapen and now groggy on painkillers. Stayed in the hospital Monday night and arrived home around noon yesterday.

Recovering OK now. Late this afternoon I had this drainage tube that was sutured into my neck removed, which had severely limited my movement and comfort. I was finally able to get cleaned up tonight, and I’m starting to feel more normal, but what with the swelling, and the concave area where my gland was, I’m feeling pretty deformed at the moment. My doctor assures me that in a month or two not only will I look pretty much back to normal, but I’ll have regained most of the feeling in my face.

I’m off this week from work, but will be going back in next week and will still be pretty misshapen for a few weeks, so when you see me, try not to be too mean with the Frankenstein’s Monster comments. 🙂

And now, for the Pixies song that inspired the title: Pixies – Broken Face

Categories
Beer Family General Work

Max is 6 months old!

It’s been a while since my last post. It’s been since we brought Max home from the hospital a little over 5 months ago. That’s a long time. And yet it’s gone by very quickly. Now be prepared, this is going to be a heavily Max-focused post. Sorry. It’s kind of a big deal.

Max is now (or will be on the 26th) 6 months old. Crazy right? He’s doing really well. It already seems like another life ago that he was in the NICU at Legacy Emanuel. Over the past 5 months he’s grown a lot, is weighing in at about 16 pounds, has some teeth starting to poke through (making him extra cranky), has been rolling over onto his stomach, and is on the verge of crawling. He’s smiling and laughing and is generally a very calm and happy infant. And he’s (if I do say so myself) a very handsome little man (clearly he gets his good looks from his mom).

Best of all has been the transition from the somewhat confusing and stunned period of him first being in our lives to where we are now. It now seems weird and somewhat foreign to think of a time when Max wasn’t here with us. It’s strange how that happens. I’d been told it happens, but it really is amazing the way it does. I know that he wasn’t in the world a year ago. But it just seems weird that he wasn’t.

Other news:

I’ve been at SuperSweetCo (aka Jive Software) for 5 years as of this month, and things continue to grow, change, and challenge me every day. When I started the company had just shy of 30 employees and it’s now pushing 400, with offices in Palo Alto, Boulder, New York, and now overseas. Crazy times. Just Crazy.

Kelly has retired from the Oregon Symphony to do the most important job ever, raising Max, and amazes me every day. She’s a fantastic Mom. Not that anyone would be surprised.

I’ve discovered another favorite spot in town: Prost. It’s a German-focused spot that serves sausages, sauerkraut, big soft pretzels, and one of my favorite German beers (Hofbrau lager).

My kegerator has Stella Artois on tap.

It’s my first Father’s Day today.

I redesigned my blog a bit over the weekend. I’m still such a nerd. Who blogs anymore anyway?

Portland’s crappy weather has continued to be crappy. It’s June. Sheesh!

That’s it for now. Will try to write again before Christmas. We’ll see.

Categories
News

Update 7 – Home at last!

As of 5pm on Tuesday, Max is finally home with Kelly and I. He’s doing really well, and doing what I imagine 3 week old infants should do: keeping Kelly and I up. He’s feeding well, and we have a pediatrician  appointment at 11am today so we’ll get to find out how he’s done since leaving the hospital. Hopefully he’s gained some weight and not lost any.

Anyway, there we have it, after some weeks and some heartache he’s finally home and the three of us are adjusting to our new lives. Thanks again for all your support.

Categories
News

Update 6 – Hospital time nearly at an end

Big news since the last update.

Three days ago Max had another sensor removed (the oxygen sensor) so he’s only got his heart rate and respiration rate sensors left taped to his stomach and chest. Two days ago they gave him a hearing test which he passed with flying colors. And yesterday the nurse removed his feeding tube again. This was for two reasons; over the past week he’s increased what he’s been able to take via bottle (from an average of 30ml to 65ml per feeding), and they’ve begun to supplement his milk with a bit of formula to increase his caloric intake so they could reduce the volume they were previously pumping into his stomach via the tube.

Today he was given one of two immunizations they commonly give to babies who have had the diaphragmatic hernia and/or spent time in the NICU. Tomorrow he gets the second, and on Tuesday morning they’re going to do a car seat test to see how he reacts to an hour sitting in the car seat.

All this is because he’s getting closer and closer to being discharged and allowed to come home! The doctor said (assuming the formula addition results in some weight gain) he might be able to come home as early as Tuesday evening. (!!!)

I had a nasty head & chest cold this past week so I wasn’t allowed into the NICU, but today I finally was well enough to go in and see Max, and he looks awesome. He’s growing quickly (he’s three weeks old already!) and his surgery wounds are healing really well.

At any rate, he’s doing great, and if he continues to improve at the rate he has been for the past week we’ll have him home by mid next week. Here’s hoping the Mighty Max gains the weight the doctors want him to over the next few days!