RIP Bob Halsey

So this weekend Shannon's grandfather Bob Halsey succombed to his battle with cancer. It has been about 5 months since he was diagnosed and before passing he did all he could to ensure that his wife of 40 years would be in a place where she would be surrounded by friends and church members.

His remains will be cremated and taken to West Virginia to be buried in the "Losh Plot." This is the family plot for Freddie's side of the family.

In his final days Bob was cared for by caregivers from the St. Joseph's medical group in Yorba Linda, and the family was very happy with the care they recieved. The caregivers took great care of Bob who bonded with one of the caregivers named Paul. Paul spent many hours ensuring that Bob had 24 hour care. The caregivers also took the time to prepare and counsel Freddie for the transition, a service that we are eternally grateful for as it appears to have really softened the blow of losing her companion.

Service date/time are TBD and will occur at Eastside Christian Church in Fullerton, CA.

Keeping in line with Freddie's desires we request that flowers not be sent, however we are sure cards/correspondence will be greatly appreciated.

Here is the address for Shannon's Parents:

Tom and Sandee McGinty
107 E. Palm Circle
Placentia, CA 92870

Cards may be sent here addressed to Freddie Halsey to be forwarded on.

We offer our prayer that Bob transition easily and swiftly into the care of his father in heaven and that his positive effect on this earth be felt into eternity. For his wife and loving companion we pray that she continue her days with joy and comfort provided by her friends, family and church. We are so grateful that Bob was able to attend our wedding and also his family reunion before his passing, and that we have so many great memories of our time with him.

So this weekend has started off pretty rocky. My Papa Bob passed away a little before 4 o'clock in the morning today. I was very fortunate to have spent quite a few hours with him and my grandma last night, and was able to say goodbye. We thought that there was 2 or 3 days left, but it ended up only being a matter of hours after hospice informed us. However, I look upon that as a blessing. It was a lot easier on the ones who loved him that it happened this way. He had the good fortune to be able to die at home in his own bed. Before yesterday, he was even able to get out of bed and go sit in the rocking chair when company was over. Though he was mostly non-responsive due to the amount of morphine that he was being given, you could tell that he was still thinking and hearing when people talked to him. We all knew that he had comes to terms with dying and was ready to go home to heaven. It is especially in times like this that I am so grateful for my religious values and beliefs. I can't imagine how incredibly difficult this would be if I didn't believe that my grandpa is now in a better place, a place that my family and I will one day be reunited with him in. Though it is difficult to lose someone who meant so much to me, I am thankful that he passed away with the dignity that he did and that he is no longer experiencing suffering or pain. He will always be a special person in my life, and I will forever cherish the memories that I have of him.

More research

So I spent my lunch hour doing some more research on Keratoconus and the possible treatments including the treatment TLC recommended the INTACs. Basically most research shows that the INTACS procedure significantly improves vision in 2 out of 3 patients, but the procedure for the most part does not significantly reduce the chance that the condition will worsen.

In my research I stumbled upon a treatment known as C3-R which essentially is a treatment to help strengthen the corneal structure. More information can be found here: http://www.keratoconusinserts.com/cornea.html.

While still in the clinical trial phase in the U.S. the treatment has been carried out for many years in Europe and India with good results. After plowing through site after site I found the actual clinical trial authorization information from the FDA and it contained a list of sites in the U.S. where the trials will be conducted including one in San Diego.

I contacted that site, who had since passed the trial rights onto another group whom I contacted. I am now number 4 on their waiting list for patients to be seen. Apparently they cannot begin to see patients until their "IBR" authorization comes through. It sounds like they haven't worked out all the legal kinks in conducting the trials yet. The lady was really nice and I think she will contact me one way or another to let me know the progress.

I really hope I am a candidate as this procedure looks like it at least halts progression of the condition and in many patients reverses the effects actually strengthening the cornea.

Yup, it's THAT bad...

So the picture to the left is bit deceptive, this is not actually MY eye. My eye is much worse. This is a topograph of a person with the same condition I have, just not as severe.

I went to a consultation this morning with TLC to see if I was a candidate for Laser Eye surgery. After some testing they sat me down with a doctor who informed me that I have Keratoconus. It is a condition that affects 1 in 1000 people and basically results in the cornea or lens of the eye getting more and more conical shaped as time goes on. The link to the wikipedia page is here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keratoconus and there is a great picture of a guy's eye. It was a bit too gross to put on here so if you want to go look at it you can.

Essentially the topograph above shows that the cornea is largely normal in the upper portion of the eye, but drops off steeply towards the bottom of the lens. The doctors said they like to be able to draw a line across the center of the eye and see about as much color on the top as the bottom. My topograph had virtually no color in the upper portion and a bunch of red and pink in the bottom portion.

The really crappy thing about the condition is that contacts and glasses don't really help the situation as it is the Cornea that is the problem, not the eye itself. So at any rate it looks like there are 3 real options:

1) Continue to wear contacts, but switch to RGP or rigid contacts that would be hard and force the cornea more into shape. This would be a temporary fix and it is likely the cornea will get worse.

2) Implant INTACs into my eye under the cornea. As TLC performs this procedure this is obviously their proposed option. Essentially slits would be made into the cornea and little pieces of plastic would be inserted to stretch the cornea into shape.

3) Ignore the problem in which case my vision will deteriorate further and further until eventually I can barely see out of my right eye and I would need a corneal transplant or as my co-worker so eloquently put it, I would need "dead guy eye" put in.

The third option is very non-appealing to me. To the point where I would almost prefer to not have vision in my right eye. The contact option doesn't sound too bad, but it also sounds like it would be a daily inconvenience.

The second option is still somewhat experimental, but has had good results. So at any rate, I need to do a lot more research, and will probably ask to get a second opinion before I go forward. As my two greatest fears in life are to go blind or to lose my hearing, I am going to put in some serious leg-work before I make a decision on this one.

My boss brought up that because it is an actual condition the INTACs might be covered by insurance, which I will have to look into. The doctor said that with the INTACs AND glasses, they think the could give me close to 20/20 vision in my right eye, which would be a miracle.

At any rate, depressing news, but nothing compared to what others suffer through.

What a weekend!

So it was a pretty great weekend including a trip to Disneyland and stay at the Grand Californian Hotel. Shannon and I also got annual passes that will allow us to go to Disneyland during the week should we ever find a weekday we can both have off. We went with my Dad and Jody and Jeff and Abbey and their little ones. It was great watching the little nephews run around and have a good time.

I got to go on Space Mountain with my little newphew Noah who was going on it for the first time. It was fun to watch someone experience it for the first time and to think back to when I used to ride Space Mountain as a kid. Disneyland has changed so much since then.

We also got to see 3 of our 4 living grandpas. Shannon's grandfather is in his final weeks of a battle with cancer and is on some pretty heavy medication which is always difficult on family members. Because of the stress and his need for constant care her grandmother had let her needs slip not taking her medication and losing most of her appetite. It is a pretty rough transition for the whole family. I was happy to see that Freddie (the grandmother) was back on her medication and was in good mental condition though she was of course very distraught. Bob (the grandfather) perked up a bit when he noticed we were there and is still communicating suprisngly well in between his sleeping.

On the other side it was my Mom's father's birthday this weekend so we went down to San Diego to celebrate. Unfortunately Shannon andI have both not been feeling too well so we left kind of early. We decided it must just be something Shannon caught from her kids as the school year just started and this class is much more "touchy" than last year's. So at any rate, our visit in San Diego was short, but it was great to see all the family and especially the triplet cousins. They are walking around and starting to talk which is great to see.

So it was a pretty busy weekend leaving little time to work on our Village or on the Haunted House. Hopefully we will have some time to crank on both of those this week.

A new day, a new cell phone

So I decided after only a year to replace my cell phone. It is getting to the point that it is so unreliable due to battery life that I may miss some important calls. I can't in good conscience tell people they can reach me on my cell phone, which is pretty pathetic. So I should be getting my new Samsung "Alias" in the mail in the next couple days and will post up a review when I do.

It took quite a while to get the brain started up this morning as it often does after a three day weekend. Not to help the situation, I am really trying to kick coffee and soda, so no wake up juice for me.

Shannon starts her first day of school today and I am excited to see how it went. She has a much smaller class this year which does not bode well for her school's future, but it should make the year a little bit easierfor her. The school has a new principal which will likely cause a few growing pains. Somehow I have a feeling it will be harder than the other teachers than on Shannon. She is very organized, plans well, implements well and has no problems making it to places on time and properly dressed as some teachers do.

We had a great weekend of mostly hanging around the house. We got some of the gardening done, took the Nova out for a drive and sold the Pontiac. I also got a chance to work on our halloween light show, and got about 30 seconds of the timeline for the first song done. Now that I know what I am doing I think I will be able to program more efficiently when I get back on it.

We also went to the blessing for Jeff's third child, Ryder. The blessing is a prayer by elder men in the church. It is not the equivalent of a baptism as Mormons have baptism later in life as well, but is performed while the child is an infant. It is amazing they already have three and all three are so calm and such good babies. With my luck my children will be little hellians, but I guess what goes around comes around right?