We had a scare with Eden, but everything looks like it will be OK now. She has a lump on her neck, right in the center below where her Adam’s apple would be. It didn’t seem like a big deal. It was hidden by her many chins. Yesterday the skin got irritated so that it turned red. Suddenly it looked like a pretty scary lump.

I tried to get an appointment with our pediatrician, but he was out of town. Elisa visited a different practicioner, and then they sent her to the Kinderspital. At the hospital they took three ultrasounds of Eden’s neck. We had to do our best to follow along with what was going on. They mostly just spoke German. We also had to do our best to restrain Eden while they examined her. She likes to be independent, so she hates to have her head held still. She wore herself out screaming. 🙁

In a thyroidal duct there is a cyst left over from her development. It’s kind of common for a baby to have one. This one got infected though, and swelled into a grape-sized lump. They brought all the doctors in to see our little celebrity. Eden’s white blood cell count is fine, so the infection hasn’t spread. Eden has been happy, and she hasn’t fevered, and it doesn’t hurt her to have the lump touched. The surgeon eventually decided to administer antibiotics for two weeks. Then after that, the cyst will still have to be removed, just to make sure it doesn’t get infected again.

So we are going to give Eden antibiotics out of a dropper twice a day. We are still going to leave for London on our vacation this Thursday. As soon as we get back, we’ll take her in for surgery. The surgery isn’t supposed to be dangerous or worrisome. Since it’s at a teaching hospital, Elisa and I are hoping that there is a way for us to observe. Are we crazy? 🙂 The Swiss like to keep an eye on their patients, so Eden will probably spend a few days in the hospital.

Life is a rollercoaster these days.. only we are on the part that keeps plunging down down down. We have a lot of obstacles to work through right now and most likely will have to make some big changes in our life because of them. On the bright side not all these changes will be bad. 

It is the weekend. This week lasted forever and sped by all at the same time. I am SO glad to have another weekend. It feels like a time for Chad and I to join forces. It is when we have enough time together to hash through our troubles and still have a little time left over to push it all away from our minds and just enjoy what great things we have. 

Spring is really starting agian, for real this time we hope. The sun is out. It is warm enough to go out without thinking ahead about how many layers would be wise to have on. The flowers are popping up all over the place. They seem to grow wild in the grass here. I do not know how anyone has the heart to mow the lawn with all the bright colors sprinkled throughout. 

Eden is our greatest cheerer-upper! She is getting more fun every day. She is still pretty small (25 percentile and on the short side) but she can sit up pretty well on her own. I took her out for a walk yesterday and sat her in the regular seat rather than having her in her attached carseat. With the carseat she props up facing me. Strapping her in regular sits her up like a big kid facing forward. It is a lot easier than attaching the car seat and pushing the extra wieght but I found myself stopping and making excuses to go and look at her. I missed just getting to watch her watch the world go by. I also missed chatting with her as we went along. Stress melts away when we play with her.

This is the answer Chad will give:  “We stopped updating our blog, and now we just post pictures. There’s lots of cute pictures though.”

Here is my answer: It stopped being fun and something we look forward to. I guess we didn’t realize how the things we wrote could be so misunderstood. So instead of risking being misunderstood we opted out. Now I am sad that we have missed documenting so many great moments over the last 5 months.

So love me or hate me; I am going to be honest.  This used to be a journal and now it is a thing that makes me sad.  To try and make it a happy place again for me I have to treat it like it was before. This is were I am going to write what I think, how I feel, what is real to me and my family. It doesn’t matter who agrees or disagrees. We cannot apologize for who we are. I welcome all positive feedback (who doesn’t?) but direct the negative energy in another direction–like into a big dark hole and then cover it up and then build a big safe around it and seal it shut and then hire big scary security guards to keep it away.

Phew… that was a long time coming.