"2 weeks isn't THAT long....."

Is what Dylan said, with his shoulder slumped, when the doctor told him that's how much longer he has to wait to go back to martial arts. :-(  He was bummed but handled it better than I thought he might.

Overall he is healing fine from his last surgery and is excited that he did get to go back to PE and recess this week.  The poor boy has always needed a physical "outlet" and he's pretty much been restricted since August 24th!  That's a long time for an active 6 year old boy.....I think it would be for anyone.

We're in full Christmas mode around here!  Our house is decorated and the kids are excited......Eva is loving all the decorations and was a little overwhelmed when we drove through Olin Park to look at all the lights.  She just kept saying "wow" and "I see that one!"  I'm sure we'll have several more trips through the park this holiday season.

I have a bunch of pictures to upload and post on the blog...hopefully this week! :-)

I'm so bad lately.....

I'm so bad lately on doing blog posts.  I'm sure with the holidays coming up that will change very soon but right now I just feel like I don't have much free time to sit down and blog.

Dylan's recovering/recovered nicely from his last surgery and we REALLY hope that it will be his last one!  He's been such a trooper but is also ready to be done with "recovery periods!"  Starting Monday he can participate again in recess and PE.  He has to wait until after his follow-up to head back to martial arts but that appointment is just around the corner on November 28th.  I'm sure he will be one happy boy to get back to martial arts. It's hard to believe he hasn't been there since AUGUST.  I never imagined it would be this long before he would get to go back.

Kira's been doing good.  She was home sick this week but it seems to be a quick virus that has already run it's course and she'll be back to school tomorrow.  The last couple of days have been a little emotional for her as we found out that her special education teacher had resigned.  She's done so well with her this year that it even made me teary-eyed to think about this change.  Since she was sick, she didn't get say good-bye like the rest of the class so we stopped in today since the kids were off for conferences and said our good-byes.  Kira got a little emotional (the teacher did too) but I think heading to the book fair when we were done was just the distraction she needed.  Fortunately, she knows the person who will sub until a new teacher is hired and that should help with the transition some.

Eva is FINALLY into the routine of going to school.  The tears have stopped at drop-off thanks to Eema taking her one day.....seriously, Eema took her one day when I was with Dylan for his surgery and she's been fine since!  Whew.  I know that she didn't cry more than a few seconds but it was still hard to leave her crying.  She loves school and I love hearing about her day!  Most days she's pretty chatty about what she did and who she played with but then there are days like today when all I get is "don't know" for the answer to any question.  Stinker!!

We are staying in Madison for Thanksgiving which will be nice.  We'll head to CF for Christmas though.......I really can't remember the last time we were in CF.  It may have been July!  That's got to be a record for us.  It's just not as easy to do weekend trips with all 3 kids in school.

We're in full holiday mode already and it's been so fun to watch the kids be so excited about everything!

Think of Dylan tomorrow.....

Tomorrow Dylan will be having a procedure done at the Children's Hospital.  Because there is the chance that this blog will be around for a very long time, I am not going to go into details for Dylan's privacy.

I will share that the procedure will take a couple of hours and he will have to be completely sedated for it.  Then he will be out of school for the rest of the week.  And rather ironically, he just got "released" for the surgeon from his femur fracture to fully participate in recess and PE and after tomorrow, he will not be able to participate in them until at least November 28th.  Poor guy.....that restriction will likely be a little harder this time around.

We have to be there at 9:30 AM tomorrow and he is scheduled for 11:10 AM.

Think of my Dylan.....we're hoping that this is the end of "crap" for him!

Excitement is building..

All 3 kids are getting so excited for Halloween.  As I'm typing this Jason and Dylan are at the martial arts Halloween Party....Dylan was beside himself with excitement about going all day.  I think part of it was the "halloween" part of things but he hasn't been to martial arts since August because of his leg so I think he was really excited to see his friends too!!

The girls and I stayed home tonight and had a "girls night!"  Kira picked Dominos for dinner and since Eva couldn't have that she wanted a "heart" dinner........translation, Mommy cuts all her food to look like hearts! :-)  Then we painted fingers and toes yellow and orange "like candy corn" for Halloween....and now we are watching the new Tinkerbell movie although both girls are fading fast.

Kira's had a cold......it's her 2nd one since school started but this is the first once that required up to get the nebulizer out and call for medications.  I thought she was feeling better but today she's been a little droopy again so I'm not sure what to make of that!

On Thursday Dylan has another follow-up with Dr. N and I'm hoping that it will be our last appointment for a year as far as his leg/hip go.  Hopefully he'll give us the "okay" and our next appointment with him won't be for a year.  I know that Dylan would love to get our for recess and participate in PE class at school.

Hope that everyone is having a great weekend!

Normal....

Is a word that I really should be used to hearing by now when it comes to Kira, right?

Well, I heard it again and again, it brought tears to my eyes and has just thrown me "off" a bit today. (It's probably good I had a crazy busy day of appointments that meant driving back and forth across town...I was too busy to "think" too much.)

Kira's EMG test from Friday was normal.  

There is no chance at all that she has any type of congenital myasthenia.

The nurse was so happy to be calling with such "great news."  And yes, in many ways, it is wonderful news.  I know that in my head.  My heart....well, my heart feels something very different.  Not tears because she DOESN'T have a myasthenia of any kind but tears because we just don't know.

EIGHT YEARS.  For eight years we have been looking for answers....looking for what is so very clearly a needle in the haystack to explain Kira's low muscle tone and muscle fatigue.  EIGHT YEARS.

As of right now, there is nothing left to test for....which I can assure you, would make Kira really happy to know.  But for me....it's frustrating. Very, very frustrating and honestly, scary at times.

The nurse did make me laugh a little after I hung up...she said to continue to watch for new signs of symptoms.  Um, okay?  Exactly WHAT should we be watching for???

Serious lack of communication

It's taken me a few days to write this post because I've been more than a little ticked off about the chain of events that took place on Friday when Kira went for her EMG.

If you know Kira, I don't need to tell you that she was NOT happy when she figured out she needed to go to hospital for another test....not happy at all.  We managed to make it through the evening before and the morning off okay...tears, yes but we managed.

When we got there, our nurse was very understanding and told Kira that she could hang out in the waiting room while I went back to talk with her.  Kira was happy about that.  We went through her medical history and decided that I would talk to the NP before we went any further with Kira.  She came in and we talked IN DETAIL about what medications would be needed.  She was going to be given an oral medication and another through the gas mask....twilight sedation was what the neuro had ordered.  

She got her dose of oral meds in the waiting room and once we knew it had "hit" we took her back to her room.  She did well and even willingly got on the bed.  From there, things just went downhill.  They we giving her the meds with the gas mask and she was fighting it some but it was also clear that it was working.  After about 20 minutes, the EMG dr, who had been IN THE ROOM the whole time, said this isn't going to work and this is what I need.  So we agreed to try ketamine...nasally.  AFTER we did that is when he said that he really needed her to just have Propofol...which, I might add requires an IV that we had already told her she wouldn't need.

Somewhere around this point, I had to step out of the room because I was losing it quickly.  Our nurse and the NP both felt TERRIBLE since the orders they have received said NOTHING about all of this....and the EMG dr had signed off on them as well.  He is the same dr who did Kira's EMG when she was much, much younger and I really didn't like him that time either.

When I went back in the room, Kira was beyond hysterical and I pretty much said, "Just do it....and get it done."  I was not very polite about it at that point either.  If we 1) didn't need this test done and 2) weren't so far into the procedure already when the chaos really started, I would have said forget it and walked out the door with her.  Kira was screaming at me that I lied to her when she figured out that she needed an IV...I was fighting tears and Jason was none to happy either.

Fortunately, Propofol works pretty quickly and they were able to get the test done.  Kira slept for a bit once they stopped the meds and woke up ready for something to drink.

So now we are in the waiting period again....waiting to hear from the neuro about the test!  Hopefully soon!

Tomorrow it's Kira's turn.....

To go here....

And I don't think that I have to even say how unhappy she will be.  I don't think that UNHAPPY is even a strong enough word.

Tomorrow Kira will be having an EMG done.  She will have "twilight" sedation.  We have to be at the hospital by 9:30 AM and her test is scheduled for 11:00 AM.  They are testing specifically for Congenital Myasthenic Syndrome with this test.  IF the EMG shows that she does have CMS, then I believe there would be some further blood work to determine which type she has.  Our doctors at Mayo Clinic recommended rechecking for this (she was testing 4 years ago) and our local neurologist agreed that it was a good idea.  All the doctors have stressed that this really is the last thing they can test for her.  She has had every other metabolic, mito, neuromuscular test known to man at this point done.  I would be lying if I said that didn't fill me with a little anxiety.  But we have gotten our "hopes up" so many times over the last 8 1/2 years that I'm also very much expecting them to say that everything is "normal".......again.  

Jason and I always struggle with WHEN to tell Kira about tests and such.  She doesn't know yet that she's having this done tomorrow.  If we had told her in advance, she would be obsessing about it non-stop, not sleeping well and likely having a terrible time at school.  But now, here we are, the day before and she has no clue.  We won't tell her until tomorrow morning....actually as soon as she figures out she can't eat in the morning, all bets will be off. If we told her tonight, she would be a mess, wouldn't sleep well and would likely be up several times throughout the night.   I feels "mean" to wait until the last minute to tell her but it also feels "mean" to tell her in advance and let her worry about it non-stop.  It's going to be a rough morning and I have to just hope that we can get Dylan out the door to school without him being upset too.

I talked to the nurse today and made it clear that she was going to be upset coming in.....nothing will change that.  I also requested that we limit the number of people that come in and out of the room.  If someone doesn't NEED to see Kira, we can chat in the hall.  They have always been good with this request so hopefully tomorrow will be the same.

It's a relatively short test so hopefully everything will go smoothly and we'll be home long before Dylan gets out of school at 3:15 PM.

More results, more appointments

I got a call on Wednesday night from Dr N. (ortho) who had actually gotten the bloodwork results back before the kidney doctors since he had ordered them.

Dylan has low parathyroid hormone along with elevated calcium in his urine (and maybe blood, I honestly can't remember).  Ding, ding, ding....you've earned a trip to see the endocrinologist now.  Oy! Fortunately, we got an appointment set up for October 9th.  Dr N. wanted him to be seen sooner, rather than later so it was nice that the appointment was just there and we didn't have call the doctor back to try and get in sooner.

Then on Friday, I got a call from Dr. R's nurse (kidney doctor) to let me know that Dylan's kidney ultrasound was pretty much normal.  There was little extra fluid around on of them but it was nothing they were concerned about.  She said that Dr R. would be calling me about the blood work......raised my nerves a little.  He called just a few minutes later and said that he was really surprised by the low PTH  with Dylan combined with the elevated calcium in his urine.  It wasn't sky high but it was high.  He explained that if the PTH had been normal along with the elevated calcium, he would have recommended started Dylan on medication since he's had a fracture BUT.....given the low PTH, he agreed that he needs to be seen by endocrinology because we make any decisions.

So, we're waiting AGAIN!  And I'm sure after we see endocrinology we'll wait again......have I mentioned I'm REALLY, REALLY sick of waiting.

3rd grade.....

In Kira's words yesterday.....

"You know Mom, 3rd grade really isn't much different from 2nd grade except I have more homework."

Kira's doing REALLY well this year.  It's been so nice (and a relief) to see her coming out at the end of the day SMILING.  She's had very few crying episodes and the ones that she has had, with the exception of one, her aide or teacher knew what had happened and she was able to to get it under control really quick.  

She's come home a few days excited to share with me what she played with kids on the playground.  She's struggled with interacting with kids her age...approaching them to play has been very difficult.  They are working on it this year with her.  Undoubtedly, Kira's crying has impacted kids wanting to play with her and interact so I'm hoping that she can really keep it under control and start making some good friends.

Add one more.....

Yesterday (Tuesday) was Dylan's appointment with the kidney doctor.  I really liked the doctor.  He was great about explaining everything and making sure that I was comfortable with the plan when we were done.  I so appreciate doctors who are like that....I really, really do.

So, Dylan had more blood work done and his doctor said that if we hadn't heard from anyone by Friday we should call.......and I definitely will.

At his appointment yesterday, he also ordered a kidney ultrasound. (Adding one more appointment to our already crazy week!)  We were able to get it done this morning at 8:10 AM.  I hated to be taking D to school late again but wanted to get this ultrasound done so that hopefully by Friday we will have all the results and a better idea of what is going on.

Dylan has been just a good kiddo with all these blood draws and tests.  He wasn't happy about having yet another blood draw but once they put the numbing cream on, he did better.  He chatted the whole time he was getting the draw done and at the end said, "WOW!  That's amazing.  I didn't even feel a thing"......over and over and over and over.

Today he hopped up on the table for the ultrasound after this conversation with the tech....

Dylan: "So, you don't have any needles in here, right"

Tech:  "Nope, none at all."

Dylan: "Then we'll get along just fine."

The tech and I both cracked up!  Dylan did great during the ultrasound....I had no idea he could lay that still! ;-)

Fortunately, I had him to school by about 9:15 so he didn't even miss an hour!

4 more weeks....

4 more weeks for no PE class and no recess for Mr D.....likely longer before he can head back to martial arts.  He was NOT happy when the doctor told him that....not happy at all.  I feel so bad for him.  Fortunately, for the most part, he's handled it well and he's figured out that it hurts when he does too much.  BUT he's tired of hurting for sure.

He had xrays done today and it was interesting to actually see the pins.....Dylan was very interested in that and stared at it for quite awhile.  I wish I could have figured out what was going through his mind. ;-)

The doctor was concerned that he's still limping as much as he is and when he watched him walk he said that he could tell it was definitely a limp from his hip. He's still complaining of pain quite often too and was, fortunately, able to tell the doctor about it on his own.   He's hoping that it's a combination of walking around on it fractured for almost 2 weeks and then having surgery.  His gait was clearly effected by it in the 2 weeks it took for something to show up on an X-ray.  We got back on November 1st and see how things are at that point.

Tomorrow we have his appointment with the kidney doctors.......

Random updates...

Last week at this time I was just finding out that Dylan needed to be admitted to the hospital.  I was remarkably calm which was probably because the doctor had just finished telling me that he was concerned that Dylan was at risk for breaking the bone all the way through.  Okay then, admit him.  Really a no-brainer there, right?

The week since his surgery has been rough.  The first few days were rough because he was in a lot of pain and not happy at all.  By Sunday/Monday, he was feeling better and it became a "game" of protecting him from himself.  Clearly the pain medications were working because he actually asked if he could jump on the trampoline...atleast he asked first, right?  

The last couple of days have been challenging since the stronger pain meds are gone and we're relying in Tylenol which works for the most part but I have a feeling tomorrow will be a whole new story when he goes back to school.  He's going to be up more than he has been in a week.  And he can't participate in PE or recess which I'm sure will not make him happy.  I talked to him a little about it this morning and his response was, "Not happy about that at all."  I hear ya buddy.  (Should be interesting since he has to actually GO to the gym but just watch.....oy!)  I'm planning on sending him all day but will make it clear that if his teachers thing it's too much, I will come get him.

We should be hearing in the next day or two what the "plan" is as far as making sure that this fracture isn't a sign of on underlying health issue.  Like I've said, it's in a extremely rare place.  Dylan has had some blood and urine tests done so we should know more soon.

Kira's having a GREAT year so far....really, really great year.  She gets to see her 2 favorite aides everyday which I know helps her and it definitely helps me feel better about things.  She also LOVES her special education teacher and so do I.  She seems to be falling into the classroom routine well.  She has two shortened days again this year, Wednesday and Friday, which works nice since Monday is early release.  She goes in the morning and I pick her up at 11:45.  She comes home and naps those days and still asks to go to bed by 7:30/7:45 every night.

Kira had an appointment at the end of August with the Neuro-Muscular Clinic in town.  It was an all day appointment and overwhelming but I left feeling good about how the appointment had gone.  It was REALLY informative and I feel like this clinic will be good to have an "in" with in the future.  Next week Kira is going to be getting some new ankle braces.  They will go up quite a bit higher but it's clear that she needs something with more support for several reasons (I'll spare you the long explanation of those!).  

Unfortunately, at the beginning of October, Kira will have another EMG done.  She's had 2 in the past but this time it will be done a little differently as they are testing for Congenital Myasthenia Syndrome.  Her neuro here is talking with the doctors at Mayo to ensure that this test is done correctly to test for CMS.  (And you can bet I will be taking my notes from Mayo with me that morning and asking for myself too).  Kira will have a "twilight" sedation for this test and as I'm sure you can imagine she will not be happy about it.  We will not be telling her about it until the morning of since we know that once she knows, she will not be able to stop thinking about it.  I don't blame her one bit.

We also learned at her neuro-muscular appointment that Kira's heart is beating with some extra beats.  It's showed up in the EKG so they sent her home on a 24 hour halter monitor.  I talked with the cardiologist yesterday who said that her recommendation at this point is to repeat the 24 hour halter monitor in 6-12 months.  She also wants to have some bloodwork done sometime in the next month...not sure when we will do that but it will have to get done, even with the screaming that will come along with it! :-/  Hopefully this not be a big deal.

And then there's Miss Eva!  She tried to convince me yesterday that she was "scared" to go to preschool but since she sprinted into the classroom the minute the door opened and didn't look back, I'm not buying it!  Out of all 3 kids, Eva is by far the most chatty about preschool.  I love it!  She gave me a run down of the day, came home with paint up to her shoulders and was smiling!  I think it was a great day!  She loves it and  that makes me very happy!!!

But she's still so little....

I really, really, really cannot believe that my Eva is old enough to go to preschool!!  It really just doesn't seem right.  I was sooooo disappointed to miss her 1st day of preschool and being parent helper that day since it was the same day Dylan was having surgery.  Fortunately for both myself and Eva, Eema stepped in and went with her.  I think it's pretty safe to say that Eva did NOT miss me one bit! :-)

Eva ready to go...so, so ready to go!

Playing dress up...she talked about it everyday after she went for orientation.

Plpayground fun!!!

This is our families 6th year, in a row at MGNS and I continue to be so thankful for having this preschool in our life!!  And I'm really thankful that we still have this year and next year there........ :-)

Kindergarten and Third Grade?!?

It really doesn't seem possible that Kira is in the 3rd grade and Dylan is in kindergarten this year!  It was interesting to watch the kids different reactions to the first day of school.

My Kira was visibly nervous and vocal about it.  She was excited too but nerves took over!!

Dylan was nervous the night before but when the morning came, he could not wait to go!!  It was actually a long morning of waiting to go!!

Waiting outside his door to go in.....

He found his spot in the circle but right after I took this picture he stood up, walked over to me and said, "You are NOT leaving me here!"  Fortunately, after a hug and kiss, he walked back over and sat down!

Jason took Kira to her first day and let's just say that the pictures I have that he took aren't "flattering!"  She had a rough few minutes but pulled it together pretty quickly.  We are really happy that she has Miss Deb as her aide this year again.  She had her in kindergarten and did REALLY well with her.

Both kids came out smiling at the end of the day which was GREAT to see....exhausted and hot but smiling!!

A fracture? Synovitis? Back to a fracture....

This post is more for me to keep track of the long line of events that we went through with Mr Dylan's leg...although it is entertaining! :-)

Thursday, August 23- Saturday, August 25:  

We noticed that Dylan started limping while we were at the water park celebrating his birthday.  He said that his knee hurt but insisted that he was fine to keep playing.  By the time we left the water park on Friday, he was really limping and having hard time taking steps at time.  He seemed a little better on Saturday morning but by the evening he was limping a lot and complaining it hurt.  He wasn't very active at all.

Sunday, August 26:

Jason and I decided that it was best to go ahead and get him checked out at Urgent Care.  They did xrays and were concerned about one spot at the bottom of his femur...that it may be a fracture.  They put him in a full leg brace and sent us home to wait to hear from an ortho who would look at the X-rays   on Monday.

Monday, August 27:
I got a call fro Dr. Nemeth, a pediatric orthopedist, that he didn't see a fracture but that the spot didn't look "right" for a child Dylan's age.  He felt like we needed to look into further for sure.  He wanted us to follow up with Dr. Clevidence and said that we still may end up seeing him at some point too.  He called Dr. Clevidence who got us in that afternoon.  Dylan had to have some bloodwork done which, I might add, he didn't even flinch for as well as more xrays.  Nothing showed up on X-rays so we just needed to wait for the bloodwork to come in.

Wednesday, August 29:
Dr. Clevidence called to say that the bloodwork was pretty much normal...his SED rate and white count were slightly elevated but not enough to really find an issue.  Since Dylan was still limping, he wanted him to be seen by Dr. Nemeth.  They thought that it would be 7-10 days to get an appointment but within about 20 minutes, there was an appointment scheduled for Dylan the next day.

Thursday, August 30:
We saw Dr Nemeth, who after examining Dylan said that he felt like he likely had Transient Synovitis of the Hip.  He wanted to keep a close eye on him since it could easily turn into an infection.  He wanted to see him again the following Wednesday...which, of course, was the 2nd day of school.

Friday, August 31- Tuesday, September 4:
Dylan was up and down over these days.  He tried to be up and doing things but it was clear that his hip was still bothering him.  I was getting a little more worried since I felt like this was taking longer to go away than it should.

Wednesday, September 5:
9:00 AM appointment with Dr. Nemeth who also agreed that since he was still limping he needed to have another round of xrays done.  I was expecting a short appointment and back to school.  He also said that there was an MRI scheduled for Monday which he felt like we should move ahead with.  He did the xrays and everything changed pretty quickly.  The xrays showed a very likely fracture at the top of D's femur close to his hip bone.  Because this is a very strange place to have a fracture and a dangerous place since it can effect the blood flow to his hip, Dr. Nemeth felt like the safest thing to do was admit Dylan into the hospital on bed rest and get an MRI ASAP.  He was concerned that if we waited until Monday and he continued to walk and run on it (which he was trying to do), there was risk that it could break completely and then it would be a much worse situation.
Around 3:00 he had an MRI that confirmed a fracture that would require surgery and 2 pins to repair! WOW!  It's hard to believe that he was walking and playing on the playground the day before!!

Thursday, September 6:
We were told around 6:00 AM that Dylan's surgery would be around 11:00 AM.....then at 8:00 AM, the nurse came in and said that they were going to be taking Dylan down in just a few minutes!  WHAT?!?!  Jason was still at home!  Around 8:15 they came to move Dylan to pre-op and by 8:45 AM, he was in surgery.  Jason got to the hospital around 9:00 AM! :-)  His surgery only took about 45 minutes.  He was pretty sleepy until around 2:00 when he woke up, said hi and asked for food!  By 3:00 he was inhaling a breakfast sandwich and banana bread....and while he waited for that he ate ice-cream and Fruit Loops!

We decided to head home that day since he seemed to be doing okay and they gave us that option.  We were out the door around 5:30.
The doctors are still a bit concerned about this fracture and are running a few other tests to see if there is any underlying health issues that may explain it.  We should be hearing more about all of that next week.

Friday, September 7-Saturday, September 8:
Dylan's been doing pretty well.  Friday was rough in the morning until the pain meds kicked in...he didn't want to walk at all.  By around 5:30 or so, he was walking some and wanting to play.  Today, Saturday, we have officially hit the point of him wanting to do more than he should be at this point and it's getting tricky......he went downstairs to find Jason while I was gone and now he's having a lot of pain.  One day at a time..... :-)  Just happy that he's smiling again!

Celebrating Dylan!

Once again this year, Dylan wanted to go to a water park for his birthday rather than have a party at home.  He could not wait!  We went to Grand Harbor in Dubuque just a couple of days after his birthday and both sets of grandparents were able to join us!

He was excited to swim but couldn't wait to open presents either!!

A green shirt!  Perfect!

 Gravedigger 30th anniversary DVD....another perfect gift!

Bumpa's birthday was the day before we got to the water park so we took a break from D's presents to give Bumpa his....look at those to laughing!!

Gravedigger lunchbox.....are you sensing a pattern here yet?

Couldn't wait to put together one of his, you guessed it, Gravedigger Knex trucks!

 Hula girls...

Yep....a Gravedigger cake too!

Finally time to swim!!!

WHAT?  Bumpa going down a water slide!  Yes, it shocked us all but we frequently couldn't find him after he started! :-)

Dylan and Daddy at the bottom of the BIG slide!

I know it's blurry but Eema's face is priceless!!

This is Kira's kind of slide...just her speed and size! :-)

Tired girl.....end of day one!

Chilling in Eema and Bumpa's room...it's was nice to have adjoining rooms.

Sorry Bumpa...no room in the bed for you!

Day #2 ......Dylan started limping and we had no clue what he did but it really didn't slow him down much.

Daddy and Dylan again.....

Tired.....again!

Kira spent a lot of time right here.....

Dylan's leg started bothering him more and they all got tired after about an hour and half the second day so we headed up to get changed and head home!

It was a lot of fun and I'm sure that it won't be the last time we make an over night trip here!!

Dylan said for several days that "it was the best birthday ever!"