Friends and Family - 2008:

Trista completed her masters and substitute taught at Creslane Elementary - physical education - for most of 2008. She and Greg are planning an August wedding at Mt Hood B&B and we will celebrate the following day at the orchard. They will then relocate to the Tucson, AZ area where Greg will pursue a PHD and Trista will hope to find an elementary school position she will enjoy as much as she enjoyed Creslane. We continue to hope she will remain cancer free as she and Greg plan their married life together.

2006:

It has been a year since Trista's surgery and many of you have asked how she is doing. The lower right picture is one of the latest photos taken during a trip to CMT (Country Music Television) which Greg won! THey greatly enjoyed the trip.

Trista rejoined her master's program this summer working on her capstone paper at University of Oregon. She finished that 30 page wonder in August with a presentation commended by her professor. In September she begins her student teaching at Creswell Elementary with friend and teacher, June Colley.

After finishing student teaching Trista will at last have her Teaching license. While this will be a great relief, unfortunately it most likely will not mean Trista will begin teaching in the new year. On August 22 we visited with an ENT surgeon at OHSU (Oregon Health Sciences University), Dr. Peter Andersen. He advised us additional surgery will most likely be warranted in the new year as the eye wound has not healed.

Based on discussion with the surgeon the following will probably be taking place:

1. New scans to determine Trista is still cancer free as of 8/19 surgery. Dr. Andersen has noted there would be no sense in cosmetic reconstruction if her cancer is back. She has agreed to these as she did not have any base lines during this last year. Please send a little prayer that she is still cancer FREE!

2. There is some skin rash occuring around her ears and her home health nurse thiks it may be fungal so she has been advised to see a dermotologist for this.

3. The brow is still sensitive to pressure, the surgeon has noted this could be a lose of blood to the bone grafts transplanted in her brow which may have caused them to degrade or die. These will have to be replaced if they are degraded.

4. The wound may not be healing because the sinus may have been blocked in surgery and may be draining through her eye wound. Trista has allergies and this would have a negative effect with drainage as well. Only more surgery will fix this.

So…positive was she really liked this surgeon so she is more comfortable and seems to be taking more control of what options she has been presented with. Our son, Trevor lives right above OHSU (about a city block) SO…we'd have a place to STAY!

SO…it does look like we may be back in surgery Jan/Feb of 2007 to fix anything they find on the scans for fixing the brow and sinus cavity. And we are discussing options for reconstruction_plastic surgery on 9/12 - the doctor was optimistic they could start with one surgery and try to fix what they can (cosmetic AND repairs). And HOPE from a reconstruction/plastic option it would suffice to meet Trista's wishes. HOWEVER, he did note that plastic surgeons are all about 'perfection' so they usually continue to say 'we need to just tweak this part one more time' AND 10-100 surgeries later…the patient says it's good ENOUGH!

So…we're mulling over this latest health discussion…and trying to come to grips with it all again. We were so hoping that surgery and hospitals except reconstruction were behind us.

We hope you and your families are all well.

PS...I hope to update the rest of this website and set it up for updates once I LEARN how to do that. :-)