26. June 2008 by admin.

Kim received a call from the hospital this morning. The surgery date is July 24th. We really didn’t want to wait that long. Her health is declining and I can’t imagine what it will be like a month from now. Please continue to pray for healing for Sarah. I know the doctors wanted to do it soon, and i understand the difficulties in scheduling a surgery like this, but there must be a plan bigger than us in place. The good news is that she will be able to attend her benefit. Its gets harder and harder to watch her condition get worse. I hope she can still walk in on her own power for the surgery.

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in Him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. ~ Romans 15:13

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25. June 2008 by admin.

Sarah had her presurgery consult today with Dr. Mangano. All the doctors are in agreement now and the functional hemispherectomy is the recommended procedure (things we already knew). We filled out the paperwork and they are supposed to contact us in the next couple days to give us a surgery date. He said that he wants to do it within the next few weeks, but he has to set a whole day aside for the surgery.

My question was how many of these he has done. He told me that he has done 5 in the last year. That seemed like a lot for such a radical surgery. It is a shame that so many kids need that surgery. Since the surgery is happening I wish it would happen sooner rather than later.

Thank you to everyone for their continued support.

I WILL LET EVERYONE KNOW THE SURGERY DATE AS SOON AS I GET IT.

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21. June 2008 by admin.

Design Digitally has created a nice website for the Something for Sarah benefit. You can buy tickets in advance, check out the list of events, and get registered for the basketball and cornhole tournaments. They did a good job on the website and are not charging for it. Click here to view

We talked to a couple of nurses yesterday and we were told that her surgery has not been scheduled yet. I am not sure what the hold up is. We are hoping to hear something this coming week. I know they want to get this done before her condition changes for the worse again.

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20. June 2008 by admin.

Just wanted to give a link to the article about Sarah in the Middletown Journal. 

http://www.middletownjournal.com/hp/content/oh/story/news/local/2008/06/19/mj062008mccrabbbrainWEb.html

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19. June 2008 by admin.

We still don’t have a surgery date yet.

I received a call at work today from Kim telling me that I had to attend the our township trustee meeting tonight. Well, they made a declaration that Saturday, July 12, 2008 will officially be Sarah Alward Day in Madison Township. I thought that was pretty special. When I got home I showed Sarah the framed declaration that I received and she was very excited. She said that she wants it hung on the wall next to her bed.

I got the video I shot on our Disney trip. Here is a link to a little something that I put together. It is not perfect. The camera I used was not the best and I only spent an hour editing the 55 minute video down to just over 4 minutes. Kim lasted about 30 seconds into the song before she started crying, so I better include a “tear-jerker” warning.CLICK HERE TO VIEW THE VIDEO

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14. June 2008 by admin.

Sarah spent the night at the hospital getting her IVIG and a round of steroids. While she was there they tossed in an EEG and PET scan. The good thing is that the PET scan shows everything is still on the left side, so it has not spread to the other hemisphere. They are working on scheduling her surgery which they hope to do in the next week or two. Her seizures have stopped effecting her face so much, but her right leg is in a constant seizure (EPC) now.

 Her benefit is becoming larger than life. I hope she is able to be there, but if they do her surgery as quickly as they want she will still be in the hospital. I am wondering if I should set up a webcam so everyone can see and talk to her.

Here is the updated poster. If you click on it you will get the PDF version for printing.

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13. June 2008 by admin.

Sarah saw her neurologist today. They sent her down to the hospital to get another round of IVIG. She was scheduled for Monday, but she has had such a bad week that they moved it up. She is spending the night in the hospital tonight to get the IVIG and will probably have another EEG in the morning. Hopefully sent home after that.

They are going to start getting ready for her hemispherectomy. Her neurologist feels that it is past time and it should be done in the next week or two. I agree. Her quality of life seems to be degrading faster and faster. Her right leg is twitching constantly now. If it wasn’t for the Make-A-Wish she probably would have had it done already, not that we regret taking her to Disney.

Dr. Franz helped us explain the surgery to her today. We just didn’t know what to tell her, and he helped a lot. She still doesn’t know the extent of the surgery, but she does know that she will have a long hard recovery and she will have to work really hard to get her puppy (have i mentioned that she gets a puppy when she is fully recovered?). She knows that her leg and arm may not work very good after the surgery. The puppy was her Kim’s incentive to help her work hard at recovery. We have had people try to help us get one early on, but we feel that if she gets it before recovery she won’t have anything that keeps her “eye on the prize”. 

We ask that everyone keep praying for Sarah and thank everyone for all the support. I still have problems taking it all in. I was thinking the other night that even though this is all happening to Sarah, the Lord has put me in a job that is fully understanding of the situation, placing our family in the most supportive and awesome community to live in, a church family that has been there for us every step, and a family that has been just incredible with support. As my friend Wayne always says, WE SERVE AN AWESOME GOD! There is no way we will ever be able to thank everyone enough for everything they have done and are doing. I am sorry for not posting the newest poster for Sarah’s benefit on July 12th.

I will try and do that in the next couple of days. If you have not read Jesse’s Blog you should click on the link in the my blog roll. She had her surgery yesterday and did very well.

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7. June 2008 by admin.

I will try and do a follow up on this post at a decent hour. I wanted to post the photo gallery so everyone could see what a great time we all had. Those Make A Wish and Give Kids The World people really have their act together. Everything went so smoothly. They took really good care of us. We went to Sea World, Disney World, Universal Studios, Cocao Beach, and even took an airboat ride. Sarah went to the Boutique at Downtown Disney and received the princess treatment and then had lunch with the princesses. I will try to post more details later. 

When we came home our friends, family, and community had a overwhelming return celebration for Sarah. I can’t thank everyone enough for doing that. It was great and really gave Sarah a boost. I didn’t know what to say to everyone I was so taken back by it all.

Click Here to see the pictures from the trip. I am hoping to post some video as well, but that will take a bit longer for post production.

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