Vi's Adventure Trek and Run!

Here is information about an event in honor of Vi Jones-Medusky. Hope you can all attend! The deadline for entry is September 18. For more information, please visit www.hurthawaii.com

The t-shirt has a Peggy Chun image on it!

Please join us for an event to raise awareness about ALS (Lou Gehrig's disease). This 4-mile loop course along jeep roads and cow pastures through lush Kaaawa Valley will have one fresh water stream crossing and single-track trail to the finish with scenic ocean views. Limited to 280 participants of all ages. Vi's choice awards to random finishers!

VI'S ADVENTURE TREK AND RUN
October 18, 2008 at Kualoa Ranch
7:18 am Registration & 8:18 am Race Start
Last name: ________________________
First name: ________________________
Address: __________________________
Phone: ___________________________
Email: ____________________________
Gender (circle one): M / F
Shirt size (circle one): S M L XL 2XL
Date of Birth: ______________________
Age on race day: ____________________
_____ $18.00 individual entry includes T-shirt designed by artist Peggy Chun
_____ Additional donation to benefit the MDA ALS Division
_____ Total enclosed by deadline September 18, 2008
Send completed entry form and fee to: HURT, 560 Nimitz Hwy #67, Honolulu, HI 96817

Happy Aloha Friday!

Indy had her first day of school at Hanahauoli yesterday (see photo of her in her new backpack!). When I picked her up and asked how it was she shouted, "I love it!". It brought me to tears. I'm so happy for her. I can tell that she is going to love it there as much as I did.

Working at Peggy's now. I have Sawyer here since his school is closed today. It is a quiet day around here. I took the day off yesterday, but heard that Peggy's eyes were really clear yesterday. Seems like her eyes have been less irritated lately, but spelling with her still is very challenging. Most days it is primarily "yes" and "no" communication.

I have to say, things are looking very serious in regard to Peggy's medical expenses. Despite the recent fundraising efforts, we are still just scraping by. We really have only enough to get us through the next couple months at best. The Art for ALS fundraiser raised a lot of awareness about ALS and raised some money for the ALS Association/ALS research and also for Peggy. We are so grateful to the artists and supporters who donated directly to Peggy's care, but it all totaled just about 1/3 of a month's worth of care for her.

We are thinking about having another event. Perhaps an art/pre-Christmas sale here at the house to sell some of the leftover art donations from Art for ALS. Of course, we're pretty exhausted and need to catch our breath before we embark on another effort.

I hate to talk about money and write about all of this, especially when people have given so much - so much time, so much money, so much aloha. However, I feel that it is important that people do understand how truly challenging it is to maintain this level of care in the home. Yes, this is an inspiring, amazing adventure we are on and it is true that we are very blessed...but it is not always easy...

OK, I feel better now. Writing this blog is such a cathartic experience for me. Thank you for listening, you devoted blog readers! Now, I'm off to go pick up Indy at school and then pick up my mom from work (she just has a couple more weeks before she can start trying to put weight on that broken leg of hers).

Hope everyone has a fabulous LOOOOONG weekend!

Sawyer's Surprise Birthday Ball Party!

I showed up yesterday to Peggy's house with the kids...Peggy, Karen, and Kelly had decorated the room with balloons and balls for Sawyer! Karen had brought in a big container of tons of balls and Sawyer just went nuts when he saw it! I'm attaching some photos that I took - I think they really capture the joy of the moment! We had cupcakes and ice cream and Indy helped Sawyer open his presents. It was a great birthday! I feel so grateful since I was sort of slacking this year and didn't have much planned for the little guy. So great to have Puna and the Aunties around to pick up my slack! Thanks for such a special day, guys!

Happy Birthday Sawyer!!!

Today is Sawyer's 2nd birthday! Happy Birthday, Buddy! He started preschool last Thursday and he's doing great there! He's starting out with half-days (pick up at noon). Indy is still there for a couple more days until she starts Hanahauoli on Thursday. Today I'm picking them both up at noon and then heading over to Peggy's house so that we can have cupcakes to celebrate Sawyer's big day.
We started the morning out with omelets shaped like "balls" (Sawyer's favorite thing in the world!). Indy was trying to teach him to hold 2 fingers up to show how old he is, but he hasn't quite got the hang of it yet.

I've definitely been burning the candle at both ends and so I'm not surprised that I've got a bit of a cold. But the worst of it seems to be behind me and I'm on the mend. We have had a jam-packed schedule this month - phew!

Thursday's Art for ALS event at the Kim Taylor Reece gallery was great. John Heckathorn wrote up a nice little blurb about it in the Star Bulletin and even included a photo of me, Kim, Wally & Christine Amos! You can see it online - click here What The Heck?

Friday's Art for ALS dinner was so nice. We all had such a wonderful time. Donna Gracon from the ALS Association flew in from California to be a part of the event. She surprised Peggy with an ALSA award honoring Peggy for representing the goal of their organization which is to achieve a world without ALS. Peggy's neurologist, Dr. Kimata, also gave a wonderful speech. Makana sang and showered Peggy with love. The menu, put together by Downtown at HISAM's owner Chef Ed Kenney, was absolutely delicious! All in all is a was a HUGE success and a lovely night out for all of us!

Saturday we celebrated my parents' 40th wedding anniversary! Kat Lee of Petal by Petal created a beautiful handmade cherry blossom arrangement (she hand makes all the flowers with ClayCraft Deco clay). I printed photos of my parents, some from 40 years ago and some from the present, and hung them all over the arrangement. It was a big hit!



Yesterday we had a pool party in the middle of the day and then our Hanahauoli New Parents Meeting and Tea in the afternoon. We are so excited to become a part of the Hanahauoli family. I can't wait experience Hanahauoli all over again - this time as a mother! It will be so fun to watch Indy as she creates her own memories there.

My time is ticking. I have to get ready to go pick up the kids. Those few hours sure go fast! I think we'll be transitioning Sawyer to longer days sooner than later! Hopefully he'll be like Indy...after a few weeks of half-days at preschool she said to me, "Mommy, I want to stay and nap with my friends." No problem, Honey!

By the way, they have finished pouring the slab foundation for our deck. Check out this photo of the new slab. You'll see that Indy and Maka are already enjoying the extra living space.

Art for ALS tonight!

Peggy's getting ready for her night on the town. Come to the Kim Taylor Reece Gallery tonight for the Art for ALS event/artist reception. We'll be at the Art for ALS dinner tomorrow night at Downtown at the HISAM. Peggy's such a party animal!

Sawyer had his first day of preschool today. We're starting him with half-days. Indy is still there, which was comforting for him. They said he did really good for his first day. We're so proud of him. He turns 2 on Monday! We haven't planned anything for his bday yet...our schedules are so packed this week and weekend. We'll see - at least he's too young to care if we play it down - ha! Is that bad?

Off to party with Peggy!

Happy Birthday Willow!!!

Today is my mom's birthday! Happy Birthday Mom!!!!!!!!

Happy Tuesday!

The Made in Hawaii show this past weekend was a great success. We did about the same amount in sales as last year, which we are happy with since we are supposedly in a recession right now. The show was more packed than ever - tons of vendors, tons of shoppers. Peggy came to the show on Sunday. She had a wonderful time visiting all the vendors. She has always loved the Made in Hawaii show.

We are getting ready for the Art for ALS events coming up on Thursday and Friday. Hope you can all join us on Thursday night at the Kim Taylor Reece gallery and there are still tickets available for Friday's dinner. Let us know if you are interested in attending!

That's it for now. By the way - the wonderful people at Hill-Rom have replaced the motor for Peggy's air mattress. They have also replaced the hose and the mattress itself! Yay! We are so grateful for their assistance and amazing customer service.

Coming up (briefly) for air!

We had a blast yesterday with the film crew (Blooming Productions) who are working on the video for the St. Francis Healthcare Foundation "Women of Strength/Evening of Aloha" in October. Some of us had interviews and they also got video of Peggy nose painting. They were a wonderful group of people and so much fun to spend the day with! Can't wait to see how it all turns out!

Today we are getting ready for the Made in Hawaii show which will be Friday, Saturday, and Sunday at the Blaisdell. We are setting up our booth today. Peggy plans to attend the show on Sunday...I think she must be so excited to be able to really SEE everything now! Marvel and Lolo will be taking her to the show. Come visit our booth! We'll be in our same spot as always - right by the front entrance.

Forgot to tell everyone that I was going to be on KHON 2 this morning. I was on the early news - it ran around 6:30am. Rose Anne Jones (Art for ALS Committee member) and myself were interviewed by Kathy Muneno. She was so sweet and of course asked about Peggy's health and said to give her their best. We were on the morning news talking about the upcoming Art for ALS events next week Thursday/Friday.

I will be doing another news bit with Rose Anne tomorrow morning on KITV 4 with Mahealani Richardson. It should air around 6:45am!

Filming Tomorrow!!!

The film crew (for the St. Francis Healthcare Foundation video) will be arriving tomorrow morning around 9am and will be here all day shooting. They will be doing interviews around 10 or 10:30, then more in the afternoon after lunch. They will be filming Peggy nose-painting with Marvel in the afternoon.

Happy Birthday Lisa!!!

We had a great birthday party for Lisa today. Enjoy these great photos below of our fun Princess Pizza Party. Indy got to skip school to come to it! The kids had so much fun eating pizza and cupcakes, playing with balloons in Puna's room, and helping Aunty Lisa open her birthday ball!

For those of you who don't know, the birthday ball is a tradition that Peggy taught us. You wrap up tons of gifts (for as many years as the person is old) in crepe paper to make a ball shape. Then, you can decorate the ball to look like whatever you want - in Lisa's case, we made a little princess ball. Usually the "best" present is in the middle - we put a gas card in the middle of Lisa's!!! Ha! The person is supposed to unwrap the ball without breaking the crepe paper or at least try (you can't just rip it open!).

The kids had a lot of fun playing in the crepe paper after Lisa was done unwrapping it! OK, so it is not the "greenest" gift with all that paper waste, but it is so fun and cute! Inside Lisa's ball was her first Peggy Chun "kiss" and first Peggy Chun "donkey" - we told her she is now initiated into the Peggy Chun "Kiss Ass" Club! Get it?!

One little update regarding the filming crew coming this week - they will NOT be filming tomorrow (Tuesday) but will be filming all day on Wednesday! We'll share more info as we get it!

The Great Cataract Adventure By Lolo Silva

The Great Cataract Adventure by Lolo

Eighth month, eighth day, eighth year.............most auspicious occasion!

The day began with loading Peggy onto the gurney and transporting to
Queens Hospital. It was a flurry of activity admitting and then
transporting to the surgical area. Hospital directions were amusing.
We were told to turn left and go until we ran into a wall. The
consensus was that lolo is hyper............what the heck do they
mean??? Just because I was up at 6am, when the day doesn't really get
rolling until noon. Go figgah.

Once we were assigned a surgical room, it was more flurry of activity.
The hospital respiratory therapist had to get Peggy off her personal
vent and hook her up to their system. Luckily, Kimi had given us the
vent settings, so they simply duplicated them. Mahalo, Kimi! Blood
pressure, pulse ox, hook her up to this and that machine. Trying to
draw blood and can't find any good veins. OUCH! Paperwork, questions,
regulations. UGH! Managed to score a few Yankauer tips along the way,
though. Cover her with a 'Beir Hug'....a paper/plastic blanket with
individual cells that inflate like an air mattress to keep her warm,
instead of traditional blankets. Begin process of putting various kinds
of drops in Peggy's eyes. They were very red and irritated, but one of
those drops (waiting 30 seconds between application over a period of
about 45 minutes) miraculously cleared her eyes right up. Haven't seen
them that good in many months. Lots of suctioning. More questions,
small talk. Wonderful anesthetist (Dr. Duncun Macdonald) came to do
pre-op stuff. One of the best in the business who just happens to be
the brother of Kimo who was the best man at my wedding. :) Nice to see
him.

Time for me to dress in my Alien Lolo outfit. IMHO, very fetching, and
way better than those penguin outfits. Blue paper jumpsuit with mile
long arms/legs, sexy shower cap,slippery shoe covers and mask. Quite a
sight. Do the Corridor Boogie to the OR, say a fond aloha to Betsy and
in we go. Cataract surgery was soooooooooo interesting and by the time
the 2nd eye was completed, I figured I had enough experience, that I
could do it! *rolling eyes*

Let's see if I can remember the steps. Peggy covered completely, with
only one tiny eye exposed. More local anesthetic numbs the eye. The skin
around the eye was thoroughly cleansed. The eye is kept open by an
eyelid speculum - you're familiar with those things girls, only these
are itsy, bitsy ones and on the opposite end........... Dr. Duncun told
Peggy she was in for a real exciting light show, akin to and LSD trip or
something. We'll have to ask her if she saw fantastic lights and
colors. Under an operating microscope, a small incision was made in the
eye. Then Dr. Ty used tiny surgical (medieval looking things to me)
instruments to break apart and remove the cloudy lens from the eye.
Another probe was inserted and sucked out the offending lens pieces.
Quick as a bunny, another instrument was inserted with the new lens, it
unfolded perfectly into place and we moved on to the other eye to repeat
the process. Group photo of the surgical team. I'm quite sure none of
them had ever been asked to take a photo after surgery!

Recovery room beckoned, only for a short time and then we were on our
way home. I learned how to turn OFF the vent, which is something that
I've never done because me thinks that would be a bad thing.
Nevertheless, I know now how to do it!

Aftercare is pretty much what we have already been doing. The right eye
cataract was apparently worse than the left, and mostly they have been
caused by our generous use of Tobradex over many months. Nothing to be
done, we needed it. Now that the cataracts have been removed, there is
no danger of them coming back, so we will continue to use the Tobradex,
a _minimum _of 3 X/day. It can be used more frequently, if needed.
Continue using the PM Refresh gel as usual. Big thing to note is to not
use pressure on the eye when blinking. Dr. Ty will visit Peggy for a
check up on Monday.

Quite an exciting day for all of us. Hyper, HUMPH!!!!! Just a
conscientious caregiver who multi-tasks, with an attention to details.
And they recommended NO caffeine for the day. :)

Looking forward to seeing those crystal, clear, baby blues staring back
at me next time I see her. As I left for the day, Peggy was still
unable to determine how many heads lolo really has.

Cataract Surgery Success!!!

What you're looking at are before and after photos of Peggy's cataracts/new lens! Yesterday's cataract surgery was a great success! Stay tuned for Lolo's photos and story telling...Spoke with Ty and she is thrilled with the results. Said that Peggy was totally blind in one eye with a cataract that was as bad as they get and the other eye was on its way there too. No wonder Peggy couldn't spell - she couldn't see the board at all!

Peggy's recovery is pretty quick - just NO pressure on the lids for a few days (like when we blink her eyes). We are to use the Tobradex no less than 3 times a day so as to make sure that the eyes don't get infected. We can use it as needed in addition to that. We can continue to use the PM - we will need to keep Peggy's eyes very lubricated since the surgery can have a drying effect. No need for using the other eye drops that stung her eyes.

When I saw Peggy after her surgery, her eyes were still dilated. But she was beginning to see clearly and spelling with her was MUCH improved! We asked her if she could see and her eyes quickly darted to "yes". I could really tell that she was looking right at me! We had the kids over, so we put them on the bed and Peggy was able to look right at them and SEE them!!! The first thing we did was show her the photos of Leslie's baby, Hanalei, on the computer - Peggy's eyes were so big and wide - she was very excited to really SEE Hana for the first time!

Ty told us that her eyes may be irritated and blurry for a few days while they heal and adjust, so we'll see over the weekend how things go. Ty will be on Monday to check on her!

So that's the scoop - Lolo's tale of the adventure is so good that I will post it now. And one more thing - the wheelchair guy came yesterday to look at the chair which has been acting funky and not holding its charge. Turns out it was the battery, so he apparently replaced that and it should be fine...

Have a great weekend!

Happy Birthday Elroy!!!

Today is Elroy's birthday! He is 81 years old! Hooray! We all wished him happy birthday this morning...the kids made him a nice card and Karen got him a much needed new ironing board. We're taking him out for Chinese food tomorrow night and Eric picked up a bunch of new yard/garden tools for him since he wants to start a vegetable garden in the yard.

Today is also Julie Percell's birthday. Happy Birthday, Julie! We celebrated her birthday yesterday on her shift. We ate fruit and angel food cake cupcakes all afternoon and laughed and hung out while she opened her presents...it was a wonderful afternoon.

Yesterday was Peggy's dad's birthday - Happy Birthday Granddad Joe! We sent him birthday email wishes and Peggy is working on a package to send to him.

We have more birthdays coming up. Lisa's birthday is on Monday. Her shift is from 10 to 2, so we are planning a surprise party for her at noon. OK, I guess it won't be a surprise after she reads this...Hey, Lisa! Surprise!!! Come and join us for pizza and cake!!! Lisa turns a whopping 23 on Monday.

We had a wonderful meeting this morning with Jamie and Randie Wong and team. They have been asked to produce an evening concert that will raise money for the St. Francis Healthcare Foundation of Hawaii. This year they are commemorating 125 years of service by Mother Marianne Cope and 6 other Franciscan sisters who first began their humanitarian work here in Hawaii in 1883.

To honor the life's work of Mother Marianne and the sisters of St. Francis, they are producing this year's "An Evening of Aloha" concert called "Na Wahine Kupa'a - Women of Strength, A tribute to Mother Marianne Cope and the Sisters of St. Francis" to be held on October 4th at the convention center.

The St. Francis Family has asked to feature Peggy's story as part of the presentation. They said that "Peggy is not only a beloved friend but a woman who has demonstrated great strength, love, and endurance in her lifetime." They are planning a 3-5 minute video piece featuring Peggy.

Peggy is honored and excited to be a part of such a special event. It was such a pleasure to meet with the production team this morning - what wonderful people! They are going to begin filming here at the house next Tuesday/Wednesday. They will be doing interviews and filming Peg's daily life. You are all a part of the story, so please make sure you are all around next week to visit and hang out and do as we always do around here.

We may be asking some of you to be interviewed and if you're on shift, you may be filmed. Let me know if you absolutely do not want to be on camera...but, I know all you Peg's Legs hams love this kind of stuff! At least I'm giving you all warning so that you don't show up in your boro boro clothes with no make-up on. Ha!

So if you're on shift next Tuesday and Wednesday, be thinking about what Peggy means to you! What makes Peggy a "Woman of Strength?"

Hopefully Peggy will be seeing clearly by then since her surgery is scheduled for tomorrow! Thanks in advance to Lolo and Betsy for taking her on part 2 of the cataract adventure!

Off to crank out more work now that Sawyer is finally napping! Oh, and in case you haven't noticed, I decided to keep Indy at preschool this month until she starts at Hanahauoli. I had originally thought I'd keep her out of school this month, but we think it will make for a smoother transition to keep her in. Also, this way she and Sawyer may have some time together at Nuuanu Preschool this month when Sawyer starts there which will make the transition easier on him too. But she will be at Lisa's party on Monday! So come and celebrate with us!

Looking for B caregivers

Looking for B caregivers for the following events:

1 - This Friday 8:45am to 2pm to accompany Lolo/Peggy to cataract surgery (someone with experience going out with Peggy would be ideal)

2 - Sunday, August 17th to go with Marvel/Peggy to the Made in Hawaii Festival probably around noon...

Just Another Manic Monday...

Back to work after a relaxing weekend at home. First Friday was a blast! Lots of fun for Peggy despite the fact that she still had her cataracts to deal with. The gallery (Kim Taylor Reece Gallery on Bethel Street) looks awesome! Be sure to stop by and check out Peggy's work there all this month! I have posted some photos from Friday's event...click here pegslegs.shutterfly.com!

We have rescheduled Peggy's eye surgery for this coming Friday - 8/8/08! Good luck day!

This week is birthday week...Wednesday is Peggy's dad's birthday and Thursday is Elroy's and Julie Percell's birthday! All you Leos!