Denise's appointment with the infectious disease doctor was loaded with news that put smiles on our faces. Her liver labs all came back within normal... even the Alk Phos! Considering that she had complete liver failure & was yellow in the hospital two years ago, and had what is suspected to be cocci-caused granulomas in the liver last year, this is amazing! Better yet, the cocci titers came back from U.C. Davis at 1:2-4, lower than the 1:8-10 that we heard about six months ago. So things are progressing nicely. Her next test will be in October, as will the next visit to the I.D. doctor. Denise is trying the South Beach diet and feels like it's helping get her back to her pre-illness weight and reduced the ab swelling (recent scans show no ascites, indicating no presence of infection). So we're relieved to have some grasp of how to cope with the onset of the GI-related problems since she came down with Valley Fever.This summer has been so much better than two summers ago (when Denise was in a coma) and last summer (when she was doing so much rehab). I got off work for the summer in June and life's been good! My school honored me by dedicating this year's yearbook to me, and they also had wonderful things to say about Denise continuing to heal & thrive as a testimony to God's mercy (not to mention the hard work of the medical teams). We gave Jacob his summer haircut (mohawk). We went to court for the first time ever (and hopefully the last). It was just small claims court, and it was surprisingly low stress... nothing like Judge Judy. We went to Disneyland and were treated to a night at the Disneyland Hotel (the kids loved the Peter Pan-inspired swimming pool there). We went to visit Denise's sister & brother-in-law in Montana for a few weeks (this picture of Denise was taken in Philipsburg MT). We crammed in a lot of first-time activities for the kids: a visit to Yellowstone, fishing, horseback riding, driving a boat, going to a dirt track car race, and Gracie even learned how to shoot a rifle and took horseback riding lessons. I tried wakeboarding (I'm exactly as unsuccessful at that as I am at water skiing). And we celebrated our 10th anniversary in July. A couple years ago, I didn't think that we'd make it to this point, but I sure am grateful that we're here!
