Lucas Camilo

Dear friends,

Happy New Year! We are sending you so much love, today and for the whole year ahead.

But before we jump forward, we put together our family’s look back – our “best of 2023” lists. We hope you enjoy.

Quick family highlights this year: Lucas starred in a viral video and launched into a great first year of high school; Ida is a proud owner of three fish in a 10 gallon tank and an enthusiastic Girl Scout (watch out for her cookie sales soon). The two of us have had some major highs and lows this year (too much for a short paragraph), but we feel incredibly lucky to be weathering the storms together. We have also been held by community, again, in so many life-giving ways – thank you, thank you, thank you.

Wishing for peace, love and safety for everyone in 2024.

Love,

Krista, Burke, Lucas and Ida

Krista’s Top 10 Food and Drink of 2023

I feel too daunted to write about books this year (I am fortunate to be reading a lot for school and pleasure, but there are too many for me to narrow down). This year I’ve been enjoying food so much… and I’ve had the gift of so much food. And so, here is a list – incomplete and far too short – of some of the best things I’ve had the pleasure of eating and drinking this year.

10. Homemade spring rolls with Ida

Ida loves food sometimes (pastries, pizza, pasta), but she is also incredibly picky. I often feel sad about not being able to share foods we love (soups, curries, salads, most fruits and vegetables, etc.) with her. But somehow, if you cut avocado and cucumber and carrots and purple cabbage into tiny slivers and wrap them up with tofu and rice noodles in slippery rice paper, she loves it! And so do I. I prefer to dip in a tamari and peanut butter dipping sauce, and she goes for strait tamari, but still: we are enjoying delicious and healthy food together. It is very pleasing.

9. Pumpkin Soup with Ancho Chiles and Apples

This year our garden (from Burke’s compost) planted itself with a few sprawling volunteer pumpkin plants, and we eventually harvested more than a dozen delicious pumpkins. We made pumpkin bread, pumpkin waffles, pumpkin pie, and this great fall soup. I am also still happily making my weekly-or-so whole wheat sourdough bread, which is always best with soups like this one.

8. Teresa and Bruna’s fanciest camping salad of all time

In August we did our version of camping by renting out three extremely wheelchair accessible cabins at a state campground. It feels like such a rare treat, given all the things we need to travel, to sit out in the woods, around a cook stove or campfire, with friends. Anyway, this year our friend Teresa took camping meals to another level with an arugula, delicata squash, lentil, goat cheese, herb salad. It felt like such a treat, of kind of contribute-what-you-can-communism-with-friends, to have brought something like bagels and cream cheese as our contribution and get this for dinner. I will ask her for the recipe if you want it.

7. Pizza and negronis at Bar del Corso

It feels like we don’t get out a lot, but when we do we try to savor the chance. Bar del Corso on Beacon Hill has a sweet little covered-but-also-heated, warm-but-also-open patio. It was the first place Burke and I ate after COVID quarantine. I went back this year with friends and then for another date out with Burke, and each time felt like a celebration. The pizza is thin crust, wood fired delicious (and it’s served with pizza scissors, which make it feel extra fancy), and the negronis make me wish I could drink more than I can.

6. My mom’s vegan lasagna

My mom arrived for Christmas with a pan of her vegan lasagna. Ida, who usually squinches her face and turns away from “grandma cheese” (ie. vegan), declared, before even looking at the food, “Oh, I love your lasagna, Grandma!” This, I know, means a lot to my mom. She spent multiple days making three different vegan cheeses from scratch. And, truth be told, I don’t love a lot of vegan cheese, but this lasagna really is good. If you have that kind of time this lasagna needs, I can get you the recipe.

5. All the pastries and coffee at the Bright Spot

I love a local a coffee shop. I love pastries. I love a short Americano. I love reading and writing in a coffee shop. I love running into neighbors in a coffee shop. And so, it was very exciting when a new coffee shop opened two blocks from our house this year. My favorite things they serve: a buttery spinach and feta croissant and their affogato with vegan soft serve!

4. Cook’s Illustrated Apple Pie

The Venn diagram of my favorite pies and Ida’s overlaps at apple, so I’ve been working on finding the best recipe. This one from Cook’s Illustrated, with the lemon zest, is excellent, especially with local, crisp apples. This winter I was too tired to make the crust, so I put a frozen crust on the bottom and then topped it with an apple crisp topping (lots of earth balance, oats, nuts, brown sugar, and more lemon zest). It was also quite delicious.

* A close second to homemade apple pie are Macrina’s mini (but still sharing-sized) apple pies. Picture Ida and I groaning in delight as Burke – not usually a sweets guy – agrees it is really, really good.

3. Sparkly Gingerbread Cookies

A highlight of Christmas this year for me was making sparkly gingerbread cookies with Ida and her friend Tesni and way too many glittery sprinkles. I couldn’t tell who was happier – the two of them dumping more and more frosting and sprinkles on these quite tasty cookies, or me watching them.

2. Drinks with Burke at Itto’s Tapas

Shortly after we got confirmation that I had cancer, when we had just begun to digest the fact that I had a deadly disease that was probably not going to be deadly for me, Burke and I went out for drinks. For a week or two we had been holding it together by day, assuring our kids that all was treatable and not too big a deal, while quietly unraveling on the inside. In my memory, the cocktails we got at Itto’s (and also the food, but especially the drinks) were the best I had ever tasted in my entire life. I haven’t been back to see if they are that good when you’re not living in existential fear and joy, but maybe? (Also recommend: going bowling a couple blocks away after the delicious drinks.)

1. Every single dish we have been gifted this fall and winter

Meal trains feel like love, incarnate. Like consubstantiation (word I just learned for the belief that the body of Jesus is present in the communion wafers), I feel like I am eating the physical manifestation of love in the meals people have made, sent, and delivered to us. A very incomplete list: homemade empanadas, Korean noodles, bean soups, black eyed peas and greens and cornbread, enchiladas with mutliple handmade salsas, queso oaxaca, and Mexican crema. We often have baggies of cilantro-on-the-side in our fridge after friends made curries and tacos and soups (it doesn’t help convince Ida to s. We’ve twice had friends deliver pupusas, one of Ida’s favorite treats (and ours, too.) A friend who was taking her two kids to an appointment at Children’s Hospital while Lucas was inpatient met me near the elevators and handed me a bag of frozen lentil soups. It all has carried me through. All four of us, through the waves of overwhelm and awful this fall. Another friend with cancer said that the outpouring of love he’s felt almost made the cancer worth it. I feel it, too. I won’t wish for more diagnoses for more meals, but for now, this year’s food highlight is all the food/love we’ve been gifted.

Burke’s favorite podcasts of 2023

Listening to podcasts — along with basketball, and jumping in lakes, rivers & the Puget Sound — has become one of my escapes, especially since early Covid times when I started taking frequent walks around the neighborhood. I also listen while doing dishes or laundry or cleaning up the house, or sometimes when I’m really deep into a juicy podcast, just laying in bed after a long day. My favorite genre is multi-episode historical podcasts, those that use personal stories to tell a broader social-political tale. In another life I’d be a podcaster… or maybe some day when my kids grow up and I retire from organizing.

Anyway, here are my 10 that I listened to in the past year:

Ultra (MSNBC)
Rachel Maddow goes deep into far Right organizing in the 1940s including efforts by Nazi supporters to overturn the government and install a fascist regime. Hard to believe that some of this stuff is true and that the story is not one we know already. Maddow added even more to the tale in her book “Prequel” which came out after the podcast. Both are pointed towards the current rise of right-wing authoritarianism & the possibility of Trumpism taking power in 2024.

50 Years of Hip Hop (KEXP)
There were a lot of hip hop retrospectives this year (check out Lucas’s documentary list for a great one on screen) due to it being the 50th anniversary of the birth of hip hop (a 1973 Bronx house party featuring the beats of DJ Cool Herc). This year-long series from our local Seattle radio station KEXP — hosted by Larry Mizzel Jr, — has been superb, with episodes covering the origins, 90s socially conscious hip hop, and more recent artists (including a fascinating conversation about the devolution of Kayne West.)

Street Disciples: Politics, Power, and the Rise of Hip-Hop
Runner-up for best hip hop retrospective, this 5-part series from Trymaine Lee’s podcast Into America goes into the political events surrounding the rise of rap music and hip hop culture, starting with the social conditions of the Bronx in the 1970s. Episode 2 (“Broken Glass Everywhere”) is a pointed history of how hip-hop went political, starting with Grandmaster Flash’s song “The Message”, and on through Public Enemy’s “Fight the Power”.

Louder than a Riot season 2 (NPR)
Sticking with the hip hop vibe. This is (was) a brilliant show hosted by Rodney Carmichael and Sidney Madden and season 2 gets into the voices that have been often left out, marginalized and abused in the cis-male dominated rap culture — specifically Black women and queer folks. Sadly, NPR canceled this show as part of layoffs last fall but I suspect we’ll hear more from Madden and Charmichael in the future.

After Ayotzinapa (Reveal)
Great investigative reporting, this is the horrifying story of 43 Mexican college students who disappeared one night in 2014, setting off a national crisis that still hasn’t lead to resolution for the families. Check out some of Reveal’s other podcasts including “The Culture War Goes to College” by my old DC housemate Sam Greenspan.

Foreign Agent: The IRA’s American Connection (Novara Media)
Another one that actually came out in 2022 but that I didn’t discover until earlier this year. I’ve gotten really into the history of the IRA (for example, Patrick Radden Keefe’s book Say Nothing) and this podcast tells the story of how the Troubles played out in the US and how Irish Americans in solidarity with the IRA managed to smuggle guns and money to their socialist revolutionary counterparts in Ireland. CISPES even makes an appearance in one of the episodes!

Think Twice: Michael Jackson (Wondery)
Oh man, this is a doozy. Michael Jackson’s legacy of abuse is repulsive and yet the impact of the Jackson 5 — and Michael in particular — on music and pop culture is undeniable (check out the poignant book “Monsters” by Claire Dederer for more on this theme). This 10-part podcast goes all in, and is co-hosted by the great Jay Smooth.

Ghost Herd (KUOW)
It makes me happy to see a skilled local journalist (Anna King) have the resources to make an in-depth, well produced podcast like Ghost Herd. And it’s a compelling story about capitalism, greed, land use, and cows in southern Washington state.

Grapevine (NBC news)
The way the Right has manipulated religion and fear around trans kids is one of their more despicable acts in recent years and could help turn the 2024 election in their favor. Or not. This story of how a rural Texas high school goes to war over books, teaching, and queer and trans kids is an intimate portrayal of one front in this terrifying culture war.

Reclaimed: The Forgotten League (ABC news)
Gotta have at least one sports podcast per year on my list and this was by far the best. We all know about Jackie Robinson breaking the color barrier in baseball but that moment occurred alongside the success of the Negro Leagues in producing some of the greatest players ever — including the grandfather of Vanessa Ivy Rose, the host of the show who is on a mission to resurrect the legacy of the Leagues.

The Fall of the Aztecs (Rest is History)
The Rest is History consists of a couple hilarious Brits going in depth on various historical events, from Antony and Cleopatra to the assassination of JFK. The 8-part series on the Fall of the Aztecs is the longest they’ve ever done and though it’s tragic the way Cortes’s triumph plays out, it also aptly demonstrates one of their main themes — which is that a small twist here or there could drastically change history.

Honorable Mention:

• The Grinch Holiday podcast (Wondery)
  My kids’ favorite holiday podcast became mine as well. Hosted by the hilarious and master impressionist James Austin Johnson.
• The Gun Machine (WBUR)
  The ugly story of how gun manufacturers came to be so powerful in the US — told by a journalist who know guns all too well.
• Kids of Rutherford County (ProPublica)
  A disturbing investigative podcast about the jailing and abuse of kids in a Tennessee town, and the unlikely lawyers who fought back.
• The Take (Al Jazeera)
  Some of the best coverage of the war in Gaza, among other things.
• The Big Dig (WGBH)
  Who knew a podcast about a major infrastructure project in Boston could be so filled with intrigue!
• The Rise of the Nazis (Rest is History)
  Troubling and mind-boggling history that I never knew, at least to this depth.
• If Books Could Kill
  Hilarious takes on bestsellers full of conspiracy theories and other junk.

And here’s Lucas’s top 10 music documentaries that we watched in 2023. I hope you check them out.

1. Little Richard: I Am Everything is a new documentary about Little Richard’s life and his music. My parents and I watched it all together and we loved it.
2. Everyday Sunshine: The Story of Fishbone is a documentary about an all-black rock band from L.A called Fishbone. They never got really big but they ARE really good.
3. Fight the Power: How Hip Hop Changed the World is a three part series on the history of hip hop from the beginning of hip hop up until recently.
4. Bad Brains: A Band in DC is a documentary about the black punk band Bad Brains. They were from Washington DC… much like a certain handsome man we all know. 😊.
5. Laurel Canyon: A Place in Time is a three part series about the music scene in Laurel Canyon, California in the 60s and 70s.
6. Hype! is a documentary about the Seattle rock scene.
7. Salad Days is a documentary about the punk scene in Washington DC in the 80s. You really need to know about the bands that rocked my birthplace.
8. A Film about Jimi Hendrix is exactly what it sounds like. Pretty poorly named if you ask me.
9. The Kids Are Alright is a documentary/concert movie about The Who.
10. Count Me In a documentary about famous drummers.

Ida’s favorite books 2023

-smile, by Raina Telgemeier

-Max Einstein,by James Patterson and Chris Grabenstein

-Hilo series,by Judd Winick

-Harry Potter and the goblet of fire,by J.K.Rowling

-Whale done, by Stuart Gibbs

-Dash, by Kirby Larson

-the tale of Despereaux, by Kate DiCamillo

– Planet Earth is blue, by Nicole Panteleakos

– One time, by Sharon Creech

– Stella, by McCall Hoyle

It’s been six days since Lucas got released from the hospital after his spinal fusion surgery. Here’s what he has to say about it:

“Things have been going pretty well. I’m been staying on the couch a lot listening to playlists and audio books and watching stuff.

“We’re still figuring out getting up on my wheelchair. I’ve been feeling a lot of numbness in my left foot and we don’t know why that is. That makes me a little nervous about going back to school.

“I’ve been enjoying watching fun shows and movies with Ida, like Carmen Santiago and the really funny new Netflix musical ‘Leo’ about a lizard.

“I got a visit from my old friend Jonah yesterday, and on Thanksgiving I got visits from my cousins, Aunt and grandparents. It feels good to see people after being in the hospital for so long.”

Indeed, the most frustrating thing has been the challenge of sitting up in his wheelchair. In the early days of his return he would be up in his chair for 30 or 45 minutes and suddenly get pale and his heart rate would drop. We’d get him back down on the couch and his color would come back. That only happened a couple times but the problem of numbness in his left foot has persisted. We’ve reached out to doctors and physical therapists and mostly they agree that it must be positional, something that’s cutting off blood flow to his foot. But we’ve tried lots of things, from propping his foot up on decks of cards, shifting his position in the chair, and using multiple different seat cushions, and nothing seems to work so far. We got a glimmer of hope yesterday when he was up for nearly 2 hours in his wheelchair without any noticeable numbness… but then today the left foot was back to its old tricks 10 minutes after getting up. He can still last up to an hour even with the weirdness of his foot feeling numb, but then he asks to get down. In order to return to school he’ll need to be able to sit up in his chair for 4 hours, so he’s got a ways to go.

Other signs are generally good. He’s still having some pain but it’s improving. His energy is good during the day, and as he mentions above, he’s figured out ways to keep busy and entertained while he spends most of his time lying down. Lucas’s shockingly good spirits in the face of so much  — first pain, now boredom and upheaval of all our routines — buoys us on the hard days. He remains an amazing kid, living like it’s no big deal in his sometimes difficult body.

Lucas helped Jonah with word games and questioned whether his mustache was real

We’ve noticed that our cat Raven has been acting very strange while Lucas is on the hospital. Humans haven’t been around that much, and she can probably sense that there is heightened anxiety around the house when we are there. But more than anything, she missed Lucas. Well, now that he’s back in his regular spot on the couch Raven is snuggling in with him, content at last.

Lucas’s last day at Children’s went about as expected — a classic hurry-up-and-wait. Some doctors from the Orthopedics team came in at 7 am as Lucas and I were still waking up to tell us… nothing really. He’d get discharged at some point today (which we already knew) but needed to get the final go-ahead from the surgeon first, “probably sometime after noon…” But then by 10:30 someone came in and removed his last drain, followed by the IV, and we were clear to go. We started frantically packing up everything strewn about his room, picked up his medications… but of course the discharge papers still had to be signed, which somehow took another 2 hours. Finally, around 1 pm we loaded Lucas in his wheelchair (pain not too bad!), grabbed the “get well soon” balloon that Ida gifted him, and headed out the door.

Heading out!

Now that we’re home it seems like a real whirlwind. Overall, given the intensity of the surgery and the usual nature of in-patient hospital stays we feel pretty good about where things are at. Hopefully Lucas will be back up in his wheelchair soon, blogging himself about how his new, straight, titanium-rod assisted spine is treating him.

It’s been 4 days since Lucas emerged from the spinal fusion surgery and he’s just about ready to go home.

We’ve definitely had some ups and downs over the last 24 hours. Lucas had a rough night of sleep on Thursday so when the wheelchair tech along with physical and occupational therapists busted into our room at 9:30 am on Friday he had barely done his morning Wordle and was not at all happy about their suggestion that it was time to get up in his chair. But he didn’t have much choice, and so after dealing with a broken ceiling lift (further stressing Lucas out), all four of us managed to get long, lanky Lucas — with his newly straightened back — into his wheelchair for the first time since surgery. Some modifications had already been made, so the chair fit him OK, but it took some more tweaks before he started looking halfway comfortable sitting up. He lasted about 15 minutes, complaining the whole time — both about the pain and all the people running around messing with him and his wheelchair.

So, not a great first experience but it gave us hope that he’d last even longer the next time he got up. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case. Instead, attempt #2 that afternoon lasted less than 10 minutes; he complained that the pain was immediate and intense. After he got down, we couldn’t help feeling bad about rushing him to recover, and also discouraged about how far off the possibility of spending an hour in his wheelchair (which is necessary to get home) seemed.

Things started looking up again later that afternoon when a very cuddly service dog named Lucy came by to visit. Meanwhile, we heard from the medical team that Lucas had checked all the boxes for discharge… except for the big challenge of showing that he could sit up in his wheelchair for a sustained amount of time.

So this morning we gave it another shot. This time, right before getting up he got a dose of Oxycontin to mitigate the pain. The transfer from the bed was much smoother, and as soon as he was settled in his wheelchair we held our breath until he said, “The pain…” And we said “Oh no!” and he said, “… isn’t so bad this time!”

Sure enough, he lasted for 45 minutes and though the pain eventually kicked in he was still doing his daily Heardles when we suggested that he get down to rest. At that point we were hoping he could saving his energy for a ride home in the afternoon, but as we write the sun is headed quickly toward dusk and it seems like we’ll be here another night.

Thanks for the pictures, playlists, and message. Lucas is groggily taking it all in. It is such a sweet part of our job as parents, funneling all the love his way.

Lucas is making amazing progress in his recovery. We didn’t know what the days after surgery would look like but it’s fair to say that he’s doing better than expected. In particular, he continues to be very animated when he’s awake, with lots of strong opinions. Given all that his body has been through and all the drugs they’re pumping through him you’d think he’d be out of it. Instead, he’s been lively and engaged much of the day (while also taking lots of naps.)

In the morning one of his IVs was removed  as well as one of two surgical drains later in the day. He’s also no longer connected to any heart monitors. That makes the job of moving him around a little easier… but it’s still a lot of work. And that’s probably why he was often grumpy today. More than once he told a nurse or respiratory therapist to “stop messing with me!”, at which point we’d chuckle and explain that he’s just showing off how feisty he is coming out of surgery. They weren’t offended, and overall we’ve been so grateful for the skill and thoughtfulness of the medical professionals working with Lucas.

Meanwhile, he got visits in the morning from Nonna and Papa as well as Aunt Ashley…and, the head of security at Seattle Children’s dropped by (who also happens to be an amazing local drummer and friend of the family.) Ida was also back for the second day in a row to hang out with her beloved brother. She insisted that she come to the hospital right after school because she missed Lucas so much. The two of them get along well most of the time but it sometimes it takes a bit of hardship to bring out their maximum love and sweetness towards each other.

Another highlight of the day was getting Lucas into a sitting position in bed… not once but twice! The first time felt especially triumphant (even though it was only for 4 minutes) because it showed that he’ll likely be able to sit up in his wheelchair soon. Someone from the orthopedics team who observed said that he was on pace to go home in the next few days, which would be sooner than expected. He lasted even longer the second time we sat him up, motivated in part by Ida’s dancing and cheering and balloon waving. After that he crashed, but still it was a positive day over all. Thanks again to everyone for you messages of support!

Lucas wants everyone to know… “the surgery went well!”

Yesterday began at 5 am when we made coffee and started mobilizing for Children’s. The morning went pretty smoothly and it was only right when we prepared to say bye to Lucas and leave him alone with the anesthesiologists that he got very nervous… but then the drugs kicked in and he was out, and we were pushed out of the room as I futilely tried to reiterate suctioning instructions one last time.

Getting ready for anesthesia

Then we had to wait. It turns out the actual surgery didn’t start until around 10 am, as it took a while for full sedation to kick in and to get him in the right position. At around 2 pm we got a message that surgery was wrapping up, and soon after that the surgeon came out to let us know everything had gone as planned. Among the things we learned is that they used the longest rods in stock to support the fusion of the vertebrae. In other words, Lucas is really tall! And, now he’ll have long pieces of titanium inside his body keeping his torso straight and aligned.  We also learned that he lost a lot of blood (as expected in major surgery) but that they hadn’t yet done a transfusion… thought later in the evening his red blood cells were still low so they did end up doing a transfusion.

We made our way to the ICU and soon Lucas was rolling in on a gurney with a team of doctors and nurses in tow. He was still out, a good things since they hadn’t yet changed him back to his regular trach. Lucas’s biggest concern when talking to the team pre-operation was that he would wake up and still have the hospital-issue cuffed trach in place, preventing him from using his voice. Fortunately, and with some encouragement from us, they changed it out just before his eyes starting to pry open, and he groaned out his first words… “is it over?!?”

Lucas was groggy for the rest of the afternoon but surprised us by having enough energy to immediate start bossing us and his nurses around, making sure he had everything he needed. As many people know, Lucas is obsessed with doing the daily Wordle and managed to do it at 6:30 am before heading back to surgery. The word was “sassy” which suddenly seemed fitting given his unexpectedly spunky behavior coming out of surgery.

Watching a documentary about The Clash

Meanwhile, the drugs kept flowing, helping to mitigate the pain. But the hardest thing for Lucas was the discomfort of having so much connected to his body: tubes draining excess blood from his back, multiple IV lines in his veins, various wires stuck to his body monitoring heart rate, blood oxygenation, etc, a blood pressure cuff inflating every 15 minutes, a foley catheter, and of course his ventilator tube connected to an unfamiliar suction device. On top of it all, nurses and other medical personnel enter the room every 15 minutes to monitor various things. Finally, he also couldn’t lie fully on one side, which is his preferred position for sleep. So needless to say, it was a rough night… by 5 am he gave up on sleeping and requested his audiobook. We’ve been up ever since.

Still, he’s been an amazing sport. Very little complaining despite all the inconveniences. And he’s managed to charm his nurses and respiratory therapists with all his jokes and handsomeness.

As always, we appreciate all the messages of love and encouragement, not to mention all the other ways people have supported us. It was a stressful day but we’re so relieved and grateful to (hopefully) be through the worst of it.

Our family has a lot going on these days and we wanted to share a Lucas-related update. Or rather, we’ll let the man himself tell you what’s up. Here’s what he posted to Handsomeboywrites:

 

Dear fans,

Next Tuesday the 14^th, I’m having a surgery on my back called a spinal fusion. I’ve been having a lot of back pain and this surgery is supposed to help with it. It’s supposed to straighten out the curve I’ve had in my spine. It will make it so I’m out of school for a while and I probably won’t be able to post stuff on HBW, so don’t expect anything in the coming weeks.

I am a bit nervous about what’s going to happen right after surgery. We’ll stay in the hospital for a couple days after it. But I hope it really is going to help with my pain.

I also hope it will help me stay in class and focus longer. A lot of times, I’ve had to leave classes and even leave school early because I’ve had so much pain. I really hope it will help me focus longer on school.

So be thinking of me next week. I won’t be doing a lot, so if you have book, movie or show recommendations, let me know.

See you later,

Yours truly

Lucas.

Needless to say, we’re all a bit nervous about the surgery. Lucas has had a few surgeries before but nothing quite like this. The type of spinal fusion he’ll undergo involves straightening out his spine, fusing together the vertebrae below the neck, and placing titanium rods inside his body to keep the spine straight. As Lucas likes to say, it’s a doozy.

Fortunately, we’ve had great interactions with the surgeon and feel confident that it’s the right thing to do and the right time for Lucas to do it. Krista and I will be with Lucas right before he goes under anesthesia and then right after he comes out of surgery. Ida will be spending the next couple nights with friends and family but is excited to visit Lucas in the hospital on Wednesday. It won’t be long that they’re apart but she still says “I’m going to miss my little Lukey so much!!”

In addition to the couple days at the hospital that Lucas mentions (actually 5-7 days) he’ll likely need to recover at home for at least another few weeks before heading back to school. Because he won’t be able to get up in his wheelchair much during the recovery, he’ll have plenty of time to watch shows, listen to podcasts and audio books, and read jokes and nice messages from friends, family and fans.

If you post comments here or below his post on HBW we’ll make sure he sees them. You can also send emails to lucas@estansbury.com.

And as Lucas says, keep him (and the rest of our family) in your thoughts in the coming weeks.

Greetings many fans,

Last month, I got interviewed for a very popular YouTube channel called Special Books for Special Kids (SBSK). SBSK is a YouTube channel where this guy named Chris interviews different people with disabilities. When we were in Anacortes for spring break, one of the teachers at my elementary school emailed us about the channel. She had thought of me when she watched the videos and thought I should be interviewed. We got into contact with SBSK and eventually, I got interviewed! Chris and his partner stayed for a long time and the interview went really well. He asked very open ended questions.

When I first saw the video yesterday when it came out, I felt really proud of myself for doing the interview and for Chris and his partner for making the video so good. There are things that I didn’t say that I could’ve said, and things that could’ve been improved in the video, but overall, the video is really good and I’m real proud of it.