Major Promotion

Here are some photo's from Dan's Major promotion ceremony.  It took a couple weeks to have the photos declassified so Dan could bring them home :)

All of us prior to the ceremony

Dexter and Dan during the speeches

Dan's boss, Mark, gave the main speech and the oath

Dexter and Kathy pinned on Dan's new rank of Major and then slapped his shoulders hard!

Maj (S)

 The Air Force officially announced the Captains that will be promoted to Major next calendar year and Dan is one of them!   Six people in Dan's division were selected for promotion.  Overall there were 2560 people selected for promotion and Dan is number 370, which will mean an early promotion for him.  And early means spring 2014 perhaps.  Today his division had a party for those selected including crazy large shoulder boards with the Major gold maple leaf symbol. Selectees also received a beverage of choice, an AFRL patch with their line number inscribed on it, an official Major's rank, all hung around the beverage with a braided rope made by Col Maethner and his wife.

Col. Maethner and Capt. Karrels

Jim Sewell, Capt. Anthony O'Dell, Capt. Katrina Schweiker, Capt. Chuck Rowell, Capt. Daniel Karrels, Capt. Joyce Mark, Capt. Jonathan Spaulding, Col. Bill Cooley, Col. Scott Maethner, Maj Torrey Wagner, Wes Tucker

Our new Major Select

What do you call a Major Select?  A Captain.

Happy Birthday Daddy!

Daddy and Mommy at the Air Force Dining Out

My birthday card to daddy.  I drew the happy face and wrote my name on top (we are working on lower case letters at school) then mommy wrote on the bottom.

I have a great birthday plan for daddy - we are going to eat ice cream and watch Kung Fu Panda.  He likes both of those things and so do I!

Happy Father's Day

Happy Father's Day!  Today mommy drew a picture of me and daddy riding our bikes (I wrote my name), then I baked banana bread and pancakes for daddy.  Then we went to a car show and looked a cool cars, then I feel sleep on the way home in the car.  I hope you all had fun father's days too!

Dining Out

Today mommy and daddy got all dressed up and went to dinner with daddy's division.  I got to stay home with my friends Shawn and Tyler and play. 

reading!

I like to read books and so does Daddy.

Also an undate on daddy - he got his first shot today of Enbrel for his arthritis. He will get this shot every wednesday. Ideally in a month we will start to taper off his prednisone and then a few months later start to remove his plaquenil. This will leave him on Enbrel and Avara only - but this is all dependant on him improving over the next few months.

Tell me where it hurts

Today Dan finally met with his Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA) doctor that he was referred too 3 months ago.  One of the first things this doctor said was he wished the doctor had called him directly and he would have gotten Dan in a week instead of 3 months since he is young and the arthritis is so bad already.  The doctor wants to be "super aggressive" with his treatment of Dan.  He is currently on some old school RA treatments (Prednisone, Methotrexate, and Arava).  The goal of this new doctor is to eventually get off those 3 (we stopped the methotrexate a couple weeks ago already) and to get on a once a week shot of either Enbrel or Humira.  This shot will start in 2 weeks (Aug 11) once the results of some baseline lab work, x-rays and ultrasounds come back. The doctor compared the 2 treatments to trying to kill 8 people - using his current treatment its like tossing a grenade at the people and hoping it gets them all and using the new treatment plan its like a sniper killing each one with precision. 

So hopefully this new shot works well for Dan.  The current meds do work but Dan is still having joint pain and lots of side effects from the current drugs.

Dan Update

Dan's life has been moving a tad quicker this past month. A few weeks ago he was told he was going to deploy to Bahrain this summer. Everything was moving along for this deployment except his medical clearance. About a week before he was going to be cleared he started having a lot of joint pain and stiffness especially in the mornings. Finally it got to the point where he couldn't use his hands for a few hours after waking up and he had to see the doctor. They ran a ton of tests - blood work and x-rays and have diagnosed him with Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA), moderate in his feet and severe in his hands. If anyone has seen his hands an arthritis diagnosis probably doesn't surprise you. He has been on meds now for 2 weeks and has show a lot of improvement. He has a consult in to see a specialist and his deployment has been officially canceled.

For the nurses out there here are a few of his test results:
Anti-CCP 92 (Normal 0-5) A test for RA
Westergren 46 (Normal <15) A type of sedimentation test showing inflammation
RF-QUANT 10.8 (Normal 0-12) This is a standard RA test and his was in the normal range, but other tests are more clearly positive for RA
C-reactive Protein 36.5 (Normal 0-10) Generalized inflammation test

At least on the cancer front his follow up checks have been normal and he has established himself with an oncology doctor here in Albuquerque for his routine check ups. Here is a picture of the family - It was about 90 degrees out so me, Dex and the dogs are dressed for the weather. One of Dan's new prescriptions warned him about sun exposure...so he goes outside in full sweat pants and top. What a silly boy, surprised he didn't pass out from heat stroke.

Dr. Daddy

I just got back from visiting everyone I know. Thanks to daddy's graduation from PhD school we all got together to celebrate! It was great seeing all my cousins and the big people were fun too (although I am way to attached to mommy right now to let other people hold me) I will post a longer blog entry Monday or Tuesday - right now we all need to catch up with our sleep.

Prospectus Defense

I have successfully defended my prospectus. Since there appears to be some confusion, here is how the process works at AFIT:

1) Complete course work
2) Complete specialty exam written portion (qualifying exam or "quals")
3) Perform background/related research for topic area
4) Complete specialty exam oral portion (prospectus defense)
5) Perform core research, writing dissertation along the way
6) Defend dissertation
7) Graduate

I completed step 2 a few months ago, and today I completed step 4. I will now embark on the dissertation, which takes the following form:

Chapter 1: Introduction to the domain and problem area
Chapter 2: Background/related research -- current state of the art
Chapter 3: Define problem that will be solved and how success or failure will be measured
Chapter 4: Document results
Chapter 5: Conclusions and summary

Chapter 4 may in fact be many chapters. The prospectus consists (roughly) of the first three chapters, and mine weighed in at 102 pages including front and back matter. The average dissertation at AFIT is about 240 pages total.

The graduation date cannot be less than one year after the prospectus defense. I am officially considered a PhD candidate, and hope to graduate on 9-Sep-09 (9-9-09).