Look who is getting to be a BIG BOY! Wow, it has been a hectic 2 months, hence the absence of new posts. Emerson had her first day of preschool today and I feel like I can breathe a little bit. I thought I would take this time while the other 2 kids are watching Nick's Mega Music Fest to update the blog. Side note, the kids are obsessed with this special!!! I'm glad I thought to DVR the show because it is a GREAT distraction for when I need 45 minutes to get some things around the house done. In fact, I actually like watching it with them on occasion. We have a great time acting singing along and dancing.
I guess I'll start with an update on Emerson. I will try to condense everything as much as possible. She had exploratory surgery and a CAT scan on September 10th. Much to our dismay, they came up empty once again. Still no answers. Emerson was a champ and did way better than I expected! I am so proud of her. Thank God kids are resilient! She had 3 small incisions that are healing fantastically. She did such a great job bouncing back to her bubbly self that we let her go to school today instead of waiting another week. Me, on the other hand, is having a harder time getting back into the groove of things. The night spent at the hospital was brutal! I got absolutely ZERO sleep with all the damn beeping of the machines. And I had not slept the night before because I was so anxious. First it would be her IV (they set it to check every 30 minutes, UGH). Needless to say, I quickly learned out to reset it myself. Then after they would come fix that, one of her leads would cause the alarm to go off. And then when I would finally start to drift off a nurse or tech would come in to do their 4 hour vital check. Luckily Emerson was on morphine so she slept through it all. Okay, enough griping. I won't go into my less than stellar evaluation of the hospital. I may end of offending someone. I took Emerson back to the hematologist last Thursday with 2 pages of questions after a good 3 hours of my own research. I have to say, Dr. Cavalier was amazing and was not at all offended that I took it upon myself to do my own researching. She spent a good hour answering all my questions and explaining the different processes of the blood and how it all applies to Emerson's condition. I need to back up a little bit. In the hospital Emerson's hemoglobin dropped to 9 and they start doing blood transfusions at 8. She was definitely in the danger zone and Jamie and I decided we needed refocus our attention. Right now we are more concerned with restoring her red blood cells and iron storage than finding the GI bleed. So, Emerson will be starting IV iron infusion therapy. Basically she we be hooked to an IV once a week for an hour while they pump her full of iron. We will be doing this indefinitely as they watch how her blood responds. If her body does not start immediately making new RBC's than the hematologist will suspect there is something wrong with her bone marrow. Did your heart miss a beat? Mine did too. I will be a wreck if they have to do a bone marrow biopsy. So prayers needed in that regard. WE DON'T WANT THAT! So, right now the game plan is to wait and watch as her blood tries to restore itself. One theory the docs are not throwing out is that she may have the beginning stages of Crohn's disease. Typically Crohn's is not diagnosed until late adolescence so she is pretty young. But, she is having classic symptoms that match the diagnosis. It is possible that because she is so young that the damage has not progressed enough in her small intestine to be able to diagnose at this point. So, again, we are praying against that as well. Sorry, that ended up being a short novel. I do want to say that amidst everything Emerson has gone through, I am very grateful she is alive, happy, and able to do all the things normal preschoolers get to do. I feel so much sorrow for all the parents and children I encounter each trip we make to Children's that are far worse off than Emerson. I am reminded each time how lucky I am and that God is only going to give us as much as we can handle. Even so, when it is your own child being put through so much pain and anxiety with all the tests and doctor visits, it does not make it any easier. I want Emerson to be free of all of this. I want her to be COMPLETELY HEALTHY!
Okay, so on to some fun stuff. PIERCE IS WALKING!!!!!!!! FINALLY!!!!!! Gosh, we didn't think this day would come. He was just so content with being held and crawling he never wanted to even attempt to walk. But, I shouldn't have worried. Emerson was 15 months and Reagan was 14 months before they started to walk. I'd like to think that Pierce was being polite as to not upstage his sisters. He is too funny. He picked it up so quickly and it is though he has been walking forever. He's not as fussy either. He is better able to play with his sisters and Jamie thinks it is because his knees don't hurt anymore. Who knows? Those knees were pretty roughed up and calloused. He is also starting to point and talk a lot more. YAY! He is also feeding himself with a spoon and fork all on his own. His new favorite trick is to take off his diaper. He knows he is not supposed to and thinks it is hilarious. So, we have to keep shorts or pajama pants on him at all times. He is such a little devious little toot and loves to try to get away with things. I can only imagine how this is going to play out when he gets older. I can't believe how much and how fast he is growing! It is just so fun to watch my kids grow. I cherish my time with them and it hurts sometimes because I love them SO much. I just couldn't imagine my life without them. And I love that they love me back almost as much! They need me and it feels fantastic (most of the time)!
Now, on to Reagan. The middle child. And let me tell you, she is your classic middle child. Kind of quirky. Loud. Craves attention. Restless. However, she is SWEET as can be! She is finally starting to talk a lot more clearly. I'm hoping now that Emerson will be at school 2 days a week that she get in some practice! Poor child, she never gets a word in edge wise because Emerson just talks NONE STOP! I mean, it is relentless. Sometimes I have to tell her to just stop talking. Reagan wants to do everything Emerson does and have everything Emerson has. She idolized her big sister. It is too cute! She is pretty self-sufficient too. She can completely dress herself from head to toe and is constantly telling me she can "do it herself". Now that I can give her some more of my attention, we are going to start potty training. She has already had some success but I just haven't had the time to really focus on it and let her run around in panties. I have a feeling that she will pick it up pretty quickly.
So now that I have caused you all to drift off to sleep, I should probably start giving the little ones some focused attention! Hopefully it won't take me another 2 months to add another post.
No comments:
Post a Comment