Hospital

After my last post, on Tuesday, we had to take Lily into the hospital.  I kept her home, doing everything I knew to do, until that evening, but nothing was working.  Lily's respiratory rate (breath rate) was becoming more and more rapid.  Her coloring was very pale, and we just weren't seeing much improvement.  By 3:00 am, Wednesday morning (24 hours after I'd been awakened Tuesday morning) we were settled into our hospital room on the ICU step-down unit (it's really nice there, like the Hilton of the hospital), and both Lily and I got some sleep.  

Lily had a lot of trouble keeping her O2 levels up, especially in the morning.  We ended up doing vest treatments with her nebs, which helped a lot, but wasn't getting her over the hump.  Saturday morning we adjusted her neb schedule, and by that evening Lily had perked up significantly.  Yesterday morning, I asked what we needed to do in order to get Lily home, so Mark would be able to go back to work today.  

We were able to get Lily weaned onto a straight nasal cannula (from the heated humidified O2, MR-850), but our DME (Durable Medical Equipment) company did bring out an MR-850 set up in case we need it.  

Mornings are the worst for Lily, and this morning was no exception.  I did switch her to the MR-850, but it wasn't enough support within the parameters I was given.  I think Lily is finally coming around though, thank goodness.  It's amazing how fast kids can get sick, and how quickly they can rebound!  

I'm just so glad to be home!  Now, hopefully we can stay here and have a healthy remainder of the flu/RSV season!    

The Quick Stop

An update:  Lily is sick.  We got home from camping Sunday night, and she was sounding (and acting) reflux-y.  She didn't eat well either.  I ended up giving her an extra dose of Prevacid (we do this when she's on oral steroids) and propping her up in bed.  Yesterday started out okay, except I heard her coughing a very congested-sounding cough.  Leah had an appointment with the ENT in the afternoon, which I'll get to later.  On the way home, Lily threw up in the van.  I got her home, put her in the tub, and afterward I gave her a neb because she was sounding so gurgly and congested.  She didn't eat much dinner last night, but she did take a popsicle and drink some.  I propped her up in bed again and made sure to put her on the pulse ox to monitor her O2 last night.  At 3 am she began de-satting in to the upper 80s.  I brought her down for a neb, which really didn't bring her sats up very far.  We put her on O2 a little while later, and she's still on 1 - 1.5 L.  I also started oral steroids this morning.  For now, we'll just keep an eye on things to see how she does.  Hopefully we can keep her home.

Leah and the ENT:  A couple of months ago, we were in the van, and I heard Leah have some apnea spells.  I knew she snored, but I'd never heard her stop breathing for a few seconds prior to that.  When we were at the ped last week, I mentioned it, and she suggested I get Leah into the ENT for a consult.  The ENT said Leah definitely had big tonsils (not surprising considering how big Lily's were), and he thought the apnea was probably worse than I even know because I'm not always in her room when she's sleeping, and it would probably continue getting worse instead of better.  After some discussion, I think we're planning to have her tonsils and adenoids out sooner rather than later.  I will call later today and try to schedule it for Nov (after my Grandma's b-day party and before Thanksgiving).  That way, we can still change our minds if we choose to, but we at least have the surgery scheduled.  

Stay tuned for some photo updates, hopefully later this week!  

Leah-isms Part II

Scene takes place in the restroom at church.  Lily just finished going potty.  Leah is still sitting on the toilet.

Lily:  [places a hand encouragingly on Leah's knee]

Leah:  "Don't touch me!  I'm too special to touch."  

Oh, I am so in for "it"!  

My new favorite quote

"Teaching our own children how to walk with God is the greatest missionary outreach we can do." - Sally Hohnberger, "Parenting Your Child by the Spirit"

Do you know what a pirate/cowgirl/movie star looks like?

Apparently, something like this:

Whenever one of the girls either wears overalls or puts a kerchief on their head, Elise says, "[insert name here] is going out to feed the chickens again."  I don't know why, but it's quite comical!  Oh the ideas they come up with!  LOL

And, a chef:

And, just a cute picture of Lily:

Mmmmmmm

On one of the vegan blogs I go to, I heard about a new-er product called So Delicious Coconut Milk yogurt.  Now, I'm ALL about coconut, so I knew I had to give this a try.  Another plus is that Lily can use the fat.  Up until now, I've been grudgingly buying her whole milk yogurt to keep up her caloric intake.  So, I discovered our health food store down the road carries the yogurt, and I had to buy some.  It's a bit pricey, and unfortunately, they only come in the smaller containers (I usually buy the large ones because the girls like yogurt with their granola).  I tried the blueberry, and it was soooooooo delicious (really living up to the name here)!  I really didn't think the coconut was overwhelming either.  In fact, there was just a little "sumthin-sumthin" but it was so subtle that I doubt most people would even notice.  And now I have to stop talking about food, or I will head down to the fridge looking for one of the containers of vanilla coconut milk yogurt.......

On that note:  I have a bit of exciting news.  I weighed Lily last week, and she was 26 lbs!  That's huge for us, as I have been struggling for the last 2 years to get her over that 23-24 lbs mark.  She'd make a little headway, but then lose it all when she got sick.  I had her almost to 25 lbs at one point, but over last winter she was back down to 23-something.  You can imagine my excitement to see 26 lbs!  She's still almost 10 lbs behind Leah, but we're getting there.  So, YAY!  Praise God!   

"I'm in love.....

....with my cabbage." Leah announced this morning as we were driving home from a homeschool get-together.  It was my first meeting with most of these ladies, but they all seem really nice.  The lady who's house we met at has a HUGE garden, and she invited the kids to pick whatever they wanted to take home.  MY daughter picked a very beautiful cabbage.  She held it all the way home.  On the way, she wondered what people DO with cabbage.  She wants to help make something.  Then she wants to invite everyone over to partake of said cabbage.  Leah went on and on about it all the way home.  It was really very cute!  I wish I could remember everything she said.  (That's the problem.  The girls say hundreds of cute things every day, and I wish I could remember them all when I sit down to blog.  Alas, my mommy brain doesn't recall things quite as clearly as it did pre-children.)

I have a few other things to blog about when I get a few minutes.  It's been a very busy last week or so, but hopefully I'll have some new pics up for you soon.  And, likely a video of a very special event as well.

Now, I have to decide what to make with the cabbage.  Any ideas besides coleslaw and cabbage soup?  (NO sauerkraut...can't stand the smell of that stuff.)