Brooke goes to St. Louis for a Pulmonary appointment on December 8th. She is now down as low as she can on her vent. At this appointment, the doctors will talk to me about our plan for the wean. When I talked to them a few weeks ago, they mentioned taking her off and getting a blood gas (a test to measure the amount of carbon dioxide you are exchanging??? She's had a million so you would think I knew what it did!) She is unplugging herself A LOT during the day and is really doing much better than she used to when she would unplug herself. She is also able to stay unplugged for longer amounts of time. I think the most we have done is about 20 minutes. We had her annual review last month and she did exceptionally well. In fact, she was kicked out of occupational therapy because she didn't qualify. If you want to get technical, she didn't really qualify for physical therapy or developmental therapy either but because of her vent, she gets it. I wasn't giving up physical therapy for anything. I can do OT with her but Sue (her physical therapist) does WAY more than I could. We have been taking Brooke everywhere lately. We went to the Rochester football game and Disney's Playhouse Live. She absolutely loves seeing other kids. I don't know who she liked more, Mickey and friends or seeing all the other kids that were there. She just wants to go, go, go and hopefully soon she will be tube free (at least during the day)! About the picture...she loves her bibs. She needs one to fall asleep and you know when she is tired because she goes and gets a bib. This particular day her baby needed a bib too. She did this all by herself. It was too cute not to snap a picture of!
On to Kami Lu... She had a high fever the other morning and with tiny babies that makes me very nervous, so I ran her to the ER. They found a urinary tract infection which was pretty surprising to the doctor, because she is so young. He gave her an antibiotic and we made an appointment with our pediatrician the next day. He ordered another culture of her urine a week later and found that she still had an infection. He recommended we have an ultrasound done of her kidneys and her "plumbing" system. From the ultrasound, they found a slight abnormality which means she probably has this reflux something or other (I can't remember the exact term). It generally corrects itself, but he wants to do one more test to be sure. This test will look at her kidneys again, but will look to see where her urine goes. It's possible that it is backing up into her kidney, causing the slight abnormality. Sensing my frustration (crying), he reassured me that this was more common than you would think. She has another culture next week, because she has to be clean for the next test. Let me just tell you it's not easy getting urine from a baby--can't have her pee in a cup! That was an experience. I really think I could become a pretty good nurse! About this picture... Can you find Kami? This was her sister's doing.
Hadley is well, Hadley. She definitely keeps me entertained each day. Our little darling has started wanting to wear dresses all the time. I guess she inherited this from me :) Ha! We had to put skirts and dresses on her Christmas list because she only has a few. She is really enjoying school and is super excited for Christmas. "Buddy" the Elf (From Elf on the Shelf--she named him Buddy) is making his first appearance this week and will be watching her until Christmas. Maybe he can get her to eat her vegetables, cause I sure can't.
I thought you might all like to know that Brian and I are officially DONE Christmas shopping. Yes, you read that right! We headed out the other night with lists and a highlighter in hand and after a few hours, found all but two things on our list. I ordered the other two when we got home. Gotta love online shopping. It feels really good to know that I will not have to make a last minute trip to pick something up. Also, we had family pictures taken last week and they turned out really cute. The ones of the girls are even better. I will post a few next week when I get the CD. I am so excited! Have a super Thanksgiving. I am so thankful for my husband, our beautiful children and our wonderful family and friends. Enjoy your time with your family.
