2010 Scrapbook

If anyone is interested, I've made a scrapbook for 2010 (minus vacations, since they were in a separate scrapbook). It can be viewed here:

http://www.cmphotocenter.com/sbpreview/StorybookPreview.aspx?StorybookID=610286&CustomerID=504614

I hope you enjoy! It's been a wonderful year.

Ashlyn's Hearing Loss

Well there's good news and bad news. First, the good news...we found out what is causing Ashlyn's conductive hearing loss. It showed up in the catscan! It's called cholesteatoma. Unfortunately, she's had it for awhile and it's pretty bad. The bad news...she needs multiple surgeries to remove the cholesteatoma and reconstruct some of the ear bones. If interested, you can read about it here: http://www.earsite.com/tumors/cholesteatoma.html.

It has actually been there awhile and is going past the point it should and she needs surgery in the next month or month and a half. The ENT wants us to see the pediatric cardiologist again before doing this surgery to see if she'll be ok for general anesthesia. We have this appointment set for February 1st at Shands. Then we have the appointment with the ENT on February 7th to set a surgery day and go over the pre-op stuff. It is an outpatient surgery where she will be under 2-3 hours each time she has the surgery. The ENT will have to keep doing the surgery until he goes back and does not see any more of the bad cells. There is permanent damage to her ear bones (erosion). He will probably do some reconstruction of these bones the last time he goes in. Hearing is not our main concern right now and we will discuss these things with the doctor after he does the multiple mastoidectomy surgeries to eradicate the cholesteatoma. Teh second surgery will be months after the first (like 6 to 12 months I believe is what he said). We feel that this was caused by the multiple untreated ear infections she had while in China (she had a really bad one when we got her in China a little over a year ago and the Chinese doctor said it was nothing…but took 3 months to get rid of while here).

God definitely led us down the path we are today so that we could go get her and get her the treatments/surgeries she needed to live a happy, healthy, normal life! I couldn’t even imagine if she had never been adopted out, that this problem could actually cause complete hearing loss along with permanent facial nerve damage and possible brain issues. God keeps amazing me in the fact that He keeps leading us down the paths that we need to go to find out what her actual problems are that need to be treated because she was never diagnosed with any of these things while in China. We’ve even had issues with some of the doctors here not knowing what they are doing. There are reasons in my gut as to why I keep persisting when it comes to certain things…I just know, and God has given this to me!

I just wanted to let everyone know how amazing it is that this older child half way around the world can be united with you, a perfect stranger, and in a matter of days you can love this child as if they came from your womb. It's the most amazing blessing from God!

December 22, 2010

Going back in time to tell you about something that happened to our family a few weeks ago...

Yeah…so the morning of Wednesday 12/22, I guess it was about 2:00 am, Jason woke up with chest pains and thought it was heartburn. He got back in bed and was shivering the entire bed with no fever for at least an hour. When he woke up, his chest was tight and had severe pain in his chest when breathing that radiated through his back. With his heart conditions, I made him at least go to urgent care that morning and the doctor ended up feeling more comfortable if he was ambulanced over to the hospital (thought it could be his heart), so the ambulance came and got him from urgent care (he had a panic attack when the EMTs came in the room…lips turned blue and wasn’t getting oxygen, so they put him on oxygen and he got better). They got him to the hospital and took a chest x-ray, did a cat scan, and did some blood work. His white blood cell count was tripled the normal, so they suspected infection and the x-ray and/or cat scan confirmed that it was pneumonia. As soon as he got there, they put him on morphine and anti-naseua medicine to help with the chest and back pain. They put him on IV antibiotics when they saw it was pneumonia and before they let him go, they gave him more morphine. We got him the antibiotics prescribed, and by the next morning, the chest and back pains were gone, but the chest tightness was still there until Sunday 12/26. They said that if he would’ve waited another day or two, he would’ve been admitted for about a week.

The funny thing was that he showed no “normal” symptoms of pneumonia…no coughing or cold like symptoms. Just the chest pain radiating through his back. It was because it was directly in his lung and not in the bronchial airways. Who would’ve figured?!?! Anyways, he’s better now, but it sure seems like everyone’s been sick over the last two weeks whether it be pneumonia, bronchitis, stomach flu, etc… Crazy sickness going around! As far as we know, it did not affect his heart, but because of the white blood count being so high, it probably affected his thyroid. He’s suppose to go back in a couple weeks and get another x-ray to make sure the pneumonia has completely gone away. He’ll probably get his TSH levels checked then too, to make sure his thyroid is going back to what it should.

Let's just say, I'm glad my husband is ok...and he sure did give us a scare! I told him that he wasn't allowed to do that again ;-)

Disney Vacation Day 8 - 01/02/11

Day 8 was spent at Disney Quest in Downtown Disney. We only did a little bit since Kaylyn was still feeling queasy. You see, she either got food poisoning yesterday or a stomach bug. She did not run a fever, so my guess is food poisoning from the chicken she ate for lunch. Around 8:00 pm we were eating dinner in the Pop Century Hotel's food court when Jason started to take Kaylyn back to the room since her stomach was bothering her. On the walk out of the food court, in front of the registers, Kaylyn just full on tossed her cookies. A lady came by and asked Jason if he needed her to go get her mommy (he thought that was really funny). She felt better after that, but then lost it a few more times throughout the night, including all over the bed at 1:00 am and again at 3:30 am, feeling better after each time.

She kept water down after that and ate some frosted flake for breakfast in the morning (took an hour to eat the small container). We went to Disney Quest and got right on the Pirates of the Caribbean, Raft ride, and Aladdin. We did a few more things, ate lunch (everyone except Kaylyn) and decided to head back home.

We went to my mom's when we got back in town to see my cousin John from Indiana and my dad made dinner. Kaylyn ate some chicken and did fine. At least Kaylyn decided to get sick the last night of the vacation...like she had a choice :-) Sorry no pictures for this day...I think Jason got tired of taking pictures finally.

Disney Vacation Day 7 - 01/01/11

Day 7 was spent at Animal Kingdom, where we rode all the rides and saw all the shows. Ashlyn was finally able to ride the Primeval Whirl. Back in July when we came she was just under the 48" mark and couldn't ride, but if you look at the picture, she's well over 48" now. Last I measured her, she was 50". She's grown 3 1/2 inches and gained 10 lbs over the last year. Amazing! She was scared on the Dinosaur ride, but when Kaylyn said she liked it and wanted to do it again, Ashlyn changed her tune, and said she wasn't scared and wanted to do it again. So we did it again! In the picture, Ashlyn still looks a little scared, but she said she liked it. It was loud and bumpy. We should've taken a picture of the picture that was taken of us on the Everest ride, because Ashlyn's smile was so big...she absolutely loves the pure roller coaster rides. Wonder what she'll think of an upside down one when we decide to let her do it!

On another note, I wanted to say, Happy Anniversary to my sweetheart of 13 years today! I love you so much Jason. Oh yeah, and Happy New Years!

Disney Vacation Day 6 - 12/31/10

Day 6 (New Year's Eve) was spent at Hollywood Studios where we did all the shows, including Fantasmic and the Osbourne Family Spectacle of Lights. Ashlyn even rode on Tower of Terror and was pretty scared. She was completely still and silent, which is opposite her normal roller coaster self (always smiling). She did not want to ride that again (until later because we kept saying how scared she was, and she wanted to prove us wrong)!

Disney Vacation Day 5 - 12/30/10

Day 5 was spent at Epcot doing all the countries and doing Soarin at the end since we missed it the other day (got fast passes as soon as we got there). The kids like doing the Kidcot centers at each country. Ashlyn loves China, and we bought outfits for the Chinese New Year celebration coming up in February. Kaylyn left Ashlyn's hat at the Kidcot center in China at Epcot and by the time we realized it, someone else had a new hat! We did the Kim Possible mission at Norway this time and we said we would do it only if we did one country and that was it. It's so time consuming (and the kids fight over whose turn it is with the phone). Notice the neat effect taking the picture as the sun is going down at the waterfall in Canada (it reflected the girls). Very strange, but neat!