11/5/10 and 11/6/10 Thankful for.....

November 5, 2010--I am thankful for new friends and VeggieTales and I am glad I got to enjoy both tonight!

November 6, 2010--I am thankful for Saturday Breakfast at our house and kids all snug and warm in footie pj's. I love how they're interacting with eachother!

 

18 month Post-Transplant Clinic Visit

We headed to Duke this past week for an 18 month post-transplant exam. Olivia continues to do well medically and they drew labs to test her immune function. We won't have results for about a week but we're hoping that they show that Olivia's immune function is strong enough to allow us to begin immunizing her. During Olivia's transplant her immune system was completely wiped out so she needs to get all of her immunizations again, from the beginning (this is the case for all people who have bone marrow or stem cell transplants). Olivia does have an ear infection, again. I suspect that the ear infection that Olivia had at the beginning of October never cleared up completely. They did get a sample from Olivia's ear and did a culture on the ear wax. It turns out that there is some bacteria growing in her ear and it's gram-positive and the antibiotic that we were using back in October was not as effective in fighting gram-positive bacteria so we've switched antibiotics. Hopefully this one will work better. Running this extra step is a simple enough process but it takes time and money and it's something that would never have been done at our "home" hospital. It is always such a pleasure to go to Duke. We've come to really appreciate that they treat us as partners in Olivia's medical care. I know that there are plenty of excellent doctors and nurses at our local hospital here at Ft. Bragg however the expertise and experience of the doctors and nurses at Duke on the PBMT Team at outstanding. I spend so much time and energy advocating for Olivia it is so nice to be able to go to an appointment where I know that they have the knowledge and expertise to help Olivia without me having to advocate for her!


I desperately tried to get a picture of the two of them together but I didn't have the nice camera and it was impossible to get both of them looking at me at the same time!





Now the best news of the day. Olivia has been playing independently and appropriately with toys more and more often. I was so excited to snap these pictures of her playing with a toy car while we were waiting. I know it's just a simple thing but it makes me so happy to see her playing purposefully and having fun!

11/4/10--Thankful for...

I'm so thankful that Peter is okay after falling out of the shopping cart at Wal-mart this afternoon. I'm also very thankful for the special double-child shopping carts that allow me to shop with both kiddos at once, I really wish one of those had been available this afternoon and the entire episode could have been easily avoided.

11/3/10--Thankful For...

November 3, 2010--I'm so thankful that my husband sacrifies every day driving around in an older car so that I can drive our nice comfortable car. I love our Acadia!