Love Makes Families

Love Makes Families
A family of 8 due to the blessing of adoption!

Wednesday, April 27, 2011

Alyssa.. the first year




I honestly think it would be too much to ask for to have a completely healthy kid. Alyssa seemed to be doing really well when we left the hospital, but that changed at her first doctor's appt. She was a couple weeks old when we went to see her regular doctor the first time. Her doctor discovered a heart murmur, and noticed that her hip was out of place. She did some exercises to work it back in, and set up an appointment for us to get an ultrasound done at Primary Children's hospital. We went in for that appointment, and they assured me that her heart and hip were both fine :) YAY!! A clean bill of health for a few more months... she was gaining weight like she was supposed to, and everything was going well. Then in mid-January 2010, we took a trip to Las Vegas for Michelle's wedding. We were there for 10 days total, but about 4 days into our trip Alyssa got really sick. We took her a quick care down in Vegas and they told me she had RSV.... I was a little familiar with this since Kaitlyn had it once. She never got better... she just got sicker and sicker. I took her back in to another doctor since she was throwing up, diarrhea, and didn't want to eat (she lost about 2 lbs in a weeks time which is a lot for a 7 month old). The doctor gave her some antibiotics, and told us to follow up with our regular doctor. This was just the beginning. We came home, and my mom looked at us and said "What have you done to our baby?" She looked horrible.... she had black eyes, her face was sunken, she was pale, and she was so fussy. We immediately took her to see her regular doctor who decided to get some blood work. The blood work showed that she had extremely high platelets. They were 1.283 million which is over 3x the normal high for an adult.... something was wrong. They continued to test her blood everyday and her results were much of the same. They sent us in for a ton of blood tests and even tested her for CF. If you have not ever experienced the cystic fibrosis test... all you are missing is torture. They put a chemical on her arm, then they put these metal things on 4 places on her arms, and basically send electric shock through her arms. The shock is supposed to cause her to sweat. The take the metal cuffs off and wrap her arms in gauze, then ace bandages, and then hot towels. They then make me hold her, and they wrap us both in warm blankets. I don't know why they needed the chemicals or electric shock because I'll tell you what.... I was sure sweating they could have done the test on me. Well after all that you'll never guess what happened..... ok maybe you will.... the test results were inconclusive and had to be redone. So a few days later we had to redo the entire test. Luckily all of her tests came back negative... she didn't have CF, celiac, collidus, and so many other things. Well then the dreaded work came out of the doctor's mouth, and I couldn't handle the thought of it..... CANCER. All I could do at this point was hope and pray.

A few weeks before all of this happened, I was sitting in the mother's room waiting and the speakers were on for the sacrament meeting that was going. A man was speaking, and I could hear the sadness in his voice. He was explaining how it had been hard watching his son suffer, and he didn't know why this had happened to him. Just a while later a woman got up and began to tell about how prayers had been answered. She was telling about how her son had an inoperable brain tumor, and he had to go to the hospital everyday. It was Sunday and they were on their way home from the hospital, and the little boy said all he wanted to eat was a muffin. Apparently they had run out of muffins the day before, and it was hard to find things he actually wanted to eat. They did not want to break the sabbath, so they were going to go home and see if they had any muffin mix. Well guess what they saw on their door step when the pulled in the driveway.... muffins. Someone had been a tool in the Lord's hand, and had know that this poor sick child would need something to eat. I didn't know why this story stuck with me so strongly, but I was hoping it wasn't because I would be going through something similar.

A few days later, We got some amazing news.... she did NOT have cancer. We went to an allergy specialist, and gastro doctor, and a oncologist/hematologist... After all of these doctors, an exploratory surgery, and hundreds and hundreds of tests..... still we had no answers. All they knew was that after another 5 months of weekly testing, she still had high platelets. They had no explanation, and they still don't. All we know is that our baby who was born at 9 lbs 3 oz and was over 18 lbs at 5 months is turning 2 is just over a week and she is only about 20 lbs. She has been having troubles ever since that horrible week in January. She gets sick at the drop of a hat (luckily nobody else in the family seems to get her minor sicknesses). She has had croupe 4 or 5 times and RSV 3 or 4 times. She gets black eyes regularly and sometimes seems miserable for no known reason. The doctors say she should have been about 20 lbs by 6 months and close to 30 lbs by a year, but that is not the case. Our angel who started out as our biggest is definitely our smallest. I guess so long as she is "healthy" I will be happy no matter how big she is. We love our baby girl, and we are not alone. She has many people around her that love her very much.

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