Still around

Since the last time we updated:

We got a puppy!



Alex likes to believe he's her dog



Gizmo kind of likes him



Did I mention his name is Hester (as in Devin Hester of the Chicago Bears)



We all love him!


And, Halloween came and went.






Mary was Michael Jackson






And just recently Thanksgiving came and went. I hosted this year and cooked the entire dinner on my own! I ended up roasting a Turkey in the oven and Jason deep fried one. Both Turkeys were excellent!

Back to school!

Mary started Middle school this year and is loving it! She thinks it's awesome that she gets to travel from class to class, have a locker combination and all of that. She is making tones of friends and can't wait to get check out some of the clubs. Anna is now in 2nd grade and she loves that she can now walk to school (since we moved just down the block from it) and she got one of Mary's old teachers this year. Alexandria started pre-school today. She was so excited and loved every minute of it! She got one of Anna's old preschool teachers who we just adore. She is actually one of our favorite nurses from Children's PICU, mother in law.

Sorry I haven't updated since that last post when Anna had her biopsy. I know I said I would let you know the results, and I'm sure most of you do anyway, but for those of you who only know of us from this blog I'm sorry I left you hanging. I actually just found of a couple people who read this blog that I didn't know even knew about it. For those of you, sorry. I really didn't think many people looked here. Also I have been working a lot, have been really tired, and we just found out last week that we are moving at the end of this month so I just haven't had the time.

We didn't get the results we wanted to get. Anna is still having mild rejection. It was another shocker that no one expected. Her doctors said the expected to see resalution. Let me tell you, even though we knew that she had rejection in January, it was unexpected that it would still be going on 4 months later, especially with Anna being put back on her meds. The good news is that it still looked better than her last episode (which they said was mild) so this is even more mild. They did not have to put Anna back on steroids, they just put her on a twice a day dose (up from a once a day dose) of her immune suppressant medication. This stinks because it's twice the amount of immune suppressants. A week later they turned up her dose a even little more than that. I just figured out the other day that she has not been on this high of a dose since she first started taking this med when she was 2 (a different immune suppressant was used before that). We once again have to worry about her picking up every little virus floating around. Since then she picked up a strep skin infection, a summer cold, her eczema is back full force, and she seems to have an ear infection now that I'm taking her to the pediatrician tomorow.

Once again, all of her blood work looks perfect! Nobody understands why nothing shows up in her labs and only in her biopsy's. We talked to the doctor and expressed our concerns that this might be something else but she assured us that it was rejection, the biopsy did not show any liver damage, and we'll just continue to monitor. Another biopsy will be repeated in 6 months and labs still every 2 weeks until her medication level stays where they need it to be to control this rejection and to keep an eye on her liver numbers. I feel like we are where we were a year out of her transplant and that is a hard place to be right now.

Sitting here at Children's

I'm just sitting here in the surgical observation area, watching Anna and Jason sleep. We woke up at 4:30 this morning so they are pooped. I on the other hand, I guess I'm just used to waking up early. On a normal work day I am already up for for an hour and a half by that time.

Anna went in for her biopsy by eight this morning, done by 8:15am, and it is now 10:00am. She did so well, as usual. I was a little worried because she was a bit nervous this time around. Her nervousness really surprised me because she is usually so nonchalant about this stuff. I guess she is just getting older and more aware of what is happening and why. Before it was all fun stuff because she gets spoiled here.

Dr. Ekong came out after the procedure, said everything went fine, and was on her way to do a biopsy on this tiny little baby that was waiting in the holding area. The mommy handed the baby off with tears in her eyes. Being here brings back memories of Anna when she was that little and how scared we were for her. I wanted to go over to that mom and give her a hug, and tell her it would all be OK. It feels like just yesterday when Jason and I were in those parents' position. I also remember that there is nothing you can say that would comfort those parents. The only thing would be for the doctor to come out and say that it was all a big mistake, your child does not have a liver disease, she is perfectly healthy!

So Anyway, Dr. Ekong let us know that she was not going to put a rush on looking at the biopsy because she doesn't anticipate anything showing up especially with her labs from Sunday looking so good. When she left Jason and I discussed how very silly that sounded to us. Didn't she say that last time? Her labs did look perfect, but there were still signs of rejection in her biopsy. It's not that I want her to put a rush on it because Anna is not showing any symptoms of any sort, it just sounded silly the way she put it. A few days is nothing, and I'll bet everything is fine.

So, here we sit until 2:00 this afternoon, and they had better let us go right away! I'll go nuts just sitting her. I don't know how I did this for weeks at a time.

Ballet rectial

Alex did so well in her dance recital today! I actually had to get this video from her dress rehearsal from the night before because we weren't allowed to take video at her actual recital. She looked so cute and did very well for her first time!

Alex is the one in the middle with the extremely long hair!




And some more pictures!

Don't they look cute as.....

Anna as a walrus.............





Mary as a tiger..............





Alex as a monkey..............





Jason as a bat................






If you haven't guessed it already, we went to the zoo last weekend for the last time before our membership expires. I don't think we will be getting another membership this year because we have had one every year for the past three years and it's getting a little old. We always love the zoo, but you get a little burnt out on it and to tell you the truth I don't think we'll really use it this year. I might be getting a full time position at the hospital that I work part time at right now, and it will be hard enough to get pool time let alone enough visits to the zoo to make a membership worthwhile.

So, sorry all you Mumbles that we visit at every trip to the zoo, but we will see you next year!

Just a little inside joke guys!

To my lovely brother-in-law.

You know I love ya!