Update on Stella 11.22.10

Yesterday was our appointment with the neurologist. He first asked why we came to visit, and I explained the “episodes” we had noticed Stella having. He asked several questions and made me tell him in detail what happened, how long it happened, how often, etc. We went over Stella’s history from birth, and discussed her development, etc. He gave her a physical exam as well to test her muscle strength and so forth.

He then looked over Stella’s MRI and found nothing what-so-ever to worry about. He did find a cyst, but said he was VERY confident that it was nothing to worry about. He said if you took an MRI of every child 70% would have cysts show up. So thank you Jesus! He could not get the EEG to work on his computer, but the results were sent to one of his colleagues and he read him the results and they read “normal”.

He believes Stella IS having absence seizures. Although, he feels the outcome is good and she WILL stop having them eventually. If they get worse she will be ordered a 48-72hr EEG to further diagnose them.

Our goal is to stop the seizures 100%. So we will increase her dose of keppra. We will closely watch her for rash, kidney issues, and behaviors/side effects from the drug. Once we find the right med, dose, etc she will be on that for 1-1.5yrs. If we feel she is ready to be weaned off, we will then slowly do that.

Again, I just want to thank everyone from the bottom of our heart for the calls, texts, messages, etc that everyone has sent us. We have been overwhelmed with love! Thank you so much and when Stella gets older I will share with her the love shown! God is good!!

ER Trip :(

I think we've had enough trips to hospitals to last us a lifetime! Thank you very much UGH So much for a "relaxing" weekend. Saturday evening I was sitting in Alli's room with both Alli and Stella. I had gone over the room to make sure there wasn't anything for Stella to put her mouth and then just let her crawl around next to me while Alli and I talked. All of a sudden Stella started gagging. I grabbed her and swiped her mouth...nothing! She continued to gag so I turned her over and did the baby baby heimlich maneuver...still nothing. I heard her "gulp" but she continued to gag. She seemed to be breathing just fine, so I didn't call 911. But I took her to ER just to be safe. While there she gagged twice, once in the waiting room and once when the nurse was in there (thank God). The xrays showed nothing, so the dr said to watch her closely and come back in if she started doing it again.

I started to worry that it may be from her "seizures". But you'll be happy to know that this morning she pooped out a candy bar wrappy LOL So that explains the gagging! Thank you Jesus for protecting our Stella!!

Stella's EEG

Stella had her EEG on Friday. She did sooo PERFECT. Seriously did better then if the staff had programmed her LOL They wanted her to fall asleep if possible during the scan. So a good friend told me to make her as tired as possible before. So we drove to Evansville a couple hours earlier than planned b/c I knew she'd sleep on the way there. We ate and then went to the hospital. I gave her the seizure med she takes b/c I knew it'd make her tired. We timed it just right. They hooked her up to all the electrodes and turned the lights off, handed me her bottle and she fell right asleep. She was such a sweetheart! Again the staff bragged about how good she was =)

Tomorrow we go to see the neurologist finally. I hope to finally figure out what's going on with our sweetie pie. I will update ASAP =) If you have a second please keep Miss S in your prayers!!

EMBRACE THE CAMERA

It's THURSDAY, you know what that means....

"embrace the camera"!

Get out your cameras and get in front of them.
your kids want pictures of you in them.
so, do them a favor and say CHEESE!!

Click here to see how I got this idea from this inspiring blog:

Here I am with Miss Stella

A lot has been going on with Stella. The entire family was fighting the flu the past couple weeks. Poor Stella ended up getting it too :( She had spiked a fever that wouldn't go away, so I took her in to her ped to make sure all was ok. She ended up having an ear infection :( So she was prescribed an antibiotic.

While there I started telling the dr about some things I'd been noticing about Stella that were unusual. Stella “spaces out” for about 30 seconds and is unresponsive at random times! I mean I can scream, bang on the high chair, tap her, grab her...nothing, no response. But it's just for that quick 20-30 seconds or less. I WAS NOT scared at first b/c she is as most of you know a VERY normal baby, goes right back to what she was doing! She is healthy and actually is ahead on development.

The dr seemed to think they are absence seizures. They are sometimes not even noticed by parents for quite a while b/c it looks as if the child is "daydreaming". Anyway, she started her on a low dose seizure medicine called Keppra until we can see the neurologist on the 22nd (next Monday). Today she had her MRI at Deaconess Gateway and tomorrow is her EEG at the downtown Deaconess campus.

We had to get to the hospital around 6am to check in. (Evansville time--1hr behind us). We checked in at registration and then someone came to take us up to same day surgery. They had to sedate her for her MRI so that's where she had to go to be taken care of by a nurse. We filled out paperwork and the nurse took her vitals. After that two of the nurses were going to try to start the IV. It was harder on mommy than Stella I believe....so I left the room until they could finally get the IV in. The two nurses were struggling keeping it in, so they had Peds come down and do it. Daddy stayed the entire time to make sure she was ok =) When I came back she was so happy to see me, she just wanted me to hold her. We tried to keep her entertained by Mickey Mouse Club House that was on TV (her favorite show).

Soon the anesthesiologist came and told the nurse what to give her to calm her down. Then we walked down to radiology. They told us she'd be asleep for the procedure and the entire thing would be about 40 minutes. So Joe and I waited in the waiting room. It didn't seem like too long and they came out and told us she was done. Dr. said she had done wonderful! She slept the entire time which is what they needed her to do =) So he walked us back up to her room while momma held her. When we got back, the nurse took her vitals again and then discharged her.

I must say as hard as the "situation" was, the staff there made it so much better then it could have been. She had an amazing nurse named Elizabeth, who had her laughing the entire time and even made sure we got a copy of the MRI. It's people like that, that make difficult things in life so much easier!

Here is a picture of her from today :(

Tomorrow we go for the EEG brain scan, and then Monday we meet with the neurologist to discuss her tests and a plan. So if you have a second, please keep Miss Stella in your prayers!!! We love her more than she'll ever know! We know God has control of this, and we lift our prayers to Him!

The LORD is my strength and my shield;
my heart trusts in him, and he helps me.
My heart leaps for joy,
and with my song I praise him.

-Psalm 28:7

embrace the camera: oct. 28th

I've been following blog for a while, and I love

Thursdays and how she encourages us to

"embrace the camera"!

"get out your cameras and get in front of them.
your kids want pictures of you in them.
so, do them a favor and say CHEESE."

Last week Mandi had taken our family photos. It is so hard to capture my girls in their element so to speak, they do not want to listen to momma. So it was a breath of fresh air to have her take their pictures!! Here is a family one, I just love it!! She did a GREAT job, and I highly recommend Loving Life Photography! She was so good with my girls!! More sneak peeks to come!

Playing catch up

I thought it had been a month since I posted, but it seems to only be 1 week...that's long my week has been!!

On the weekend of Oct 9th & 10th, I did Halloween/Fall mini sessions. These were GREAT! The kids had me cracking up...such litle personalities! You can check out my FAN PAGE to see the sneak peeks from each session!

To top it off Sunday evening I started getting sick. The kind of sick that has you sneezing, itching, coughing, and feeling like you've been run over by a truck!! Fun fun...ugh! That wasn't even the best of it....Hunter and Alli both got sick as well. And the icing on the cake.....Stella was getting 3 teeth at once (enough said right) HA HA! So that Tuesday I called in sick to work, took all 3 girls to the dr. Stella was due for her 9 months well baby check up. Both H & A had sinus infections. The doc looked at Alli Jo and said, "Ewww!" That's when you know it's bad =) She gave H&A the same antibiotic and they were feeling better within a couple days (thank God).

Stella had her 9 month check up and did great! She now weighs 17lbs 6oz, and is 28 3/4 inches long! She is 95 percentile in height and 25 percentile in weight...gonna look like a model =) Ha Ha She reminds me a lot of Hunter. She is long and petite.

That evening my mom (who was sick herself) drove us both to quick care and we both got in. We both had sinus infections also :( Talk about when it rains!! Geez!

So did our night get any better? NOPE!! I had put Stella in her playpen with one of those Board Books (said it was safe for 0+)and not even 5 min later heard her gagging. She had been chewing on the book pulled some sort of plastic layer off of it and had a piece stuck in her mouth! I swapped it with my pinky and got it out, thank GOD!!! I seriously PRAISED my Savior Jesus Christ for keep my baby girl safe! I was not very alert that evening, and He had His hands around her! Thank you Jesus!

Here are some pictures of that book and you can see what happened. Please watch your little ones with these books!!

Just to show you how tired we were that week. Here is me working on editing my mini sessions and here is AJ who fell asleep watching me edit.

So after my "pity" party, I had to get it together, b/c Hunter was having a sleep over that Thursday for fall break. She was having 4 friends over!! And we decided to ask Alli’s friend to come over too, so that she could be distracted from the big girls LOL So yes, that meant 9 women in the house HA HA….lucky Joe right? I will post more pictures later of the activities it was a lot of fun, I love those girls =)

Here they are trying to get Stella to crawl to them =)

Crack me up!!

Stella has been cracking us up lately with her tongue. She is constantly sticking it out!! You can check out the short video of her that I took on my lunch break today =)