When It Rains, It Pours....

Ella and Auntie Jess...one of my favorite pictures :-)

January shaped up to be a rough month in our house. It was made up of a lot of sadness and sickness. We lost a dear family member, Jason's sister Jessica. This has been a difficult time for all of us, as she was not only a beloved sister, but a wonderful friend, a fantastic auntie, and someone who always knew how to make you laugh. I will write a blog for Jessica soon, but right now the emotions are too raw. It is so important for me though to let Ella know how much Jessica loved her and how special she was.

As we were dealing with our loss, I traveled to Kelowna, British Columbia (Jason's hometown) to be with Jason and his family for the services. Jason arrived a week earlier. It is a long flight and last minute tickets meant we were flying what seemed like around the world to get there. Ella had been fighting a nasty cold since Christmas, so she didn't make the trip. We figured it would have been just too much for her.



A hug after a long ordeal meant so much
to Ella and Jason.

 It's a good thing she did not travel because a day after I arrived in Kelowna, Ella arrived at the hospital to be treated for pneumonia. She was admitted to Winchester hospital (near my mom's house where she was staying) and later transferred to Boston Children's hospital. She spent nearly a week in the hospital on antibiotics to fight the infection. It was so scary and sad to be far away and have a child in the hospital. Jason and I are very thankful to our extended family who dropped EVERYTHING to help. My mom, sister, aunts, and friends all stepped in to make sure our little Pnut was getting the best care possible. While modern day travel dealt us delay after delay and even a few cancelled flights trying to get back to Boston, modern day technology kept us somewhat sane. We were able to facetime with Ella on my iphone a few times...we even got to speak to the nurse at Children's!

I am happy to say that Ella is finally much better. She is out of the hospital and getting back to herself! She is back to school and will get back to all her regular activities this week.

Ironically, the stay at Children's coincided with our long scheduled visit with the genetic endocrinologist there. We were discharged just in time to make it to our appointment and because Ella was already a patient, Dr. Holm was pretty familiar with Ella and her case. Jason and I were very impressed with her. She had lots of good information for us and seems to be very comfortable treating Ella's hypopituitarism. She drew some blood and is running extensive lab work to determine exactly the right dose and combination of medication for Ella. Some of her levels have been out of whack lately because of inconsistent blood work. We left her office feeling confident that switching to her care would be the best situation for Ella. We have another visit in four months, but we actually should know more about the latest round of labs this week. Score one for mom intuition (and a little luck getting an appointment)!