alphabet song and surgery update

hi love=)

you are an alphabet-song-singing-machine! look at you go=) i'm not sure what you have against the letters L and M, but i like it.

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also, did you hear how you say "ju" for the letter "u"? you're latina like that. the other day we were laying down for a nap and you were stalling big time. you said "mama lay down right here a little bit" patting the bed next to you, so of course i did. and then you gazed into my eyes with this sweet goofy grin for a second and then started saying "i like ju hair" and patted my hair, and "i like ju eyes" and touched my eyes, and "i like ju chin" and cheeks, and ears, and nose, etc, etc. all the while smiling at me and knowing that you won. i didn't even care...i was soaking up the compliments from my favorite critic=)

so we went to musc for your ct scan and to talk to the surgeon again. it starts with bad news but ends with good news. you have more in your chest than before (stomach, spleen, some colon) but it's basically encapsulated in some sort of membrane that they can't really explain. so yes, it's in your chest, but it's not free flowing willy nilly up there bothering your lungs too much, so it's not so bad. and it means they're still not rushed to do surgery. they couldn't see the hiatus area of your diaphragm (where the diaphragm comes up to the esophagus) so they couldn't tell if it was just a monstrous diaphragmatic defect or if you have any diaphragm on the edge by your esophagus or not (which would make it a hiatal hernia too). sorry if that makes no sense-i'll draw you a picture one day. but basically, even after the massive amount of radiation involved in a ct scan, we are doing an upper gi in april to see for sure if there is any diaphragm next to your esophagus. i do completely trust this surgeon. i'm glad he wants to be so thorough so he'll know exactly what to expect when he gets in there. he still thinks he'll go in through your chest between two ribs when he does your surgery (which, by the way, he plans on doing early summer...may or june). he was REALLY happy that you had gained such good weight (over 2 pounds since we saw him in december) and that you generally had been in such good health against some major odds. we've all had some sort of cold since early january-i had the flu last week but we put you on tamiflu as soon as i tested positive, then i got a sinus infection a few days later but you were still doing pretty well-just a runny nose and coughing...so with a couple rounds of antibiotics and some tamiflu, you've held your own. and on the ct scan your lungs looked great even though there were some things in their way, so that was more good news.

here was a fun twist in our trip to charleston...tuesday night we were in a hotel and we realized around midnight that you had a fever. of course i didn't bring a thermometer or any anti-pyretic medicine so there i go galavanting around downtown charleston in the middle of the night looking for a 24 hour drug store. found one, got back to you, and your temperature is 102.3. we gave you some advil and throughout the day it would come down a little and go back up, to the point that when we left to come home it was 104.6!! you slept on the way home and the medicine kicked in and you played with daddy and were a happy sweet girl before we went to bed wednesday night. and when i woke up thursday morning to go to work guess what your fever was.

105.8.

yes. 105.8.

i honestly have never even seen a fever that high, and i'm a pediatric nurse practitioner. anyhoo-you really were acting totally fine when your fever would come down, so we weren't too terribly worried. we started tossing in some tylenol between your advil doses, brought you to see dr gully that morning just in case, and we all agreed that it was some sort of virus that gives you outrageously high fevers but runs its course and leaves in a few days. so here we are on day 3. hope it leaves soon.

so there you have it. sweet little angel. we are praying for no complications between now and june and for sick season to get the heck out of here!

in other news, it's been 70 degrees for the past few days!!!! mommy has been deliriously happy. i feel like i'm manic or something. you and daddy rode your scooter around outside yesterday afternoon and we've kept our porch door open and it is so good for mommy's soul=) it's also good for my soul when you grin at me and rub my back and give me kisses.

i love you sweet baby-

mommy