Dying Vue

My 2003 Saturn Vue seems to be on its last leg. We were really hoping it would last at least 2 more years until Chris' truck was paid off, but no such luck. It has been acting up for several months but yesterday & today it got much worse. I asked Chris to drive it this morning & he ended up taking it straight to Saturn for an estimate. Chris was thinking it was the transmission & he was right. They quoted him $5200+ to fix it which it probably isn't even worth that much & there are other things wrong with it too. I am missing a hubcap (we have been calling it the loser mobile) & today the automatic door locks stay locked even when you turn the car off & its in park (not sure what that is all about).

So now our dilemma is do we get it fixed, buy a new car or a fairly new used car. We are not real sure if we can even afford two car payments with me working & I really don't want to go back to work just to get a car. So Chris is going to drive it until it completely dies & I will be driving his truck. Then once my Vue dies I will probably drive Mama's truck until we get something else. We told Emma she may need to stand on the street corners asking for money since she would most likely get more since she is so cute or she needs to get a job as a baby model to buy Mama a new car.

Now I guess its time to start looking at what is out there & Chris definitely doesn't want another GM vehicle. The main reason we bought my Vue was the 0% financing which saved us a ton of money & hopefully we will be able to find that again since the economy is still in bad shape.

Not Again

Well this morning I took Emma for her 2nd RSV shot & her H1N1 shot & little did I know what the morning would hold for us. The first thing they did for course was weigh her which always makes me hold my breath & with much cause to due so, the number appeared. The scale read 16 lbs, 15 oz. I told the nurse that isn't right, she weighed 18 lbs last Wed, can we please do it again. So we take Emma off (naked & screaming of course), she resets the scale making sure its balanced & the same number appears. My heart just sank & I wanted to cry, not again.

Then Dr. K comes in, a little small talk & then I told her I didn't like Emma's weight & could we please try it one more time on another scale. Well we did just that & you guessed it the number was still the same, 16 lbs, 15 oz. So we discussed some things, her mood, sleeping & eating habits, blah, blah, blah. Then I asked her what she was thinking, is this weight loss fluid from the hospital IV's or real weight loss. She feels its both. She quickly went to call Emma's cardiologist Dr. O & he advised us to up her Lasix to 3 x day + to come in to see him on Tuesday.

Can I tell you how exhausted & stressed out we are dealing with this for the last year. We really thought this would be behind us after the surgery. I knew there would be some post-op stuff to deal with & hopefully that is all this is, but we are very worried about our little girl. We are afraid they may put her in the hospital next week if there is no improvement, of course that was not mentioned at all today but you just never know. We try to prepare ourselves for all situations now so we are not surprised. At the least Emma will probably have to have another echo & maybe a chest x-ray next week, is my guess, so Dr. O can get the full picture of what is going on. So if you could, please say a special prayer for Emma + her Mom & Dad. Thanks-

Favorite Things

As you may have noticed I added a listing of Emma's Favorite Things to the side of my blog over the weekend & now I would like to share a little about her favs.

She has always enjoyed books & that has seemed to increase since we have come back from Charleston. Just about the only thing she wants to do right now is sit with us & read books. We are so tired of reading her those books & I can't wait to give her the new ones I found for her birthday at her party on Saturday. I even found a few more today but I may hold them to Christmas. I love buying books for her & especially when I find them at bargin prices. I sure hope she continues her love for books because her Mama doesn't read very much at all, I just can't stay focused on it long enough.

Her other favs are Elmo & Big Bird & you would think it came from watching Sesame Street on TV but you would be mistaken. I found a book for the summer "Nighty Night" that has some of the Sesame Street characters in it & she would squeal & giggle when we got to the pages with Elmo & Big Bird. Now anytime she sees them she has the same reaction & we do watch them on TV now on occassion.

Now her Glow Seahorse she has had since she was 6 weeks old & she can't sleep without it. She stares at the glowing belly holding on to her fins & falls asleep, its quite precious. I will have to share a picture of it sometime.

She has learned about beads in therapy & Leslie uses them to encourage her, which works most of the time. So before we headed to Charleston I knew we had to get her some to play with while she was stuck in her bead. Thankfully it was a big hit & still is. Now of course this is a toy she can only have with supervision so she doesn't put them around her neck & quite frankly she doesn't even know that is what you are suppose to do with them. She just shakes them & pulls them out of her pumpkin & puts them back in, over & over.

Happy Birthday Baby!!!

Where has the time gone? Our sweet little Emma, is one & we are just stunned. It has been an amazing year, though sometimes very tough & stressful we made it.

Today we didn't really do much celebrating, we just sang to her several times & went to the park to watch cousin Kaylee play soccer. We also got her a birthday shirt, which you will see below & her Nana got her a birthday bib but we will use it next weekend at her party. We decided to wait another week before we have a party so she can enjoy it more. She has been quite fussy & probably not feeling well just yet since we got home the hospital + she is cutting her third tooth, poor baby (baby can't get a break).

We will be getting her an Elmo (one of her favorite things) cake, but I am not sure if the decor will be Elmo or not, haven't decided quite yet. It will be a pretty small party, family only & I hope she has a good time. I have already purchased 2 of her gifts & I plan on getting just a few more small things. I am trying real hard not to spend a lot for her on her 1st birthday & to save some things for Christmas, it will be here before you know it.

Emma is saying or at least trying to say several words. She can say "Mama" (her second word), "Bye," (her first word), today she said "paci", & she has been trying this week to say "baby", "ball", "good girl", "all gone" and "all done". We haven't been able to get her to say "Dada" yet, but we are still trying.

This was the best picture we could get. She wouldn't keep her hands out of her mouth. Teething again, poor baby & on her birthday too.

Kissing Big Bird's nose (one of her new tricks)

Kissing Mama

Kissing Daddy, but she ends up biting him, twice. Sorry Daddy.

At this point she has had enough & is about to cry. I tried to get the Elmo balloon in the far left corner in the picture too. Thanks Aunt Karen for the balloon.

Follow ups

Today Emma had follow up appointments with her pedi & cardiologist & she did really good considering she just got home from the hospital & being poked at constantly. Dr. O, her cardiologist did his own echo of her & his findings were pretty much the same as Dr. R's at MUSC. Emma still has at least 4 holes that they were not able to patch & 1 which is larger than the other 3 that they are a little concerned about. They plan on monitoring her to see if they will close on their own which they are pretty sure they will but the larger one may not. If they start to cause her problems we will have to go back to MUSC to have another procedure but hopefully not open heart surgery again. They are thinking it can be patched with a device via heart cathe which is much less invassive.

Now as for her not eating well, Dr. O & Dr. K are both hoping that will turn around in the next few days to a week. They both told us to cut back on her Hydrocodone since it can be an appetite suppressor & rely mostly on Tylenol. Nobody told us her pain meds would effect her feedings, so we were a little shocked & plan to only use it at bedtime.

We also found out that our little girl now a whaopping 18 lbs. We were at the hospital the last time they weighed her, which was Saturday, she was 18 lbs, 11 oz & we all laughed. She was still very puffy from all the fluids & we knew that wasn't correct. When she arrived at the hospital she was 17 lbs, 13 oz & I knew she had not gained almost 1 lb is less than a week with very little to eat.

Emma's next appointment with the pedi is in 2 weeks for a weight check, follow up vaccines for RSV, flu & maybe H1N1 (if available) & her 1 year vaccines. Her next appointment with Dr. O will be in one month & he hopes to decrease her Lasix to 1 a day.

Home Sweet Home

We left the hospital last night at 6:30pm & we are all very glad to be back. I walked in the house last night carrying Emma she started smiling & waving & when we went up stairs to put on her pjs & a clean diaper she smiled & waved again. It made me so happy to know she was glad to be home. Yesterday was a hard day on Emma with all the tests + one final procedure to remove her pacemaker wires & nothing we did made her happy so we were so glad to get her home to sleep in her own bed.

Today Emma has been very tired but has really enjoyed playing on the floor, chasing the cats & crawling again. She has been trying to pull up but she is having trouble with it. I am not sure if it hurts or if she just doesn't have the strength yet to do it but she will be back on track soon. She will go back to therapy again next Monday & hopefully it won't be too hard on her.

Tomorrow she has follow-up appointments with her pedi & cardiologist & we are eager to hear what they have to say. She isn't eating very well & we are a little concerned about it. Dr. R that discharged her said her feeding could pick up as soon as today & that every child is different. We do remember that in March after her PA band surgery it took 4-6 weeks before her feedings turned around & we are hoping it won't take that long this time.

We would like to thank everyone for all their kind words, thoughts, prayers & cards. It is great to know that so many have thinking of us during this time. Thanks also to the MUSC Children's Hospital Heart Center for taking such good care of Emma once again. God is good!!!

She's Back

Today we have seen our little Emma being herself again. We saw a few signs of her yesterday but today she looks like herself too. She is smiling, babbling, sitting up playing with toys & she even tried to crawl while we were in the playroom but she has mitt on her right hand protecting her IV pic line which got in her way. We also went outside for a short walk again, it was in the 70s & sunny today.

We should be going home tomorrow after they remove her pacemaker wires from her chest & as long as her echo is good. Dr. R said she didn't even look sick today but he wanted to keep us here as a precaution since we don't live very close. She does have a little bit of fluid on her lungs but he says that is normal after removing the chest tube yesterday & it should clear up soon with Lasix.