Just In... The Weekly Report

What a roller coaster of a week it has been. Annabel's recovery is going well. On Tuesday she was eating pixie sticks and drinking gatorade. We also found out that she has a UTI again. Wednesday was her first day back at school and boy was she ready! I think that she has really taken a liking to the daily interaction with other people that she gets at school. Thursday was definitely a work day for her. She went to school then got out early to go to her 4 therapies (Eating, PT, OT, and Speech). By the end of Thursday, Annabel was exhausted. Finally Friday rolls around and she decided that she was so excited about school that she would wake up at 5 to get a head start on the day... needless to say when the bus picked her up she went back to sleep. After getting to school the little girl woke up for the morning announcements and decided she would skip straight to nap time again. As the day slowly progressed, Annabel was setting her own terms of what she would accomplish. She ate all of her lunch as usual and when the time came to take a nap she wasn't tired anymore. 3:00 and school is out for the day, Annabel was put on the bus towards home when she felt the urge to take a third nap of the day... she is starting to take after her older sister with all of these nap times. Since this is unusual behavior for Annabel, I decided to test her urine to make sure the antibiotic was working. Much to my surprise, her bladder infection is still there which explained her behavior. Saturday was Annabel's first wedding to attend. Her cousin got married in Galveston so we took a day trip over to the island. She was all smiles throughout the ceremony and loved to listen to the music afterwards. Saturday night, she got to spend time with LaLa, her mom, and Katie while I went and had a relaxing dinner. It is great to have people outside of the family that love to spend time with this little angel as much as I do. I appreciate everyone that helps pray and care for her. I will try to update more frequently.

Hanging out...

Today school was back in session, but we decided to keep Annabel home. Her UTI is back! We are never sure if it really goes away or just is at bay until after we are done with the antibiotic. This is the frustrating part of caring for Annabel.
I am sure with any of our other children we would expect to clear up their UTI infections. But with Annabel we seems to never cure them up. The doctors become frustrated and as of today he wouldn't even do a culture. Without the culture I am sure it is E-coli. There is a definite odor with this UTI that make it easy to identify. She has been having good nights, but last night she screamed out in pain several times. She would fall back asleep as soon as I came in to snuggle with her. That is one of the early signs of the infection.
She cried very little so when she does you know that something is up. Hopefully by tomorrow we will have 3 doses down her and maybe we could attend school for a few hours. Her tube feeds are going well but can't wait for the pump which will allow us to feed her during her sleep. Her babysitter La-la (Lauren) is coming to sit with her while I go to Derek's (Big brother) hockey game.
I am so grateful to all who have left post on the blog. Someone asked if I had written the poem, but actually one of her doctors said that he had read this poem long ago and that it reminded him of Annabel. If was given to me and I have cherished it since then. Again my purpose in sharing Annabel life is that it will give others hope.