Update...

Annabel wasn't as perky last night as she was during the day. Her fever came back but didn't make it over 100 and she had a tummy ache. She did sleep through the night and into the late morning. Today they are going to do the chest x-rays again to see if there is anymore infiltration in her lungs. Other than that not much as changed. She is still having diarrhea occasionally but they are allowing her to take in food by mouth today so hopefully that will help her bowels. Annie and Katie came to visit last night and Annabel loved it! Katie sure knows how to keep Annabel occupied and having fun. Derek also stopped by last night and this morning to show some love. Thanks for the prayers!

Special Visitors....

She had a good visit with her Nana Loma and Daddy Lanny. Lanny left before I could get back to take a photo, but she smiled so pretty with Nana. Annabel's diarrhea continued many times over while she had visitors. I sure appreciated the extra pair of hands! They also did the echo while she was here and hopefully we will get the results today. This afternoon Pastor Rick White came by to visit Annabel and see how she is doing. Also, some of the ladies from St. Annes Church stopped by to catch some smiles. She is all smiles today!! Now we are trying to get her to sleep so that they can perform the EEG test. Thank you to everyone that calls and comes to visit. We appreciate all of the prayers.

Update...

The evening was truly a great evening. Once the IV team got the IV in and all medicines began flowing she was a new little girl. She charmed all of the nurses and doctors that came through. When the fever came down there were never any seizure activities again. She took all her feedings through her button and tolerated them well. I don't think she has ever remembered having diarrhea (don't think she has had it but once when she was a tiny baby) and each time she had it last night she would laugh. I think it gave her such a different sensation. Sorry for the visual! Today will be more testing. They did find from the chest x-ray that she has infiltrations on both sides. She has no wheezing, coughing etc. The cardiologist came yesterday evening and said he believe it is just her bicuspid aortic valve that we are already aware of and he thinks the increase sounds are due to the high fever and her agitation. So he will do an echo today to see what is with that. She will also have an EEG due to the seizure like activity. I am fairly confident that this was only due to the fever. They will do the normal urine test to see how well it is responding. She is being given Rocephin which is a very broad spectrum antibiotic. This morning she will have a very special visitor, Nana Loma. She hasn't seen her in a few weeks so she will be surprised. Will follow up with a picture.

Back In The Hospital Again...

Well today has definitely been interesting. She woke up this morning with the febrile seizure and I just figured it was a one time thing. At about 10:30 her fever went up again so Tara ran a bath for her. As she was placing her into the sink another febrile seizure occurred... starting to get me a little worried. We took her to the doctor and he admitted her into the hospital to make sure this UTI gets cleared. While we were at the doctor's office, she had another seizure type episode. The doctor wants her cardiologist to come in today to check on her heart because he thought that he might have heard something different than usual. He didn't seem too worried about it just wants to make sure to cover everything. Now that she is in the hospital, she has had chest x-rays and just went back to get her IV and medicine taken care of. Right before they took her back, she had another febrile seizure while the nurse was in the room. This made me feel a little better now that there is another witness to the episode. They took her fever rectally which was 104.1. The doctor doesn't want her to take in anything orally, just through the G-button so he can make sure that it doesn't get into her chest. I will make sure to keep this website updated as I learn of anymore information. Thanks everyone for caring and keeping her in your prayers.

Thank you for your prayers...

Just wanted to thank you for praying. Her fever is still going up, but it does respond to the Tylenol. So she is playful for about 2 hours then back to sleep for a couple more. I am hoping soon that the antibiotic will kick in and we will see a difference for longer periods of time. The feeding tube is good in the fact that I was able to keep liquids flowing during the night. When I went to check on her this morning about 8:00 a.m. at first glance she looked like she was a snow angel. Then I realized she was having a febrile seizure since her eyes were like saucers and she was very stiff. When she relaxed again she just continued to shake. She has had these on occasion with a temperature but they quickly resolve. I am attaching a photo of Annabel with her sister Tara. You can see the adoration is mutual.

Asking for your prayers...

Annabel did go to school today. When she got home her eyes were rolling back constantly and she was not looking as well as she normally does. I took her to the doctor and noticed she had a fever which is very rare for Annabel. She continued to roll her eyes and would wince quite often like she was uncomfortable. He decided to give her a huge antibiotic shot.
So I just wanted to make a quick post and ask for specific prayers for Annabel. We knew since last week that she had another UTI infection. Due to the fact that we cath her on a regular basis, we are able to see that her infection was not getting better on the antibiotic she was prescribed. Monday morning early I called her pediatrican and asked that he do a urine culture to see what the bacteria was and what it was sensitive to. Today it came back that she was resistant to everything except the Furodantin. This is the only one that literally tears her stomach up and shuts down her intake. She has had three courses of this same antibiotic recently and we can see results as long as she is taking it. Within 4-5 days after discontinuing the medicine the infection is back. I would like to ask for prayer that this time it will work, especially since she is resistant now to all the others. On a more positive note, with the feeding tube in place we will be able to feed her and give her plenty of liquids, which we have never been able to do. We had begun an antibiotic wash of her bladder prior to her going into the hospital. We had heard people having good results with this. It is a gentiamicin wash that we put thru the catheter and leave in her bladder. She showed that the last two infections are resistant to this antibiotic also. So..... please pray that we can get this under control. Again thank you to each and everyone who reads Annabel's story.

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.