Monday, December 29, 2014

Christmas Jillian style

We always say we live on Jillian's schedule. All plans are flexible and tentative.  This is just life with Jillian.

Last year we made some changes to when we celebrated Christmas. Jillian's first year we crammed seeing everyone into 2 days... we spent more time in the car then seeing people. People were mad because they did not get to see us much. I cried a lot Jillian's first Christmas because doing everything we just so stressful. Last year we started rearranging who we spent time with when. It was a lot more relaxing. This year it was spread out even more.
12/20- Christmas the three of us at home
12/21- Christmas with Brent's family at our house
12/22- Christmas with Jaime and Jason and Dan
12/23- Brent and dad had band practice at Church
12/24- Christmas with my dad's family after Christmas eve service
12/25- Christmas morning at my parents and then lunch at my grandparents
12/26- Christmas with Patel family

Christmas with the three of us was calm and relaxing. She loved taking the morning slow and spending time with mommy and daddy. We got her the Step 2 Love and Care center. It it is baby care center. I was really excited to find something that was the size of a play kitchen and had lots of things to do but was not a kitchen. It has a place to "wash" her baby's clothes, change their diapers and hang their clothes. She is loving being a little mommy! She even got a new baby doll in the mail that day for her birthday, and she was so excited to take care of it. I loved having a day in my pajamas. Brent went to an Eagle ceremony in the afternoon and then once he came home we went out in our pajamas and looked at Christmas lights in Lake Geneva. Days like that make me smile.

Sunday we got up and went to Church and then came home and got ready to have people over. I made dinner for everyone. I love to cook and I love when I have the time to make a nice meal for people. Jillian had fun having everyone over. She loved helping everyone unwrap their gifts.

On Monday we had Jillian's two year check up. Her doctor and I talked about different specialists and what is going on. Not too much to report for that appointment. It was just kind of a check in on how everything else was going. We then to therapy. She struggled in PT again this week (she did the past two weeks). She is really having a hard time with doing PT tasks that she was starting to do better with. She works hard though! She did ok in speech. Her therapy place gave her a little duck clip that has a little shirt on that has their logo on it. The little duck clips to her feeding tube backpack. Monday night Jaime, Jason and Dan came over to celebrate Christmas! Jillian got red cowboy boots like Ted's on How I Met Your Mother (we all use to watch the show together).  It was a fun evening with friends and we always end up laughing so hard!

Tuesday Jillian and I spent the morning getting ready to head to Kenosha, and Brent had to work. Once Brent got home from work we headed into town. We headed to my parents where Chinese food was waiting for us. Dad and Brent went out to Church and the rest of us hung out at the house. I was sleepy and not in the mood to do anything.

Wednesday morning was a rude awaking. Brent got up to do her 6am pump fill and meds. As he gave her one med she vomited. Strange, I know, but vomit is not totally strange in our world so we all tried to go back to sleep. As soon as everyone just got back to lay down she vomited again. By this point we were a little more awake and could tell that she was not breathing well (like a respiratory rate of over 60) We took her to the livingroom and started a neb. She was super lethargic and her heart was racing. An hour after the neb her little heart was still going over 150bpm and she was barely moving. I can do respiratory stuff at home, but I was not comfortable continuing to give nebulizer treatments to a child's who had a heart rate that high. I do not remember any time before that Jillian has had a heart rate that fast. We debated where to take her but we knew a walk in would not touch her so we headed to the Aurora ER. It was not very busy when we got there and they got us right to a room. The staff was great and quick. They did a nose swab for the flu and it came back positive for influenza type a. I had not even thought of that when we came in. At home her temp was a 99.9 and at the hospital is was 101.1, so not really high temps at all. My main worry was her little heart. Sleeping it was ranging from 130-160 and awake (laying lethargically and not talking) it was 150-186! That is super high for her! Anywhere you touched her all you could feel was her little heart racing. She was wheezing in the ER and her pulse ox was raging from 91-100%. There was talk of transporting her to Children's but it was decided that we would start tamaflu, predisone, do nebs every 4 hours, and alternate fever meds and try to keep her home for the holiday. We made the deal with them that if she got any worse we would bring her back and they would transport her to Children's. We got back to mom and dads and everyone got ready for Church but Jillian and I. It was so weird not going to church on Christmas Eve. I missed seeing everyone and I missed the Christmas tradition but I was were I needed to be. Around 4 pm Jillian hit a rough spot her heart rate jumped back to 185 and her temp started to climb as she started to wheeze. Thankful after another round of meds I was able to get it back down. She spent most of the night wanting to lay on me while I laid as still as could be. My dad's side of the family was suppose to have Christmas at my parent's  house however Jillian and I were there so they moved it to my aunt's house.

Christmas morning Jillian did not go back to sleep after her 6am neb. Combine nebs and predisone she acted like she had ants in her pants. She would lay down someplace because she was tired but then her little legs would just kick and shake. We took gifts slow this year. Normally my grandparents stop by in the morning but we told everyone to stay away. Jillian would open something and then rest for a bit. It was really laid back and I think it was the longest gift opening has taken in a long time. She was funny though because she kept taking the wrapping paper and lining it up in the kitchen. No one is sure why but it was cute. We then got ready to go to my grandparents' house. Brent took the first turn at staying home with her. Brent's grandparents stopped by for a little bit to say hi. Then my dad went back to the house so Brent could go to his parents' house. We all just took turns taking care of her to try to limit her contact with other people. Her fever came and went during the day and we continued to do nebs. When she went to bed her fever started to spike again but thankfully her heart rate stayed down.

Friday morning Jillian stayed at the house with the guys while my mom and I went and ran a couple of errands. Jillian took a good morning nap (strange for her). In the afternoon my mom's best friend Sandi came over as well at Todd, Dan and Dan. We had a feast that night for dinner. Jillian was sleepy and a little crabby but considering all did a great job. She did neb treatments but her temp was gone all day.

Saturday morning we all laid around the house and did not do much of anything. Jillian took a morning nap again and was pretty grumpy. She did a neb in the morning but otherwise her lungs did well.  In the afternoon mom, Jillian and I ran to Milwaukee to pick something up. She did great at first but her stamina was short and she grew very crabby. She was crabby and fussy most of the rest of the day. She went to bed early and the adults played Ticket to Ride.

Sunday morning Jillian got up and seamed happier. We tried church however part was though the sermon she started to scream. I took her out to the hallway where I walk/rocked her for the rest of the service while she moaned. We went back to my parents house and she took a 3 hour long nap (CRAZY for Jillian). Once she got up we packed our stuff and headed home. We got a new bench for our front door (holds all of Jillian's on the go stuff), new dvd storage and Brent got a night stand (he is still using plastic drawers he had in his dorm room). Sunday night was building night here as he got the dvd storage and bench built. Jillian mainly hung out on the couch and watched him, or wanted to sit on his lap while he worked on stuff.

Today we went to see the nurse practitioner for Jillian's follow up. She said she looks great and the flu is gone. She said that Jillian has bounced back great and her main thing is just rebuilding her strength. It takes Jillian a lot longer then normal kids to bounce back once a sickness is gone. She has not had a fever since Christmas night and has been neb free since Saturday but she is still really sleepy. She had PT and speech today and you could tell she was sleepy but she tried hard and everyone went easy on her. Right now she just woke up from a 2 hour nap, and is now laying on the floor with a blanket. The good news of today... she pooped! It was the strangest poop ever, but I wont gross you out with the details.

Also, I want to say how much I LOVE our ped. She called me this afternoon while Jillian was napping. She has today off but was looking at some stuff for work. She noticed that Jillian was in the ER over Christmas and she wanted to make sure that she was doing better. She did not have to do that. She had the day off, but she cares a lot about my kid an wanted to make sure Jillian was ok. This makes this mommy so grateful for such a good doctor!

Thank you for all of the prayers! It was much appreciated and truly felt. This could have been a lot worse but I am grateful that she got meds early and was able to mach such a great bounce back.

Christmas the 3 of us:
Jillian got a baby care center

She is such a good little mommy


opening her stocking


Cheeeeeeessssseeee


Brent got Ticket to Ride! He has been waiting for years for this game

More stuff to take care of her babies
Giving her new baby a check up

Christmas with Brent's family:

Trains!


She loves her train




shoes


neigh

looking at great grandma's ipad


Pictures of Jillian
Christmas with Jaime, Jason and Dan:

She got more zoo talkers for her zoo from uncle dan




boots on her hands


styling in her new boots

Brent got remote controlled boxing robots

Jillian and Auntie Jaime

Jillian driving the robots... she does NOT like them!
Tuesday:

Duplos time

Christmas Eve:
6:15am



She was one sick girl, she wanted to play but could only lay

Eyes open at all was good that day

Christmas Day:
I decorated her feeding tube bag
Merry Christmas from Jillian's feeding tube bag



Opening her stocking... she got more g tube belts from Kangarootique

This was a common look from her

She opened most of her gifts while sitting on daddy's lap


Brent showed her most of what she got, she was so chill!

Her intestines gave the gift of poop!

She got Olif

Mommy got a new stethoscope!

And what I am blogging on now... a new laptop! My other one was FULL

She took my scarf

she was just happy sitting and watching other people open gifts... not normal Jillian

Her new side and trampoline for her therapy room that we are making her

Jillian showing great grandma her new slide

With her grandparents
 Jillian did not go to my grandparent's house for Christmas so that she would not get other people sick and she was not up to hanging out with lots of people. Everyone sent their gifts for her back to my parents' house. Thank you to my aunts and uncles for being flexible and going with the flow of what is best for Jillian. I wishes she could have celebrated Christmas with the family but thank you for understanding and for the wonderful gifts!   Here are the pictures of her opening those gifts:

sitting on a box











Day after Christmas/Christmas with the Patel family:
signing and singing the ABC song

laying on the floor with Cheese


resting her head on the couch

watching Cheese build a duplo tower

Aunt Sandi reading her a book

She brought everyone their gifts

Bringing grandma a blanket because she is sleepy

 Saturday:
She got a new winter coat

Sunday:
Laying on the floor with George
Brent building furniture


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