We Made It to Disneyland!

Sunday, March 24, 2002

Wow! We made it down here! It was actually a great day. Kelby and Tegan did so great. We got up early and headed down to the airport. We got all parked and Keith, one of the volunteers from Make-A-Wish, met us there. He helped us over to the airport and got us all set up on our way. Those Make-A-Wish people have been so great with this. Can you believe that they fixed this all up for us within 48 hours of me finding out that Kelby's cancer had returned!

I wanted this so badly for her and I am so thankful that we get to do it. Anyways, Keith sent us on our way. We had to battle the security check lines with the 2 kids, 2 carseats, 2 backpacks and a small suitcase and that was not easy. Then we had 2 hours to wait for the plane to take off.

Surprisingly, Kelby did really well. She was excited for the plane ride. We had a seat for both girls on the plane, so that made things really easy on the ride down. Kelby ate her sandwich and took a nap. Tegan was a little cranky, but did pretty good. The flight went great.

We managed all our luggage afterwards better once we got a cart. We had a rental car all reserved for us, so we jumped in the car and drove up to our hotel. Once we got settled in, Kelby really wanted to go to the pool. She LOVED it! She sure didn't want to get out of the water.

Finally I got her back to the room and we got all ready to go over to our special dinner at Goofy's Kitchen. We walked through all the new stuff they have here. It is all changed since Mike and I were here for our honeymoon. They've added that California Adventure and a whole ton of stuff in between the two parks. There are a ton of fountains, and that seemed to be Kelby's favorite part so far.

She is having so much fun...I can't even put it into words. We walked through all this fun stuff and made it over to the Disneyland Hotel where our restaurant was. We had a lot of time, so we just walked around...looking for more fountains. So we found some and visited the lightshow that they have over there too. Boy, Kelby didn't want to leave that, but we had to get to the restaurant for the reservation.

It was 7:30 or so by the time we ate. I can't belive that Kelby made it that long, but she was so distracted that I don't even think it occurred to her. The restaurant has an all-you-can-eat buffet with really good food, but the cool thing is that the characters come around and see you while you eat. We also got to dance with them too. Kelby was a little on the cranky side when we finally sat down, but she liked the food and did like seeing Pluto, Goofy, Chip & Dale, and Turk (from Tarzan). She was just pretty tired.

She liked the food a lot because she got strawberries, pizza, and ice cream! Mike and I got Prime Rib, so we were happy! We finally made it home a little bit ago and the girls are now sleeping. Now it is time for me because I am sure it will be an early morning! Good Night.

Me and Kelby in the Pool

Tegan and Mom

The Girls

Cool Fountain

So Happy!

Eatin' With Chip

Come On...Just Smile for Daddy!

Tegan Loved the Characters!

Tegan Got Tuckered Out

Well, it seems that I got pretty busy this last week. Mostly I was getting ready to talk to a MOPS group. I had to come up with about 45 minutes worth of stuff to say about "organization." I did just fine though. I just love talking in front of people...maybe I just like to be the center of attention. I wasn't even nervous. Now I just need to get ready for Michael's birthday on Sunday and a Stampin' party on Saturday.

Tegan is doing just fine now. I think she has gained back all her weight and then some. I don't know for sure, but it seems like they're getting something else. I can't wait until summer time! No more playing inside with all those germs. I guess this is something that is much harder with two kids...because they both get it if one gets it.

It is an icky rainy day today. I guess that is an excuse to stamp! I hope that you like the pictures. Kelby has been going outside a lot lately, so that has been good for her. She plays by herself really well....except yesterday she climbed in the wet, soggy sandbox and got really really dirty. Oh well, you can wash kids!

Hmmm, what else is going on around here? Not much really. I have been staying busy as always. The girls are so easy-going. Especially when they are not sick. I guess having nothing going on is better than when things are going crazy. I just don't have much else to say. You guys can ask questions in the guestbook if you are wondering anything. Hey, nice to hear from Andrea in the guestbook! Thanks! It seems like it is just close family reading this website, but that's okay. I figure that this website will be a journal of our lives for my kids someday. Their lives are completely OVER documented, I think! :) Bye for now!

Well, I guess that Tegan wasn't doing as well as I thought she was. Even though she was drinking so much, she still wasn't able to catch herself up. She continued to have diarrhea, so she was just too far behind on her fluids. She started looking better, but she started acting worse. She just couldn't keep her eyes open and was very lazy. She would just lay there through anything I did to her.

I just felt like something was wrong, so I took her back into the doctor. Thank goodness too, because she was very messed up. If I hadn't taken her in that day, she might have gotten so bad that she could have had a seizer or gone in to a coma. The doctor could tell something wasn't right and had me take her over to have blood drawn.

The results showed that her sodium was way too high. It was so high, they thought it was a mistake. So, we had to go to the ER here in Mt. Vernon. They tested her again and it wasn't a mistake. The on-call pediatrician wasn't sure exactly how to fix it, so she had us sent down to Children's in Seattle just to be safe. We had to take an ambulance because she had to be on IV fluids on the drive.

We sat in the ER down at Children's forever. The hospital was full and they even had to turn some kids away to different hospitals. They admitted us because we had to go to the ICU. It took a long time for them to get the bed open for Tegan.

Once they got us up there they wanted to start taking her blood to test the sodium every two hours so they had to put an IV into a bigger vein so they could drawn the blood without poking her every time. The problem was that they couldn't get the IV in because all her veins were too small. Finally when the new doctor came on shift, he got one in a vein in her groin.

They had to bring her sodium level down very slowly so that it didn't mess with her chemicals too much. She also had metabolic acidosis...which basically means that her body's chemicals were so low on water that they couldn't work just right and were creating too much acid.

So, it was all very serious, but since she was being taken care of, we didn't have to worry anymore. We were so thankful that we got it figured out in time. She stayed at the hospital for 3 days while they gave her fluids. She was fixed by the second day, but they had us stay one more night to make sure she could handle things on her own by drinking and eating enough.

She is back to her normal happy self again! Come to find out that the virus she had that gave her the stomach flu was called the rotavirus. It is a sneaky virus because it can stay alive on surfaces for up to a few days. That means that you have to be VERY careful to wash hands. At the hospital I had to wear a gown and gloves to be by her. That was so I could remove those items before I left her room so I didn't take the virus anywhere else in the hospital. I bet that is the virus that everyone around here is getting!

Through all this Kelby did just fine. She didn't even seem to be bother by the hospital when she came to visit. I don't think she remembers being there. She was a good big sister. Gramma and Grampa Wright watched a lot while Mike worked and I was at the hospital. Kelby had a great time I think.

I better go get some things done so I can get caught up on things around here. We love you all. Thanks for continuing to check-up on my family!

 

Happy February! I can't believe it is already a new month. I haven't written because we have been a big mess around here. Kelby had a bug on Thursday. I think that probably contributed to the throwing up she did after her scans. She got a bad case of diarrhea. That was challenging enough, but Tegan started throwing up on Saturday. By Sunday, Kelby was better, but Tegan was miserable. She had diarrhea too. I thought she was getting in enough fluids, but by Monday morning Tegan was looking really bad. I took her into the doctor and she had lost two pounds since her last well baby check up. Before her appointment she had drank about 12 ounces, so they decided that she was over the hump and weren't too worried about her. They gave me a recipe for a rehydration fluid (like Pedilyte) and Tegan drank a ton of that all day yesterday. She is looking so much better today, though she is still a little tired. So, I didn't get any pictures taken or anything since we have been pretty miserable since I last wrote.

Kelby's doctor called on Friday and said that the radiologist said the bone scans looked good. The radiologist hadn't looked at the CT scan yet, but our doctor said that they looked good to him. He said that he saw a ton of gas in her colon...that must have been the bug that she had! Anyways, he said he'd call if the radiologist found anything different, but he hasn't called, so no news must be good news. It sounds like they'll do another set of scans at a year post transplant because that is a big milestone.

We'll probably have a lazy week until everyone is feeling good again. Mike and I didn't get this flu bug, so that was good. I have about had it with the family being sick all the time and being stuck in the house. I am really stir crazy now!