Good Day

We ended up staying home on Thanksgiving. Casey woke up around 4:30 that morning very upset and stayed pretty fussy all day. Last Thanksgiving my mom was in town and Casey was great the entire time she was here until Thanksgiving day. On Thanksgiving last year Casey was really sick (we almost ended up in the ER). So this year she was not happy, but not as bad as last year. The very next day she went back to her happy self. I guess she just doesn't like Thanksgiving. My mom said she is mad because she smells all the good food and can't eat it.

Casey's new hand splints came in today. They fit much better. Her old ones got too small too fast. The place that is making her leg splints called and told us that they are 100% covered by insurance. That's always good news. We have her eye doctor on Wednesday and hearing aid adjustments on Thursday.

We confirmed the 20th for Casey's stem cells this morning. We are really excited to see what she does this round. Last year she was so small and so sick. She only had one veil (1.5 million cells). This year she will get double.

We have appointments in Austin with all but one of her specialists. We just needed to get an ortho. We love Casey's current ortho (too bad we can't take him with us). He went to school with a guy in Houston that he suggested. We called his office today. We only have to see an ortho 2-3 times a year, so driving to Houston is fine. My mom is in Houston so we have a place to stay. I Googled this doctor and he seems pretty good. And, good news, he is in network.

I finally found a few special needs pediatricians in Austin. Once we decide if we are going to be on the North or South side I will pick the ped. Tim has been looking at houses in his spare time. Hopefully he can find one in the next couple of weeks.

My grandma has been in the hospital for the past few days. The doctors have been running tests and finally found the problem today. It is something they can treat. She should be going home tomorrow.

All in all, we have gotten some good news today. It is a good day here. I hope everyone else is having a good day too.

Busy Busy Girl

I have so many updates for this post I don't even know where to begin.

I guess I will start with the ramp. We have sent emails to all of the people that have donated to the ramp fundraiser. After we started to move forward we hit a major road block with city permits. The area that we have planned to use (and that we were quoted on) ended up being too short to make the ramp up to code. When the contractor came back the new options were MUCH more expensive. Being that we don't own this place we really did not want to sink a ton of money into it. In addition the inside of our apartment has stairs, which as Casey gets bigger is becoming it's own difficulty. Rather than focusing on making just the exterior accessible we have decided to move. The money donated to the ramp we are going to be redirecting to her special stroller fund as soon as possible.

We looked around Los Angeles and were not able to find what we need. After looking for a while and visiting dozens of listings we did some thinking. We have decided to move back to Austin. That has always been our long term plan. We were looking at going around Casey's third birthday, but we have decided to go ahead and move now.

We have spent the past few weeks talking with doctors in the new Children's Hospital in Austin. We have also been talking with PT, OT, Vision, Cranio and groups like UCP. We are planning on signing a lease sometime in mid December. We then plan to load up and drive out early January. It is going to be a really hard trip, but if we take our time everything should go fine.

My sister and Tim's brother are coming out to help. We hope to be in Austin early enough to surprise my grandmother for her birthday. They don't read this site, but if you happen to know them or speak to them, please don't tell them. We really want to surprise her.

I have made appointments in LA with all of Casey's current doctors/specialist. We will be getting in one last time with each of them before leaving so that everything is fully up to date. After we get to Austin we have appointments with all of the new doctors through out February.

We just got home from seeing Casey's ortho. They took off her old BIG cast, very loudly. Then the doctor came in and checked everything out and removed the pins. He said everything looks good. She was a little upset with the pins being pulled, but she did really good. After he finished there was another guy who came in to measure her feet for braces. These braces are very cool. She will have ones covered in butterflies with pink velcro. After he was done another guys came in and put on the new shorter cast. They seem so tiny after having her in the full leg ones for so long. They gave us a few options on colors and of course we chose pink. I am sure she is going to be much happier in the new ones. They gave us the pins to keep for her baby book too. We go back on December 19th to get the cast taken off and pick up the braces.

Next week we have an appointment to get Casey's glasses. We also will have another adjustment on the hearing aids next week. We ordered new gloves that should be in next week as well. We want to be sure all of her equipment is all set before we move.

We will have ENT, Neuro, GI, and pediatrician over the next few weeks for Casey. Tim has some follow up stuff to finish up for his back. My adhesion's are back so I am going in to get them removed. Since they have to put me under and cut me open we are going to get my tubes tied while they are in there. Between the three of us we have a lot of medical stuff going on between now and the end of the year.

We are driving down to Mexico for Casey to get her stem cell injection on December 20th. We are moving this up a little so we can get it now and not have to drive back from Austin.

Tim's brother and his family are coming to visit on the 1st of January for a few days. We are very excited to see them. The girls have not been able to meet Casey yet. Casey loves to be around other kids. I am sure she is going to love her cousins. Jen and the girls are going to fly back on the 5th, and Ken will be staying to drive the truck to Texas with Tim. We will pick up Megan on the 5th to help me with Casey in the van.

As long as Casey is tolerating her casts we are going to have Thanksgiving with some friends. We are baking pumpkin pie now (it smells so yummy).

We have a busy few months ahead, but all good stuff. I am so excited about getting back to Texas. We have lots of friends to visit in LA before we leave. There are a lot of people we are really going to miss. We plan to be back at least once a year for stem cells so we can see everyone then.

We hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving.

Moving Along

Just 1 and a half more weeks until we move to the short cast. Casey has been doing really good. I am sure she is excited to get them off, but she has not been to fussy with them on. It has finally cooled off so that helps a lot. Casey's cranio therapist drew her a pumpkin for Halloween. If I could draw I would decorate them more, but I would ruin them.

We started Vision therapy today. The therapist seems really nice. Today was more just questions and paper work. We will start the real therapy stuff next week. For now she will be going once a week. I really hope that this helps her track a little better and start to blink.

Casey has been working hard with all of her other therapies as well. She is getting a really good range of motion in her arms. She is also sitting up (with support) a little better. She is starting to make more noises lately too. She even tries to copy us if she can. Her latest thing is to try to make "L" sounds by sticking out her tongue. It's very cute.

One of her friends just turned 2 and we are going to his birthday party tomorrow. She loves parties. I am sure we will have a good time.

We got a few checks in the mail this week from the Spa fundraiser that Molly G. organized in Austin. They did really great. Thanks again to everyone who participated in that.

That's about it for now. We hope everyone is doing well.