Monday, May 10, 2010

Mother's Day....

I had such a fantastic Mother's Day!!  I woke up to breakfast in bed.  The kids made me cards, beautiful flowers from my sweetie and a gift certificate for a massage!!!  WOW!!!  I can't wait..... 
After we came home from church and had lunch we head to Morrow, Ohio.  We were able to pick up Hannah's 4-H bunny yesterday.  Roadtrip!!  What beautiful baby bunnies.  The breeder let Hannah come a day early to pick out her bunny before everyone else came the next day....so sweet.  She picked out the smallest baby.  A cute little all black fluff ball!!  She (we think it's a she) is 4 weeks old and all pure delight!!  (Pics to come later)
On the way home we stopped at Cox Arboretum.  How beautiful.  I honestly wasn't sure how well this would go because Hannah was really having a difficult time.  Behavior wise....  BUT....we gave it a whirl.

This is how Hannah's mood was in the beginning.....


to this....

"How's this mom?"

coming around.....

Ta Dah!!!!  Feeling better....


But, by the end, Hannah was doing better.  We did get some great pics of the kids...  It is an amazing place...



Complete with a butterfly house....


Is that a great shot, or what????


They were looking at all the fish....


Even had this awesome maze made of shrubs....  Kids loved it!!

Boys checking out a turtle....

After our stroll through the park, we talked daddy into going out to eat....Afterall, we had to feed the kids!!!  So, we headed to our favorite Mexican restaurant....  Mmmmmm....  It was such a nice way to end Mother's Day.  They were even handing out $10 gift certfitcates and a rose to all mom's!!!  I have the best fam ever!!!!!
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Beautiful Hannah...

How this journey started....

Hannah was born prematurely at 34 weeks gestation. She was a relatively healthy preemie; initially having difficulty maintaining body temperature and needing to grow. She weighed 4 pounds 9 ounces at birth. When she was four months old she began to drool, non stop. We were told the first year she was "teething." At 18 months old, we really started searching for reasons of why her shirt was always soaking wet. We saw various specialists who always sent us to another specialist, saying "everything looks okay." She spent years in oral motor/feeding therapy to help her not to drool. It wasn't until she was four years old and in preschool that we started to get some answers. Her preschool teacher commented one day that she wasn't reponding when her name was called. I took this information to her pediatrician who then orderd an EEG, "just to rule it out." Much to our shock and amazement, the results showed, she was having seizures. That is the day our journey REALLY began. Once she began taking seizure medication the drooling almost stopped completely. (She will still drool to this day when she is having seizure activity). Since then, it has been a roller coaster; countless medications and medication changes. She has never really reponded well to any medication.

About two years after she was diagnosed with epilepsy, the doctors noticed that her blood pressure was running high. After many tests, she was diagnosed with hypertension. We still are not sure why, but her cardiologist feels her blood vessels are thicker than normal.

About this same time, we also began looking into why Hannah was such a horrible sleeper. She would thrash, talk, move every which way, during her sleep. The sleep studies revealed that she has alveolar hypoventilation sydrome, which means she has too much carbon dioxide in her system when she sleeps. To help this, she wears a BI-PAP at night. This has been monumental in giving her more effective and quality of sleep.

Every day is a challenge for Hannah and our family as a whole. Blitzen has been an absolutely wonderful addition. She calms herself sometimes just by petting and loving on him. He has been trained in behavior disruptions and will sometimes be able to stop a meltdown from getting out of control.
It has been extra hard on the whole family since daddy is deployed to Iraq. He has been gone since January 09 and will gone until Jan 2010. We get to talk with him by phone and on the web cam; which is nice, but not the same!! Blitzen has helped to make his absence go just a little smoother....