Eliza's Life - January 25th to March 29th - 2009

I've wanted to put some of these pictures up before, but just haven't had the time. So, I decided to roll this post all into one so that you can get a better picture of what Eliza's life has been like over the past two months. And I'd just like to say up front, that she has been a real trooper.

The Finger Incident - Sunday, January 25, 2009

Two days before Eliza was scheduled for her surgery, Sherman accidentally shut Eliza's little finger in the the hinge-side of his bedroom door. This has always been one of my biggest fears with door shutting. Luckily Mark was here for this incident and remained calm and immediately shuffled us all out the door to the Emergency Room. Thankfully, her finger was not broken and did not even need stitches. We were a bit surprised because it sure looked deformed when it came out of the door. Eliza was quite brave during the x-rays, I'm sure the blessing Mark gave to her helped.

As you can see, Eliza received a nice bandage for her troubles. The nurse bandaged my finger first so that Eliza could see how it was done. Then Eliza cooperated very nicely for hers.

I love this picture. Sherman and Eliza received the blue and red toothbrushes in their stockings at Christmas and they have two suction cups on the bottom. They love to stick them to the mirror.

Surgery - Tuesday, January 27, 2009

Eliza had surgery to repair a small whole in her soft palate that did not close after her first surgery in November of 2008. The surgery went well and we even came home that night. However, two days later Eliza came down with the stomach flu and couldn't keep anything down. Something she most likely caught in the hospital. Gratefully, Grandpa Bernards had come to help with Sherman after the surgery. I don't think we would have survived without him. On Saturday Eliza went back into the hospital for dehydration. She was really good about everything. She cried a little when they put the IV back in, but then she looked down at it and matter of factly said, "Back on", then acted as if it was the most normal thing in the world. Our challenge came in getting food in her. It took a few hours, but once the IV fluids kicked in and she was feeling a bit better we were able to coerce a few syringefuls of Pediasure into her. Once she was convinced that she liked the "Vanilla Ice Cream Shake a Shake" as we called it, she did really well.

That night in the hospital we celebrated her 2nd Birthday, which was really the next day. But, we wanted to celebrate before Grandpa Bernards left the following day. Eliza really enjoyed her gifts. A baby doll, a stuffed Curious George and some princess slippers that she calls "booties". She also received some very nice gifts from the nurses who took care of her. We rounded out the party by watching Toy Story 2. Unfortunately, in the craziness of the weekend, we did not bring the camera for any pictures.

By Sunday, Eliza was doing really well and we went home that afternoon. Unfortunately, the surgery did not hold (possibly due to the stress of having the stomach flu). We thought it only had a small hole until this week and have noticed that it is slowly getting larger. What that will bring, we do not know yet. We will just have to wait and see.

Below are some pictures of Eliza in her hospital room after the Surgery.

A little swollen.

Finally drinking!

And a Smile!

Getting ready to go home!

February 2009 - Cold & Virus/Hives

After the stomach flu, Eliza came down with a cold that lasted maybe a week. We thought we were finally on the upswing until Sherman came down with a nasty cough/virus a few days later and of course shared his germs with Eliza. And of course, Eliza had it much worse than him. Eliza would cough so hard that it would trigger her gag reflex and she would throw up. This went on for several days and probably put some stress on the repair in her mouth too. We were planning to head to Utah to visit family, but postponed a bit until we thought Eliza was over the cough and gag stage. She did fine with the coughing, but broke out in hives on our trip out to Utah. We first thought they might be a reaction to amoxicillan that she was on for an ear infection, but when I took her to a doctor in Utah his intial reaction was that they were caused by the virus itself. Anyway, below are a few pictures of Eliza covered in hives that rotated all over her body for 3-4 days.

Luckily the hives didn't bother her too much and once they were gone she was finally healthy and enjoyed the rest of our trip out in Utah.

March 2009 - Trachiobronchitis (Sp?)

This brings us to the current, hopefully almost over, illness that started a week ago Saturday. I posted a bit about this a few days ago, so I won't repeat everything. She only had the breathing issues the one night, but continued with the fever for a full 7 days. (Our pediatrician said that this is normal for some of the viruses that they have seen lately.) Her nose has also run like a faucet since Tuesday and finally started to calm down a bit today.

The pictures below were taken on Friday. This is the first day that she actually had energy to play and started smiling again. She wanted to put on the backpack and hat and then told me that she was going on a mission. About five minutes later she told me she was back. Isn't she cute?

Well there you have Eliza's life in a nutshell. I sure will be glad when she is healthy. I guess we shall see what the month of April brings. We decided that if she has to go through surgery again it will be in the summertime and we will quarantine ourselves for at least the first 6 weeks.

A Side note -- Unfortunately, Sherman started with the fever on Friday. He hasn't had any breathing issues, but has had the high fevers for 3 days and not much energy. So it looks to be another week inside. Thankfully, the weather doesn't look to be all that great this week so I won't feel too bad.