Thursday, August 23, 2007

Emma the celebrity

Emma has been chosen to be the face of CHOC this holiday season. She will be on the CHOC Christmas card and fundraiser letters. We are so excited about this. Yesterday, we had representatives from the CHOC Foundation For Children out to our house with a professional photographer to take the photos. They transformed our living room into Christmas time. Emma loves the camera, so it was very natural. We cannot wait to see the pictures.

Tuesday, August 21, 2007

Results of Emma's Bronchoscopy

Well it seems as though Emma is not ready for her trach to come out yet. This news is disappointing but totally understandable. All we really want for Emma is for her to be healthy and have a strong airway plus happiness and growth. We were told that we would re-address her trach removal when she gained 3 more kilos, which is about 6 and a half lbs. This will probably put her right around 20 lbs. Her Doctor did explain that she has some scar tissue in her trachea that will need laser surgery before her her trach comes out too, and he would like to try to wean her to a shorter "non-custom" trach tube after the lasered areas have healed. So our task of weight gaining continues as we move into a new season with her. Emma is so active, which is wonderful, but she burns more calories than she consumes, making it hard to gain weight. Don't we all wish we had this issue....

On a lighter note, we had a MARVELOUS day today after the bronch was completed and Emma was discharged. Mark and I already had the day off for this procedure, and since it's summer and we were close to Disneyland we decided to take advantage of the day. We took Emma to Downtown Disney for the 1st time, for lunch and a bit of outdoor shopping. Emma got a goodie from the Disney Store for enduring the last two days like a champ. She really enjoyed people watching and saying HI to everyone she met.
Emma has also taken to crawling a bit more than a few weeks ago, although she still has a long way to go before she is fully crawling. She is now what I would call mobile and she really is enjoying her new found freedom and mischevious explorations.
Watch out world here she comes!!

Monday, August 20, 2007

Daddy's A Little Upset

So we woke up at 4:45 this morning to get to CHOC in Orange before 6:00 for a scheduled 7:30 bronch and Upper GI study for Emma. We arrived at 5:45 and proceeded to the short stay unit. At 7:30, the GI Doctor was there to look at her stomach and esophagus, but the pulminologist was no where to be found. The first part was going to take 30 minutes, so we hoped that he would be there before the first doctor finished. Well, at around 10:30 we received word that the doctor needed to reschedule. Needless to say, I was more than a little upset. After we were discharged we stopped by the pulmonologist's office and asked to see him. He was sorry for the mix up and asked when it would be good to reschedule. As I had taken 2 days of vacation in anticipation of Emma possibly coming off the trach, I asked if it would be at all possible to reschedule tomorrow. He graciously agreed to reschedule tomorrow morning at 8:30 on his day off. It is a bummer that we have to do this 2 days in a row, but I am happy that we will at least get the chance to see if Emma is ready to be taken off the trach. Please be in prayer again tomorrow as we have Emma's bronch.

Friday, August 17, 2007

This Monday...

Dear Family and Friends:

On Monday, Emma is scheduled for a bronchoscopy & endoscopy at 7:30 am. These are tests to see if her airway is strong enough to get her trach out and to see if there anything wrong with her Esophagus, that might becausing her to vomit so frequently. We are hoping for the best but not setting our expectations too high. Please keep our little girl in your prayers as she goes under ansethesia and that the findings are encouraging.

Thank you,
Alissa, Mark & Emma

Tuesday, August 14, 2007

Hey JoJo What Do You Say???

Today Emma got to meet JoJo in "real life" when she came to visit the children in the hospital at CHOC at Mission. Emma had the inside track from mommy's co-worker so we stopped by to meet JoJo. Emma was just a bit shy at first, but seeing her eyes light up when she saw her made everyone standing around us smile.
Emma Loves JoJo!


Emma Goes to Her First Wedding

On Sunday Night Emma attended her first wedding. It was very special having our little girl with us...We have waited a long time for the opportunity to do "normal" things as a family and since it is summer and NOT the cold and flu season we took the opportunity and ran with it. It was so nice to be able to celebrate as a family, the love and life commitment of our friends Amber and Nate Eady... Congratulations you two!!! May your life together be blessed and full of love.



Emma with Daddy watching the ceremony

The Happy couple, Mr. & Mrs. Eady

Tuesday, August 07, 2007

Pictures For Daddy's Birthday!!

Happy Birthday Daddy!!!
On Monday August 6th, Mark turned 34 years old.
Emma & I took pictures at a Studio for Kids for Daddy's Present.
Just thought he'd like some recent picture of his girls for his desk at work.
We had such a great time taking these pictures.
Emma was such a ham smiling away at the photographer.
Here are 2 of the pictures from the sitting.
Enjoy!