House Update

Yippee, they have moved our close date from the end of August up to Aug.8th! We are so excited. They are working on the house now 7 days a week. It seems like the only time we can go and not be in a crowd of workers blasting Tejano music is at 7pm. So far they have painted and the majority of the cabinets are in. If I remember correctly next they will do the granite and tile. It's finally looking like a real house and now I can hardly wait to get in. We are having a built-in added to the dinning room (instead of buying a hutch), we will have someone do some custom painting (not sure in which rooms) and we are adding an outside kitchen, but I'm okay with all but the painting being done after we move in. The tough part is that David will only be here the Fri-Sun that we close then he is gone most of the next two weeks. So I think we will just move the apartment first and get the storage building stuff after he is back in town. I don't want to be in the apartment any longer than we have to :o) Will get some inside pics up soon.

Allergy Update

Well, we were back to Children's Hospital this week for Reece's appointment with the Allergist. We have been looking forward to this one for a long time. They did some blood work a few weeks ago which were to be compared to a skin test we did in the office. The results were really good (in my opinion). We found out that he actually has NO wheat allergy, however, his egg allergy is off the chart. He also had a significant skin reaction to the milk/dairy, but it didn't show up on the blood work? Sooo, we are off the gluten free diet. We are going to switch him onto soy milk, but try offering cheese and see how it goes. He also had his first gold fish yesterday and decided they were excellent :o) I'm so excited that we are able to offer him so many other food options. As long as we totally avoid eggs including anything cooked with eggs we should be okay. We do still have an epi pen just in case he get into something, but other than that, we are all good. We don't have to go back until next year...whoo hoo!!!

Here is a cute video of Daddy racing Reece around the couch in a diaper box. It cracks me up how much fun we can have with every day items when you have kids.

After the races were done, David cut holes in the box and Olivia wore it aruond like a robot.

Clear as Mud

Well, we heard back from the doctors office this afternoon. They said his second blood sample did come back low, however, he does NOT have an inhibitor. So, it's GREAT news that he doesn't have an inhibitor, but now we will most likely need more tests to find out why these treatments aren't getting his factor levels up to a higher count. Stay tuned...

No News

Well, true to form, the doctor's office accidentally sent Reece's second blood sample to the Mayo clinic instead of across the street to Children's Hospital (where they sent the 1st sample taken 1 hour earlier.) Ugggg! So, we will have to wait until next week sometime to have the results of that second sample to compare the two. They did say though, that they were a little discouraged that the first sample showed such a low factor level since he had just been given a treatment the day before. We're not going to rush to judgement just yet though. Stay tuned...

Here is a quick video of Mr. Reece walking with his lion that Gammy and Papa gave him for Christmas this year. He LOVES it!!

Reece Update

Well, my little guy has had a rough time this week. Now that he is on the verge of walking he is in to EVERYTHING. This must have been the cause for what we believe was his first true joint bleed. On Tuesday afternoon I noticed that he wasn't standing/jumping in his crib when I got him up from his nap. When I put him down all he did was crawl on his knees pushing his toys around. When I tried to make him stand, he refused to put any weight on his right foot and was would cry when I touched it. These are all red flags for a joint bleed. By this time I noticed it was almost 3pm and if we can get to the doctor's office before 5pm we can have his factor given there without having to be admitted into the hospital. So, after many apologies to Olivia (she already had her swimsuit on ready to go to the pool) I finally got her to put some shorts on and we all jumped in the car. Poor David had of course left for Washington DC on Tuesday morning not to come home until tomorrow afternoon. I was determined though that I could do this alone. When we got Children's Hospital the doc. office only had 3 nurses that were still there. After about 45 minutes and 6 sticks in his arms, wrists and ankles, none of the nurses could get find a vein that would cooperate. They said that if they couldn't find one, we would have to walk next door to Children's Hospital and get a NICU team to find one. This is when I started to get worried. During this time, thank goodness our amazing doctor's office had taken Olivia to the play room to do arts and crafts while Reece was being worked on. (After it was all said and done, she came home with a potted plant made from tissue paper, 2 painted wooden picture frames, and a get-well card for brother). Back to the needles...just before the nurses gave up the doctor came in and was able to find a vein on his foot. They gave him his factor treatment and sent us home. Whew... glad that was over. He and I were both shaking when we left.

HOWEVER, this morning when we all woke up, I noticed that his poor ankle was swollen again and he still refused to put pressure on it. Uggg, I was so upset. I was determined that Olivia wouldn't miss out on her gymnastics and play date we had scheduled so my wonderful friend Maryann took her to do all her stuff. Mom also met up with them later and took her to see Kungfu Panda. Reece and I went back to the doctors office and luckily they were able to get a great vein on the second stick. They took a factor level test first to check against a second blood sample after his factor treatment to test for an inhibitor. An inhibitor destroys the clotting factor before it has a chance to stop the bleeding. We have also read that it occurs in 15%-20% of patients. Please keep us in your thoughts while we wait on the test results for this. We should know something by early next week. The good news is though, that this afternoon the ankle was back to normal and he was back to his mischievous self. We will keep you all posted as we find out anything.

Need A Laugh?

Ever have one of those days where you just need to laugh. Here is my standby video. Most of you know that I have a unique sense of humor. Apparently so do Peyton Manning and the United Way. Enjoy!

Please note that no children were hurt in the making of this video.

Raising Parents

It is said that most children overcome obstacles by not fearing failure. We tell them that mistakes will happen and they are only a way to let us try things again. We make mistakes to learn. I am going to take a dose of my own medicine this week.

I have struggled a little with making sure that Reece is treated like any other child, hemophilia or not. At least treat him the same as we did Olivia at this age. Obviously we take extra precautions, but by far our family handles him much more cautiously that Jaime or I. Enter this week....................I was playing with Reece and threw him in the air which he absolutely loves. He laughs so hard. Two days later:

Thumb prints. These bruises do not seem to bother him, and Jaime and I are getting more used to seeing bruises on him, however it is never easy knowing that you caused them. Needless to say, I will not be doing that again.

Dave