William is 2

William's 2nd birthday

William's 2nd birthday party was yesterday with a "farm" theme. He dressed appropriately in his farmer bibs. He was oblivious to the attention his sister got. He was excited to have everyone at his house. Enjoy Mr. W's happy day!

For the Aunts and Cousins

Our babies....one for Grandma Marian and one for me. Pictures of Grandma Marian and others holding Miss Katie coming up!

Holding Katie

Papa meets Katie

Katie.William.0314.2008

Tonight Papa got to meet 10 day old Katie. Thomas finally felt he was over whatever he had enough to meet the little miss. We also got to observe big brother William caring for his baby sister. Enjoy the pictures. William is going to be a great big brother!!

HOORAY !!!!! Good news

Shelby got a good report in Chicago today. Cysts, liver, spleen - unchanged. Number that needed to go up DID and those that needed to come down DID !!!! Yippeeeee !!! She will be going back to school tomorrow.

THANK YOU, THANK you, thank you all very much for your prayers and concern!!!!!

Tomorrow is Chicago

Tomorrow (Tuesday) Shelby (and her parents) goes to see the doctors at Children's Memorial in Chicago. It is a scheduled visit. They will do an ultrasound to check on the status of the cysts. Then she will go to Liver Clinic for a check-up. Dr. Alonso said Dr. Superina (surgeon) will also be at clinic. She will have labs drawn there. We'll see if her counts are holding, raising, or lowering again. The Chicago docs will have a look at her situation. Please keep Shelby and Jenn & Scott in your prayers for safe travel and a good check-up for Shelby.

For those of you interested in more technical information regarding Shelby's medical status, check out Jenn's blog accessible from this page, lower left, under "Links".

Everybody's home

Katie and her parents got home last evening about 6 p.m. Mom, Dad, Katie, and William spent their first night together. I hope to get up there this evening to see her and William. Last night I went to bed. I was tired.

Cautiously, Shelby's numbers are up. She had labs this morning. Of course, that is good since she had the injection on Thursday. Let's pray this continues without more intervention! Labs will not be drawn again until Tuesday when they go to Chicago.

By the way, Shelby wore a face mask to the lab this morning and Mommy said she was very brave! Way to go Shelbelle!!!

Shelby came home

The (white blood cell) medicine went in and a couple of hours later Shelby got to come home. She is to be careful (yeah, right) because of her low platelets and possibilities of bleeding. She was bouncing around in usual Shelby style when I was there. Avery, Riley and I left Mommy and Daddy and Shelby to get some rest tonight. Jenn was some better. Hope more sleep will help her.

Avery is doing a lot of coughing so we'll see how her night goes. Riley's throat is a little sore, but not temp, so let's hope it's not the start of what everyone else has had. I talked with Chris. He, Heather, and Katie are doing good. I also talked with Grandma Peggy and William's doing fine too. The girls should be able to come home from the hospital tomorrow.

Let's continue to pray that Shelby's numbers change. My thanks to all of you for your prayers and kind emails!

Update on Shelby's status

Shelby's platelets and white count dropped even further this morning. Dr. Alonso in Chicago was consulted. She, too, feels that this is Shelby's body's reaction to the virus. They are going to give her an injection through her i.v. of some med to stimulate her white blood cells. Possibly then she can come home to wait to see how this works.

Thomas is improving, but still coughing. Avery continues to cough and Jenn feels downright rotten. Baby Katie is beautiful.

Visiting Shelby

Chris and I went up a floor from Heather and Katie to visit Shelby and her Daddy. She had two phone calls when we were there. One from my sister, "Auntie Lu" and one from Andy from church. Andy is also a morning news broadcaster for one of our local television stations. Shelby wanted to know if Andy was on tv when he was talking to her!

As you can see, she looks fine and she acted her usual Shelby. But those numbers were lower this morning. Dr. was supposed to come in tonight, so I'll let you know what the outcome is.

Meeting Katie

I did get to the hospital this afternoon to meet Miss Katie. Here she is:

She's a cutie with long fingers, just her Mommy, Daddy, and big brother, William!

Here she is with her Daddy!


Big brother showed up later with Grandpa (Umpa) & Grandma (Gaga) Slater. He was very interested in the new toy he got, but not-so-much in his little sister. Chris will be posting some pictures, so check out his blog (listed on my blog) later.

We'll call her Katie

First of all, a correction.....Katie was 8 lbs. 12 oz., 19 3/4 inches long. I had gone to bed at 9 p.m. cause I thought I had better get some sleep when I could. Chris called at 9:45 last night, so his call woke me up. Chris called this morning to say they had a good night until the train of doctors, etc., came through. Hopefully, I'll have more pictures to post later if I get up to the hospital this afternoon.

Jenn reported this morning that Shelby is unhooked from the i.v. meds at the moment and sits by her door as she is still confined to her room. Her platelets have dropped even more. Hopefully, some kind of decision will be made today to give her platelets or something !!!!! I hope to meet Katie and then go see my Shelbelle this afternoon!!!!!

Katherine Madeline Hardwick

Phooey on those doctors. Heather's water broke, so they HAD to do the c-section. Miss Katherine Madeline Hardwick arrived at 9:07 p.m., March 4, 2008. 8#, 14 oz. 19 plus inches long. We're all relieved.

Welcome to the world, little girl!! We're looking forward to meeting you!

Update

No baby yet....the docs want to wait until tomorrow??!?? And Shelby's white count and platelets are dropping lower. Pray, people, please.

Even thicker.....

This morning at 6 a.m. Heather called. She'd been up sick all night and dr. wanted her to come to hospital to check for dehydration. I got there and Chris was not feeling well also. They think they came down with the stomach flu William had at the end of last week. Heather was getting i.v. fluids and nausea medication to stabilize her. They were trying to get in touch with her dr. If Heather stabilizes (the dehydration was causing some contractions) I assume they will still wait until tomorrow to deliver the baby. Chris is huddled in a corner with blankets trying to get warm and get some sleep.

Got William to daycare and returned home to check on Thomas. He does not have a urinary tract infection (good), but the nurse told me "flu" is everywhere. So, we'll keep on top of his temp and hope he will perk up in a day or so.

And Miss Shelby - her temp went up last night so another day of antibiotics. When she can get off the antibiotics, they hope her white count and platelets will come up on their own so they don't have to do other procedures. It's kind of a wait-and-see situation right now. To talk to her on the phone, she sounds fine. She loves to get calls on the "hospital phone" so give her a call if you will.

Oh yes, Jenn - she's not as achy today, but is coughing and sneezing. And Avery is an altogether different baby from yesterday. She's not 100%, but she is crawling all over and chasing (would you believe) quart jar canning rings. She loves to chase them. She is so much happier than yesterday even though she didn't sleep good for her daddy last night.

I love them all, but right now I'm glad I don't have any more kids! I don't stretch that far!!?!!

The plot thickens

As for Shelby, her temp has been below 100 most of the day. Her white count and platelets are not responding though. So if these counts are not improved tomorrow, dr. said they will give her some kind of medication to try to elevate the white cells. She still is confined to her room at the hospital. Looks like her fever and cough were/are viral. Avery has it. Papa Thomas is sick too with those symptoms plus a possible urinary tract infection. Jenn is achy and has a cough.....SO..............it's been a busy day. Scott was with Shelby last night and today. Jenn is there tonight and Grammie had Avery this afternoon and is keeping an eye on Papa. Spring, where are you???!!

Evening update

The shift has changed from Mommy to Daddy at the hospital with Shelby. Temp is up again; but Jenn learned that there was a snafu in the antibiotic dosage and so Shelby did not get as much as she was supposed to today! Also, looking over the lab numbers, Shelby's ammonia level is elevated again (like last summer, but even higher), so that will have to be dealt with tomorrow with the dr. (I keep shuttering as to how someone outside of the medical staff has to be on-top-of a patient's hospital care. It is quite scary. )

Let's pray that Shelby and Daddy and Mommy and Riley and Avery (and Grammie) all get a good night's rest!!

Shelby update

As I indicated in my email yesterday, I will post any updates on Shelby's current hospital stay here. Her ped. g.i. thinks this is viral; however, her AST and ALT numbers were quite high and her white cells dropped to "1". Not many of us get a liver panel done when we have a virus. Shelby does. There is concern about the "1"; so when I went to see her this morning, I had to put on a mask and gloves. This is limiting visits which Shelby is not happy about; but it's for her safety. She's confined to her room which means no playroom. There's a sign on her door that says "no flowers, vegetables, fruits, etc.. There's a word for this - neutropenic, maybe.....I forgot the spelling already. Anyway, Shelby has also developed a cough, so they are trying to collect a sample to check for RSV.

She still has a temp. This morning with motrin it was 100.7. She also had a chest x-ray. Didn't hear those results yet. She did eat a GREAT lunch. She has discovered pizza and ate a personal pan size cheese pizza for lunch plus more. So we'll hope that the antibiotics help some and things will improve and this will only be a short stay. Riley and Avery are rolling with the punches.

And by the way, Happy 32nd birthday, Jenn!!! Some way to spend it, huh?!