As the Kenny Chesney song goes... ♪ She's got it all ♪

Man-o-man does she got it all! Christie, the wonderful daycare provider, called this afternoon and at first all I could hear was a screaming baby, then she said, she won't stop crying. So I go pick her up and she points out a bump on her gums. I know what you're thinking, OH A TOOTH! This is definitely not a tooth but more of a bump. So I take the puffy eyed-tear falling-crying baby and drive her (she finally gets quite!) to the on base peds clinic. Well our peds dr is out so we are referred off base to another dr. I would usually throw a fit (a-duh! my baby is special needs darnit!) but luckily I had heard good things about this pediatrician.

Our pediatrician calls Dr. Azam (yep, I'm going to use her name) and apparently talked to some nurse instead of the Dr or PA. PA comes in and starts talking about Ellie's history. Nothing in her "history" that they got from my pediatrician was correct, as I suspected. So I correct every bit of it and then said here's her story (for those of you who don't know). "Ellie was born 5 weeks premature with gastroschsis, she was on a ventilator for 2 weeks. During her 29 days at Gulf Coast they noticed crazy sodium levels so we were transferred to Shands where they diagnosed her with Diabetes Insipidus, that has to do with sodium not sugar (yes I had to say that), and Septo Optic Dysplasia. She was in the NICU for a total of 35 days. She got broncialitis and two ear infections beginning of January. At the end of January she was diagnosed as blind. On Valentines day she got RSV and was transferred to Sacred Heart and was on life support for a week, then stayed in the hospital for another week while they watched her sodium and changed her medication over to the hormone replacement DDAVP. After that she's been my happy and wonderful baby! Until now..."

PA "So when was the last time her sugar was check?"
Me "She does NOT have sugar diabetes, it's serum sodium and it's only checked by lab draws."
I realize this will forever be my conversations with new doctors/physician assistants/nurses while stationed in Panama City. Sucks for them because I will look at them stupid every time, Diabetes Insipidus is more common then SOD.

I'm pretty sure I scared the PA. Sorry, but brush up... I learned about this in Anatomy and Physiology 2.

The outcome is... she has... (wait for it)... an ear infection, a cyst on her gums, and on top of it all she's teething. Not only do these suck individually, combined they make a super pissed off Elliana. So, ♫ She's got it all ♫

On the plus side, they gave her bubble gum amoxycillen... hmmmm, momma wants some ;)

Time to start cataloging Ellie's adventures.

My mom gave me this notebook after Ellie was born. I had every intention of using it, but I never did. It's very nice and the outside is a faux-leather with the "Footprints" poem on it. I didn't want to use it for just anything so I've kept it around until now when I started writing in it. Then I thought, well it takes me longer to write then to type so let's finally give this blog thing a go.

Onto what started this whole thing off...
At 8pm tonight I got a call from Ellie's occupational therapist (OT). We haven't met yet and our first meeting is this week with OT, PT (physical therapy), the developmental specialist (DS), and the Early Steps Coordinator. She called becasue she just got back into town froma conference or meeting or something at St. Augastine's where there is a school for the deaf and blind. She met another parent of a child with SOD and a teacher who has a class full of SOD munchkins! She just wanted to call and tell me that she never assisted a child with SOD and she's happy to bring some more insight into Ellie's therapy. But moreso, she wanted to tell me she's going to try to bring me SOD parents to get in touch with because after all, parents are the best resources when you have a child with a rare condition like she has. I definitely share in her excitement and look forward to this meeting, not only for myself, but for what it will do for Ellie!

Ellie at 6 months