Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

I know this blog post is long overdue.  I have always been a procrastinator.  With the busy-ness of Christmas and the busy-ness of school, putting off blogging was just too easy to do. 

Here is a quick run down of Christmas.   This was a very special Christmas for us.  This was Daphne’s first Christmas at home!  It’s amazing to think how far she has come this last year.  Last Christmas Daphne was in the PICU.  It was Boxing Day that they took her off the ventilator.  This Christmas she was busy helping us decorate.

She also has quite the appetite and can usually be found eating. 

Daphne is definitely not a wimp when it comes to Edmonton winters.  She loves any opportunity to go out!

Here is a video of Daphne and her cousin Meaghan hanging out. 

Here are some pictures of the girls enjoying Christmas festivities.

This is Christmas Eve, the girls are very eager to open presents.  We have never had such an easy time getting Rowan to eat everything off her plate, since she was told there would be no gift opening until she was done!

They were sure tuckered out at the end of the night.

In the morning there was another gift-opening.  They were sure delighted!  Rowan kept saying “This is the best present ever!”  And “That’s what I always wanted!”  Except for when she opened her present that was a book, “That’s not what I wanted.”  I think she takes after her father in that department. 

The very next day was another gift-opening at her grandparents’ house.  It was very special because this was Daphne’s first time in Bow Island. 

Enjoying some Granddad time!

Medically, Daphne is doing fine.  Toward the middle of December, Daphne’s hemoglobin kept dropping.  We were worried that she was having a bit of internal bleeding.  Her aspirin was discontinued and we started giving her iron.  She was also scheduled to have an endoscope done.  I was very uncomfortable with having it done so quickly.  I preferred to wait and see if the changes in her meds would work before having a procedure done, but we went to her scheduled endoscope anyway.  Daphne had quite a stuffy nose at the time and the anaesthesiologist was also uncomfortable with it.  GI was consulted and it was decided to put off the endoscope.  I felt very relieved about this.  Her hemoglobin since then has improved and the endoscope hasn’t been mentioned again. 

We still hung out in the day surgery ward all morning and a nurse seemed quite surprised that despite having nothing done the entire process took so long.  I told Brad this later and we joked that it must have been her first day working in healthcare!  We have definitely learned a great deal of trust and patience when it comes to medical care.  We have always felt that everyone has truly had Daphne’s best interest in mind, so when a decision takes a while to come to, we trust that is because it was a difficult decision to make.  We have also had our share of emergencies with Daphne where there was no hesitation or delay in giving her the best care possible.  So whenever we are stuck waiting around for things, I can’t help but feel blessed that we are not in a life or death situation that makes everyone drop what they are doing to get to Daphne. 

As for my Christmas, I had the best present ever; my whole family at home together, happy and healthy.  Daphne and Rowan are such super sweet girls.  They are both very active, climbing all over everything!  Rowan is very loving.  Sometimes at night time she tells me “I love you soooo much.  I love you too much!  I am never letting you go to work again.”  Daphne is also very sweet.  She loves to cuddle and carry her dolls around.  She feeds them and insists I put real diapers on them.  When I come home from work they are always so happy.  They usually scream with glee.  Our house is quite a noisy one, but it is a joyful noise.