Proactiv, a true and loyal friend.

Yes, its true! It always pulls through for me when I am in desperate need, such as now. I swear that the older I am getting, the worse my acne is. I have either been using prescriptions soaps and creams, or Proactiv for the past few years. Just as I begin to embrace my fair skin, all these red pimples decide to show up...leaving me with what could be porcelain skin, instead looking like a 13 year girl who is wearing her first training bra. I always go running back to my Proactiv though. Our friendship is quite the cycle. I start using it and it clears me up immediately and I stay quite clear for a month or so. Then my skin goes back to normal so I stop using it. After a few months of just using my dove soap and benzoil peroxide, or my acne-aid soap and scrubber, I come running back to Proactiv, begging for her forgiveness and her help!!

And if any of you have used it lately, how about the new snap lids instead of the stupid lids that you have to twist on and off. Genius, I tell ya! AND the new moisturizer with SPF 15. That's what I am talking about!!

FYI-Every single picture of me from Emily's hospital stay was touched up, so don't go saying "you don't have acne" or "you don't need acne medication".

Thank you photoshop, another dear and trusted friend of mine.

The Kite Runner

This was an excellent book. Very sad, but very thought provoking and moving. I had about 80 pages left and have been anxious to finish it. Not just because I loved the book, but because it was due back at the library yesterday. (oops!) I decided to hit mute on my remote control during the commercials of American Idol tonight so that I could pluck away a little at a time. About half way into the 2 hour show I found myself not caring so much about who was singing what. All I cared to do was finish the book.

I added the movie to our Netflix que. Has anyone seen it? Comments? I hope it's good. I think it was up for Golden Globe or something this past year.

While I surprisingly didn't cry while reading the book, I am sure I will bawl my way through the movie.

Literally speaking.

Tonight on our way home from a days worth of errands in Barstow, Gracey decided that as we were driving right through the middle of nowhere, she needed to go to the bathroom. We asked her if it was number 1 or number 2....of course it is number 2! We are minutes away from being home and so we asked if she can hold it. She says she can. My sister Bailey, who is visiting us for the weekend, says "Squeeze your cheeks!"

A minute later we turn around and can you guess what Gracey is doing? Yup! Squeezing her cheeks. Both hands on her face, squishing it as hard as she can.

Gracey is one funny gal! I guess for a 3 year old, all things are literal.

And now we are home

Emily was released yesterday and we are so happy. she is still coughing a lot but is so full of anti-biotics that the doctors didn't seem to worried about it anymore. She will be taking an anti-seizure medicine for at least 2 years now. It is called Kepra and we really hope that because of this medicine that we will never have to experience a seizure again. She will have to do follow up EEGs and other check ups, but right now life is looking pretty bright.

She had just gotten the IV taken out. Still not sure she likes the nurse or not.

Taking our last trip in the wagon

Loving the elevators

It sure is amazing how fast life can change. One minute I was playing with my bright-eyed little girl, the next minute she was in the emergency room and we weren't sure what in the world was going to happen. We are truly blessed to have such amazing doctors, technology, and facilities. We also feel blessed to have such amazing family and friends who were ready and willing to drop anything to help us, all we needed to do was to say the word. Corky and I are very thankful to have both of our girls home with us. Life is good.

Finally going home!

Friday and Saturday

I forgot to mention that my mom drove me and Gracey home Thursday night while Corky stayed with Emily. I really needed a good night's sleep (because I felt and looked like death) and Gracey had school the next day. We got home and I crashed. I knew that I would sleep pretty good considering that I had slept a total of 10 hours in the past 3 days, but I didn't think I would sleep for 12 solid hours. It felt excellent. I felt refreshed and relaxed, better than I had all week. I had good reason to feel better, Emily's anti-seizure medicine seemed to be working and her pneumonia was getting better. Slowly and surely but at least it was definitely getting better.

So Friday and Saturday were pretty much uneventful. We kept busy by taking long walks around the hospital....and that's about it. Not much else to do. The weather in San Bernardino was excellent. We enjoyed being outside in the courtyard and Emily's favorite thing was the elevators. They were the fastest elevators I have ever been in. Your stomach is sure to drop just going one floor at a time. Emily giggled every time we went in them.

Saturday was especially nice because while my mom took Gracey to a nearby mall, Corky and I took turns with Emily while the other one went to the Redlands Temple that was only about 10 minutes away. It was so nice and peaceful, and a great ending to the crazy week.

Here are a bunch of pictures taken during those two days.

Emily sleeping with her best buddy, Mike

Grandma Joyce and Emily

Checking out the fishies.
Being silly with her baby doll

Daddy and Emily

Milk, it does a body good.
Clutching her baby doll tight.
Gracey was so sweet to bring her some yogurt and feed it to her.
Gracey, who has magically grown before out eyes this week.
I LOVE this picture of these two. This picture also shows how pretty the L.A. area can really be.

Corky recycling wishes(we didn't have any loose change on us), and pretending to fall in the water.

Emily laughing at her daddy being a goof.

We are so happy that we can be together.

Gracey having to show off her inner, thrill-seeking, dare-devil

Emily following in her sister's footsteps

Emily practicing her pucker!

Giving some big kisses to her baby doll. I don't know why the baby doll is so special....I ask for kisses all the time and don't get them this good! (just kidding, I do...but I am still jealous!)

Wednesday night and Thursday

Wednesday afternoon, we are feeling pretty happy that Emily has been transferred to the regular children's wing and out of the ICU. She is now able to drink, eat, and do whatever she can at this point. She is coughing a lot and is congested, but they determined that she has a bout of pneumonia but nothing too serious.

Corky decided that he will drive back to Fort Irwin (about 110 miles) to pick up Gracey, shower, and sleep for the night. I would stay with Emily. Emily is exhausted and falls asleep at about 6:30. Meanwhile, I am recognizing that the crumminess that I am feeling isn't just from being tired and worried. I can tell that I am getting sick myself. Emily finally fell asleep and the only way for me to see a doctor is just go downstairs to the E.R. there at Loma Linda. Had I known I would be there for 6 hours I would have gone a lot earlier. I went at 10:00pm and waited for 3 hours. I began to worry that Emily would wake up by herself and be scared so I went up to the front desk and in all of my sobbing glory tell them my story. They said that I could go back up and visit her for probably 30 minutes. I went back and she was still asleep so I lay down and took a 10 minute cat-nap, and then headed back down to the E.R. where I waited until 2:30am. I finally saw the doctor and he ruled out strep throat, which is what I thought I was getting again. He told me that he would prescribe me a z-pack and that he would be right back. I listened through the curtain for another 45 minutes to him and another doctor talk about the Lakers, and Kobe Bryant's 3-point shot, and the San Antonio Spurs, and basketball playoff games, etc, etc, etc. I was getting SO UPSET! All I wanted to do was be with my baby. No wonder there stupid emergency room was backed up 6 hours!!!!!!!! Oh! My blood boils just thinking about it.

Anyway, back to Emily. I get back up to her bedroom at 4:00am and she is awake and they are giving her a breathing treatment. Apparently her oxygen levels dipped a little while I was gone. After the breathing treatment she was over, she fell right back asleep but I had the realization that Corky and I needed more help. We didn't know what to do with Gracey. Our friends were more than happy to keep her but we were afraid that she would feel abandoned. I finally relented to the fact that I am not Superwoman and I needed my mommy! ;) I called her the next morning and asked her to come. She left her work, packed her bags, and hit the road within an hour’s time. I was so grateful.

Corky finished a couple of things at work while Gracey was at school. They came down and I was SO HAPPY to see Gracey, and so was Emily. Not long after that, my mom showed up. Also on a happy note, Emily was a lot happier riding around in the wagon and seemed to be a bit more like herself.


That day, I met with the team of neurologists and they told me that the EEG did come back with abnormalities. It showed seizure activity in the front left lobe of her brain. They say it is hard to say tell exactly what caused the seizure but with her starting to get pneumonia that may have been what did it. Not that she had a seizure because of pneumonia, but that she is prone to them and so the pneumonia triggered the seizure. The doctors told us that way that Corky and I described her seizure and the mini-seizure she had a few weeks ago matches perfectly of what they would expect from that part of the brain. The blank stare, staring off into space, the slight trembling, etc. Another of my concerns was that because the most recent seizure last so long (45 minutes) that it caused permanent damage. The neurologists were able to confidently say that there was no permanent brain damage because of it! Victory!!

PICU at Loma Linda Children's Hospital.

It’s probably a good thing that I couldn't ride with Emily in the helicopter. I would have been a crazy/bored mess waiting at the hospital to come. Corky and I got there about 2 hours later and still couldn't see her for another 2 hours. As soon as she had arrived, they started doing a bunch of testing on her. An EEG test, a lumbar puncture, and a ct scan. She had to be sedated again in order for them to perform all those tests, not to mention that being intubated probably isn't all that comfortable.

When Corky and I arrived at the hospital and were finally directed to the Pediatric ICU, we were told to sit in the quiet room to wait for the doctor. We sat there for what seemed like an eternity. Eternity is not what a waiting parent wants when they don't know what is going on, especially in that quiet room where you only imagine the unimaginable. Finally, the doctor comes in and speaks to us. He first praised the Fort Irwin doctors for handling her so well and responding so quickly. (That was good to hear) Then he told us that her ct-scan came back perfectly normal...another HUGE relief. No growths, tumors, or bleeding on the brain to be concerned for. They were still waiting on the lumbar puncture to know if she had meningitis or any other type of infection. Until they knew for sure though, they began anti-biotic. The EEG would have to be analyzed by a neurologist before we knew anything more.

Finally we got to go into her room and see her. Talk about heart wrenching, seeing her with all those tubes and wires and then strapped down to her crib. I was so glad she was still sleeping.

She finally woke up a few hours later and DID NOT like that tube in her throat. The doctors saw that as a good sign and decided to remove the breathing tube. Once that tube was out and she was able to actually voice her dislike for it, she did. She felt so crummy from all the drugs that she didn't like much of anything at that point. For about 3 hours, Corky and I passed her back and forth to one another. She was fussy and very irritable. At about 2:30am, the nurse came in told Corky and I to take a break. She could see how exhausted we were. They gave her a small dose of medicine to help her relax and so when Corky and I returned, she was sound asleep. We all were able to rest for about 4 more hours, which we all were in dire need of.

The next morning, Emily was a lot more eager to be held and snuggled and she was allowed some apple juice. It had been more than 24 hours since she had had anything to eat or drink. She continued to be monitored for seizures for the next while but was finally released from the ICU that afternoon. I think the biggest relief for her was being able to leave her room. She was getting really stir crazy and just kept pointing to the outside.

Emily's scare.

Last Tuesday (has it really been almost a week? It feels like a month) started off like any normal day. Sort of. We had made a quick trip to Phoenix the past weekend for a job interview with Corky and a little house-hunting, and we drove home Monday night. We arrived at our house at about 3:00am Tuseday morning, so as expected we were all exhausted Tuesday morning. We joke now that there was some divine intervention because rather than going back to bed Tuesday morning, I got up and unpacked all of our suitcases, started and finished a load of laundry and still managed to have myself and my girls showered and dressed by noon. If you know me at all, it takes me a good 2 days to recover from a trip like that. After I had finished my hair, it was noon exactly, me and my girls were heading downstairs to make lunch. Emily sat at the top of the stairs with a blank stair and kind of trembling, almost as if she had been startled by something.


Rewind to 3 weeks ago, Corky and I heard her blabbing in the middle of the night. I went into check on her and she was babbling and twitching. I pick her up from her crib and she seemed awake but was not acting herself. Corky and I took her into the other room where for about a half hour she wouldn't stand on her own, would blab, and woudn't focus her eyes on anything. Suddenly she snapped out of it and we all went back to sleep, not thinking much about it afterwards. We figured she was still in a sleepy daze.


Now back to Tuesday, this is how she started acting again but this time we had been playing right before and I knew she hadn't been sleeping. I call Corky and say "Remember a couple of weeks ago when Emily was acting funny in the middle of the night? Well, she is doing that again." He tells me that he is on his way home for lunch and is just coming into the neighborhood. Within that next minute, her face become even more catatonic, her trembling had worsened, and her heart was racing. As soon as Corky walked in the door we knew she had to the to E.R. So I held her as Corky drove to the hospital, which was about 1 mile away from our house. During that drive, her breathing became more of a snort and she still wasn't responsive. Something inside of me knew she was having a seizure even though it wasn't at all what you see on tv. She wasn't flailing her arms and legs, just minor twitches.


So Corky drops me and her off at the entrance so we can run inside while he parks the car. I rush her in and tell the front desk that she is responding. She is immediately taken from my arms and rushed back to the trauma room. I was so afraid that they were taking her away from me and that I wouldn't be able to hold her again. Thankfully they let me follow though. I stood in that back room as they immediately started working on her. People rushing all around trying to do their jobs. They confirmed to me that she was in fact having a seizure. A few minutes later (I think? I have no timeline except for when the seizure started and stopped) I see a close friend and member of our branch come around the corner. He was a nurse anesthetis and was actually the one who assisted my doctor for my c-section when I delivered Emily. When he (Neil) saw me all upset and realized it was Emily they were treating, he rushed in and did what he could to help until the other anesthetis could arrive. I was so relieved to see a familiar face even though it was still chaotic at that point. At that point, 2 more pediatricians show up from the clinic across the street. There were about 15 people in that room, all doing what they could to help Emily.


Changing gears a little....this was Corky's perspective. He sat in the E.R. with Gracey as soon as they parked the car. He would have come back to find out what was going on but Gracey couldn't go and he didn't want to leave her there on her own. As he sat there waiting, he saw loads of doctors and nurses, literally running into the E.R. and going to the backroom. He knew it was because of Emily. I can't imagine how scary that must have been for him. I am sure he was imagining the worse (we all were quite honestly) and not knowing anything. Not to mention the feeling of helplessness.

After 45 minutes the seizure finally stopped. They pumped so much valuum into her little body that they put a breathing tube in her throat and were breathing for her. They assured me that she could probably breath on her own but rather than making her body work harder than needed, they did it for her. They were able to stabalize her enough to prepare her for the helicopter ride to Loma Linda University Hospital.


We feel very fortunate to have so many great friends and neighbors. I know anybody would have taken Gracey if I had asked but I called my friend Kelly and she was more than willing to take her. Corky dropped her off while I stayed with Emily. Our friend Neil called our branch president who met me at the E.R. Once again, it was so comforting to see a familiar face. When Corky returned, the E.R. staff allowed Corky and President Anderson to give Emily a blessing before she would board the helicopter. It was a beautful blessing that brought great comfort to not only Emily I'm sure, but to me and Corky. I really needed to hear it because it still seemed chaotic with all the people still working on Emily and all the machines and noises that were going on in there. While my heart totally broke because there wasn't room on the helicopter for me or Corky, I was comforted by the fact that her pediatrician and nurse would be accompanying her during the ride to make sure she remained stable.


So they got the helicopter all prepped and ready and they wheeled her out. By that time, I had my wits about me and was just so grateful and impressed by the hospital staff that I was overwhelmed with appreciation. We still didn't know what was going to happen but I had a sense of relief that I was so in need of. However, as they wheeled her outside, they had to wheel her through the E.R. public entrance. I saw a mom there with her child that was just younger than Emily and saw her heart break for me. I have no idea who she was but seeing her face snapped me back to reality. I realized that she was seeing me experience something with my child that every mother dreads. I felt her compassion and sorrow and I wanted to just hug her....maybe I should have.

Anyway, so off Emily goes in the helicopter. Corky and I watched as it took off and I joked that she beat me to a helicopter ride. I have always wanted to ride in one, but not like that.

picture 1- Loading Emily into the helicopter. Her nurse is in the scrubs and her doctor is just getting into the helicopter.

picture 2, 3, 4- Heading off to Loma Linda, about a 40 minute helicopter ride.