First Day of the rest of our lives

Just a quick update to let everyone know how Emily is doing lately.

For those of you who have not heard we can start at the beginning back in July when Emily got sick. In July Emily started running fevers off and on and the last week of July had a nosebleed. Don and I blew off the nosebleed, we thought all children have nosebleeds now and then. In August she had two nosebleeds, a fever almost every night, and was very tired. Don and I thought that it had to do with a full day of school. Emily's bus comes at 6:15am, so she is pretty tired when she gets home from school. In Sept. she started having about 1-2 nosebleeds a week. She was exhausted all the time. We found out from her school, that she was falling asleep in school and on the bus and anytime she was left alone. She was going to bed around 4pm for the night and not waking up until 545 the next am.
We called her doctor and they wanted to see us right away. So Oct 3rd we went to PCH (Phoenix Children's Hospital) and saw Dr. Woodward, pulmonologist. He changed around some of her meds and told us to go see our ped dr to run some blood tests. So the next day we went her ped. dr. Dr Camacho. They ran every test they could think of. The big test was to test her for Leukemia. We had to wait a week for the tests to come back. Thank goodness that we were going to California for fall break. When we got back from Disney and got the blood tests back, they all came back normal. So we ran more tests to test her for blood disorders. Again we had to wait again. Dr Woodward had scheduled a sleep study test and Don took her on a Saturday night. She did ok at the sleep study and we are waiting for the results of that. Her ped dr. suggested that we see an ENT specialist. So we saw Dr. Chaung in Phoenix, who is great BTY. He suggested that we have xrays done to see if her adenoids are enlarged and also cauterize the inside of her nose to stop the nosebleeds.
Well by this time its the first week on November and Emily is having 5-6 nosebleeds a day. We can not keep her awake and she is starting to catch a cold. The school calls me one day and tells me she is running fever and not feeling so good. So I drive the 34miles to school to pick her up. The next day she is worse, so I take her to her ped dr. and they do a strep test. It comes back positive. They also look at the rash she has on her bottom. Dr. Camacho says it looks infected and looks like a staff infection. She takes a swab to the infection and sends it to the lab. We should know something early next week. They give Emily antibotics for strep and send us home.
We started the antibotics on Wed night and Thurday morning no nosebleeds, then friday nothing, Saturday and Sunday are free also. Emily also now is sleeping less and playing more. So monday morning the dr call us. She does have a staff infection. We tell her that the nosebleeds and fever have stopped and she is doing much better. They tell us that if the fevers or nosebleeds come back then to call them asap. That was last week. Its has now been a week with no fevers and no nosebleeds. YEAH!!!!!

Today we have to return to the ENT to read her xrays and discuss what is the next step. We are not going to have her nose cautierzed but will talk about her adenoids removed if they are enlarged. Hopefully they can do that the week of Thanksgiving while she is out of school. I will pick her up at school at 2pm today. I will update later.


Meanwhile....they boys are doing great. Both boys received all A's on their report cards. We made such a good decision to move the boys into town for school. They love their school and friends and have received wonderful oportunities in their first 9 weeks of school. They have very carefully made their lists for Xmas and are looking forward to winter break from school.