Sunday, August 12, 2012

A Few Fun Things About Lillie


We have spent many posts talking about Lillie's medical issues and development. This time we wanted to tell you some things about Lillie as a kiddo. Below are a few fun things about our special girl. She is...

1)      Fierce – Think you’re tough?  We thought we knew tough.  With all of the obstacles that Lillie has to face on a daily basis, we can only be impressed at the progress we have seen.  Slow and steady, constantly pushing her limits.

2)      A Princess – Center of the universe?  You bet.  If we forget, she reminds us, no worries there.

3)      Opinionated – Little girl knows what she wants.  She doesn’t always know how to tell us what it is due to her communication difficulties, but she will tell us.

4)      Hates mornings/Night owl – Lillie wakes up between 6:30 and 7:30 each morning.  She stays awake for a couple of bleary eyed hours then takes her morning nap.  She wakes up around noon or so.  Now she’s ready for exercise/play/therapy and anything else we can do with her.  No naps the rest of the day.  In fact, she will now be up a while.  She may fall asleep for the night at 7:30 or 8:00 – if we’re lucky.  Usually, we have to give her “sleepy medicine” (neurologist prescribed Clonidine, not a shot of bourbon) by 10:30 so she will fall asleep by 11:30.  She loves to be up late.

5)      Hair Grabber – Mom has long hair.  Perfect for hair pulling fun!  If mom forgets to tie back her hair, a game is born.

6)      Squiggly – Lillie doesn’t get to move too much.  She doesn’t crawl or walk, yet.  She gets from point to point when we move her.  This does not allow her to use up all the energy that kids have.  She doesn’t wear herself out by moving around so, she will lie in a lap and squiggle.  She does what has been termed “booty lifts,” twist, turn or bend in half.  Not easy to hang on to.  We have also discovered the indestructible mobile.  She has been kicking the base of her mobile really hard since we bought it.  The fact that it still works is amazing.

7)      Cuddly – Lillie loves to be held.  Recently, she has been telling us not to put her in her crib-loudly.  She has also started to snuggle into our shoulders and use her arms to hold on.  Yes, we’re loving it.

8)      Happy – While this post is being written, Lillie is in mom’s lap for her feed.  She’s laughing and squiggling around.  It’s kind of hard to write while all this fun is being had without me.  Think I’ll take a break.

9)      Hard Worker – Therapies, practice and play.  Lillie takes them all pretty seriously.  She will do just about anything she is asked and make you proud.  Okay, a little less seriously if she’s too tired.  Give her a break; she’s not quite 18 months old!  Having said that, she has figured out how to fake being tired so we stop.

10)   Focused – We’ve noticed when Lillie is playing with her toys or just with her hands, she can get very focused on them.  She has been known to concentrate on a toy to see what she wants to do with it.  For example, Lillie has a rattle that looks like a flower with a ball in the base that you can see into and touch the ball.  She has spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to get the ball out.  She can’t, but don’t tell her that.

These are just a few of the things that make Lillie truly special.  The one thing not listed is that she is loved.  How could you not love this kiddo?  We can’t wait to see what Lillie teaches us and learns as she grows up.  What an adventure we will have together.



Sunday, August 5, 2012

Another Mystery Solved?

Lillie has had pretty severe vomiting episodes on and off for the last few months. As well as she has been doing in other areas, it has been worrying us a lot.

The first time it happened was a weekend in late April and she was up sick all night, so we took shifts holding her and trying to comfort her. When we took her into the doctor the next day it was diagnosed as a stomach virus. She recovered over the next couple of days, but then the same thing happened the next weekend. Again, it seemed like a stomach bug so we figured that she was re-infected by a toy or something in her room.

But it kept happening. Two weeks later, then in four weeks, and again in four weeks with smaller episodes in between. We got really good at the baby equivalent of holding her hair back. We consulted several doctors, including Lillie’s gastroenterologist, g-tube surgeon, nutritionist and pediatrician. We gave her anti-nausea medicine at the first sign of trouble. We took her in for an upper-GI scan which involves using Velcro to strap her to a board and spin her around so they can take images at specific angles. We tried switching her food multiple times. But it kept happening.

She had another episode this week, and it was worse than usual. The anti-nausea medicine that had always knocked it out didn’t work this time. After her amazing, trouble-shooting dad (mom was out of town on a business trip) spent the day calling nurses and getting her an after-hours clinic appointment, we found out that she had outgrown the dosage of her medicine; she finally started to feel better.

You can imagine it was not the best week for team Lillie. But, as we have learned over the last year and a half, there is always something bright and shiny mixed in with the dark and gloomy. This time, it was Lillie’s urge to grab Grandma Bette’s water bottle and start drinking from it like she knew exactly what she was doing. This may sound simple, but it is a big deal because she has difficulty swallowing and has been only getting limited fluids by mouth with help from therapists for about a year. It felt like she just woke up thirsty and decided she was ready to go for it.

We also got a possible diagnosis from Lillie’s pediatrician. She thinks her problem could be cyclic vomiting syndrome (CVS). This is usually something that is seen in older kids (3 to 7 years old), but it can happen at any age and it seems to fit her symptoms. Unfortunately, there is no cure per se, and it will likely continue to happen regularly, but it isn’t associated with anything life threatening either. Basically, people with CVS have these episodes at regular intervals and they don’t know why. We’re hopeful that Lillie will grow out of it – and not get the migraine headaches that are associated with it – and grateful to have one more mystery (tentatively) solved.



P.S. Special thanks to team Lillie member and speech therapist Rachel S. who recently moved to another part of Texas but made a big impact on our little one while she was here. Wishing you nothing but the best Miss Rachel!