Now that you're caught up visually...

We're getting settled into life in the Springs nicely. Gary says that it's too hot, but then he's outside for most of the day doing deployment training in a long sleeve uniform. Our neighborhood seems to be fairly quiet, except when the creepy ice cream truck comes by. The music isn't right, and the guy makes me shut the door and close the blinds. We have met a lot of our neighbors, many on our first day moving in. There are a lot of kids in the area around Mia's age and she adores the little guys next door. Their mom is very sweet and seems to be very sensitive to Mia's allergies, telling me that she keeps her eyes peeled for a pair of gloves so they can play in her house. I think I'd be more inclined to say gloves for play dough, but she seems to be less contact allergic than she was.
The house is definitely nice for being on base. It does have it's quirks and the appliances are bottom of the line cheap and drive me crazy, but as long as they work I won't complain too much! We opted against having cable and satellite again, we just can't find a package that makes us feel like we aren't wasting money on stuff we won't use. Anyway, having TV would bring down my productivity. I'd sit and watch those goofy reality shows. I have loads of sewing projects that I should complete before Mia outgrows them. We still have boxes to unload too, but it's mostly garage stuff so I can't possibly take responsibility for them.
There is quite a bit of nature, too. We had a rattlesnake on the sidewalk in front of our house. Gary went to the Jeep one evening and noticed it warming on the sidewalk a couple of feet away from him. Our neighbors had just walked their dogs there and had audible fits when they came by and saw it. Of course, Gary had to be Crocodile Hunter and held it down with a crutch while another guy helped close it in a bucket until the MP's arrived. I thought they would give the guys a lecture about professionals handling it etc, but the MP was young and said, "Cool!" We also had a black bear be-bop around the back yards the other evening. His mom and sibling were picked up just the week before for snooping around the neighborhood. Never a dull moment around here!

As for the medical care, so far we are very satisfied. I was afraid that the base hospital wouldn't give us the star treatment that Elmendorf did, but Evans is just as attentive, kind and flexible. Our New Erica is just as sweet and calming and is getting her port practice in for sure! Speaking of the port, we had a snafu this week. We were getting the most recent CBC, but she couldn't get blood. They tried everything on the books to get that thing to deliver but it seemed to be clotted. They sent us to the hematology office downtown expecting to have a special de-clotting drug injected, but they were able to draw blood. All I could say was "Are you serious!?" The nurse said that it happens all the time and they get patients from all over the city with the same problem only to have a new set of hands do just fine. It could very well have been the raging wild fit Mia threw once she figured out what the nurse was going to do!

The doctors at Children's in Denver and National Jewish are great! They said that they actually are leaning away from Eosinophilic Gastroenteritis and would like to explore and rule out other irritable bowel disorders (and there are MANY). They only place they did see a large number of eos was the colon, so if anything the diagnosis might be amended to Eos. Colitis. We tried a new drug, Sulfasalazine (an anti-inflammatory used for gastric disorders and other inflammatory conditions) but within two days it wasn't going well. Her poop was neon orange liquid, and I couldn't really tell but there might have been a little blood. She wasn't acting like she felt well and when we had a CBC done, it was starting to thrash on her white blood cell count, which is very scary. If your white count is too low you can't fight infection, so we kept a close eye on her temperature and activity level. Her white count is back up now, after a week off of the suflasalazine. Her anemia is almost resolved as well, just a few points low in a couple of areas. Dr. Furuta (the GI) was pretty sure that the sulfa. would work, so now he is ready to do an endoscopy/colonoscopy on the 15th to see what he can see. We have her eating a few foods that are not terrific for her, so if her eos are to be elevated, they should be right now. We might sneak a meat in for "good" measure. Right now we have rice, apples, bananas, quinoa, carrots. We also have a rice bread in the mix and it has a few extra ingredients for leavening and whatnot. We're definitely getting the "burned" smell at bathroom time so some thing's going on for sure. It sounds inhumane to flare her on purpose, but they need to be SURE she doesn't have EG, and eosinophils are not present when you don't eat the triggers.

On our agenda for the coming week is a visit to National Jewish with Dr. Fleicher for updated allergy testing. I've had the poor girl off of Atarax for more than a week in preparation. I believe they are going to do skin prick testing, which we never had because of her severe eczema. NJ doesn't do patch testing because it's relatively new as far as reliable information. I'm hoping they will get a new IgE count now that her skin is doing better. If it's much lower, RAST testing will be more reliable. I believe I've been keeping her from eating foods that might have been okay because their RAST score was indicative of an allergy. Now I know that a sky high IgE count will give inaccurate readings. So this is at once exciting and nerve wracking. The last thing I want to hear is that I've been depriving my child of food that could possibly be okay, but we'll be so happy to have even a small list of possible safe foods for future trials. So, NJ is Monday. Also on Monday we have a nutritional visit at the base hospital. Tuesday is a visit with the hematologist in Denver, to check out the anemia thing. It was difficult getting in there, so we may not need her now but it's better to go in and get acquainted in case of future needs. Wednesday we get to boogie back up to Denver yet again, this time to see a dermatologist. She isn't in a critical place with her skin, but I want to see if there is anything new and gentle out there, what products he is in love with etc. This one is actually a reschedule since I over booked last week and had to rearrange things.

Mia is now getting physical therapy as well. Karen and I noticed things about her run and walk that just didn't look right and tried to get an evaluation when we were in AK but never did work out. I was thinking I might be paranoid but the PT saw everything I was talking about plus a few other issues that could benefit. Nothing is major or life altering, but definitely things that could be nipped in the bud with some therapy and possibly some braces or shoe inserts. We also had a re-evaluation for occupational therapy but doubt that she'll really need it for more than feeding issues.

Mia is making friends and so is Mommy! We've been to the pool a few times with a group of gals that have kids her age. For someone who so hated bath time as a baby/early toddler, the girl is a pool kid to the core. Every day she asks "I wear baby suit? Go swimming?" More recently it's "Erin go swimming in pool? Mia wear baby suit in Erins pool?" Mia adores Caden and Erin! She gets so excited at the thought of playing with them. Helen and John are having a cookout next week, but I got my dates wrong and showed up this past week. They didn't turn us away :) They set up the pool and the girls had a very brief and COLD dip in the backyard. Naturally, my battery was dead so I don't have pictures.

Well, my butt is numb from sitting here uploading pictures for who knows how long, and there is dinner to be made!