We got our snow!

The weather forecast for Friday night was supposed to include snow, but we awoke to a less-than-white Saturday morning. We took that as a sign that we were supposed to go to yoga. We had a pretty full class and Mia even listened :) Saturday evening, I dropped Mia at Helen's house to share a babysitter and we went out for a few hours for some big person time! We walked around some shops at Briargate and ate at PF Changs, which has an excellent gluten free menu! It's nice to be able to eat oriental food and not feel horrible all through the next day! It began to snow before we made it to dinner and didn't stop until the wee hours of the morning. We woke up to at least two inches, many more in some areas where the snow was blowing. Mia asked to go out, which is labor intensive since it takes a good twenty minutes to get both of us into our snowsuits. She had a good hour of running around and rolling in the snow before our cheeks got too cold.

No Transfusion!

We don't have to do a transfusion after all! We met with a hematologist yesterday. She said that the levels in the blood are definitely low and she is certainly anemic. She understands why the regular pediatricians were having fits but she, being a blood doctor, she said that she does not usually transfuse until "10 points lower" than where Mia is currently. She thinks that intensive iron supplementation will help since it is clearly nutritional and we know how it happened. Her gut had a bleed, didn’t absorb properly and even though it seems to have calmed down, she has never had more than the recommended daily value for iron, not enough to catch up to what she lost. It also happens slowly so that kids just adjust to the miserly feelings that adults complain about, and before you know it you have a cranky hyperactive kid. We are beyond happy that this is fixable with our original plan of an iron infusion with next week’s IVIG.

We heard yesterday that the request packet has made it all the way up to the Department of the Army, so we should hear something soon. I know I’ve been saying that a lot, but it’s honestly closer this time. We will definitely hear about whether or not it was granted quickly, but as for the actual assignment it will probably take longer. Gary spoke with the assignment manager and she wasn’t optimistic about Colorado Springs because it’s apparently pretty full and would require a lot of shuffling. She asked if we have a second choice, and that is where we are torn. We have a couple of ideas, but both of them would cause delays or worse with getting into Denver’s Eos program. We do know that anywhere would likely be better for Mia than Anchorage right now, but the more I can keep her off of an airplane, the better. Our favorite airline (which really wasn’t stellar, in the grand scheme of things, if that tells you anything) just merged with Delta, so we are hosed as far as allergy support and understanding at 30,000 feet!

The weather has me supremely confused and ticked off. The first few pictures are of Mia playing in our beautiful almost 60* sunshine... The last one shows half of our snow dump from today. I think we can say it's nearing a foot, up to 8" more expected by tomorrow morning! It's better than rain, but I was ready for spring! It's pretty, but really, I'm over it.

She likes to dress herself!

Excelent bubble weather

Aaaaaaaand I'm done.