8th Treatment

The morning started out with cookies for breakfast! Keira sure knows what perks she's entitled to when she has to spend all day at the hospital :)


Another one of Keira's favorite parts of her check-up is getting to listen to her own heart. Luckily for her, Dr. Effinger is always willing to accomodate.


Mom and Keira wore their matching dolphin shirts in anticipation of our upcoming trip to Sea World. We tried to find one for dad but didn't have much luck.


We were also lucky to have Ajji and Thatha in town to come hang out and help keep our peanut entertained. (not sure what happened to her pants!)


The day ended with a bit of cart surfing. This was a special treat since we usually try to keep her in the room and away from any unwanted germs. Guess it's good to break the rules once in a while.


Play slideshow - 10
View photos individually

Clinic Visit

This visit marked the longest time between Keira's IVIg treatments - 8 weeks!

Since Keira's initial diagnosis, she has gone in for treatment every 4 weeks. As you might remember we did 6 months of Cytoxin with IVIg, and now we are just continuing with the IVIg infusions. We were a little apprehensive stretching the medication, especially since we were also trying an every other day routine with her prednisone. However, as important as it is for her to have this medication, it is equally important to get her off it as quickly and safely as possible. OMS is such a balancing act.

All things considered, Keira did amazingly well, but we did notice several concerning things in the last few weeks - She had some unusual tantrums, mentioned that her eyes hurt or that she saw eye "buggies" and we noticed some brief shaky arm movements. Of course we are closely monitoring her and keeping track of when these incidents pop up so we can look for any patterns. It will be interesting to see if some of this goes away once she has the IVIg or if it is from the reduction of steroids.

On the positive side of things, in just the 4 weeks that Keira has been on an every other day dose of prednisone she has lost 2 pounds and grown a little bit taller! She is talking and singing all the time now and totally loving life. She is such an inspiration to us. Thanks again for the love and prayers. We feel so blessed to have such a wonderful support system.

K's Tomato Plant

This spring, Emy and Richard bought tomato plants for each of the kids. They spent a day planting and now look forward to using their tiny watering cans to water their tomato plants each day.

Here is a picture of Keira's plant on Day 1


Keira is very proud of her plant.




She talks a lot about how it is going to grow and then she can eat it! Talk about a lesson in patience. :)

Yosemite

We spent a magical weekend in Yosemite with good friends. Driving up with sunshine and leaving with snow, what more could we ask for?!

Keira's first visit to Yosemite was back in 2009 when she was just 8 weeks old. I think she enjoyed herself a bit more this time and was fascinated by all the wildlife (birds, bugs and squirrels) that she saw, as well as the tall trees,



mountains, and lots and lots of waterfalls



We're already trying to figure out when we can go back!

Play slideshow - 67
View photos individually

Playdate with Bryce

Bryce was nice enough to invite us over for a morning playdate. The kids had a blast running around his backyard and playing in his sandbox. We feel so fortunate that Keira has made such good friends at Emy's house.

Mother's Day

We just realized that we never actually posted these pictures from Mother's Day.



Naveen and Keira spoiled me for the entire weekend. We checked into the Napa Westin on Friday night, ordered room service and just hung out.

Saturday was a lazy day with breakfast in bed, time at the pool, wine tasting and playing with Keira. Saturday night we all went to Ubuntu for a yummy dinner and then after K was asleep we actually got to watch an entire movie!

We went on a family bike ride/picnic on Sunday and ended our fabulous weekend with Thai take-out from one of my San Fran favorites.

All in all, it was a great weekend away and to make even more special we found out we were expecting baby number 2!

Play slideshow - 51 
View photos in flickr

Haircut

Since we were up in San Francisco for the day, Keira and I thought it would be a good idea to go get her haircut. I am always impressed with how quickly and accurately they can cut hair on wiggly little kids. And, she was even able to get a clip in!

Trip to the ER

Our little busybody was having a grand old time pushing the kitchen step-stool all around until it flipped, she fell forward and bit through her lower lip. I think the blood scared Keira more than anything, but after settling her down and assessing the situation I was unsure if she needed stitches. That meant a trip to the ER while Naveen was out of town on business. Lucky for me, we have wonderful friends - Molly and Seth dropped their evening plans to take us to the ER and hang out entertaining a cute two year old for 5 hours!





When we finally left at 11pm the decision had been to irrigate the wound and send her home with a band-aid (which of course she took off before we left our room!)



Play slideshow - 7
View photos individually