Rebekah-isms

I love the stage that Rebekah is in now - trying to say "bigger" words and sentences, only mixing them up.  :)  It's so fun to hear what she's going to say next!  I wanted to post some of them before I forget what she says.

Rebekah occasionally plays with her baby dolls, bottles, and stroller.  If you ask what her baby's name is, she will either answer with "I not know" or "Rebekah Ellis."  Either Rebekah has a lot of little clones or nameless babies!  :)  Rebekah also puts her finger in her baby dolls mouth and pretends the baby bites her.  Then she jumps back very startled and says "ouch!"

If there is something Rebekah doesn't like (particularly food), she always says "I not like it" followed by whatever "it" is.  For example, we had baked beans tonight, which usually she loves.  As soon as I set them in front of her, she said, "I not like it beans."  When it was time for medicine, Rebekah told Daddy, "I not like it messin (medicine)."  Then she promptly opened her mouth and took it!

Rebekah loves to sing!  Some of her current favorites are "Jesus Loves Me," "The B-I-B-L-E," "Zaccheus," and "Deep and Wide."  Although most of the songs are recognizable, they are considerably shortened versions of the originals.  :)

When Rebekah starts to get anxious or tired, she usually asks, "Where my taggy?"  If she gets very upset or hurt, the cry becomes, "I need my taggy!"

Rebekah recently had hiccups.  When I asked her if she had hiccups, she said, "I have hiccups in my mouth!"  And then she proceeded to reach her hand as far into her mouth as it would go and pointed to her throat.

Anytime we leave the house as a family, we always drive our van.  Rebekah usually says "Bye-bye, house! Bye-bye Daddy's truck!"

We spent Memorial Day weekend at Grampy and Grammy's house and got back home late Monday evening.  Tuesday morning when I went to get Rebekah up, she asked me, "We go Nana and Papa's house now?"  She asked me the same question later in the day and I told her we had more sleeps before we could go see Nana and Papa.  Rebekah then closed her eyes for approximately two seconds and popped them back open.  She said, "I no more sleeps!"

Nancy

Rebekah News

So....it's been a while! :)  So long, in fact, that Blogger has a whole new look and format behind the scenes that I'm having to get used to.  Hmmmm.....guess that'll teach me to not stay away so long!

But in the meantime, Rebekah has been doing fantastic!  She is growing, active, has been relatively healthy, and is so much fun.  I'll try to hit the highlights of the last few weeks......

 Future piano player?

Rebekah's last cardiac check-up was great!  Her pulmonary hypertension is still under control (higher than "normal," but much lower than what it was before surgery).  She continues to take Viagra three times a day and sleep with oxygen to keep that pressure down.  Rebekah's heart function also looks really good; probably the best it has ever been in her life!  The best news is that Rebekah is not going to be scheduled for a heart catheterization this summer like the doctors originally talked about!  As Rebekah's cardiologist said, we don't need to do an invasive procedure to confirm good news.  I'm thrilled about that!

 Rebekah and Great Grammy (Hi, Grandma!!)

We are still struggling a bit with the sleeping issues, but I anticipate that we will have ups and downs in the sleep department for quite a while to come.  Rebekah is currently taking Clonidine nightly to help regulate her sleep patterns.  At one point, right before we began the Clonidine, Rebekah was waking up as many as 20 times in a night!  And at least half of those times she would pull her oxygen off.  :(  We are trying to get her body used to the feel of sleeping through the night.  I have to say that we are improving.  Not perfect, but certainly improving!  Rebekah sleeps through the night, on average 2 or 3 nights a week, and the remaining nights she wakes up probably less than 5 times.

 Someone loves Fudge pops!

Since December (surgery), Rebekah has really grown considerably!  I think she was trying to make up for a year's worth of growth in a few months!  :)  She is more than three inches taller and at least five pounds heavier than she was before surgery.  Thankfully Rebekah has an older cousin who passes down clothes that she outgrows!  :)  For some reason, Rebekah actually went backwards in the last month and lost half a pound.  I'm hoping that we can contribute that to the cold that Rebekah had and that we see her weight bounce back up this month.

Our little fish!

In the last few weeks we have also seen Rebekah make good progress in her strength and endurance.  Rebekah has been working in the pool during her physical therapy time, and it has really paid off!  Rebekah can run and play for much longer periods of time before she gets winded or tired.  She is also doing really well at learning her limitation and knowing when she needs to take a break to rest.  About the only thing that Rebekah is still not doing consistently is stairs.  She still prefers someone to carry her up and down the stairs.  I think it just takes a lot of energy for her to do that.

 Sweet girl

Probably Rebekah's biggest challenge and obstacle right now is her speech.  It's not something I think about a lot because I am with her all the time and usually can understand most of what she says.  However, she is very difficult to understand in a quiet setting, and almost impossible to understand in a crowded environment.  Recently Rebekah was evaluated with our local school system and they found her speech to be significantly delayed.  As of now, Rebekah's left vocal cord is still paralyzed, which is contributing to her speech problems.  She also has articulation and phonemic delays, meaning that more than half of her words are either missing the beginning or ending sounds.  Her understanding of speech is excellent, though, so that is good news!

Rebekah continues to receive private speech therapy once a week.  Tomorrow we will have an IEP meeting with the school system and we anticipate, based on their evaluation and reports, that she will be offered speech therapy in a group setting once or twice a week in a local preschool.

 Silly girl

"The brothers" are all doing well and so happy that school is over for the summer!  They all did very well in their school work this year and are looking forward to a fun summer of swimming, playing, and visiting grandparents.  Friday begins our local library summer reading program, and they are already eager to get started.

Justin, Great Grammy, Rebekah, Zachary (back row),

Aaron and Caleb

Drew and I are also doing well.  I must admit, I was just as eager for summer vacation as the boys! :)  Teachers need a break also, right?!  Drew has an interview sometime next week (not sure of the day yet), and we are praying that it goes well and he is able to start full-time work again.   

And the littlest member of our family, formerly known as T6, is also doing well!  HE is growing, kicking, squirming and all-around being a boy!  :)  We are so excited that Rebekah will have a little brother, and she frequently pats my tummy and says hi to the baby.  At our 20 week ultrasound, everything looked completely normal - including the heart!  We will be having at least one more ultrasound at 29 weeks when he is a little bigger, just to make sure that everything still looks good.  I can't believe we will be meeting this little guy in about three months!

Rebekah "playing" piano.  

She even has to have books on the music rack!

I'll hopefully get another update posted sooner than the last one.  I'm thinking maybe things will get a little less hectic now that we are done with school, but that's probably wishful thinking, I'm sure.  :)

Nancy

Family Update

I just realized the other day that it's been quite a long time since I've posted any updates on what "The Brothers" have been up to.  So tonight I've posted some pictures and will try to briefly give updates on what's happening around our house.  :)  I had planned to proceed in a nice oldest-to-youngest fashion, but Blogger had other ideas when it uploaded pictures.  It is highly frustrating at best (and impossible at worst!) to rearrange pictures in Blogger, so we're going in semi-alphabetical order....

Aaron just celebrated his sixth birthday in January and last week joined the ranks of the toothless!  He proudly lost his first baby tooth on Wednesday last week, and he was very brave about it!  If you look closely at the first picture, he is admiring the tooth.  The Tooth Fairy almost got caught delivering his dollar because Aaron slept with his legs under his pillow and I , I mean The Tooth Fairy, almost couldn't get the tooth out without waking him up.  All turned out well, though, and Aaron was excited to earn a dollar.  :)

 It really came out!!!

Aaron is more than halfway through kindergarten, and is doing really well!  He is especially strong in math, and that is easily his favorite subject.  He also enjoys social studies and science.  Reading is coming a little harder for him, but he is making good progress.

 Beaming!!

Aaron is doing all other little-boy things and keeps plenty busy.  His favorites are Legos, Playmobil, any kind of building blocks, and all kinds of imaginative role-playing.  His goal for the summer is to ride his bike without training wheels.  I'm sure he'll be racing around with no training wheels before I know it!

 Sweet boy

Caleb is eagerly looking forward to his birthday in April, when he will be four!!  He asks me at least every other day how much longer till his birthday.  :)  Recently we noticed Caleb's eyes were crossing when he was working on puzzles or playing with small toys.  I asked Rebekah's ophthalmologist about it, and he wanted to take a look at Caleb to see what was going on.

 Caleb's favorite is the zebra striped patch.

He thinks it's pretty cool that he looks like

Patch the Pirate!

As it turns out, Caleb has a couple of issues with his eyes that went undetected until just recently.  He has never complained of not being able to see, but our sweet boy is very, very farsighted!  He struggles to see anything from what is called "mid-range" to close.  I am so very thankful that we caught this now, before he starts reading.

Caleb's eyes are also not focusing together.  This actually allowed him to get by with his poor vision for longer that would otherwise have been possible.  Each eye focuses individually on what is in front of him, instead of focusing together.  The result is that his eyes began crossing as it became more of a struggle for him to see clearly.

So Caleb has a very handsome new pair of glasses that help him to see so much better!  He also wears a pirate patch for a minimum of 30 minutes each day in order to strengthen his weaker eye.  This will help to teach his eyes to work together, as well.

 I love Caleb's glasses!  He is so handsome!

In other Caleb news, he is doing a great job learning right along with Aaron.  Caleb can count to 20 and do very simple word problems in his head.  He knows all of his alphabet letters and almost all of their sounds.  He has also started writing his name, and I must say it is very well done for a three year old!

My sweet Caleb

I had to post this silly picture of all the kiddos.  They have so much fun together, and we are so blessed that our children are so close.  I certainly won't say that they don't have their moments (because they do!!), but in general they are so sweet with each other.  What can I say?  We love our sweet boys and girl!

Silly siblings!

 Pucker up!  Justin was having second thoughts

about kissing that spaghetti-covered face!  :)

So what's new with Miss Rebekah?  Well, I have to report that she is doing much, much better this week!  Thank you all for praying for her!  With the help of our wonderful pediatrician making sure we had the antibiotics that Rebekah needed, we were able to start them just a couple of hours after Rebekah began running a fever.  I fully attribute her quick recovery to your prayers and the effectiveness of the antibiotics!  I was very concerned that this illness would earn Rebekah a hospital visit, but she handled it like a champ.  We did, however, have to reschedule her MUSC trip for March 9, but the doctor was very understanding.

 Yep, I can be just as silly as the brothers!

Just as a side note, Rebekah has started referring to her brothers collectively.  It is not unusual to hear her running through the house calling, "Brothers! Brothers!" when she needs or wants something.  It is also very cute!  :)

Rebekah is continuing to do well in therapy, but it's about to get kicked up a notch.  Rebekah's PT has noted that Rebekah just does not have the core body strength (think trunk muscles) that she had before surgery.  So she suggested this week that we go back to aquatic therapy every other week.  If you have read the blog for more than a year, you might remember that Rebekah had aquatic therapy before her second surgery, and she did very well with it.  As a matter of fact, the pool was the first place that she stood on her own!  Rebekah's PT thinks that being in the water will help Rebekah with her balance, core strength and endurance.  So next week Thursday will be Rebekah's first day in the pool.  I think she's going to love it!

In sleep study news, Rebekah's next sleep study will be Monday night.  I'm anticipating an even longer night than the last one.  This time Rebekah will have her CPAP mask on (we call it her elephant), and they will be trying to adjust the settings to find a good place for Rebekah.  If they can get her to a place where she is not having any apnea "events" then the doctor will send the results and settings to our home health company and they will bring a machine to Rebekah and get her started on using it.  The whole process could take up to two weeks.  If the doctor determines that a CPAP does not meet Rebekah's needs, he will schedule us for yet another sleep study to try the BiPAP machine and see where we go from there.  I would definitely ask that you pray for sleep for both Rebekah and I that night!

 What is it with this girl and messy kisses?!

Next up is Justin, aka Goose.  Looking at these pictures, you would think that Justin is a complete ham, but in reality, he is the most quiet, shy one of our group.  He's either going to ignore the fact that I posted these pictures, or I'm going to be in serious trouble!  :)

Justin is nine years old, hard-working, responsible, and usually the first one to volunteer to help if someone has a problem.  He is an incredibly sweet boy, and he is a complete prankster if he thinks no one is watching.  At least once a week (and usually more!) he pops out from behind a door or around a corner and gives me a heart attack!

 It's fun to see what pictures end up on the camera 

when you give it to the kids for the afternoon.  :)

This year Justin had the opportunity to play soccer for the first time.  He has never played any organized sport, and has never really been that interested in sports.  But he was anxious to try, and he is really enjoying it.  One of our friends is the coach, and Justin's friend is also on the team.  They played against a much more experienced team their first game and lost, but they won last week.  I'm glad Justin has the opportunity to learn a new sport!

 Justin enjoys playing mid-field the best.

We also learned this week that Justin made it into the gifted and talented program!  We homeschool our boys through an online charter school, so they are offered the same benefits and programs as our local public schools offer.  We are thrilled that Justin has done so well!  Next year in third grade he will begin taking a more advanced math, as well as an advanced literature class.  He took a sign language course this year and loved it.

 Sweet and silly Goose!

Now for our biggest boy, Zachary!  Zac is excited about his upcoming double-digit birthday in March.  He is rapidly growing into a young gentleman.  Zac is the first one to offer to open a door or help carry heavy things.  He truly is my right-hand man around home.  He (usually) doesn't complain about being asked to help with his younger siblings, and has learned almost all of Rebekah's care.  He even changes diapers and dresses his sister!  Yes, you can all be jealous!  :)

Thumbs up for Zac's brownies!

Recently Zachary has shown a real interest in cooking and baking.  Many nights he is my shadow in the kitchen helping me cook dinner.  On Sunday afternoons he enjoys baking.  We enjoy it, too!  His most recent accomplishments are brownies and coffee cake - from scratch!  

Zachary is also doing very, very well in school.  He is in the gifted and talented program in fourth grade, so he is technically taking fifth grade math, advanced science and an additional literature course.  He especially enjoys social studies, and is currently studying the Civil War era.  We have made several trips to the library for additional books about the Civil War, and Zac reads them voraciously!  Zachary is also enjoying his first year of Spanish.  He is currently working on his first long-term science project.  Zachary chose to test potatoes to see where they will sprout the fastest.  If you come visit, don't be alarmed if you find potatoes in strange locations! :)

Yummy brownies, Chef Zac!

And last, but certainly not least, let me introduce you to Baby Ellis!  Baby (affectionately nicknamed Thing Six and shortened to T6) is due September 5.  Zachary is hoping T6 is a boy; Justin is hoping he/she is left-handed; Aaron is hoping for a girl, and Caleb wanted twins!!  Thankfully, Caleb's wish was not granted.  :)  Rebekah doesn't really have a clue, although we are teaching her to say "I'm a big sister!"

Baby Ellis

Of course, one of the first things that we were concerned about is whether or not this baby could have a heart defect.  It is possible.  The risks are greater because of Rebekah.  But we are choosing to trust that God has the perfect baby for our family. Not necessarily "perfect" according to the world's standards, but a baby who will fit perfectly into His plan for our lives.  As far as the doctors have been able to determine at this point, everything looks good.  We won't be able to learn anything about this baby's heart until our first fetal echo in April.  We're also hoping that T6 will cooperate and let us know if he/she is a he or a she.  :)

Thank you all for praying for Rebekah and our family.  We appreciate each and every one of you!

Nancy

Friday Morning Update

Rebekah had a great night last night resting and working on her overnight feeds. She was bright eyed and energetic when I came in this morning to see her. Shortly after I arrived, after hugs and saying hello. I found out that all had been cleared for Rebekah upstairs. So a little bit of packing and we were off for a morning trip.

We are now settled in on the floor of the step down unit. Home away from home. Rebekah has been pretty restless since we got up here. I think she was in a bit of pain so we asked for some pain meds and she is feeling better.

After sometime on Skype to say hi and play with her brothers and grandparents it is now time to settle in for long lazy afternoon nap.

We hope to have a quiet afternoon and evening. We will update again later this evening.

-D

For the Boys

Of course, the rest of you can watch the videos also, but I promised to put videos from our time at the South Carolina Aquarium on the blog for the boys.  :)

This first video is when I fed the sting rays.  There were pieces of shrimp to put on the end of the long pole-thingy and when I put it in the water the rays would come grab the food.  Literally.  I thought the one ray was going to jump out of the water to get to me.  They have pretty decent-sized teeth, too, so I'm sure they could really bite hard if you got your finger in the wrong place!

Again, this video clip is mostly for the boys' benefit.  This is the big ocean tank where we watched all the fish swimming around.  It was so much fun, and Rebekah loved it!  There were two divers in the tank while we were there (I didn't get them in the video), and one of the divers came to the side of the glass and gave Rebekah a "high-five."  She was so excited about that!  She even told the anesthesiologist this morning about "high-fiving" the diver that was in the tank!

Hope you enjoy the videos, boys!  Have a great day in school today, and we will Skype later.  I love you!!!

Mommy

Quick Picture

Back Row: Justin (8) and Aaron (almost 6)

Front Row: Rebekah (2), Zachary (9) and Caleb (3)

Bekah Dace

Rebekah has recently started to say her own name.  Previously, she would say "Boo" (her nickname) or "I" or sometimes "my" when referring to herself.  

Despite the fact that she was obviously absorbed in turning the pages in her coloring book, she took time to tell Daddy what her name is.

Nancy

Quick Surgery update

We heard from Dr. L today. The team at MUSC met yesterday and discussed Rebekah and her current test results. They have confirmed Dr. B's recommendations from heart Cath. Rebekah is going to have surgery to try and connect her non-working lung. We do not have a date yet. We should be talking with MUSC sometime next week about a surgery date.

D

HOME

We arrived home safe and sound this afternoon. Rebekah did great on the trip home and is resting well. We hope to get lots of rest in the next few days as things some what return to normal.

Thanks for all the prayers.

D

UPDATE:1

Bekah has gone to sleep and now has had her echo and IV's completed. The Doctor's have not actually started the cath. part yet. Will update when we know more.

D

Heart Cath. Today

Bekah did great this morning. She was a little scared at first, but went thru pre-op like a trooper. She continues to amaze me at how strong she is at only 2. She went back to the cath. lab around 8:30am. I was told we may have an update on how things are going around 10.

D

Charleston again....

We arrived safely this evening in Charleston. I had a nice dinner with my ladies and a swim in the pool. Now to get some rest as we are up and down most of the night for feeds. Rebekah has a certain eating schedule to prep for cath. tomorrow. We will be checking in at MUSC at 6:15am tomorrow.

We will update as our adventure progresses.

Thanks for praying for us.

D

Heart Cath. August 16th

The summer is coming to a close around here, and we are preparing to start home schooling next week with Rebekah's brothers. We are also heading to Charleston next week for Rebekah's scheduled heart catheterization on Tuesday at MUSC. Rebekah is scheduled for first case on Tuesday, so we have to check in at the hospital at 6:15 in the morning. She should be going back to begin the catheterization around 7:00. If all goes well, it should be a three to four hour procedure. We are anticipating that Rebekah will be spending one night at MUSC for observation, and we should be coming home on Wednesday.

Please pray for us as we travel to MUSC, about a 3 to 4 hour trip, on Monday. Also pray that the doctors would be able to find a cause for Rebekah's fatigue and come up with a plan to help her. We are also praying that the pressures in Rebekah's heart and lungs will have come down from the dangerous levels they were at in the spring.

We praise the Lord for his providing and care of our family. We trust and know that the Lord will carry us thru all of our trials.

Thanks for supporting our family in prayer and love,

Drew

Rocky Road

Rebekah is struggling again today. We have seen a steady decline in her eating since the first of July. Her fatigue has increased also. She had about 10 mins of energy this morning and then crashed. She had a not so good echo 2 weeks ago. She was pretty upset while they did the echo so we were thinking maybe the results were skewed a little because she was upset. DR. L was going to re-do the echo in month. After talking with him this morning he wants to see Rebekah today and run some tests and another echo. This is to make sure we are not missing something.

Poor girl just does not feel well.

We will post what Dr. L finds later today.

Thanks for keeping Rebekah and our family in your prayers.

D

2 years old Today!!!

Happy Birthday Rebekah Grace!

We are blessed to have you in our lives and thank God for all the things he has done in your life and ours the last 2 years. Daddy is looking forward to spending the day with you and spoiling you.

With much Love,

Happy Birthday from Mommy & Daddy, Zachary, Justin, Aaron, and Caleb

Catching Up

So I'm finally back with an update...and pictures! :) To say that the last few weeks have been busy would be an understatement, but it is a good kind of busy. Drew is busy finishing the last couple of weeks of school (for those of you who don't know, he is back in school working on a Computer Science degree), I am busy trying to keep up with everyone's crazy schedules, the older boys are busy in their school work, and the younger boys are just plain busy!! And of course, Rebekah has an agenda all her own. :)

No, I didn't just randomly stick in a picture of my cabinet door.

If you look closely, you will see very tiny fingers peeping out of the top.

Those very tiny fingers belong to......

.....this very special little girl!

We were pleased to learn at Rebekah's most recent trip to the pediatrician that she does not have an ear infection! If you read the last post, you will remember that we had some concerns about another ear infection, but not this time! There is still fluid in Rebekah's ears, so we do have some concerns that we will be addressing at Rebekah's audiology appointment in a couple of months, but for now she is infection-free!

Rebekah loves to feed her baby dolls a bottle. :)

Rebekah's most recent cardiology visit was also encouraging. Dr. Lucas was very pleased with Rebekah's echo. It seems that the pressures in her pulmonary arteries have gone down again (remember, they can only estimate using echo, but this is a good sign!). Rebekah's heart function continues to look good also. Yippee!! We had some concerns prior to the appointment about an increase in Rebekah's sleeping, but it appears to be unrelated to her heart. Since then, she has gone back to a normal-for-her sleep routine. Dr. Lucas is targeting late summer or very early fall for the date for Rebekah's next heart catheterization. This will be an important catheterization because it will give us the exact measurement of the pulmonary pressures. We need the pressures to continue to drop between now and then! If the pressures are not down significantly from the last heart cath, then Rebekah will likely need another open heart surgery to re-open a portion of her VSD that was closed in November. We are praying that the pressures are down enough to buy her a little more time before her next surgery!!

Just being cute!

Between now and the end of the summer, we will continue seeing Dr. Lucas (cardiology) once a month. The plan is for Rebekah to grow, grow, grow this summer and to stay healthy and out of the hospital! Rebekah will continue OT at least until June when her therapist goes on maternity leave. We will re-evaluate at that point and determine if Rebekah still needs services.

Showing off a new hat!

Rebekah is making great progress in PT, and we are so very thankful for that! She is an amazing little fighter and has come so far since November. If you remember, she was just starting to pull up on things and stand the week before her heart surgery in November. Now she is walking everywhere! Rebekah's PT is helping Rebekah with stairs and stepping up and down from different platforms. While this is a necessary skill for Rebekah to learn, it is also helping to improve Rebekah's balance and stability while she is walking. The next thing on the schedule is jumping...I know that will be fun! :)

We have noticed in the last few weeks that Rebekah has been walking on the insides of her feet much of the time. Because we are super paranoid about Rebekah's development, it caught our attention. I mentioned it to her PT last week, and it turns out that Rebekah (and all of our boys, as we discovered!) is flat-footed. Not only that but her feet are actually rolling inward as she walks. So, she has earned yet another doctor - an orthotist! Rebekah will be having casts made of both feet so that she can have plastic orthotics made for her shoes. This will help to keep her feet in the correct position when she walks. Hopefully this will help prevent any future leg/foot/hip problems as she grows.

Please continue to keep Rebekah and our family in your prayers. We are so thankful for each of you and your ministry of prayer for our family.

Nancy

We are alive!

Just wanted to let you all know that we are alive and (mostly) well. :) We haven't dropped off the face of the earth yet, and we are still (sort-of) sane. It has just been a really busy few weeks. I promise I will get a good long post done this week, complete with new pictures of our adorable little munchkin.

In the meantime, we are off to the pediatrician this afternoon to have Rebekah's ears checked. She is poking and pulling at them again. It may be nothing at all, but I'd rather have them looked at. Combined with a little bit of a drop in appetite, and a whole lot of sleeping, it's worth getting checked...

Nancy

Warm sunny sunday

Praise the Lord Rebekah has improved and was able to come home today. She still needs a few more days of rest, but seems to be on the mend.

We are enjoying the warm weather and a afternoon with all of us home and together again.

Thanks for Praying for our family and situation.

D

Sleepy Saturday

After playing until almost 11:00 last night, Rebekah finally went to sleep. Her fever went down after her Motrin and stayed down until about 6:30 this morning when it went back up to 100.3*. After another dose of Motrin, Rebekah went back to sleep until Dr. Belvin came in to see us around 8:30. He felt that since Rebekah had spiked a fever again last night, that she really needed to receive her third (and final) dose of Rocephin by IV tonight. So, we are still in the hospital at least until tomorrow.

Rebekah has been more tired today than yesterday. She took a four hour nap this afternoon, which is a surprise, especially considering we are in the hospital! Her nurse was great and held off on vitals until Rebekah woke up. After Rebekah woke up, we played for a little while, then Daddy and the boys came to have supper with us! Rebekah loved seeing her Daddy and brothers. The boys saw us waving from the window (we are on the sixth floor), and they thought that was the best thing ever!

When we got back up to the room, Rebekah was running a 101.3* fever again. I'm thinking that might have earned us an extra night (tomorrow) in the inn because of unexplained high fevers. If the fever were totally due to the ear infection, it would not have returned after two treatments of Rocephin, and certainly not anywhere near that high. I really, really think that Rebekah has the same virus her brothers had last weekend. BUT, the doctors don't want to take any chances sending Rebekah home with that high of a fever, either. We will wait to see how Rebekah does overnight and in the morning. I'm not sure who is on for Rebekah's pediatrician tomorrow, so we'll have to see what they say in the morning.

Rebekah is also not eating much at all orally right now. She is drinking some (a little) milk and apple juice, but that is about all. I think she had three or four bites of chicken noodle soup for supper and a few bites of grilled cheese sandwich earlier. We're hoping she starts eating better tomorrow!

I think that's about all for now. I'm off to do a little laundry and tuck my baby in bed. :)

Nancy

At the end of the day....

....we're still at the hospital! We did finally see the doctor late this afternoon, and she elected to keep Rebekah one more night. If we were positive that the only thing going on was Rebekah's ear infection, we would have been home this afternoon. However, with the virus that the boys had last week, we are concerned that Rebekah has both an ear infection AND the virus her brothers had. So, the doctor wanted to "test" Rebekah tonight to see if her fever came back, and if it did, how Rebekah responded to it. The doctor set a threshold of 101* as a point to repeat Rebekah's chest x-ray and see if it was changed.

So...Rebekah was doing well until about 6:30 tonight. Coincidentally, that is almost the exact time she started getting worse at home last night. Rebekah's temp went up to 101.8* and a chest x-ray was done. We probably won't have the results of the x-ray till morning unless something drastic has changed from last night's. So far Rebekah's sats remain fairly stable and we haven't had to increase her oxygen tonight. Rebekah has since had Motrin and has gotten a second wind. I'm hoping she falls asleep soon because this mama is tired! By the time we got up to our room last night and finished talking to nurses, doctors and respiratory therapists, it was almost 3am! I am ready to call it a (long!) day and go to bed myself!!

Thank you all for your prayers for Rebekah!

Nancy

**Update: It's now after 10:00, and Rebekah is still going strong.........