ONE YEAR AGO

One year ago, we had the scare of our life when Gracie became drastically ill. She was having severe headaches, neck pain and temperatures of 104-105. After several visits to her pediatrician, two traumatic visits to the E.R, eleven I.V attempts and a mommy breakdown when I cried to her doctor that I was scared for my daughter, she was diagnosed with bacterial pneumonia. Little did we know that would be the least of our concerns, as a few days later we discovered that she also had meningitis.

Our sweet little 5 year old went through sedation, MRI's, CT's, and ultimately a spinal tap to determine what was wrong with her. When the neurologist told us his diagnosis, I felt my world spin. Late at night, after Paco had left to be home with Cole, I sat and just stared at her, feeling scared to death that we would lose her. Meningitis is an inflamation of the tissue around the brain. It is a very scary thing. There are two types of meningitis, viral and bacterial. Viral meningitis is common, and often goes undiagnosed since it bears the same symptoms as the regular flu. Bacterial meningitis, is much, much more serious. Left untreated, it will be fatal, in a very short period of time. Gracie was treated for bacterial meningitis, due to the fact that her spinal tap was inconclusive because there were already antibiotics in her spinal fluid that were treating her pneumonia.

The first few days, she was sedated because her head pain was so bad...

then, we started out slowly by going for rides in the wagon...."play time" with a therapist....who was assessing her thought processes, cognitive thinking, and checking for any long-term damage to her brain. (none!)going for a walk along the fish bridge....working on spending more time sitting upright....this was a big factor in her being able to come home.
Her last day in the hospital, feeling better and happy to have gotten a bath!! It's funny, every time she wears these pajamas it brings back all of these memories...After 5 days, we were able to bring Gracie home with a picc line, which is an I.V that is inserted in your arm, and snaked through your veins to your heart, so that your heart can mix the medication quickly and distribute it throughout your body. Madge, our home nurse, brought us an I.V pump, $5000.00 worth of I.V antibiotics, and all the supplies we would need to go along with that. She taught us how to flush Gracie's line, and how to use the I.V pump to administer meds for 30 minutes twice a day, for 10 days. Thank goodness for this technology that allowed us to do this at home, otherwise she would have spent an additional 2 weeks in the hospital getting the antibiotics.

She missed nearly a month of Kindergarten! Her wonderful teacher called her daily after school, and her classmates sent her 23 cards that they made. She was (and is!) very loved by many. We were so thankful to our friends and family who were there for us! It was a scary time for our family, and only by the grace of God, and the prayers of many were we able to stay strong through it.
Now, she is back to her happy, sweet little self and we just couldn't love her more!!!