Love For Ashley

We just got back from Arnold Palmer Children's Hospital where Ashley had a repeat broncioscope. The scope went well and Ashley was a real trooper through the entire short procedure. The bronc showed that Ashley still has a little bit of an infection left but her lungs, trachea and esphagus have improved. We will continue to give her Prevacid once a day and she will be on the nebulizer once a day for the next 5 days. The doc believes 100% that Ashley has Gastro-esphageal Reflux. Ashley will see the pulmonologist again on March 26. Tomorrow, Ashley is back at school and will attend her Ballet class. Brad has Karate belt testing,I am off to work again and Joey's in North Carolina on business. Despite our abnormal lives with medical issues, we are back to some normalcy at least for a little while. I will update again on Wednesday after Ashley sees Dr. Gonzales out at Shands. She will have an ultrasound on Wednesday as well as a pre-op appointment. Early Thursday morning Ash...

In one of my previous post I told all of you that we would be pulling Ashley out of the Dance Company .The next day, I updated that post to tell you that Ashley will remain a member of the 5th Dimension Dance Company because someone close to our family has offered to pay to keep Ashley dancing. We have more good news. Friday night I took Brad to Karate and paid his Karate tuition. As I was handing the check over to the Sensei (Karate Instructor), I was told that they were putting Brad on a scholarship and tuition was free. Can you believe it, now we are saving money on Brad's Karate classes too. God is certainly looking out for us. Now if we can only get Ashley's dance studio to put her on a dance scholarship as well. That would save us about $200 a month. Even if they only scholarship her for the reminder of the year, we would be happy with any help. I can't believe our good fortune. Hopefully things will keep looking promising. We have had such bad luck over the l...

Reflux, a severe case of GERD. Ashley saw her Pulmonologist and he strongly believes she has reflux but he also says she has some other issues yet to be diagnosed. We are putting off the adenoidectomy and tonsilectomy until after the repeat broncioscope and the Endoscope which should be scheduled sometime after January 28. We are meeting with a new local GI doc after January 28, at that appointment we will schedule the two scopes. Once the scope results are in, we will discuss surgery. Right now, Ashley's liver enzymes are normal but her Total Bili is going up but again still in normal range. Her platelets are at 90,000 (normal is between 155 to 450). Her CO2 level is low but not alarmingly low, her BUN/Creat Ratio is high, her WBC count is low, her HCT low, and Lymphs absolute is low. She also some other values that are abnormal but I have no clue what the values mean. Her C4 Complement is low, her Anton Gap is high. I need to Google those two values to define them. I am su...

It's been one crazy week, but the whirlwind hasn't stopped yet. We have some answers regarding Ashley's heath but we still don't have a diagnosis. Ashley's pulmonologist and gastroenterologist are working together to come up with a game plan. Here is what we do know: Cystic Fibrosis 1. Ashley does not have Cystic Fibrosis. 2. Ashley does have a bacterial infection in her lungs, the new antibiotic she is on will hopefully fight the infection. 3. Ashley's platelet count is 80,000 (normal is 150,000 to 450,000). This is the lowest Ashley platelets have ever been. We are hoping it's because she has an infection and not because she has some internal bleeding. 4. Ashley will have her tonsils and adenoids removed soon. We will be meeting with the Ear Nose and Throat doc sometime next week. Hopefully, we can get the surgery scheduled before the New Year. 5. Despite the low platelets Ashley's liver appears to be happy, as all of her liver enzymes are normal or ne...

In great Ashley fashion, she did very well with her trip to the hospital and recovered well from the procedure. Right now, Ashley is off with her Grammie getting spoiled by shopping. With no one in the house but me and the pets, I am off to my own devices which usually means I have to much time to think, to research, to worry, to vent, to hope and to pray. Today Ashley had a broncioscope to find out why she has been coughing for six months. After getting up at 4:30 am and at the hospital at 6 am, the scope began at approximately 7:30 am. The procedure itself took less than 30 minutes. The outcome of the procedure left me with more questions than answers. We do know why Ashley is coughing, Ashley has a vocal cord dysfunction, enlarged adnenoids and tonsils. Finding out why Ashley is coughing is good news, however, we also learned that Ashley may have other issues involving her lungs. There was 60mL of fluid in her lungs. Some samples of her lungs were sent for a cell count, bacterial cu...