A Long Overdue Update

Family

First of all, I just wanted to say that Sierra's very first cousin was born today. His name is Remmington James Shalom Klassy. Sierra hasn't met him quite yet but she will soon.

Sierra was very happy to have her CA grandparents here for a visit. We were all sad to see them go.

Sierra got to meet her great grandmother Fedelem for the first time while we were in FL.

This week Sierra's other great grandmother is visiting.

Doctors and Tests

Sierra has quite a few appointments coming up this month and next. Today we went to see her pediatrician for a check-up. Tomorrow we go for a 4 hour video EEG. If the results are good, her local neurologist will consider decreasing the amount of Keppra (anti-seizure medication) that she is taking.

Dr. Hammesfahr wants us to go see an endocrinologist and to have Sierra's hormone levels checked. Brain injured children usually have messed up hormone levels. He says that by correcting those, it will help the brain. Dr. H also wants her to get an MRI, a STECT and another test. We will be doing those next month.

Progress

We have been seeing lots of little improvements over the past couple of weeks. Sierra is doing so much better with weight bearing on her legs! Now she can stand for several minutes at a time. We don't need to hold onto her for balance but she does have to have her hands on something to help her keep her balance. Her balance is improving so much! I put her in a sitting position the other day and she sat there for several minutes.

She has also become much more "talkative" and louder. She still does not make any real tonal type sounds. It is mainly gutteral.

Another encouraging improvement is that she has been so much more awake and alert. Before, she would keep her eyes closed almost all the time even when she was awake. Now, she keeps them open quite a bit throughout the day. She is doing so well. I am so proud of her and so grateful for these improvments that God has given her! We are continuing to pray for more improvements.

I really should take some video clips of her and put them on here. I'll try to get to that soon.

Prayer Request

We are very pleased with Dr. H and how optimistic he is. The only very discouraging thing is that we will have to fly out to FL once every three months to have an appointment (This is not his requirement...the medical board of FL requires it). There is a very slight chance that we may be able to get insurance to cover it. We would really appreciate your prayers that this would happen. We will just have to trust that God will provide the funds to allow this.

A Matter of Perspective

I do have some updates to write about Sierra, which I will try to get to later today or tomorrow, but this was on my mind so I wanted to write it down.

Today Sierra and I went to the grocery store. While we were there, we saw a young man in an electric wheel chair. I'm guessing that he had cerebral palsy in addition to other disabilities. He obviously could not walk, his hands were spastic and not much use to him, he got around by using a stick attached to his forehead to move the wheelchair. I have to admit, I stared at him. But, it was not out of pity or to gawk.

I stared out of admiration. Here was a young man who was severely disabled but he did not let his disabilities disable him. He was at the store all by himself. The workers seemed to know him. One employee was chatting away with him and then another came to push a cart for him. This young man could not talk, but he had a computer screen in front of him that was a communication device. He did everything with the stick attached to his forehead. He communicated and maneuvered around the store. You could tell that it wasn't always easy to get around with the stick and get it in the right place, but that did not stop him. I didn't see a man to be pitied but a man to be admired and respected, not someone who was disabled, but rather someone who was enabled with determination and strength.

It is my hope and prayer that Sierra will be like this young man, in that she will have the determination and strength to continue going even when life is rough.

Ronald McDonald House and Dr. Hammesfahr

Ronald McDonald House

In the previous post, I mentioned that we are staying at the Ronald McDonald House. It is so nice here! We can stay here for $10 a night. Nearly every evening someone provides a meal. Last night it was a church. There is a huge kitchen and dining room. In the kitchen there is food that is free for anyone. So even when no one provides a cooked meal, there is PLENTY of food to eat. The room is very nice as well. We have fancy sleep number beds. There aren't TVs in the rooms but there are TV rooms and they have dvd's that you can check out. Some of the TV rooms have computers with internet access as well. There is a fenced in yard area and a playground for kids. Each family is required to do a little chore every day. Our chore is to clean the outside furniture. The whole invironment here is really nice. It is such a blessing to us! It has made me want to begin volunteering at the local Ronald McDonald House.

Dr. Hammesfahr

Today we met with Dr. Hammesfahr. He talked with us about Sierra, her diagnosis, and all the treatments and therapies we have done with her so far. We told him about hyperbarics, stem cells, etc. He was very impressed and said, "Wow, you have done a good job! You have done everything right!" It was so encouraging to hear that coming from a doctor! It was one of those moments where I felt like maybe I am not such a bad mom afterall. :-)

Dr. H is going to start Sierra on the vasodialtors. We went and bought a natural one from a health food store today and turned in the prescription for the nitroglycerin. He told us to start her on Ibuprophen three times a day today and tomorrow. He said that sometimes when the vasodialtors are giving they have the opposite effect at first (closing the blood vessels instead of opening them) because the body is reacting to them. He said that giving the Ibuprophen with keep that from happening.

The bad thing is that he said that Sierra will probably have to be on these meds for quite a few years before we can take her off. The good thing is that it doesn't sound like a whole lot. He said a tube of nitroglycerin may last us a year.

He wants to do an MRI, CT, and STECT.

We appreciate your continued prayers for Sierra. We have heard that what Dr. H does works well in conjunction with the stem cells, that is why we brought her so soon after stem cell treatments. We want to maximaze the effectiveness of both of them.

A Long Day

Yesterday, my mother, Sierra and I left our beloved Texas for Florida for two weeks. Sierra will be seeing a neurologist here.

We arrived at the Austin airport with no problems. We found our gate with plenty of time to spare. Since we did not buy a ticket for Sierra but had her as an "infant in lap" I didn't know if we would have an empty seat to put her carseat in. About 40 minutes before boarding time, I went up to the lady at the desk (not sure what they are called)...

Me: Excuse me, do you know if there are any empty seats on the plane so that we can put my baby's carseat on one?

Her: No, I don't know.

That was all. She didn't bother looking it up or anything. The past times we flew, the ladies at the desk were so helpful. They would look up to see if there were any empty seats and then move us to the empty seats. This lady was very unhelpful.

I went back and sat down until boarding time. They began boarding and my "friend" started mumbling into the microphone who could board. They got through the first class and the platinum. Then they began boarding groups. We were group 4. There were several passengers near us that were very kind and told us to go ahead and board since we had our hands full with the baby and stroller. They said that the airlines let people with small children pre-board. With there encouragement we went forward.

Me: We weren't sure if we could board since we have the baby.

Her: No. Just because you have a baby does NOT mean that you can pre-board. That would just slow things down.

So we went back to the line. Several of the other passengers were rather indignent and surprised that we were treated like that. It wasn't just what she said. It was her whole snotty attitude that really upset us.

We finally made it down to the airplane. We asked the flight attendant if there were any empty seats. She was VERY nice and went out of her way to help us. She even helped carry the carseat to our seats. It was nice to have some kindness shown toward us after the other lady was so rude.

Our first flight was late in leaving. Once we landed in Dallas, we had to hit the ground running to make our next flight. We were some of the very last to board, but we made it.

We arrived safetly in Tampa, picked up our rental car, and headed to the hotel.

We were in our hotel room when around 1 am we heard a car screech and several loud thumps. We looked out the window and saw a very damaged red minivan swerving through the parking lot at high speed. We were so afraid that it was going to hit our rental car! A minute later, a black mustang, which was also damaged went racing through the parking lot. I went outside to see what had happened.

Apparently two women had invited a man into there room (who knows where they met him). They said that they didn't know him. A lady knocked on there door and said, "I know my husband is in there!" She punched the lady who answered the door. Then she took her van and rammed it into her husband's car. She hit it so hard that it slammed into the truck next to it, which slammed into the van next to it. He took off too. I don't know if the police ever caught them or not. I sure hope so. We didn't sleep well the rest of the night. We're so thankful that they did not hit our rental car though!

Today we checked into the Ronald McDonald House. It is very nice! I'll write more about it later.

Sierra's Story with News 8 Austin

Last Sunday we had an interview with News 8 Austin. It was really neat because that was the first source of media to actually contact us without us having contacted them first. They heard about Sierra from some other stories and asked if they could come out and do a story on her.

If you scroll half way down the page and click "play" the video will come up.
http://www.news8austin.com/content/your_news/?SecID=278&ArID=241973

News Story

Here is the latest news story that KWTX did on Sierra. Stephanie Franks has done a great job with all three interviews!

Tomorrow we have an interview with a tv station out of Austin.

Safari Park!!!

Okay, I know it was a while back that I said I would put pictures up from the Sarafi Park. Well, here they are. This was one of the most fun things we have ever done. It was definitely worth going to see!







Below is a picture of one of the most popular exhibits. She almost stole the show from the animals. We considered asking the Safari Park how much they would give us to put her on display.


Below, Sierra is with one of the animal exhibits. DOGS! Only in China would you see dogs in the zoo.



Hehehehe......everyone in China was amazed by Sierra's hair. Everyone including the animals.


See this cute little guy? It is called a Red Panda or Lesser Panda. It didn't look like a panda at all. It looked more like a red raccoon. We were able to pet and feed the Red Pandas. They were so cute!





This is a Lemur. They were not as sociable as the red pandas but we were able to pet and feed them as well.

That is an elephant walking down the street. For 100 yuan (about $12.70 USD), you could have an elephant ride. It looked like lots of fun, but we didn't feel like spending that much at the time.


But, we did feed the elephants. I thought he would take the carrot off of the stick with his trunk, but as soon as he saw it he opened his mouth up wide.


It is somewhat hard to see with the lighting, but Sierra and I are sitting next to a monkey. She has her hand on it's head.

TIGERS!!!!

Okay this was the most fun of all! There was a tiger pen. See that cage in front of the tiger? The tiger was not in that cage---we were! They had a little truck with a cage on the back. We got in the cage and the truck drove into the tiger pen. There were dead chickens tied to the sides of the truck. The tigers came up and ate the chickens off of it. We were about 2 feet away from these tigers and we even got to reach out and touch their paws. Below are some video clips from in the tiger pen.

Heading Home

The safari park we went to on Saturday was tons of fun! It was like nothing in the US. I will write about it and put up pictures from it after we get home.

Speaking of home, today we are heading home! YAY! We've had a great time here but no matter where you roam, there is no place like home.

Counting Down

Sierra is doing much better. She just had that one rough day but the next day she was fine.

She is continuing to improve in her sitting, which is very impressive.

We have enjoyed our time here but are very ready to go home. We will be flying out on Monday, May 4th.

Prayer Request

Sierra isn't feeling too well. She started spitting up yesterday morning. She was fussy all night. Today she started spitting up and vomitting. They went ahead and started giving her fluids so that she won't get deyhdrated. Please keep her in your prayers and pray that whatever she has will pass quickly and that she will not get worse.