Health care

Normally I try to keep the politics out of the baby blog. But you have to forgive me here. It's just SHOCKING to me that we're still debating whether or not we need health insurance reform, when the costs are so outrageous, and coverage seems so arbitrary. Someone without health insurance for themselves or for their kids - what would you do if you or your kids got sick?? Why should insurance depend upon your employer??

This post, by the way, is prompted by our receipt today of the preliminary statement of what Ella's hospital stay is going to cost.

Yes, that is just over fifteen THOUSAND dollars.

Now, we're fortunate enough that Ella has good insurance. But right now - Aaron is uninsured, because we figured he'd get a job after he finished school, so we didn't add him to my insurance. If it was him with this infection instead of Ella? We would be SO underwater. I don't know what we'd do.


If I didn't have the good job that I do and Ella didn't have insurance, what would we do now, with a fifteen thousand dollar hospital bill? Or would we not have taken her to the hospital at all? Tried to treat her blood infection with baby tylenol?

No easy answers here, I guess. Other than, boy does something need to change.

Photography by Maisie

One of Maisie's favorite things to do is taking pictures with our digital camera. We usually end up with lots of pictures of her toes and tummy, but recently she seems to have gotten the hang of it. Here's some examples of her recent work.

Home!

So, our Ella was really, really sick.

She woke up early Tuesday morning with a high fever, so she and I were off to the ER while Aaron stayed home to care for Maisie. Ella had bacteremia, a bacterial blood infection. It was really scary, but she is much better after 2 1/2 days in the hospital receiving IV antibiotics. As you can see, her whole left hand and forearm were all taped up to protect her IV... she kept sucking on her hand and trying to get the tape off.

She had a really high fever, which is gone, and she finally seems like herself again - she wants to play and have fun, whereas when she was sick, she wasn't playful or laughing at all.

We are all so glad that Ella is home!

Finally!

Ella is HOME!

The Ella Update

As many of you know, Ella was hospitalized on Tuesday morning with what we originally suspected was H1N1... she had a high fever (102.7), cough, and runny nose, and was super cranky.

It turns out that Ella has strep. pneumoniae bacteremia - that is, her blood is infected with the bacteria strep. pneumoniae. She's doing a lot better since we brought her in. She was admitted to the hospital on Tuesday, and is on IV antibiotics which are knocking the strep out like LL Cool J. Mama said knock you out!!

We've been alternating spending time with her at the hospital, me going to work, and someone being home with Maisie... and thank goodness for family - my Mom has picked Maisie up from school and fed her dinner the past 2 days, and I get home from the hospital to find Maisie playing happily with her Auntie Laura at our house. We're also thankful for my understanding employer, and my coworkers who are stepping up to cover my missed court appearances.

So right now we're hoping that Ella will be able to come home tomorrow (Thursday). Obviously we'd rather she were at home, but we want to make sure that everything's under control before we bring her home. The last thing we want to do is have to boomerang back to the Children's Hospital after being discharged!

We'll keep you all posted. And thanks for everyone's love, thoughts, prayers, and support. We truly appreciate it.

Portrait of mommy

Maisie drew this in school the other day.

It's a picture of me! I'm pretty impressed with her drawing skills, for someone not quite 3 years old. She was very proud of it, too. She pointed to the mouth and said, "That your teeth, Mama!"

Fall Festival

Yesterday, Maisie's new school had its annual Fall Festival. It was so fun!

There was a pumpkin sale - as you can see, they had huge and beautiful pumpkins. There were also some really beautiful heirloom pumpkins - some were white, others were green. So cool! Maisie picked out a small enough pumpkin that she could carry it. Very cute.

You can also see that Maisie got her face painted, too. I loved that the elementary school children were doing the face painting for the younger children.

Gramma, Auntie Laura, and Dylan came to the fall festival too!

Dylan and Maisie had fun playing, getting their faces painted, and generally just enjoying being outside on a crisp fall day. I was glad that Gramma and Auntie Laura got to see Maisie's school, and meet her awesome teacher. They even got to peek into her classroom!

All in all, it was a really fun way to spend the afternoon - playing outside, and getting to know the people in our new school community!

And of course, Ella came along for the ride!