I am seriously slacking! I missed posting about an very important event in Ember's life. Her two year transplant anniversary. So, here is a catch up on that as well as a few other things that have been going on since then.
November 18, 2010 marked 2 years since Ember received her life saving gift. It was a very special day for all of us. I silently cried that day knowing how truly blessed we are. I cried because I want to much for her to know her donor family, but I also cried for them knowing how hard it must be for them this time of year. As I have posted earlier, they moved without leaving a forwarding address with the organ donation agency so we have no way of contacting them. However, I do think that I know who is her donor and was very tempted this year to try to contact them. I did decide to wait in the hopes that one day we would hear from them. I also decided that contacting them on my own would be a good idea at another time in the year. At this time it might just be too hard on them. Also, I keep thinking to myself, "What if I'm wrong?". I would hate to bring more pain to a family than they already have.
Last year we decided that every year for Ember's anniversary we would get together as a family and go out to a restaurant to celebrate. We aren't going to do presents or anything like that since, lord knows, the child has more toys and things than she already knows what to do with. So, this year my mom made green colored white chocolate lollipops that were in the shape of an awareness ribbon for everyone who came to dinner. They were yummy! Ember thoroughly enjoyed hers. I made Ember a cake that was in the shape of an awareness ribbon as well. Once she saw that, eating anything else went out the window. The child has the biggest sweet tooth! And Great Grandma Lola just might have gotten her a present anyway. It was a cute little snow globe. Ember loves it. She is still carrying it around the house and asking me to shake it up for her on a daily basis just about. It was nice to visit with family and celebrate how blessed we have been.
Since then, Ember has help us celebrate her sister's 1 year birthday. (6 days after her anniversary) She is also really starting to get into this whole Christmas thing. She loves all of the decorations. She even helped Mommy, Grammy J, and Bob decorate the tree this year. Amazingly it has remained in tact. Ember even guards the tree from her sister right now. I sometimes hear her saying "Almond! No, No" and then she claps her hands twice. Yes, she calls her sister Almond. I guess Autumn is just too hard for her to say. It makes me smile. :) She is very interested in the neighbors blow up snowman so we were gifted a blow up Santa for her to look at as well. She keeps asking us "No pop?" which means that she is asking whether the Santa will pop or not. We keep repeating "No, Santa won't pop" like broken records.
Unfortunately, a week ago we went to the ER with her because she developed some alarming symptoms in the span of about two hours. She had some issues with drainage from her eyes and in a matter of two hours she developed a fever of 101.9, a horrible cough, and she was extremely pale. While I called the Dr's exchange she sat on Maw Maw's lap and complained that her eyes were hurting. As I was on the phone with the Nurse from the exchange, she told Maw Maw that her head was hurting also. So, the nurse told us just to take her to the ER. So, at 9p.m. at night we were heading to the ER. When we got there, she was still running a horrible fever so they had us take her jammies off of her. They did blood work, a chest X-ray, a nasal swab (which made her OH so happy - did you sense the sarcasm?) and looked in her ears. They told us that her ears were fine and that her chest x-ray and blood work were showing what appeared to be a virus. We luckily got to come home. Over the weekend the cough got worse, but the eyes and fevers got better. However, she lovingly shared her virus with her sister.
After going to see the pediatrician with both girls on Tuesday it seems that Ember now has an inner ear infection as well. Her first, and only I hope, ever. Her sister has the virus, but not as bad. Antibiotics for Ember and eye drops for baby sissy. Now, mommy and daddy have it too. I know that I am always telling her to share, but this is one thing she could have kept to herself.
Hopefully we are all on the mend and will be good by this weekend. I want to try to take them to see Santa. Last time we tried to get pictures, it didn't work out so well. We will see what happens this time!
