Heather's in the hospital again

     I happened to read an email from Becca, and it's not looking like good news.  Apparently Heather had a seizure last night after showing symptoms of ADEM (for more on ADEM, see here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acute_disseminated_encephalomyelitis). Fortunately, both my parents were home, so while Mom called the paramedics, Dad was able to give her a blessing before the ambulance got there.  The good news is that she was responsive after coming out of the seizure.  She is currently having an MRI done, which should give us an idea of where to go from here.  If the MRI shows signs of lesions again, they expect to take her up to University Hospital in Salt Lake.
     I'm a little torn, because we thought she had this beat.  She had a routine MRI done within the last couple of months that showed no issues, so this came out of the blue.  Fortunately, we have some idea of a treatment plan that will work.  I'm very grateful that my parents have been there to help, and I've heard that Heather's parents will start driving down sometime later today, so Heather will have lots of support.
     As for me, I was scheduled to head home to Utah in two weeks for my 15 day R&R from Djibouti.  I'll have to talk with my Commanding Officer to find out whether moving my trip up is even an option, so we'll see.

David

Now Elli is on steroids...

So, Elliana is actually feeling a lot better.  The number of medicines that she is taking is down quite a bit and will probably keep on dropping.  She is in a walking cast and can finish with that on Tuesday.  She is already starting to walk around at home without it.  Elli's incision from her bone biopsy healed up very nicely, but she has had a fair amount of swelling and fluid in her knee, so the doctors started her on steroids.  The steroids should be very effective at treating her CRMO.  If they are, they may follow up with infusion medication that will help with pain for three to four months at a time.  The infusions can be done at the main campus of Primary Children's Hospital or at the Riverton campus.  The treatments take six hours each and are given every other day until three doses have been given.  All of this has been challenging, but Elliana is a trooper!  She has been so patient and handled her pain and challenges very well for a child her age.  She is an amazing kid!  Rebecca and Julia have also had to share me a lot with Elliana and they have actually done really well too.

David is also hitting seven months of being gone this week!  We got to see him on a couple of visits in November, but we are really looking forward to his two weeks home in April!  We can't wait to have him home for a little while and we are thrilled to be entering the last half of deployment!  He also has a 96-hour liberty this summer, so I am going to meet him in Switzerland for a fun vacation!  Two visits during this last half of deployment sure make things easier.