Well as you all know Kirra has been coughing since last October. And after seeing several pediatricians, specialists, and WAITING….. we’ve found answers. We’ve recently switched our main pediatrician and she ordered a swallow study to determine if Kirra has been aspirating (swallows food/drink into lungs), in addition to her reflux.

Well on Friday we did the swallow study at Children’s St. Paul, and they determined that she does show indications of aspirating! So, this would explain why she also coughs more during teething, because likely she is aspirating on her saliva. So…. what do we do? The tests indicated that she’s only potentially aspirating on thinner liquids, so we’re to thicken up her liquids by adding rice cereal, or this packet called simply thick (although very pricey). This will suposedly help her to re-learn to swallow properly. We also need to stay on the inhaler so that she can build up her lungs, and obviously stay on the prevacid for her heartburn.

I just bought some rice cereal and its pretty cheap. She mostly drinks milk anyways, so it will be nice to use this as much as possible. We have to use a special sippy cup because its so thick now it won’t go out of the holes. So we use the Nuby ones. The hospital gave us one, and I’ve been too cheap so far to buy anymore. We have sippy cups coming out of our ears. Maybe if I ‘dump’ the rest and just get a few more sippys we won’t be so apt to loose them etc.

Thanks for all the prayers that we would find answers. Its been a really long road, several doctors, specialists etc, and finally nearly a year later and a different hospital we’ve found ANSWERS! I knew that it wasn’t just “kids just cough” I KNEW that it wasn’t just re-occuring virus’, or “something in the environment”. What I’ve learned is Mom’s know best….. and you can’t stop until you find answers! Even if it means you’ll be on your 3rd pediatrician! (whom by the way we love a lot!) Its a bit of a drive for us (Vadnais Heights) but its SO worth it. You can get same day appointments and even in the evening and weekends!!

This is a big week for us, we’re going up to Birch Lakes for camping on Thursday. Its somewhere in between St. Cloud and Alexandria so hopefully we don’t get lost. We’re going to bring a kayak, and bike/burley. We both took Friday off, so we’re planning to leave right after work on Thursday evening. Hopefully the traffic up 94 isn’t too horendous! I’m excited to get out in the wilderness and enjoy the solitude that only camping can bring!

Jason has been busily getting our front yard landscaped and it looks BEAUTIFUL! Kirra is on the road to recovery with her cough from the Croup, although her voice is shot! Poor thing! She’ll be better to go back to daycare tomorrow though.

So last night Kirra woke up bawling her eyes out around 1:00am. And she had a very noticeable deep cough that sounded like a seal barking, like Sparkie the sea lion was resurrected! Poor thing. She was just miserable. We thought about calling the nurse line or taking her to Children’s but we thought google in the middle of the night was a better option.
We were like…. what is that cough called…. ding…. croup. So I googled croup and it did’nt say RUSH your child to the ER, so I figured we’d call the doctor in the morning. IN the morning she was just miserable. Coughing, super tired… just exahusted looking….. The on-call nurse suggested we make an appointment with the pediatrician today, so that’s what we did, and she confirmed it was croup. I stayed home and worked today, and Kirra slept and rested all day. She gave her prednisone to decrease the swelling in her throat. I knew she had a sore throat when she didn’t even want to eat a banana today, her absolute favorite!
Tomorrow is the swallow study at Children’s to see if Kirra has been aspirating. I’ll give you the low down tomorrow on how the appointment is going. My car is starting to go downhill. It wouldn’t turn over again today, but then miraculously it did…. although it blew the radio out, so now I have NOOOOOo radio, nothing. Dead pan silence…. not real exciting…. I think Jason is going to let me drive the truck for a while. Its good to drive a reliable vehicle when you’re toting around precious cargo!
Hopefully Kirra sleeps better tonight. She’s got some prednisone in her, and a humidifier going on in her room! I hear her coughing though 😦 Prayers!

So I busted out the ocr3 and finally got my bike computer installed at Penn Cycle. I took it out for a test spin last night too, and gosh what an absolute GORGEOUS night for cycling! I went about 10 miles, and on my way back I drove off onto this little road that lead to the Ham Lake Baptist Bible Camp to see where it would take me, and what that was all about. So I biked down this road which was lined with trees, and eventually the trees and cover became thicker and thicker. It honestly looked like something out of the movie Twilight. Very gorgeous. The road winded around and around, and eventually a tiny little neighborhood sprung up out of nowhere. The houses were cutsey little houses and some were big, some were small but nothing was too gynormous. Just a super cute neighborhood that was on Ham Lake. The bible camp was just a little challet at the end of the road. I stopped and watched the beginning of the sun setting over the lake, and just gave thanks for such a beautiful day! It was a quiet revere from a busy summer.

Well we got a new tent for camping, and set it up yesterday to let it air out before the big Labor Day camping trip. This sucker is HUGE! We’re going to be the envy of everyone else at camping….I’m really excited to go. I’ve been working a lot lately, and am just looking forward to 5 days up in the wilderness!

Today Kirra and I and some friends went to the Children’s Museum in St. Paul. It was a blast. I was a little worried that Kirra would get trampled by the big kids, but she held her own and the big kids were very respectful.

WOW! I took a nearly whole month haitus from blogging. That must be a new record for me! I’ve been super busy getting Relay for Life ready, working two jobs, and enjoying Jason and Kirra. Relay was on July 31st. We changed the name from the Terr-Bears to Aloha Life. Hello Life, Goodbye Cancer. We spent lots of time designing our bags, filling them with sand to have them rained on at the event! Ah, it was still a great night though. You can see our You Tube here. Stop Kirra’s jukebox though for maximum effect otherwise you’ll have two songs playing at once.