Hello to all of Ava’s friends! We’ve been having a great Summer! She’s been staying healthy and having a lot of pool fun. She is very active and always keeping busy.
HUGE news in our family is that my Sister had twins in June and they are so neat to watch and love. Ava adores my Sister as almost her second Mother so naturally her babies are like new siblings for her. She wasn’t happy to learn she couldn’t visit them at the hospital so when they came home Ava was VERY excited to finally be able to hold them after 4 LONG days!
Okay just one more of these two Cuties…
Ava had a gastroenterologist (This is a doctor that specializes in treating ailments of the stomach, esophagus, small intestine, colon, rectum, gall bladder, liver, bile ducts and pancreas.) appointment yesterday. She was so happy to see Ava doing so well. She is in the 90th percentile for her height and 25th percentile for her weight. Normally this is not a good percentage for weight but with a CDH child this is very good. Most diaphragmatic hernia children have a hard time gaining or maintaining their weight so them even being “on” the chart is a great thing!! She is still on 30 MG’s of Prevacid a day and she can take Zantac as needed for tummy upsets. She’s been on this dose and regimen for several years now and it’s working well. Doctor says if things are going well we should keep doing what we are doing! Sounds perfect to me. Whenever we have an appointment at Iowa Children’s it brings me back to her “bad days”. I’m just so humbled that was are where we are today. Who would have even imagined she would have no longing side effects to all her CDH issues. (Besides getting colds and her lungs fighting a little harder she’s pretty ‘normal’.) And this is so AMAZING to me. She now weighs 45 pounds and is 4 feet 2 inches tall.
She’s not wanting me to talk about her medical issues anymore even to doctors. If I start talking about her medical past she asks me to “please stop talking about me, Mom.” It makes me happy that she seems over it! We just continue to pray that this is all there is…
They are building a new Children’s Hospital in Iowa and we love checking out the progress each time we have an appointment. The new hospital is going where the old parking garage was and it is going to be so nice. I’m hoping we will never take advantage of it. To get to the doctor’s office you have to go through a long see through bridge. It is pretty cool so of course we have to stop and take pictures.
Here is Ava and I a few days ago. Lexis and Emeline were gone with friends so her and I had some alone time for a few days. She is such a ham and doesn’t mind taking pictures so I asked her if she’d take one with me. I always cherish any pictures with my girls.
The Summer is going by so fast. We have to register Ava for first grade on Friday. She’s already excited to go back to see her friends. Lexis will be a Sophomore and Emeline will be in Eighth grade this year. Time is flying!
Thanks for dropping by and please continue to pray for Ava. We love that she still has so many followers and that so many of you care about her. She’s our little Aya-Baya!
~Terri Helmick
