It is February 27, and Lena is in surgery as I type this. Last time Lena had shunt surgery, she was just a little baby and took it all in stride pretty well. She’d been through so many surgeries that she’d become a little trooper at the process.
It’s been over a year since she [...]

Tags: baby health, brain bleed, Cerebral Palsy, Family, preemie, premature, shunt surgery

I got a great deal of some Fisher Price Little People play sets. I was going to save them for the girls’ birthday but I decided not to. They needed some more advanced toys with doors to open and people and animals to pretend with etc. I saw some velcro fruit and veggies the other [...]

Today, two major Canadian retailers Forzani and HBC (Zellers and The Bay) announced that they would be voluntarily pulling all water bottles and baby feeding items containing BPA (bisphenol-A) off of it’s shelves and would no longer sell any feeding products containing the chemical. This was done in anticipation that Health Canada is preparing to announce today [...]

Tags: bisphenol-a, bottles, bpa

Yesterday at PT and OT both girls tried a custom made stander, Lena absolutely loved it, Kassie hated it but we were able to distract her so that she put weight through both legs, an important step to standing and walking.
Problem, we can only use it at the Kinsmen Children’s center for now. Apparently Health Canada decided a [...]

Well, we are following the BRAT diet on the advise of our wonderful family physician Dr. Alanna Danilkewich (she is great). Guess What! Lena actually kept her breakfast of bananas and rice cereal in her tummy this morning. Yeah! Cross your fingers for us that this is the beginning of the end of our vomit [...]

 
Little Lena has been sick. Since Friday Lena has been vomiting off and on. When she woke up yesterday I thought she was all better. Friday she vomited up almost everything she took in. Saturday she lived on grape Pedialyte, no vomit. Sunday she vomited once after breakfast then kept all of her formula and [...]

Yeah, after 9 surgeries and several surgical hair cuts, Lena’s hair is finally long enough to put into piggy tails. I just love her curls. She looks so darn cute, and so grown up. Urghhh they grow too fast.

My dad loves kids. I should say, loves to spoil kids. Ever since I can remember my dad has always let the little ones have a little more junk than their parents might otherwise allow. For example he is a firm believer that every kid (especially little ones) should have their OWN birthday cake, to themselves, [...]

So today we had a more intense therapy session than usual (a very long day). About 3 months ago, our OT Laura referred Lena to the Feeding Clinic at KCC (Kinsmen Children’s Centre) to evaluate her feeding and identify any problems. When Laura was working with Lena on some feeding in December she noticed that [...]

But it happens way too fast!

The girls have been changing so much lately I can hardly keep up with it. I have had so little extra time lately to blog etc and with them changing so fast, I am so far behind in updating everyone it feels like I am in first place. Amidst all [...]

It is Cold Here! It went from -2 to -30ish almost over night. SO… My babes have turned into abominable snow kids! aren’t they cute!

Both Girls have been practicing sitting. Lena loves to sit on Mommy. Cuddles and sitting like a big girl, best of both worlds!

Kassie had her first go at finger food on [...]

I don’t want to jinx anything but we are finally on the home stretch. Lena had her shunt internalization surgery this morning. Everything went very well and she is recovering in our room in the Pediatric ward. Yeah no PICU this surgery. She is still needs codeine for the pain and is sleeping soundly as [...]

Today it has been a whole month that Korrina and Lena have been in the hospital, living in their little *8 x 8 cell* as Korrina calls it.
Lena’s white cell count is still way too high.  The doctors are wondering if the injections of antibiotics through her drainage may be causing the white blood cell [...]