How a Broken Heart Made us Whole: Back to Reality after a MONTH in Paradise

We are home from our Coronado vacation and have quickly gotten back into a busy schedule. It was so nice to have 30 days to relax with family. This past year has been pretty hectic and the time that we haven't been in the hospital we've been working (David and I were doing opposite schedules to be home for Stella so we didn't have much down time). It was such a blessing to have the ability to both be in Coronado from July 1st-July 30th.

Stella did so well by the beach..we joked about trying to get a prescription to move to Coronado <I definitely think it's "medically necessary" for Stella to be by the beach considering how much better she was doing there!> While we were in Coronado, Stella vomited a lot less (on average only once a day and we had MANY vomit-free days), she drank a lot of water thru a straw (up to 3 ounces), she ate and tasted many new things, and her mobility improved significantly.
We had a fun-filled vacation with trips to Sea World, the beach, the pool, Old Town San Diego, Point Loma, Scripps Aquarium in La Jolla, and a lot of relaxing on the island. You can check out some of our favorite memories at the end of this post!

We drove back on Monday and got right back to "work" on Tuesday. Stella had Occupational Therapy on Tue morning, Physical Therapy on Wednesday and Speech today. All of her therapists were very impressed with the progress she was making, especially her speech therapist when she saw her drinking water from a cup and thru a straw. I started working again on Tuesday morning at my new Starbucks store and David goes back to work on Friday night. We are also in the process of moving in with my parents - we hope to be fully moved out of our house before Aug 20 when David starts full-time classes.

The next two weeks are going to be extremely busy with therapies, working and trying to move AND we have some very important doctors appointments coming up.
On Thursday Aug 9 we have a Cardiologist appointment with an echo and an appt with an Orthopedic doctor. We hope that Stella's heart has continued to be stable and improve since her last echo in June. The orthopedic appointment is to check on Stella's spine (because her left side is stronger she mostly uses the muscles on the left-side of her back but this has caused her to sit the left side sticking out more and we want to make sure that her spine has not been affected by this)
On Monday Aug 13 we have follow-up appointments with the Neurologist and the GI doctor. Stella has not had any signs of seizure activity since we have weaned her off the steroids, which is great, but she is still susceptible to having seizures. We also need to talk with the neurologist about what effect her cerebral palsy is having on her development. We haven't seen the GI doctor since Stella had her scope and her vomiting has improved but we need to make sure that she is gaining enough weight and getting enough nutrition.
On Tuesday Aug 14 we have our consult with Marsha Dunn Klein in Tucson to help us figure out how to do a blended diet through the gtube and how to work towards getting Stella to eat more by mouth and get rid of the tube completely.

I'm so thankful that we had July to relax and enjoy great weather because we are back to the Arizona heat and our crazy, hectic routine. Here are some of the memories we will be holding onto until our next vacation!