Moving our blog

Dear Friends,

Although much has happened with our family, we haven't updated this blog since March. Things have been rather busy. Since there has been such a break, we've decided to take care of a couple of things at once. We want to get caught up, and we want to move our blog onto our own site and start using "better" blog software. It's not that Blogger was unkind to us, or hard to use, or anything, but rather that WordPress (which powers our new blog) is so much easier to use, and is less prone to blog spam, etc.

For those who find this place: we're glad you did, and we'll leave it up for those who have already linked to particular posts (and we really don't want to have to try to reload all the photos, etc.). But if you'd like to genuinely keep up with us, change any bookmarks you may have to: http://kinglynews.donnellking.com/. If you have subscribed through RSS, please change the feed pointer to: http://donnellking.com/kinglynews/?feed=rss2.

When you go there, you'll see a slightly different version of this same post to provide some bridging. Thank you!

Not excited

Hannah was on the radio for the first time, but she didn't seem too impressed by it.

Hannah on the radio

The three of us were on Star 102.1 with Kim during their Radiothon. Hannah didn't have much to say, and neither did Janet. This was on March 3, the day before Hannah went into the hospital again.

Home from hospital

We're home. Janet is still sick, but Hannah is doing much better. More later, including photos, I hope.

Hannah better, Janet sick, another fun-filled Spring Break

We're very glad that Hannah seems to be getting better. One of the doctors said that if Hannah continues to improve, she might go home tomorrow (Monday). However, Janet went home with a fever today. Seems like every time there is a break at work, somebody is sick or has a crisis. [sigh] I am technically on Spring Break, but it is like very other break in the last couple of years--no discernible actual break.

Good news and bad news

First, the good news.

I had really meant to update before this, but it has been a rather hectic month. More details on this later, but I wanted to mention that we were on the radio yesterday to help raise money for East Tennessee Children's Hospital. Star 102.1 does a radiothon every year, and the Children's Home Health folks asked us to be one of the families interviewed. Hannah didn't have much to say, so I did most of the talking (I got Janet to say three words, I think).

We'll have some pictures to post here as well. Because there will be several of them, and because some of our readers are on dial-ups, we will disable the e-mail feature of the blog site before posting them. We'll just send out a brief e-mail to that list when the new pictures are up.

In fact, we'll probably just start sending a brief e-mail (along with a link) to the subscriber list to alert you to new content. That way you can come look when you want to without having to download the message before your e-mail client moves on.

Now for the bad news: Janet just called and is on the way to the hospital with Hannah. She went for her synagis shot, and while she was there they checked her oxygen and it was down to 85. She gets another trip in an ambulance; we'll see how long the hospital stay is this time. I think this is number 14.

I'll have the laptop with me, so I'll post something when we have some news.

Finally home!

We finally made it home! It took a day longer than we anticipated because, of course, just as we were getting ready to leave they took vitals on Hannah and she had a slight fever. Because we didn't want to have to take her home and bring her right back, they did a blood test and a urinalysis. The lab got something screwed up, so the results didn't come back until late Thursday night. So we didn't get to go home until Friday--could have been Friday morning, but Friday is now my heaviest scheduled workday, so I had to go to the college.

Hannah slept really well last night. I can hear her snuffling in there right now, just waking up, so I need to go see about her. We're just glad to be home--and I think she is too. She spent quite some time playing with her musical keyboard in her crib.

Still here

Hannah is still in the hospital, but she has had (it seems to me) a tremendous improvement over yesterday. Her respiratory stuff, which is what brought her in, has been doing pretty well, but other issues kept us from taking her home. For days her pulse rate has stayed high, and she's been antsy. That usually means her fever is up or she's constipated or she's in pain somewhere. But although her fever was up slightly (99.4), it wasn't high enough to cause this kind of reaction. And rounds of acetaminophen and ibuprofen didn't change it, so it's not likely either fever or pain (although neither of them brought the fever down). And prune juice had it's desired effect, but her pulse stayed up, even after the low-grade fever went down on its own.

Finally yesterday they had the neurologist take a look, and he decided a small regular dose of Valium would be good for a few days. It had an almost immediate positive effect. Everything went to normal. Her oxygen dropped initially, but she went all through the night without oxygen (slept the whole night, too, first time since she's been here this time), and it was at 100% this morning. Even her secretions seem more normal (Dr. Gammeltoft, the neurologist, said that was quite possible, since the Valium also lessened the amount of neck arching she was doing).

They may want to keep her through tonight just to make sure we've got the new patterns under control, but I think it's likely we'll go home today or tomorrow.