Ella’s seventh year

More sickness, no more seizures, new discoveries and saving our marriage. I would also say that this year was riddled in paperwork. I had no idea that there would be so many ambulance bills, hospital bills and all of the insurance & Medicaid to keep up with what we had gone through. She did continue to get sick but luckily no seizures this time around. However, Jonathan decided to take over and continue to throw up daily we finally got a breather to figure out what was going on with him.

After multiple allergy tests and upper endoscopy‘s he was diagnosed with Eosinophilic esophagitis, which is essentially hives from your esophagus to your stomach. So, he decided to make his mark and we were good at rolling with the punches.

The boys were happy at their private school and Ella was thrilled to be at Chase’s Place. I felt like we might be making some progress. Ella participated in her choir concerts at church because they were always so willing to accommodate her above and beyond. She lost a few teeth, which she swallowed.

We figured out that to do a lot of family things we had to figure out strollers, joggers and how to go on a road trip with her need to be diapered. (There isn’t a single place to change a 7-year old handicapped child from Dallas to Houston...we’ve looked)

This is also the year that I told my husband that we needed to date again since at this point, seven of the nine years we had been together had been very focused on Ella and the boys. I was feeling lost and he graciously complied and we took our first trip (just the 2 of us) since Ella had been born. We’ve committed to doing it each year since then.

Looking back we still had no idea what long-term would being. Joe still slept listening for seizures and I spent my day either volunteering at church, the boys school or Ella’s school. I finally realized that when I slowed down, I was so burned out. My body never healed bc it was always in a cortisol spike. Over years I’d been diagnosed with #endometriosis, #fibromyalgia, #hashimotos and even stumped a few doctors, but heading into Ella’s 7th birthday, I felt like I was hanging on by a thread. Luckily...everyone else was doing well, so I could survive a little longer.