So, if you don’t buy the Womans Day you might want to on Monday.
Aria’s story will be featured including some lovely pictures they took of us. We are excited about this, it is an amazing opportunity to spread the word on our cause to take Aria to transplant and raise the funds to do this.
We get this question a lot. Which is fine because it is a perfectly reasonable question to ask.
 The answer: We don’t know.
We don’t know because we are waiting on some results for some kidney tests we had done in October I think. For one reason or another they have been delayed but hopefully we should get them some time early next year.
Also once we have these results and if it looks like we might go to transplant soonish then we will make an application to the Govt for funding for transplant. Well we won’t, that fun job goes to Dr E!
Anyway Aria is well and good. Today I found a Fisher Price doctors kit I used to play with when I was a kid. We wondered if it was bad taste giving it to her to play with but she seems to like it.
Also we are hoping like mad to avoid a trip to day stay this week. Aria’s iron was/is low and she might need a top up. This take hours and hours and sitting around the hospital with a perfectly healthy Aria hooked up to a pump is hard work. Anyway should find out on Tuesday.
Hamish and I have been married seven years today! Yay! We have survived the best and worst time in our lives together but we are still best buds. Still more challenges and joys to come (particulary in the next month or so!!) but we face the future with confidence.  Anyway enough of the soppy stuff.
Thanks for checking in on us.
Yesterday we went to the meeting of the Papakura Lioness Club. They presented us with a cheque of $6,500!! This was the proceeds from the very successful trivia night held a month or so ago. A huge amount of work went into the evening and the result was huge!
From that night Aria’s story tugged on the heartstrings of the kind teachers and students at Cosgrove school. They were also there yesterday. We met a teacher and two students and they also presented us a cheque for $535. An amazing effort from the students and teachers there.
Fundraising is going very well. We still have a long road to go but are encouraged by what has happened so far.
We are enjoying being home. Hamish told Aria this morning a little baby was going to come and live with Mummy and Daddy and Aria. Aria shook her head no and smiled. Mmmmm interesting times ahead!!
We got home yesterday arvo! So great to be home! Turns out it was a urine infection which is slightly strange but much better than a line infection.
This week was to be a busy week for me and Miss Aria. Lots of friends and tasks to complete before Baby Number 2 turns up. It is a tricky balance between trying to recover from 4 days in place that sucks the energy out of you and still wanting to do all the things we planned and not let it get the better of us!!
Anyway- funny story. One of the kind nurses put this mattress cover thing on my bed. It turned my hard hospital bed into a fluffy cloud!!! Wonderful!! Anyway at 11pm on the night of sleeping on the cloud I buzzed to ask why Aria’s 10pm antibiotic hadn’t been done. Turns out I had slept thru it!! The nurse said that she had tried to be extra quiet so I could sleep. What a great job she did. Thank you Fiona and Tracey.
Hospital life is hard and draining but we are encouraged by the care and attention we get. They don’t just treat Aria and do a great job with her but also care for the family too. Isn’t that great?
Good news! Aria is much better and her temp has been normal for about 24 hours. She is back to her regular self which makes keeping her in a hospital room fairly tricky. She points to the door and then to her pram and there is no doubt as to what she wants.
Still not sure what the problem was/is. Not a line infection so that is great. The antibiotics seemed to have done the trick which is great.
We were hoping to get home today although that was fairly unrealistic. Tomorrow perhaps which would make it a fairly short visit. Yay!
…and welcome to 26B. Darn it. In case you missed yesterdays post Miss Aria is not well and we are back at Starship. Not sure what is wrong.
I bravely told the ED Reg to tell the Gastro Consultant it was a gut infection rather than a line infection and what antibiotics we normally use. I told her we have only been wrong once. Perhaps I am getting to big for my boots but no bugs have grown off her line yet so we might be right. They should have said Hello by now.
We spent (or is that wasted?) a beautiful sunny day in ED yesterday until finally getting up to 26B at about 4pm. We were greeted at the door by one of the nurses Claire singing Haere Mai to us. Props/big ups/points for her really – two grumpy parents who are about to walk down the hallway of doom to find out which shoebox they are going to spend the next week in are a tough crowd – but she managed to make us smile. A sense of humour should be compulsory for any paeds professional.
Anyway the latest text from Hamish/Daddy Bear (the name another 26B nurse gave him yesterday – they are a funny lot those nurses) is that Aria is perky and demanding walks and her temp is below 38. A promising start.
There had be an air of excitement in the MacDonald Camp these past weeks! Aria was happy and healthy and there is a new baby to look forward to.
Yes I did say Aria was healthy. She is pretty sick again and we are off to Starship ED in about half an hour. She has had high temps early this morning. We have our theory that is it a gut problem, her weird tummy bugs she gets from time-to-time. The last one was nearly four months ago. Still it could be a line infection.
Hamish had a touch tournament for work today that he was really looking forward to but instead he will spend it sitting around for hours in ED. So very disappointing.
I had a busy week planned catching up with friends before the baby comes – even Thanksgiving Dinner on Thursday which we are unlikely to make.
But our social calendars pale into comparison seeing Miss Aria hot and miserable on our bed hardly moving. We did manage to get a few smiles out of her, particularly when we brought her fave dolly in!
Please pray for us! At least we know they will be working hard to get us home. Well they always do of course but I doubt they will want a could-have-a-baby-anyday lady on the ward!!
The MacDonald family have been busy bees over the past couple of days.Â
We celebrated Aria’s cousins Tivoli and Venesio’s 5th and 1st birthday on Sunday. It was held at the Manukau Live Steamers. There are little mini trains you sit on and they take you around the park. Aria had a great time and loved going on the trains with her Daddy around and around.
Monday and Tuesday Aria’s Nana and our new helper Katherine came over to help us spring clean. Aria’s bedroom is now free of medical supplies. Previously we used to set up the TPN in her room so she shared it with a big black trolley and all the medical stuff. It is now is the spare room and packed away nicely in cupboards.
We also had clinic on Tuesday which is always interesting. Aria has been really well lately and it was nice to see Dr E and Nurse C under pleasant circumstances. Pleasant being Aria looking happy and well and me not being stressed and grumpy!!Â
So today was a quiet one, just Mummy and Aria at home having fun until 5.30 and Daddy arrives home to join in the laughs. She is really getting to be such fun as she gets older.
The other day Aria was with Anita at a coffee morning with her girlfriends, and one of her friends has two boys, one older and one younger than Aria. Aria decided that these two boys needed kisses. The older boy may be in the ‘oooh yucky girl’ phase because he headed for the hills, the younger one was oblivious to Aria’s advances, so Aria came away disappointed.
The joke in these situations is to say “oh oh, we’re going to be in trouble when she gets older” but sometimes we assume that these sort of things are going to happen when in the cold hard light of day, who knows what exactly lies in store for Aria, 20 years from now when I finally let her start thinking about considering the possibility of becoming interested in boys.
It is exciting seeing Aria learning all these new social skills and growing up (she’s not a baby anymore) but it also reminds us of the what-ifs that are out there in the future.
Anywho, we’re taking things a day at the time and enjoying every moment with Aria, trusting God for the future and looking forward to the next big step for Aria, being a big sister…
Yes our house does look like a hospital at times. We have a pole that hangs Aria’s bag of TPN (her wiggle juice) and her pump. Photo is HERE
We first brought Aria home for the night when she was 8 weeks old. The hospital wanted us to have a trial run for the night, not sure why, normal parents aren’t that lucky! Anyway we didn’t have a pole to hang the TPN on so we had to use a cot hanger and hang it on the drawers next to the bed.Â
She was still quite little but she didn’t sleep very well that night and kept looking up. At the time we thought it was because she couldn’t see her pole and black bag of TPN, it was probably that and wondering why the ceiling didn’t have lots of little holes in it like the hospitals’. Anyway the next day we were telling her Uncle Paul about Aria missing her pole and Hamish decided it was going to be part of the family calling it Aunty Pole (not sure why the pole is a girl although it looks pretty girlie now)
Aria has been on TPN since the 9th of June 06 (had to run off and find a TPN script to check that date!), 6 days after she was born. She is used to being attached to a pole, now 14 hours a day. We are used to carrying Aria in one arm and moving the pole with the other, quite an achievment really without banging it into the wall!
