Miss Maanasa

Sneak Peek!!

This little beauty was a trooper. She let us dress her up in two outfits, photograph her in just a diaper and we even sat her in a giant coffee cup. Mom was pretty excited about this capture.

November 17, 2007 | Filed Under Uncategorized | Leave a Comment

Our Natalie

My poor blog is seriously neglected. Life has been very busy for us. If you’re one of my clients, then you’ve likely heard stories about our daughter Natalie and her kidney disorder. For those of you who are just discovering The Family Room, you’ll hear stories when you meet her.

Natalie was diagnosed with Bartter’s Syndrome when she was 7 weeks old. The doctors at Children’s Hospital of Michigan in Detroit have taken fantastic care of Natalie. This February we discovered that Natalie also had developed an ulcer in her duodenum and GERD. When you think of an ulcer, you think of something like a canker sore, but Natalie’s ulcer has grown a lot of granulation tissue and it’s like a mass, taking up space in her GI tract. About 2 months ago Natalie could no longer eat. Everything she swallowed was vomited back up due to the obstruction. We’d been unsuccessful at medically healing her ulcer for about 8 months. We believe that one of her kidney medications is to blame, so it was time to eliminate this from her medication regimen. This would require Natalie to consume huge amounts of oral potassium, but with being unable to eat we had to get G-tube surgery.

Long story short, Natalie spent 25 days in the hospital in September and October. It took a long time to reestablish her potassium and magnesium needs without the use of one of her drugs.

During the time we were in the hospital, my business email and website contact form were not functional, and I wasn’t aware of it until a few weeks ago. This has now been corrected. If you tried to contact The Family Room during this time, I apologize for the inconvenience.

Here are a few images of Natalie from the hospital:

Playing with the music therapist