Historic Strides

Keira’s second annual silent auction is now underway.  Each year we hold a silent auction for her medical fund. So far we have been very lucky. She is now 2-1/2 years old and she has only had one lung infection that has required hospitalization. (See this blog entry for details “Some Days are Worse than Others“)

Keira just before her second birthday party

This year, we have been blessed with many new additions donated by the kind folks at Woodnet Forums Additionally, I have made a handful of items re-enactors might find of interest as well as donated some blacksmithing tools.

If you are interested in bidding please go to http://auction.fisherwoodcraft.com/ and click on the registration link. If you want to simply donate that can be done via the PayPal button on the main auction page.

Finally, 50% of this year’s auction amount (up to $500) is being matched by the auction host and founder, Joe Fisher (Keira’s godfather) and will be given to the CF Foundation to help out everyone else who has CF.

As some of you may know, one of the major activities in our family is blacksmithing. Although we make items for ourselves and for sale regularly, every year for the past 15 years we do a blacksmithing demonstration at two of our local county fairs.

When Keira was born we decided to “chart” her progress in a unique way; each year we take her photo on the huge (478#) anvil at the Schaghticoke fair.

Here’s a compilation of her progress over the past 3 years.

(Left to Right - 3 Months old, 1 Year old, 2 Years old)

As you may have guessed from the picture below, not everything has been going as well as it had been. What started out as a sniffle (and was misdiagnosed as “allergies”) persisted for two weeks and turned into full blown pneumonia from a lung infection.

 Keira finally feeling better after nearly 1 week in the hospital.

One of the first issues was that Keira’s nose was so plugged up she was unable to breath through it. This also meant she couldn’t eat because she could only breath through her mouth. Given that she had already lost 1.5lbs they couldn’t wait for the antibiotics to destroy the sinus/lung infection and her nose to clear up.  So, they would suction out her nose every four hours.

Of course Keira still wasn’t feeling like eating much of anything since she was kept awake with staggered PT (percussive therapy), nebulizer treatments, blood samples, and IV antibiotics. Eventually, after 4 days of intense medical therapy Keira started to be herself again, but that didn’t mean she was out of the woods, however.

Around the fifth day it was discovered that her blood sugar level was through the roof. After 24 hours of insulin therapy and monitoring, it was decided that the IV solutions and inhaled steroids were to blame not juvenile diabetes. For which we were immensely relieved!

Once those hurdles were cleared, the last 4 days in the hospital dragged on and on.  Although it was perfectly reasonable and prudent to keep Keira in the hospital until the doctors were sure everything would be alright, it certainly was a challenge to entertain and occupy a reenergized 2 year old.  Which was why we were very lucky to have been given a tote full of kids games and activities by our local CF center.

Finally, I want to thank everyone who helped us through those rough 10 days.  The outpouring of concern, assistance, and kindness helped to immensely lessen the burden.