Texas doctors and Texas fun!

I meant to update each day but both days we had appointments until middle of the afternoon and while I am so thankful for the appointments and every single one of the staff we met, my brain was tired by the end of the day. I am going to write this one a bit backwards because I want to start with the Alex update and then share about all the fun adventures we have had.

Doctor day one: When we were only a couple hours from our destination Monday evening the hospital called to see if we could bring her in at 8 am instead of the original appointment of 12:30. They had some cancellations and since they knew this would be a long MRI for a six year old to handle they wanted to make sure she had plenty of time in case they needed to give her some breaks. We got there at 8 and got through all of the screening and check in and arrived at radiology just a few minutes after 8. Morgan, the sweet child life specialist came in to talk to Alex about the MRI machine, remind her what sounds it makes, let her pick out her movie, and remind her that she would need to be really still. Alex commented on how Ms. Morgan had the same hair like hers. I was able to sit in a chair in the room with her during the imaging. I took my book in with me and got some great reading time. I am really enjoying Daring to Hope by Katie Davis Majors. It has been a perfect read for this challenging season of life. She is so honest and real about the challenges of hard things and seasons in life but also about the real and awesome God who has His plan in every aspect. As I read these words, sitting there in that room with my daughter, I cried. “God is who He says He is. He is here with us in the hard places and the happy ones, when things go as planned and also when they don’t. Our hope in Him is not determined by our circumstance but by His character, always faithful to us.” This season has certainly been a hard one but God has been faithful to provide, faithful to love, faithful to lead through it all.

Sweet Alex handled the first hour and fifteen minutes or so beautifully. At this point they came in and said she thought Alex needed a break. They got her a snack and a drink and let her have a bathroom break and she and I sat and read a book for a few minutes until Alex said she was ready to finish. She had another hour or so after that and she did great. The whole situation was handled so well and I could tell that every single person who came in contact with Alex cared about her and what she needed.

She and I went to get some lunch after that and they found out they could go ahead and do her CT scan the same day so we didn’t have to come in so early this morning. Once again, Alex was a superstar when she got her IV placed. Nurse Lisa was precious with her and made her so comfortable about the whole thing. She even got out one of the numbing injectors and showed Alex how they work. We hadn’t ever had a numbing medicine before an IV and Alex liked it. Of course Alex was amazing during the CT scan and lay so perfectly still for it. She said the sound of the machine is peaceful and she almost fell asleep. It was the same experience in CT as MRI. You could just really tell they really cared about our child while she was in their care. It gave me so much comfort to watch how they worked with her. We are overwhelmed by the experience we have had here at Texas Scottish Rite.

Now we get to the appointments of today. We met with the team of doctors and were especially excited to get to see Dr. Johnson again. She was the first doctor face we saw at Vanderbilt when this Journey officially began In early May 2019. She has cared for Alex so well, handled all of her breaks, listened to us in all of our confusion, concerns, questions, and crazy suggestions throughout. She has been someone we knew we could come to with anything and it would always be heard and that she would take it into consideration and give us her honest opinion no matter what. She has been such a blessing and we were so thrilled to be able to see her again. The other doctors on the team were also wonderful. We were able to ask them all a lot of questions and they gave us a lot more information than we even asked for or would have known to ask, which I always appreciate.

Alex had one more blood draw and did a great job with it as well. She is such a strong girl. We are so proud of who she is and how determined she is. I don’t know what God Is planning for this girl but it sure will be fun to watch and find out. We still have some more conversation to have with these doctors but we had two very productive, exhausting, wonderful days and are looking forward to seeing what the future brings.

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Now on to the fun stuff!!

Monday morning, after we packed up our camp site and before we took off back down the road we decided to find somewhere to hike. We went to Pinnacle Mountain Park. There was a really neat paved walking path along the river with huge Cypress trees. We had fun learning about the Cypress trees and the other plants and animals in the area. One Cypress was huge and had a hole in the middle large enough for us to climb inside. Made us think of My Side of the Mountain.

After Alex had hiked all she could handle she and Boone and I went back to the car and got out all the lunch things, fixed a picnic and played in the leaves while Brent took the other four to attempt to hike to the top of Pinnacle Mountain. I was so proud of these five for making it up and back. They were worn out when they got done but they had fun accomplishing it.

Tuesday, while Alex and I were in appointments Brent and the kids found a park to play in and some places to explore. He is an awesome Daddy and always good for finding fun things to do with the kids.

Of course after they picked us up Alex wanted to see some of the things they had done so we decided to go back to the playground for just a little bit. First we went to get some ice cream at a really cool shop that makes the ice cream at the counter using liquid nitrogen. It was a lot of fun.

Off to the playground we went and then for a little walk. This area was so neat with all these stone steps and benches. Some had fun running up and down the steps, some of us enjoyed walking up and down the steps and sitting on the benches watching them run! I’ll let you guess who was who! 😀

Thanks to family and friends helping us find a last minute connection with someone in Dallas area we were able to stay with some new friends. All of us have enjoyed good meals together, lots of hide in seek in the dark, walks, dress up, and conversation.