Malia Moore

May 24th, 2011

We are headed back in for another checkup and hopefully this is our last trip to San Jose for a while. Thankfully we did not need to leave at 4:30am and that we could catch the 11am ferry. We have had a great time with my grandparents as they are heading out today as well! Sofia is already in San Jose, she left last Friday so that she could take a weekend course in Kinesio Taping.  Kinesio taping is used to help relax overused muscles (many athletes use Kinesio Taping like Lance Armstrong!) It is also used to help facilitate underused muscles which is why we use it on me! Sometimes I am taped up all over!  The Japanese were the main users of the tape when it first came out but now it is coming more popular all over the world. My parents were very happy that an instructor came to Costa Rica to teach the taping methods! Sofia has already begun to tape me up! Basically the tape puts tension on my muscles and helps to remind me to do things. Thanks Sof for taking the class!

So, we arrive San Jose around 3pm and headed straight to the hotel. Around 6pm Maureen my personal blood sucker (phlebotomist) showed up to the hotel to draw my blood. I was so asleep when she arrived that I did not open my eyes until the needle went into my vein! They tried to wake me but to no avail would I wake up. Hello!!!!  I am awake now, but it did not hurt too bad. I am unfortunately getting used to this! I went back to sleep pretty quick!  Results came back later that night  and things are looking good.  Wednesday morning I have to be at CIMA to get catheterized again to make sure I no longer have an urinary tract infection. That is not so fun but Carmen one of the nurses at CIMA is fast and good at her job. The urine came back clean and now to wait three days to make sure there is no more bacteria lurking around. Our plan was to leave on Thursday to go back home but dad had taken the car in to get inspected and our brakes were not a 100% so we had to hang around another day to get the car fixed.

Thursday morning mom says to dad how happy she is that she has a day of no appointments with me, and that Sofia, me and mom can maybe go to the park for a stroll. Mom was saying this around 6am to dad when she noticed that the bed was wet and that my gtube hose had come loose and now there was milk coming out of my tummy! Oh no! At first my parents were totally panicked as they thought my gtube had completely come out of my tummy! Thankfully the hose had just come off and we did not have to rush to the hospital but still this was a problem as we did not have an extra hose. Dad was able to attach it to my button again and we stopped the leakage! Mom started making phone calls, my GI was out of the country, his nurse was in a class away from the hospital, and the other new doc we had just met did not have keys to the office where an extra hose was! So thankfully mom had the number to the sales rep who sold us my gtube and Lorena was kind enough to track down another hose for me! It was quite an eventful morning. Dad had to leave at 7:30am to take the car in and Sofia showed up at 10 to be with me and mom. By noon Lorena had found a hose and we were back in business. So much for the lazy non eventful day at the park. We just stayed at the hotel and had lunch by the pool! Dad got the car fixed, was back at the hotel by 6pm and Friday morning we were packing our bags and headed home. We made a quick call to the lab and sure enough my lab results came back negative! Thank goodness! Now we just need to get back home so we can relax a little!

My birthday is coming up soon, and mom had a long talk with me on the way home telling me that I needed to behave myself and stay out of the doctors office and for us just to have some fun! I promised mom and dad that I was going to try my best to do just that! It has been almost 6 weeks again since I have really worked out hard, so I am sure Sofia is ready to get me back out at the platform and begin working out again! Although it is the weekend, and I plan to just relax and rest before Monday!

Love malia

May 24th 2011

I have been home now for ten days. During the last ten days I have been feeling better. The antibiotics are always hard on my tummy. The last few nights I have had a real hard time sleeping as my tummy keeps cramping up. I have not slept very well in days and have been keeping my mom and dad up most of the night! My mom has been giving me yogurt and probiotics to help keep the good bacteria alive in me! It is always tough with antibiotics as they kill all the good and bad bacteria! By Friday, I began to sleep again as a matter of fact I was sleeping pretty much the entire day! I always keep my parents on their toes! One minute they are worried about me not sleeping at all and then the next minute they are worrying that I am sleeping too much! Poor mom and dad! It is a constant battle with me! Ha! I like to think I am keeping them young!

Tomorrow me and mom and dad are going back into San Jose so that I can have my urine tested and cultured again and have another blood test to make sure that the bacteria has gone away and that all is good with me! I am feeling better! My grandparents are going back to Texas as well so we are all going into together. I have had a really good time with them and it has been great to have them so close by! Thanks so much for bringing down my new Special Tomato Seat! I am looking really good in it! And thanks grandpa for strolling me around when I was crying alot it really helped me to calm down!

I sure hope all my tests come back okay as I am ready to get back home and truly get my groove back!

Love Malia

May 14th 2011

Mom, Sofia and I made it back to Delicias with no problems! We had  our welcoming committee waiting for us! My dad, grandparents, and of course Selva and Indio were so happy to see us! I did really well on the trip home in the car. I was just super tired and ready to relax and hang out with everyone. I still am having a fever but it is not as high as before.

I am really enjoying hanging out with Gammy and Pa Pa Shroyer. Sofia and I started back at therapy. I did not have a ton of energy but we started slow and easy. One day, my  mom had me over her shoulder, normally I have my head down but this time I lifted my head up and looked around and I held it there for a while! My mom actually felt my muscles working in my back and neck and she screamed with excitement to Sofia to look and sure enough she saw me do it and we were all so happy! It was cool holding my head up and turning it around! I could see so much more!

One day my grandparents came out to watch me work out with Sofia. I was really showing off and working hard. Well actually Sofia says I always stop working out hard when I have an audience but either way my grandparents were totally impressed! Sofia makes this clucking sound with her mouth and lately I have been mimicking her. Everybody thinks it is really cute. I have the biggest desire to talk. Some days I try and try to say something. It is on my tongue but I just cant get the word out of my mouth. I will keep on trying though and maybe just one day I will say something profound!!!

Love Malia

At 4:30 am my dad had us all packed and ready to go to San Jose. Mom had called Sofia at 1am and told her to be ready to leave by 4:30  for the 6 am ferry! Dad had to stay behind and work. Mom had been giving me Tylenol to reduce my fever every four hours but it was not bringing the fever down all the way.
We got to the ferry in time, the guys on the ferry know us pretty well and are very sweet to me. We stayed below in the car while I had breakfast. We got to Puntarenas around 7:15am. Sofia noticed I had a wet diaper so we pulled over on a side street to give me a quick change. Puntarenas is a shady town, so mom wanted to do a fast job on me! Well that did not turn out as planned because when my mom picked me up after changing me there was poop all over the back seat of the car and it as well gotten on my feeding tube! Ugh! Not good! Mom and Sofia freaked out, and then I was naked again and mom was holding me by my arms outside of the car as Sofia was cleaning up the poop that had gone up my back unnoticed! Needless to say it was a disaster and now mom had to find a place to wash my hose as I was still having breakfast!

Thankfully, there is a florist that my mom knows and he was just opening up his doors when we drove by and let my mom come in and wash and clean my hose. We then went to the gas station to clean the car seat but when we turned off the car and tried to start it again the car battery was dead! My mom asked three men to give her a jump and nobody would help us! Can you believe that? I mean two girls and a baby and no one to help! Go figure! Finally a young man from inside the gas station to help but by that time mom noticed that the lights on the dashboard of the car were back on and by the grace of God the car started miraculously! Back on the road again, but we really did not get to clean the seat so well and poor Sofia sat in the dirty seat! Sorry Sofia!!!! Thank goodness you wore purple pants that day and not beige! 😉

We arrived to CIMA at 9am and had called Maureen back to meet us at the hospital to draw my blood again, I had to be catheterized so that we could run another urine test and they also took a ultrasound of my lower abdomen. The urine test came back and I had an urinary tract infection again! It would take three days for the culture to come back to let us know what type of bacteria it was. Dra. Castro wanted to admit me to the hospital but mom talked her out of it. Mom really did not want to have me back in the hospital and felt like we had caught this infection in time! So we opted for  three days of Rocephin an Intramuscular injection and we started me right away  on a oral antibiotic Augmentin for ten days. My ultrasound came back okay but my fever is still running high and that makes my mom really nervous! I can have seizures more frequently with fever and infection but luckily I did not have any this time. The seizure is what got me into trouble the last time I had an urinary tract infection and is why I had to go on a breathing machine.

That afternoon when we got back to the hotel I had a very high fever, Sofia and mom were bathing me down with cool wash cloths to try and bring my fever down and interchanging Tylenol and Cataflam every four hours. Nothing really seemed to help. Mom and Sof were very worried and were reconsidering taking me back to the hospital. Dra. Castro said we should wait and give the fever a good 1.5 hours for it to start to go down.  It was some very tense moments in the hotel room battling this fever! But guess what? We conquered it!!! The fever began to break and I finally began to sleep. There I was comfortable, naked and laying on the bed finally going to sleep after what seemed like hours of painful fever. Mom got up and went into the kitchen to begin washing bottles and Sofia stayed by my side. It is now 4:45pm and the rain has slightly began to fall. The next thing you know,,, a deep low grumble begins to shake the very walls of the hotel. The bottles on top of the fridge begin to shake and the chairs at the kitchen table begin to fall over. Mom not knowing much about earthquakes was not so sure as to what was going on. The next think you know I am being yanked out of bed by Sofia and she has tossed me over her shoulder like a sack of potatoes and is running out the door. Mom yells I think this is an earthquake and Sofia says yes get outside with us! So there we are, a bit shaken by the excitement  and me bummed of having to be woken up from finally a good sleep! It was a mere 5.9 earth quake on the Richter Scale. All of Costa Rica felt it. Mom called my grandparents and dad back in Delicias and they too felt it as well! Just another day in our crazy world!

The following morning we left the hotel and went to CIMA for my last shot. We found out on Saturday morning that the bacteria that the lab had cultured was E-Coli. A common bacteria found in urinary tract infections, the good news was that the antibiotics I was taking was  sensitive to the bacteria and should have already begun to kill it off.

I am so glad to be going home and now I can get to spend some time with Pa Pa Shroyer, and Gammy! I still don’t feel so good, but I know I will be feeling better soon as soon as these antibiotics kick again. We made the ferry in plenty of time and arrived home by 5pm. I have to go back to San Jose in ten days to have another urine test done and make sure the bacteria is gone.

Thanks for all the prayers,

Malia 🙂

May 11, 2010

Tuesday evening my  grandparents arrived from Texas and along with  their arrival came a fever for me. At 2am I woke up very unhappy and mom picked me up and I was burning up with fever. Since having only been home for five days since our last trip to San Jose my mom really did not want to go back their so she flew out Maureen(my phlebotomist) or in other words, blood sucker! She does a great job hitting my vein and my parents wanted to know whether or not if I had a viral or bacterial infection brewing in me.We went to Tambor to meet the plane and then over to our friend Joe’s house so that she could draw my blood.  Maureen flew in at 1:50pm and the next flight out was at 2:45pm. We had time to make it happen! By 2:15 we had filled up two vials of blood. Mom told Joe to go to the airport to let the guy know we were on our way for her flight. We got there, and the plane had just left 15 minutes EARLY! They never leave early in Costa Rica but this time they did and they even knew Maureen was on her way! That was the last flight of the day, but thankfully a chartered flight came in at 5pm and went back to San Jose empty so Maureen was able to catch a ride back with them. My parents were not very happy with Sansa airlines!

Later than night Dr. Castro called and said that my blood test could go either way. She said that if I continued to have fever it was probably best to come on in to San Jose. Well that night my fever went really high 103 and my parents decided that the best thing to do was rush to San Jose. I just had a clean bill of health last week! What in the world could be wrong?????

Malia