A Valentine and Birthday Celebration

This is a post that I have been excited to write, yet nervous also so I refused to jump the gun.

If you remember back this time last year, you might see why I was a little bit anxious!

Last year, Alexa got sick just after completing all her Valentines Day cards....
She missed out on handing them out to her classmates....
She got a call for a liver--That liver had to be turned down due to her fever and was gifted to another child.....
She was admitted to the ward of SickKids on Feb 14th--her big brother's birthday....

It was a rough week for us all.....

So this week when she started sneezing and her little nose started running....well you can imagine what was going through my mind.  We are so close to making it a year without a sick hospitalization....so close...yet...one can never get too secure with these things....

We continued on with life and started making Valentines for all her friends.  Alexa put a lot of effort into making them, carefully selecting each card and stickers for the intended recipient. She is super excited to hand them out.

Meanwhile, in the back of my mind, I keep thinking where we were a year ago.....

We had labs on Monday and I was not very hopefully for the wonderful set of LFT's that were reported in January.

But......

Her team called me back on Tuesday morning and shocked me when they told me that her LFT's were bang on....almost exactly what they were in January.....two months in a row in a very comfortable, normal and stable range.

Turns out, Alexa will be handing out those Valentines to her friends personally this year!

And because of the good news we received, we have some big plans coming up.......

First, we get to go to continue the birthday festivities for Stefano!  We started the celebrations a bit early and went to Fallsview Waterpark in Niagara Falls a couple of weeks ago.  We had a great time. It was a perfect weekend away.

And tonight we are going Medieval Times tonight for a night of dinner and entertainment.

Our little guy is now 14!!!! Yes, that is right....All my friends are in shock that little Stefano is not so little.  He is FOURTEEN! And we are so excited to be celebrating with him this year! A well deserved celebration for both Alexa and Stefano.  This brother and sister combo are quite a twosome to watch out for!

Secondly, we have endured a lot this year and this winter has been rough on everyone.....I decided that we needed a break.
Once the great LFT's came back, our transplant team was very supportive of  my plans and with some of their wonderful recommendations, the plan finally came into place earlier this week.

On February 23, Alexa and I are flying off to Miami where we will spend a day before embarking on a CRUISE to the Bahamas!!!  Yep, you read that right....we are finally getting to go on a cruise.

I have had to do a lot of back and forth with our team and a travel clinic to ensure that we have all our ducks in a row.  The clinic was very well prepared and called me prior to our appointment, so that I could have all the answers from the transplant team when we went to visit with them.  And it was a very good thing that we did this.  There were some precautionary medications and immunizations that the travel clinic suggested but after speaking with our team, we realized they were not appropriate for Alexa to take because of the immunosuppression.   There were some other very valuable things that I learned by going to the travel clinic and am so glad our team suggested it!  I will be going there again in the future, that is for sure.  If you have a liver kid and you are interested in more details, contact me and I would be more than happy to share what we learned.  They are great reminders for everyone in general but especially if you are immunosuppressed.

In the meantime, we have one week to get things going!

There was a time that I honestly was not sure that a trip like this would be in Alexa's future.  And it is only a 4 day Bahamas cruise (not incredibly risky!), but it is a start! And I think it is such a well deserved start!

Slowly but surely, all our dreams for Alexa are being realized.