Free...she's free at last!

Sorry to keep everyone up to date and then just drop off like that!!

The last 3 days have just flown by. After Aubrey continued to eat and drink with no problems and had improving blood results - she was finally released just before noon yesterday - - YEAH!

After nearly 4 days of the hospital - we were all ready to go back to life as usual.

After all the tests and discussion - it was decided that Aubrey had a mild case of pancreatitis. There seems to be some disagreement among the GI doctor and the Neurologist as to whether the depakote(anti-seizure medicine) caused the problem or not. They cannot prove that it was the depakote for sure, on the other hand they cannot rule it out completely either.


Regardless - -Aubrey will no longer be on Depakote and we'll try and control her seizure disorder with Topomax. Aubrey will be followed closely by the neuro as we do not want her to start having seizures again. It's been 2 months since she's had one - and she's just finally gotten her confidence back and has improved on her gross motor skills - - we want to keep going forward - not backward.

The other change that will come out of this hospital visit is Aubrey's diet. Because Aubrey's pancreatits impacted her lipase levels (an enzyme that breaks down fat) she will need to adjust her fat intake to allow her pancreas to fully heal. It was explained to us to be a 2-3 month process. For this first week out of the hospital - Aubrey will be limited to eating only 5 grams of fat for the entire day. She will then go in for more blood tests and if they continue to progress - she will slowly add in more fat week by week.

For comparison purposes - she usually drinks a cup of whole milk with calorie supplements 5-6 times a day and each cup of whole milk has 5 grams a fat alone!! So to keep it to just 5 grams for the whole day will be a bit of a change. We stopped by the store and stocked up on fruit, veggies, and anything with a Fat Free label on it. She doesn't seem to mind the change so far and already loves the Fat Free hotdogs!

She's back to her smiley self and we're so glad!

Thank you again for all the family and friends that helped us get through this week. I don't know how we would have survived without your help. It's such a blessing to have a great support system both near and far away.

Thanks again.

That's all for now.