The Mitchells: Day 2: Getting on Hawaii Time

Tuesday, December 30, 2008

Day 2: Getting on Hawaii Time

The whole reason we went to Hawaii for Christmas was to get to spend the holiday with Joe's parents and his brother, Josh, and family. Josh is married to Wendy and they have two boys, Abraham and Ezekeil (Zeke). Josh and his family are missionaries. They have been based in Kona for the past 2 years with Youth With A Mission (YWAM). They will be leaving for China in the Spring so we thought we'd visit them in Hawaii while they are still in America.

We went on a walk down to town:

We went to Bubba Gump's for lunch. My rule is that we don't eat anywhere on vacation that we can eat while at home...and we don't have one of these in Dallas.

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Ella's Story

Elizabeth "Ella" Hope Mitchell was born on May 10, 2006 at 3:45pm...by 5am the following morning the whole world turned upside down. The doctors came in to inform us that while Ella had been resting in the Newborn Nursery, she began to have irregular breathing and seizures. It was touch and go for the next 3 days. We were told several times that she probably would not make it alive through the ordeal. She had contracted Group Beta Strep which had resulted in meningitis. Due to the seizures and the infection we had no idea what the long-term effects would be. After Ella spent a long and trying month in the NICU we came home to see where the effects of her illness had left us all.

A few months later, almost a year, we had an official long-term diagnosis...Ella has Cerebral Palsy. She is a happy and loving child. She struggles with physical delays, cognitive delays and all sorts of things that have come and go.

2-eye surgeries to correct lazy eye
3-EEG's to check for siezures
5-MRI/MRV/MRA to check actual brain damage
3-CT scans for brain stuff
1-G-button/feeding tube surgically put in (and then Ella removed herself)
10 (approx)-Swallow Studies
1-Scoliosis Study
2-Kidney Reflux tests
2-Upper GI tests
1-24 hr reflux test
8-hearing tests
countless UTI tests
seemingly a million developmental tests
a hand splint
bath chair
adaptive stroller/wheelchair
stander
gait trainer
AFO's

ha, not to mention all of the therapist...currently: OT 2X/week, PT 3X/week (2 land, 1 horse), ST 3X/week (2 oral motor, 1 speech), develomental 1X/week, vision 2x/month, and we are about to start ACCDAT camp.

As of 4/8/2009.