4/19/05- Well, as it turns out, my web hosting account expired sometime this month and it just so happened that my old email address was set up as the contact email so I failed to renew it. So... Everything got lost... sort of. I went to Yahoo, did a search, and got all the text from the cached page from what was there. So... I'm pasting it here just to save it. All of the pictures on the website are lost too... sort of. I have all of the pictures, plus about a thousand or so more, that are on my computer. So... Soon I will be posting new pictures, plus the best of the oldies. Maybe I'll even come up with a better site template and actually put some time into it... So... if your wondering where everything went, that's the story... And with that, here's the old stuff...
(oh- also, I'll reinstall the message board one of these days too... that though was really lost...)
3/18/05- Posted new pictures. The one of the 'unknown' baby in the bottom left is Wallace Michael Rowley. Click on the picture to see a bunch of pictures of Mike and Terra Rowley's baby!
1/22/05. Tonight I went out on the world wide web and started looking for a Cystic Fibrosis Message Board and all I found were old out dated boards that were closed. Ok, so actually I didn't look REAL hard, but enough that I decided I would start my own. So... MeetTheAndersons.com now has a message board. Follow the link to go the the Cystic Fibrosis Message Board. As family and friends start to register I will give the permissions for the family section and they can post messages there. ALSO- please include your email so I can send out mass mailing updates a lot easier! Thanks!
1/19/05. I would like to say that the shock of the news of Elizabeth having Cystic Fibrosis has passed. There are still lingering moments of sorrow and depression that come and go as moments of inactivity enter into our lives, but for the most part we are doing well. I've made the personal decision that I won't dwell upon it and be depressed about it now, because frankly, those moments need to be saved for the future when our problems really come. Right now we only know that the journey ahead will have difficulties and trials that will wear at us. Today we have a beautiful baby girl that is the same today as she was last week before we learned that she has CF. Today we have nothing to be worried about. Today is the day that we prepare for our journey tomorrow, wherever that journey may lead. Today's strength is tomorrow's nourishment.
As for what we are doing now... We have started Elizabeth
on enzyme pills. Ok she doesn't actually take the pill- we just break it open
and give her the granules inside and she doesn't even take it all, just half a
pill at each feeding. And the granules are mixed in with milk or
applesauce to make her keep them in her mouth. (I tried to just 'dump'
them in her mouth the first time and most of them came back out as she pushed
them around with her tongue. In addition to the enzyme pills she is taken
ADEK or something which is just vitamins A, D, E and K. Perhaps there are
more letters, but I think that's all of them. This is in a dropper and she
gets this once a day. The most trying portion of her treatments are the,
what I call, back smacks. Prior to this she takes a nebuelizer thingy ma
jig that is basically some medicated misty thing that sprays at her face through
a fish shaped mask that looks more like it is going to swallow her than assist
in the matter. This is done to open up some little tube-y things that
evidently exist in the lungs. (this is by the way the laymen's version)
Once she has huffed on this for about 10 minutes the back smacking commences and
involves hitting her back with a... well it looks like a miniature toilette
plunger on a long Popsicle stick. Anyways- this is then used to tap her
back and chest in strategically chosen places that then loosen up the phlegm in
her lungs so that it moves on out to where ever that stuff goes. This
whole process takes about 20-30 minutes and is done three times a day.
Another thing that we are doing is lots of hand washing. I called a guy in
Huntington names Eric May who sells stuff for Ecolab in town and he is going to
hook us up with some free hand foamer sanitizers that will end up being placed
at the front door, the back door and in the bathroom for anyone who visits (and
us) to sanitize their hands. Even though this doesn't sound like a great
accomplishment, in a seemingly helpless situation this has been an immediate
project through which I have found a bit of purpose. My next project will
be to encourage this at work and hopefully get them to install them in strategic
locations throughout the workplace to help eliminate germs in general and maybe
even keep myself a bit more healthy than I have been in past years.
As for what we will be doing in the future... I've decided that
if I can sell enough filters and puzzles
to make a million bucks I will quite my job and live without insurance, after
all, my insurance only covers a million per person in a lifetime anyways.
This of course, is the long term plan :-) In the meantime, we will be
talking to an advisor lady at the hospital in Ft. Wayne about some program for
kids with terminal/chronic illnesses that will pay for some of what insurance
doesn't pay. From what I've heard it gets fairly expensive having CF.
I've also started thinking about ways to raise money for the CF
Foundation. It's sort of going to be my new hobby, as if I needed
something else to work on. But... I figure in another year, if all goes
well, I will have my marketing degree and what better thing to do with that
knowledge than to raise money for CF research. Along those lines I have
also made the short term commitment to start a diary of sorts posting
information as I obtain it and keeping folks generally updated about Elizabeth
through this website. I will hopefully be able to optimize the pages in
such a manner that when someone searches for Cystic Fibrosis this site comes up
somewhere towards the top of the list.
Additionally our future will consist of moments of accomplishment that would
otherwise not be big deals. Each birthday will be a milestone, each
accomplishment will be monumental. We will learn to savor the good things
in life that we would have otherwise always taken for granted.
1/17/05 6:05. We just received test results from Elizabeth's doctor and have learned that she has Cystic Fibrosis. We will go in tomorrow to have her retested. You can visit here to learn more. In the mean time, please pray for her.
Merry Christmas! From the Andersons
Elizabeth Kristine Anderson
November 1st, 2004 5:29pm
6lbs 3oz. 18 1/2"
Help buy diapers for Elizabeth and buy a puzzle
11/2/04- Everyone is doing well. Baby Elizabeth started nursing within a half hour of being born. I guess that's what all the kicking the last few months has been about. You can email Elizabeth at Elizabeth@brainpuzzles.com if you would like to say hi. Keep checking back for updates!
I'm having a little competition with a guy to see who can get the #1 spot for the term Iron Gifts. Search google for Iron Gifts and see how well I'm doing!