So it’s been a while, a VERY LONG while. Life gets in the way and I can promise you when you don’t hear from us, it’s because there’s nothing but NORMALCY to report.
I’m not sure what happened to most of the links on this site, I will take a look when I have time (ha) to figure it out.
I’ve been reminded by my husband, my family, my CHILDREN (who are now old enough to read this blog and POST comments on it!). So here’s the very long, very overdue update.
Olivia has started school!!! She’s doing great. See pictures here:
Also, this weekend is the annual radiothon. This year we’ve been given the opportunity to raise funds that will go DIRECTLY to cardiology!
We’re asking everyone to help us reach our goal – If everyone we know gives a little bit we can really make a huge difference. Please see our personal fund raising page and consider making a donation.
It’s hard to believe it’s been 5 years. In some ways it seems like she was born yesterday and in some ways, it seems like an eternity.
Olivia is an amazing little lady. She LOVES LIFE. Is happy, cheerful. Loves to sing and dance, ride her bike and scooter. She loves being outside!
Olivia is now fully swimming without any floatation device – as long as she can touch the bottom. We’re working on her fears to build up her confidence. She takes swim lessons three times a week at our pool club. She’s also taking tennis lessons!
She has just over another month until she starts KINDERGARTEN! She is more than ready to go.
This time of year makes me reflect back to the night of her birth and how absolutely terrified we were. Tonight as I tucked her into bed I thanked her for being the bravest little girl in the entire world – and for fighting those “booboo’s” better than we could have ever imagined.
We love you Olivia – with all our hearts and souls. Thank you for making our family complete. Here’s to 100 more years!
Since I posted the link for the Huskython article, I wanted to post a quick update on everything.
The girls are doing well. We seem to have a stomach bug moving through the house. Olivia got sick on Saturday evening. It was a “one and done” deal. Maddie got sick this evening. We’re hoping it’s another “one and done”.
We’re gearing up for summer already! We found someone to nanny the girls this summer! She’s from town and used to lifeguard at the camp in town. With the nanny they’ll be able to spend the entire summer at the pool club. We think the lack of a structured schedule will do Maddie some good. Maddie will go to camp the last week of the summer as the nanny is heading off to grad school in the fall. We are all VERY excited to see how this works out. The girls are thrilled because they LOVE the person we chose.
25 days until our Make A Wish trip. It seems like it took forever to get here but now it’s coming up very quickly.
Two pictures taken this past weekend at a birthday party:
Today marks the one year anniversary of Olivia’s fontan. We are celebrating by Olivia having cupcakes with her friends at school and depending on scheduling we’ll be taking her out to dinner. She requested Outback as she LOVES their green beans.
In honor of this special day, I sent this to CCMC’s website (there’s a “contact us” link), Dr. Heller, Dr. Friedman, and Dr. Mello.
A year ago there was a little girl who was three. She was very limited in her activities. She couldn’t walk up the driveway. A flight of stairs would leave her winded. Blue lips, purple fingers and toes were the norm.
March 24, 2008 changed all that. That was the day of Olivia Belfonti’s Fontan (heart surgery) at CT Children’s Medical Center. Within two weeks she was running UP the driveway. She could sprint 3/4 of a mile. She runs down the driveway, arms extended and says “I can FLY!” while her blonde hair flies behind her.
The little girl who was limited now takes swim lessons and attends gymnastics class. She has boundless energy. She bounces and twirls around the house nonstop to the point that we actually ask her to stop jumping. And then we laugh and rejoice that she CAN jump and twirl.
If you are reading this, you are to thank for all of this. You gave us this amazing child and saved her three times. You’ve allowed us to be a complete family. One who will never take anything for granted.
From the bottom of our hearts we thank you, thank you, thank you.
Life is good.
Today marks the 5th anniversary of Olivia’s diagnosis. While the anniversary has turned into a day of celebrations instead of tears, it’s still been a week of emotions for me.
I’m SO thankful that she’s doing well. I’m thankful for every giggle and every moment she acts like a drama queen. I’m thankful for her cuddles, snuggles and kisses. I’m thankful for all the good news we get when going to her preschool “parent / teacher conferences”. I’m even thankful for the many many moments where she and Maddie are fighting.
When the bad memories creep in, I remind myself of all the good. All the moments that most people take for granted we instead catch our breath. When I ask her to stop jumping in the kitchen – there’s a moment where I stop and am thankful that she’s able to jump.
Happy Anniversary Miss O. May you celebrate another 95 of these!!!
Olivia went to see the cardiologist on December 1. We went to the Glastonbury office which was nice.
She weighed in at 36lbs, 4 oz. Her height is 41″ (lying down which I’m not sure about).
Her blood pressure is 93/62. Heart rate was 134 and her oxygen saturations: 89-94%
Her echo and EKG showed everything is the same as last appointment so there was no improvement or worsening of her regurgitation. (picture me cheering!)
We’re increasing her enalapril to 3.5ml 2x a day due to her growth.
And now … we don’t go back for 6 months!
One step closer to an annual checkup.
I’m going to add pictures NOW from the past few months 🙂
Remember, no news is good news – and I’m just keeping you all updated on all the good news you missed 😉
Olivia has a cold. It’s a doozy but it doesn’t keep her down because that’s Olivia for ya. She had started to croup before vacation so we gave her one dose of the steroids and brought with us on vacation. It nipped whatever was brewing in the bud. Then we came back and she was crouping a little bit – but not enough to warrant the steroids so we didn’t give her anymore. Well, the cold came on full blast.
She LOVES school. LOVES.IT! She is loving life and comes home talking about all these different kids (someone new every day). She started swimming class on Wednesday night. You’d have thought it was Christmas Eve. She was so excited asking every 5 minutes if it was time to leave for swimming yet. I didn’t go with her (back to school night at Maddie’s school) – but Arnie said she was practically jumping up and down waiting to go down to the pool. She was the polar opposite of the little girl who was screaming and crying.
Maddie is going to have an EXCELLENT year. She has a new teacher – first year for the teacher so she’s got a lot of new ideas. She’s a DOLL. Funniest thing: Monday M came home and said “I have 6 pages of math tonight (eek) “. We trudged through it and internally I was panicking over how she was going to be able to do extra curricular activities if the workload is that steep every night. They have a daily planner with their homework assignments in it but I didn’t think to check it. We just did the work.
Tuesday she comes home and says “Guess what – we did WAY too much last night for math!” So she was a bit ahead of things for the week wink.gif. We even covered homework for lessons that weren’t given yet. The teacher sent home a note apologizing and I emailed her back. Next time I question the amount of homework she’s been given we’ll re-check the planner which had the right homework assignment written in it.
I know I haven’t posted our Disney pics yet – I promise they’ll be posted this weekend.