My 15th Birthday!

Dear Reader,

It looks like my #1 Fan hacked onto my page. I've been wondering why she's been acting so suspicious lately. I guess I'll have to change my password, though I'm glad she was able to tell you about the song that Dr. Gallant wrote, what a nice thing that was!

Anyway, things have been AWESOME here! I got home on the 9th, one day before my birthday, with Aunt Snap and Uncle BM. We didn't do too much that day except get ready for the next day, my birthday.

I woke up on November 10th, 2009 at around 9:30am. Uncle BM and Aunt Snap were already awake and getting ready to go with Mom and me to the Department of Motor Vehicles to get my learner's permit. We arrived there at about 11.

We were the only people there at first. I got to see one of the ladies (if you want to call them that) behind the counter right away. She had me take an eye exam and I could barely see the letters that I needed to see. I had my glasses on and everything, but I guess my prescription needs to be updated. I nearly failed it, I think I would have if the lady didn't want me not to so bad. She may not have been the most polite of people, but she did want me to get my permit.

After the eye exam she had me stand in front of a blue backdrop and the second I got there she snapped my picture, I asked if I could please smile, and luckily she let me take it again with a smile on my face. Then, I went to take the "written" test which was actually on a touch-screen computer. I didn't do so hot on the first part, I didn't even know what a tow-bar was let alone how long it is allowed to be, I choose 5 feet and apparently I was wrong.

I passed anyway though! Yeah! How fabulous I am! A 15 year old with a permit to drive!

I was very excited, and I think that everyone with me was too. Aunt Snap was doing her thing and snapping lots of pictures to remember the day. When I got home I snapped a picture too with my cell phone and sent it to a few friends. I made sure to send it to my cousin in Indiana, who is 20 days my senior, who can't get their permit until they are 15 and 6 months by Indiana law. I thought he might appreciate how beautiful it was:-)

Mom did not let me drive out of the DMV parking lot, it was busy because it was lunch time. Oh well. She dropped Aunt Snap and I off at home and left to get Brother from school. Uncle BM was sent to Publix to get "the guy cake" and some garlic bread.

Pretty much everyone came back at the same time, being Mom, Brother, Uncle BM, and my party guests - Polly, Celine Dion, and Gorilla. Everyone admired my permit (except 2 year old Celine Dion who wasn't interested) and got settled in. Then somebody suggested that someone take me driving and Gorilla jumped up and said "Let's go."

WOW! What a cousin Gorilla is! He had just bought a brand new Chevrolet Malibu and it wasn't even a week old yet and he's taking me driving my very first time ever! WOW! That was just too cool!

It was strange driving a car, but very nice. I had to adjust everything because Gorilla is 13 or 14 inches taller than me. We didn't go out on a main road just out and around a loop, but it was my first time ever so it was still a big deal.

We partied until 4:30; it was so nice and fun to have people over. Aunt Snap snapped plenty of pictures to remember it all. It was just an awesome day.

After everyone left, my aunt Fanny came, she had got me a charm for my charm bracelet for my birthday. We couldn't find my charm bracelet, but we think it is at the jewelers. I sure hope it is there, we've had a lot of jewelry go missing in the past couple years. She took me driving too! Brother, Mom and Baby were in the backseat. We went out on HWY 44 and it was raining! What fun that was!

As soon as we got back inside the door bell rang and Rosetta Stone was there. She dropped off her gift and left, she would not take me driving. In fact she laughed when I suggested it. Oh well. She got me a book that I had been wanting that I'm not going to let myself read until I get more homework done.

I still had one gift that I hadn't opened yet, a FedEx box from St. Nicolette. It was pretty big and I had a feeling it was special, when I opened it up I was all too right. It was super special. Inside the FedEx box, there was another box, and it was wrapped. There was a card too that said that the gift was from St. Nicolette and Father Mac. When we unwrapped the gift we came across a box which read 13" MacBook Pro. Of course I had to open this box to see what was really inside it, and it hadn't been lying to me, there really was a 13" MacBook Pro in that box!!! WOW! This was just too much awesome!

I just couldn't believe it! I was just so excited. What an awesome birthday. I told my mom later, "I had a great birthday." She said, "Did you get everything you wanted?" and I told her, "I got everything I wanted and even the things I didn't let myself think about wanting because I knew I'd never get them."

It was an totally fabulous extremely awesome extra spectacular day!

The 15 Year Old Miss E.

#1 Fan Hacks in....

Hello Readers,

This is Miss E's #1 Fan writing on her blog. Yes, I was able to hack into Miss E.'s blog. As you know by now I watch her very closely and I witnessed the kind and generous act of the number two Fans. I thought I might have competition at first glance but they are just so loving to Miss E. that I don't feel threatened in my #1 spot.

But today was a whole new story...

As I was keeping my ever vigilant eyes on Miss E. I met an older gentleman in the corridor out side her room. He was just like a "peeking Tom". I saw him attempting to gaze through her hospital room windows. I just had to intercede on her behalf. He told me he was looking for Miss E's mother. He claimed to be Dr. Gallant, a plastic surgeon. What was he doing outside her window? I know everything about Miss E, I am her #1 Fan and she does not need plastic surgery. She is nearly perfect in every way, how could this man think his services would be needed by Miss E.? He had a different story, but first you need to know a little about me.

I have been Miss E's #1 Fan all her life. I know about as much as God does about that child, well maybe not quite that much but as much as one human can know about another. I remember her day of birth; she can out screaming at the world even though she was a C-section. I remember her crying for hours every night of her young infancy; she was allergic to milk and the doctor did not diagnose it until she was over four months old. I remember she had a blocked tear duct and woke up every day until she was one year old with one eye practically glued shut. I remember her growing and at two and three she was not able to sleep at night if she thought she had hurt some one's feelings during the day. I remember her helping her brother and playing with him and they being great friends that has lasted even to this day. I remember her having moments of terrible pain and still being able to thank those who treated her gently. She thanks all those who care for her kindly, even if they need to do a painful procedure. I also remember her battles when life passed her difficult situations, another cancer, another virus, another infection, another problem, year after year and how she has always let experiences build her character and make her a better person. I remember her saying her biggest goal in life would be to save a human life. I see her on a day to day basis giving what she can to others, sharing her joys and personal sorrows. She is a very funny person who can make nearly anyone laugh. Even as her #1 Fan, we are best friends, we respect and admire each other and we challenge each other to become better people. I would do any thing for Miss E. But there is some thing I cannot do for her or anyone else and that is what Dr. Gallant did for Miss E. and for Miss E's precious mother.

Dr. Gallant saw Miss E. and her beautiful family at the All Children's Hospital telethon this year and was deeply touched by their story. He told Miss E. that she was his hero. She confronts all that life gives and handles it with beauty and grace, she becomes better through what looks like trauma. What Dr. Gallant does for people physically with plastic surgery, Miss E. did with difficult life situations. She is a hero! He wrote her and her mom a song, a truly beautiful song that made all three of them cry. I was personally touched when I saw the older Dr. Gallant put his worn and wrinkled hand over Miss E's soft and silky hand as she lay in her hospital bed, lean over to be closer to her face, his grey hair glistening in the light and contrasting to the young and beautiful Miss E's brown and shiny hair. Then gently whispering, "You are my hero." As he explained why the sincerity touched every heart in the room. As he hugged them good bye and walked out the door, it was obvious he had become their hero and touched their hearts forever.

I am so sorry to you, Miss E. fellow fans, that I do not know how to make that song play on this blog, but I will try to find out so that some time in the future you can hear it personally. I will tell you that I have heard it as Miss E. and her mother have played it many times this very day. It is about how mothers, nurses, doctors, families and others all work together day and night on constant vigil to keep their children and patients alive. This is compared to fighting a war, as it is a type of war. And the battle ground is All Children's Hospital, the "Home of the Brave." Yes, the "Home of the Brave" is the name of the song for heroes like Miss E. and her mom and the many families and individuals that fight daily, hourly and every moment to save the lives of others.

May God bless Miss E. and Dr. Gallant and us all.

Thanks you for reading my post.

Sincerely, Miss E's #1 Fan

P. S. I would love to read your comments.

My #2 Fans Big Birthday Gift and Mom's Special Buddy

Dear Reader,

I'm still in the hospital, but I really want to tell you about this really cool thing that happened to me.

I got a super special visit from a couple of my #2 fans! It was AWESOME! See, our original plan for Friday was for me to go to clinic and then go to the family centered care meeting over at the hospital, but since I was in the hospital and not really feeling extremely Missy-ish I didn't go.

Well my friend, Mother Goose, was planning on going to the family centered care meeting too, but before Mother Goose went to the meeting, she came to visit me and brought a super duper extra special something with her too! It was the Swain Princess!!!

How exciting to see them both! When the Swain Princess came in I was so surprised because I hadn't seen her in the window (she's not a very tall person yet), they just opened the door and there she was! She had a mask on, but I could tell she had this HUGE smile on her face. Dressed as a princess in a pretty dress, and shiny sandals, and a sparkly bracelet, she had a gift too, which she quickly pointed out to me saying, "Hi Miss E! We got you a birthday gift!"

"You did?!"

"Yeah! Here it is! It's a great gift! You're gonna love it!"

The Princess really excited about this gift and gifts it to me with both hands and then stands there and watches me. Mom was getting out her camera to take a picture of something. The Swain Princess remained looking right at me and my gift (which I been placed in front of me on my bed) with these giant blue eyes.

Oh No. I'm going to have to open this gift right now in front of the Swain Princess and Mother Goose and pretend to like what ever it is it while Mom takes a picture of me so she can laugh at me later. Great! I mean I know I'm supposed to be so thankful when people get me gifts but some "gifts" lives would just be better without. And what a 6 year old first grader thinks I'm "gonna love" isn't usually something I'm gonna love, but I must remember this is the Swain Princess we are talking about. Princesses always think about their people first.

"Should I open it now or should I wait for my birthday?" I asked smiling, not particularly to anyone though it was hard to look away from the oogling Princess.

"You should open it now! It's a great gift!"

"It is?"

"Yeah! You're gonna love it, my mom has one."

This is more reassuring, though there was still about 20% of me fighting really hard telling me to be ready for the worst and to just smile no matter what. The other 80% was totally trusting of the Swain Princess and her mother, and why wouldn't that 80% be? My #2 fans have never let me down before...

"Okay"

I started with the cards, there were two cards. The first was from the Swain Princess herself. It said, "To" Miss "you are a star and you are sooo brave"then is had this really big "LLLLLLLLLOOOOOOOOOOOOVVVVVVVVEEE" and then a royal signature. Awesome! My other card had "Forever your friends!" written in it and then the names of all my #2 fans. I pointed out to Mother Goose that the Swain Princess had written a lot more than her in her card and I moved on to my gift.

The Princess was bouncing up and down by now. So I open the gift and there is a box addressed to Mother Goose, and in that box there is another box, and on the side of that box there is a silvery apple with a bite missing, and next to that apple there are the words "iPod touch."

"WOW! You were right! This is a great gift!" I say as I open this gift with a genuine smile and a flash of the camera. "It's inscribed," says Mother Goose.

I can't really remember what else I said because I was really excited too. The Princess and I were both really excited. I knew I said some stuff about Brother and, "good he can't have it then" and "broke his wrestling". I was having a difficult time getting it out of the case thingy.

Then CatWoman came in! She had a card too, it was a get well card from her and my god-felines. She quickly made it clear that she didn't expect me to get very hyped up over her card after my #2 fans gifts, but I really liked her card anyway. I had to laugh at the input from my god-kitty's, and the Princess had to know why I laughed, so I told her that my god-cats "are concerned for me and want me to get plenty of rest and get better". I don't think the Princess thought it was funny enough to laugh about but did the politically correct thing and said, "Oh, okay."

CatWoman left pretty quick. She is always so busy.. Anyway, I got the iPod out and my inscription was on the back. It said, "Happy 15th Birthday! From Your #2 Fans!"

By then it was time for Mother Goose and Mom to leave for the meeting. They left the Swain Princess with me to babysit me. They didn't tell me I was going to be babysat, but that is what happened. It was fine by me though because the Princess was a great babysitter!

She talked the whole time. She was just so cute! She showed me all the games that she had for her Nintendo DS and gave me the low-down on them, "These are mine, these ones I stole from my brother." When my nurse came in to fix a beep she seemed interested in who she was, so I said, "This is my nurse ...." and then to my nurse I said, "and this is my friend ...." and then the Princess said, "Yeah were great friends! We know each other real well!" And I just thought that was so sweet and adorable!!!

When Mom came back with Mother Goose we all visited for a while longer. The Princess really didn't want to leave, but they still had to visit Hawkman and get the Silly Goose from school, so they had to go. When the Princess was leaving she said, "Bye! I'm really going to miss you." Now, I don't usually say, "I'm going to miss you." when saying good bye to people because honestly I don't really miss people enough to justify that, it is really something special to be genuinely missed.

I mean people say, "I missed you!" a lot but they are lying. I mean people haven't seen me in 2 or 3 years or talked to me since 1st grade and they re-meet me and say "I missed you so much!" And I think, "You are such a liar! How can you say "I missed you so much" when you don't even attempt to contact me for 2 years! In fact the only reason you are talking to me now is because of some friend suggestion ad that came up on the side of your Facebook page right? I don't even want to talk to you anymore because you are such a liar! You disgust me with your dishonesty! Why don't you just slap me? You *$@#&+!!!"

But looking at the Princess and hearing her, "really going to miss you" and her sweet face and the way she said it, I knew she was being genuine, and I knew I was going to miss her too and so I did say, "Bye. I'm going to miss you too." And you know what? I do miss her.

So that was Friday! By the end of that day, I was back to feeling awful! Then today I woke up at noon and I still wasn't feeling so great, but then I started feeling better, and now I feel pretty good.

Mom spent almost a lot of today today in Hawkman's room. She and him are special "buddies" now. Mom is sure of this because she got the special "buddy sign" from him. She is using Bop-Its and promises of Star Wars Legos to help boost their relationship, in my eyes Hawkman is defenseless against buddy-ism. The poor dear.

Its all good though because the more Hawkman likes Mom the more he seems to like me, which is fine because I already liked him and HawkMom a lot so we might be leveling out now. He drew a picture for me and my mom today. It is really pretty. There is a big rainbow in a blue sky, a big green hill with flowers growing out of it, and me and my mom running down the hill. He drew Mom tall and thin with long blonde hair, so Mom is pretty pleased about that.

So as you can see, it has been improving here. We are hoping to go home on Monday and we should be bringing my aunt and uncle home with us for my birthday on Tuesday. So next time I write it should be really long and full of the exciting tales of the life of Miss Ellaneous.

Until next time,

Miss E.

I'm so Hot!

Dear Reader,

Yesterday I woke up in the morning and I didn't feel good. I felt sick. I went to Mom and Dad's room and took a nap in their bed with Baby. When I woke up again, I still didn't feel good. When I took my temperature it was 38.7 degrees Celsius, a fever. So Mom went into busy mode and we were on the road to the hospital in an hour.

We went to clinic first to check in and all, my temperature was still 38.7. You can type that into the conversions thing here at Wold Wide Metric if you want to know what that is in Fahrenheit. We had my blood cultures and labs taken there. I got tested for everything. They had to take my snot to test me for the Swine Flu, so Mom was trying to make me cry. She told me that she ran over the neighbors dog (whom I like), and that our ancient neighbor who was going to baby sit my cheesecake for me was going to eat it, and any other stuff she could think of. I told her that I could do it myself and eventually was able to conjure up some snot without her help.

I went to the hospital and was feeling pretty good for a while, but when night time came I started to feel real awful. I was really cold and really tired. I had a whole bunch of blankets on me to warm me up, I was shaking, and I was out of breath and exhausted. I just felt terrible.

Mom took my temperature again and it had gone up to 40.5, which if you type into the conversion thing you will see that is 104.9. Which is really very extremely high especially for a bone marrow transplant patient. My nurse and my mom made me take Tylenol even though I didn't want to take it. I was a bit sassy and told them, "That Tylenol won't do me any good if I puke it up, now will it?" So Mom told me, "Miss E. that temperature is high enough to give you brain damage, if you don't take anything to help it go down you'll never get to be a doctor. Even if you puke some of it up you might have gotten enough in you to help with the fever." So of course then I had to take it, I couldn't risk loosing my career or my supreme genius.

My fever broke sometime early this morning. I think it broke in pieces, not all at once. Either way I feel a lot better now, I still don't feel good, but I don't feel horribly terribly awful.

My cultures came back this morning saying that I had E. Coli in my medi-port line. This was the suspected thing that happened last time I was in. Apparently if the line is infected it will keep coming back unless the line is taken out and replaced a few weeks later after the virus dies. So today I'm going to get surgery to get my port taken out. I'm going to get another line somewhere in my arm for my fluids every night. I'm really not looking forward to my arm line, I really don't like those at all. They hurt, ports and broviacs don't hurt once their accessed, but these "temporary lines" do. Not looking forward to it at all.

In other news, my cheesecake is supposed to be delivered today. Dad put a sign for the FedEx man to bring it across the street to our ancient neighbor's house, it needs to be refrigerated. My birthday is in only 5 days. I'm very excited, but I don't know if I'm still going to get to have my party, but we are still hoping to be home.

Also, Hawkman got sent home, but he's back now in the ER downstairs. So please pray for him too.

Love, Miss E.