History

I will attempt to give an overview of the last 8 years so that you, the reader, can know Stephenie's medical history.

She was born in Feb 2001, a full term 6 pound baby girl. Her hands and feet were not straight and she was sent off to her first specialist. We went to Children's Hospital in Birmingham, Alabama. I do not remember the medical term they used but I was assured that they could be corrected with braced. There was no medical condition connected with these abnormalities.

When Stephe went to her 4 month check up Mark and I were concerned that Stephenie was not growing (eating) properly. We talked with her doctor about our concerns. Stephenie had doubled her birth weight, which is the mile marker the doctor went by, so he said he would keep a close eye on her. We explained what we called "episodes" to him and she began treatment for GERDS.

At this point in our lives Mark was working heavy construction, building tanks. He would travel from place to place building and repairing these huge tanks. When Stephenie was a month or two old we put everything in storage and started traveling with Mark. The family was together and we loved it. Elizabeth was 5, Sarah was 4 and Zech was 2.

About 2 weeks after her 4 mo. checkup we were on our way back to the doctor. We were all in Georgia, with Mark, I forget the name of the town. It was Friday morning. I remember because Mark had Friday off and we waited to go in until Friday morning so the whole family could stay together. We only had one car and we had to go back to Jasper, Alabama where Stephe's doc was. We made this decision on Thursday. Stephenie was not eating properly. The day before she had only drank 3 bottles. We knew that if she did not improve on her fluid intake we would need to take her in to the doctor.
Stephenie only drank 2 bottles on Thursday, so we headed out early so we could get to the doctors office first thing in the am. She would wake up and start to drink a bottle. Shortly after she started to drink she would start screeming ( she had mostly stopped crying by now and she would half cry half screem) and her little body would shiver (resembling when you have a burst of cold come over you and your whole body does a mini convultion). We called these "episodes" and they were getting worse and more frequent. After an "episode" Stephenie would fall asleep for hours, and we could not wake her up. So to the doctor we went.
I knew the receptionist would ask why we thought she needed to come in for an "emergency" visit. I just told her Stephenie was not eating propperly and had only drank 2 bottles the day before. They said to bring her in. A little while later her doctor's nurse called us and asked questions. She said she was going to talk to the doctor and would call us back. I remember thinking she might call us back and say it was not urgent enough to bring her in. I was way wrong. When she called back she told us not to come to the doctors office, but to take Stephenie directly to Children's Hospital in Birmingham.
I think it is important to tell you that on the way to the doctor's office I had a faith crisis. Mark and I came to an agreement and we are standing on the promisies of God, and He has given us many to stand on.
We made arragements for Mark's niece to meet us at the hospital and pick up the older three children.
This was the start of questions, tests, waiting, more tests, more questions, and more tests and always more waiting.
To be continued...