update on Ashlyn and a layout to share

Hi! We had several beautiful days earlier in the week and I took full advantage of them! I did a lot of work in both our front and back yards, which were neglected last year due to Ashlyn's health and her multiple dr. appt's every single week. Although she is still not healthy, my mind is in a better place and I want to have a pretty yard/garden again (OK, I'll settle for decent).

I came across a blog this week, Designs By Ashley Rock, and she has a couple of sketch challenges this month. She has some wonderful sketches and I was eager to give one a try. Here is my take on the monthly sketch which you can find here:

I also incorportated the last of the Throwdown challenges over at Memorable Seasons on this. AND I tried something new for me- tape! The strips are tape that I adhered to white cardstock and then cut down. The tape is really fun, and I am sure I will be using it again real soon. :)

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and here is an update on Ashlyn:
I took her to her GI doc in Seattle on Wednesday and Overall, things are looking OK with Ashlyn. There are going to be several medicine changes over the next few weeks. She's dropping 4 meds over the next few weeks, one which we have already stopped. Her GI doc has been doing some research and reviewing her file, and she beleives that the nerves along Ashlyn's gi tract are damaged due to years of undiagnosed inflammation, so she is going to start taking GABAPENTIN for the nerve pain in about 3 weeks, as well as starting a medication used to treat siezures- but this one will not be added for several more weeks, if not a few months. Then pending the results of her bloodwork she had done on Wed., she wants to treat Ashlyn's Crohn's more aggresively, so if all is well, then she will up the Mercaptopurine, but we won't know until sometime mid next week if she will be able to handle this. This will also cause her immunity to lower even more than it is now- however, with Summer break just weeks away, this is the best time since her exposure to others can be extremely monitored and limited.


The NG tube is also not coming out anytime soon, in fact she is going to remain on a formla diet for at least another 8 weeks before we try to re-introduce solid foods. Since she presented with a lot of inflamation and diease in her stomach (which is rare for Crohn's), this will hopeully help it to settle down, if not then she will get a permanet g-tube and will only have a liquid diet. She has issues with her feeds already, and are running the pump super slow - hence the reason for the continual clogs (we've had to change her tube 3 times in the 6 weeks she's had it and she should be able to go 6 weeks without changing it). We did try a different tube on Tuesday, and it is working a lot better. I hope this will work until we need to replace it in 6 weeks.

For now we just continue to take it day by day, even hour by hour at times. I know she'll feel better soon, it's just going to take a lot longer than we had hoped and expected. She's had a lot of setbacks, but the important thing is that she has continued to make some forward progress. Slowly but surely she'll get "healthy" again.

I hope you have a wonderful weekend!