Curly update: How to shine your light (with a needle in your arm)

It’s Friday and I could not be more happy that this week is coming to an end. Our Curls had to go for blood tests again this week and as you know, blood draw days are MEH! But this girl has the “shine your light” super power, I’m convinced! 

For those who are new around here, Curly was born with only half a thyroid gland. It is a condition called ‘Congentinal Hypothyroidism‘. This means that she is on thyroid medication and we have to monitor the amount of hormone in her body and do blood tests every few months to make sure that she is getting enough of it.

So this past week was our blood draw week. It takes a week because we do blood draws, then wait for the blood tests to be done, before visiting her specialist a couple of days later for results). We took Curly to Ampath on Monday afternoon for the blood draws and it pretty much sucked! For starters, the nurse could not find a vein that would produce enough blood. She preceeded to dig around in my kid’s arm, with a needle, to try to find a vein that she could milk. My girl was obviously not happy and lay there screaming while daddy had to hold her down, with mommy trying to comfort her while keeping her arm steady. It was horrible. I was obviously near tears and prayed under my breath, asking God to make it go as quick as possible! NOT a fun time!

Once the blood draw was done, I picked my baby up thinking that it would take a while to console her. Instead, the girl looked at us (and the nurse who had just stuck a needle into both of her arms) and gave us the hugest smile in the world! It was so huge and so unexpected that we burst out laughing! It was like she totally dismissed what had just happened and basically decided that she was done with crying and was ready for action again! So picture her, tears in her eyes, but blowing kissies to the Ampath staff and showing everyone where her “eina” is.

What a big lesson that taught me… Imagine if we all lived our lives that way… acknowledging your eina’s but choosing to move on from them. Purposefully choosing to SHINE, no matter the adversity or how UNsparkly we may be feeling! I don’t know about you guys, but I feel challenged! 🙂
The good news is that my girl is amazing (but we always knew thaaaaaaaaat). The latest update is that Curly’s medication must be increased slightly. This could be because she is growing (so there is more of her to medicate haha) She will get an increase in meds 1 day per week. No biggie. We know and believe that she will eventually be off the meds altogether one day!

She is growing so beautifully. She can say “Mama come!” when she wants me to pick her up and “Goooo” when she wants me to take her somewhere. So basically, she is hitting all her developmental milestones (and then some) on time. No development delays or any of those other scary terms that we read about in the beginning of this journey.

By the way, if you ask her to “sing like Barbie” then she sings the word ‘Barbie’ to the melody of Ba-Ba Black Sheep (“Barrrrrbie, Barrrrrbie, Ba-ba-ba-ba-Barrrrrbie…”) bwahaha!

She knows where most of her body parts are… for real! Even her oesophagus! How clever is that? Well, that is all testimony to how well she is doing. Which might not have happened if not for the grace of God and the correct amount of medication. So thankful for doctors and second chances and life!

This girl is going places. Watch this space!