Hannah's Summer Wrap-Up

 

Well, three weeks into the school year I'm finally getting around to blogging about Hannah's summer. I've been putting it off because most of Hannah's summer was really hard. After we returned from our Alaska cruise things went downhill fast. Hannah and I both got really sick the last day of our trip with some kind of flu-Covid-like virus. Hannah had it worse than me and ended up with a terrible stomach virus on top of it that lasted 2 full days. It was awful. As soon as she recovered from that she had surgery to have her adenoids taken out and ear tubes put in. Thankfully that all went well. 

Then she somehow got mono- which took a while to diagnose and was very scary because she had some really troubling levels in her bloodwork that could have pointed to way worse things than mono. Her main symptoms were extremely sore muscles and tiredness. She also had very swollen lymph nodes that we spent the better part of the summer monitoring obsessively. After several trips to the pediatrician and two trips to a pediatric surgeon she was cleared of the scary stuff since her lymph nodes were smaller and she no longer had mono symptoms. It was an awful ordeal that I still haven't fully processed. We are so grateful that the news at the end was good and that our girl is healthy. 

It wasn't all bad. Since she had to take it easy while she was recovering from mono, we took afternoon naps every day and snuggled and read in bed. That part was wonderful :) We got her lots of crafts and Lego sets and things to do in the house. She loved making her own squishies with gel paint that puffed up when you put them in water. She also made Stephen the most beautiful birthday cake decorated to look like a beach! She stayed in touch really well with her cousins over the summer- video chatting on the Messenger Kids app with Crosley, and Facetiming with Kate and Luke and doing all kinds of fun online quizzes together. She also enjoyed playing Mario Kart virtually with Kate and Luke!

To round out the summer, she got braces just a few days before school started. She was a champ and after all the other doctors and surgeon appointments this summer, the braces seemed like no big deal! I think I mentioned this last year too, but I am SO thankful to work from home and to be able to get so much bonus time with Hannah in the summer. It was wonderful to have her here with me during the day, and even though she was sick or recovering for most of the summer, we made the best of it and had so much good quality time together. Love you Hannah! Hope next summer is WAY better!!