Diva's 7th Birthday

I know, I should be working on my Talk Thursday... but to be honest, every time I think of Fuzzy Navels... I just think of belly buttons. AND... I'm almost a week late on this.

Last Thursday was Diva's 7th birthday. Due to a shitty economy, her parents really couldn't afford to do much to celebrate. She really, really wanted a birthday party at a local pizza place, but it just wasn't an option for them. When Diva heard this, she was crushed... so I gave her a choice.. Maybe we could do another pizza and movie night at my house, and let all the kids make their own pizzas like last time. Instead, she wanted an ice cream party. OMG!!! It was so much fun!

I made cupcakes (cuz it isn't a birthday without some sort of cake) and then I bought several different kinds of ice cream and tons of toppings, ie. cans of aerosol whip cream, chopped nuts, sprinkles, chocolate syrup, and I even whipped up some fresh strawberries in glaze (yum). The parents thought I was crazy, but each kid got to put as much as they wanted of whatever they wanted on their ice cream. They had a blast! (because I throw the BEST kid parties EVER!!!)

She loved the gift from my mom, Burp, and I....

Mom, you have no idea how hard it was to find decals that would fit her tiny little nails, but I found them. Cute little butterflies in pink, silver, fuchsia, and sparkley.

It was a good day.

Yesterday, Diva helped me make ice cream sandwiches to take to Cub Scouts with Burp. I did a little spin on a treat my mom used to make when I was a kid. I mixed Cool Whip with strawberry yogurt and added some diced strawberries and wiched it between Snickerdoodle cookies. The kids taste-tested them at home... cuz, you know, we can't take poisoned treats to Cub Scouts. Needless to say, no one died, and they were, in fact, a big hit at home and at Scouts.... Unfortunately, people seemed to think that because they had yogurt, they were a "healthy" alternative.... WHATEVER!!

Yesterday, I went with Diva and her mother to her eye check up. She asked me to go because I'm not intimidated by doctors, I'll ask the good questions, and her husband is a schmuck. The eye doctor said the swelling of her ocular nerve was just as bad as it ever was and there is now a macular star, and hemorrhaging. The official diagnosis for what she has is papilledema. Hers seems to be idiopathic.
This is very similar to what the inside of her eye looks like.

 I borrowed this image from nature.com
The white arrow is a hemorrhage, hers is about 4 times that size and the green arrow indicates the macular star.
Actually, this seems like a good explanation of what's going on. In a nutshell, her brain is acting like she has a tumor and if we can't get it under control medicinally with in the next 6 weeks, she will have to have surgery. That surgery will have to take place up at OHSU. They will have to cut windows in the dura of her optic nerve sheath to relieve the pressure, or else she will go blind. Blindness usually starts at about 3 months after symptom onset. We're at the 2 month mark now.

Because this is so rarely seen in children, in fact her doctor said he'd never had a case of it before, they have no idea of lasting affects. Because she's so young, it's too hard to even gauge how much her sight is already being affected.

Today I took them back to the doctor to have special pictures taken of her eye. Tomorrow I'm taking them to see the pediatric neurologist.

We thought everything was getting better. It seems she's just getting used to the pain or the pressure has drastically increased. I'm glad she doesn't have a tumor, but it's still scary.