Happy Birthday, Finally!

Karissa's birthday this year was put off for 6 days due to the fact that she woke up on her birthday throwing up. Obviously, it was the same thing Austin and Victoria had on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, and of course it had to come on her birthday, five days later. She spent all of her birthday and the following day either throwing up or sleeping. Earlier in the day she knew it was her birthday, but I don't think she knew or even cared anymore later on. Luckily, the weather was bad, so we delayed leaving Colorado one more day, which enabled her to rest a little more. We took this picture before we left, hoping to have her in it with her grandparents for her birthday, but she didn't want to be in it. The two day drive back wasn't much better. She slept most of the time and, lucky for us, didn't throw up in the car at all! She actually didn't have any problems on Saturday, though she didn't eat much. Unlucky for the gas station and store owners, she did have problems at those places on Sunday.

When we got home, she laid right down on the couch, not excited like her brother and sister to see her things. When she got out of bed at 11:15 on Monday, I knew there was a problem , especially when she threw up again. I took her to the doctor and they sent us to the ER to get an IV. They were great and got us in real quick. We only had to stay about 4 1/2 hours. They let us go after she ate 3 Popsicles, but left the hep lock in just in case she had more problems.

There were no more problems, so the next day I took her back to the doctor and they out her hep lock and that day she recovered by eating the "recovery foods". Here's a picture with her hep lock before we went to get it taken out. (I never got pictures of her in the hospital two years ago, so here's a happier version of that.)

By Wednesday night, I figured she was recovered enough to have cake and open her presents, I think she was ready too. Poor thing!
Notice the Christmas decorations in the background still. It was so crazy with this sickness when we got home, I just barely got everything unpacked the other day and am still taking down decorations! Happy 4th Birthday, Karissa!