Next update!

Here's the next random catch-up from summer. :)

First off, my cousin Brandon got married this summer! We are so happy for him and his wonderful new wife! The wedding was so much fun and everyone had a blast! We are keeping the newlyweds in our prayers as they start off their life together and deal with all the struggles and separations from him serving our country in the Marines.

My pictures from the wedding are horrible, but it's the best my phone would do.

John, Ethan, and Brandon waiting for the food :)

Family picture

Brandon and Nicole :)

the dance floor - the DJ was amazing, so everybody was out dancing and having fun!

We've also spent time cooling off from this heat at the lake and some local shooting fountains!

The kids at the lake

Ethan playing in the sand

Callie playing in the sand

Callie and Ethan at the shooting fountains

Ethan still gets his headaches. :( He had one at the park and had to lay down to try and feel better.

Yesterday we had Ethan's pneumonia recheck with the pediatrician. I went in hoping for good news but bracing for more of the same. The past two rechecks showed no improvement in his lungs. Yesterday, the doctor listened to his lungs and said she's never heard them this clear! There wasn't a single crackle and his left lung seemed open! I was so thrilled I could've cried! We picked up his x-ray results from radiology after the appointment and headed out to celebrate!

The kids after eating ice cream at Hastee Tastee. We stopped here after eating at Hot Dog Heaven. I used to go to these places all the time when I lived in this city, so now it's such a treat on the occasions we can make it there!

Ethan's cardiologist wants us to schedule his next appointment for early August. That way both of the cardiologists can meet with us and figure out the next step. I'll call tomorrow and schedule that appointment.

We also discussed Ethan's lack of sleep. We've been struggling with sleep his entire life, but this past year has gotten pretty out of control. I put him to bed around 9pm. We go through the whole bedtime routine (book, song, prayers, kisses). Unfortunately he doesn't actually fall asleep until somewhere between 2 and 4 in the morning. Usually that's after coming downstairs with excuse after excuse and being put back to bed multiple times. Then he'll finally break me around 3 in the morning and sleep on the floor of my room. It's not AS bad in the summer since he doesn't have to wake up at the crack of dawn, but I still get him up between 8:30-9am to try and tire him out for the next night. It never works, but I have to at least try. I just know this can't continue when school starts back up. He certainly can't make it through a day of school after only having had 3-4 hours of sleep!

Either way, we got a referral for a sleep specialist. This is at the neurology office he goes to for his ADHD. Hopefully we can be seen soon and get something figured out to help him! I hope to hear back from neurology with an appointment date in the next day or two.

Last but not least, today one of our heart friends that we follow online got his new heart! He is the same age as Ethan and just was admitted inpatient waiting for his new heart a month ago. Thankfully a new heart came quickly for him and we pray that his recovery goes extremely well and his body accepts the new heart! Ethan watched the video of him getting the news that his new heart was on the way. I explained to Ethan that this new heart would make Owen (our heart friend) feel better. Ethan then asked me "When can I get a new heart? I'm tired of being sick too." He broke my heart with that comment, but hopefully we can figure out a way to make him really start feeling good.

Please continue to keep us in your prayers. I'll keep you updated with our activities and upcoming appointments.

Kentucky & some medical stuff

Well, I guess it’s time for me to start doing some random posts about the things we’ve been up to lately! These will all be out of order, but I will try and get caught up! Today’s post will be about our recent trip to visit family in Kentucky for the 4^th of July.

We had a really great trip visiting John’s family. The kids always especially love spending time with all their cousins down there! The kids have 8 cousins there all around their age! This time we were lucky enough to be able to spend an entire week! The weather was pretty awful, but thankfully we were able to still have a great trip.

Callie, Ethan, and cousin Wesley watching a movie

 

We have a new fireworks business (Midnight Madness). This year was the first for it and we only sold there in Kentucky (hence the reason for the trip). Callie loves that John is involved in this! She loves fireworks and had a blast all week lighting things off! Ethan on the other hand hates the noise of fireworks (surprise surprise). But thankfully the gun headphones did a great job and he was finally able to enjoy the shows and playing around with all the fun stuff! He especially loves the lanterns! He would get so excited every time we went to light one off!

lighting off Ethan's heart lantern

some of the fireworks for sale

 

We also had a big celebration with their church. There was a ton of great food, fun people to visit with, and inflatables for the kids. We topped it off with a great fireworks show (put on by Midnight Madness of course)! J

Ethan resting in the bounce house

Callie with some cousins and friends

Ethan, Callie, and Wesley waiting for the fireworks

Ethan and Callie with sparklers

 

Near the end of our visit, a tiny kitten strolled its way up to a bonfire we were at. The neighbor threatened to kill it if it was still on his property in the morning. We noticed it had something wrong with its eye, so we left it outside to hopefully go back to where it came from. By morning though, the kitten was still hanging around. We didn’t want anything tragic to happen to it (*cough* the neighbor), so we decided to take it. By morning his eye was looking pretty rough, so we scheduled an emergency trip to the local vet and took him in. The vet checked him out, prescribed some antibiotics, and sent us on our way. He was severely malnourished (weighed only 1 pound!), had an eye infection, and upper respiratory infection. We loved him and cared for him the best that we could, but unfortunately about 2 miles into our trip back home poor little Dorito died. L Callie was devastated. Ethan was mainly upset that we didn’t show him the dead cat before throwing him out. We had to go retrieve Dorito in his box to show Ethan the body. He's under the impression that Dorito will be reunited with "Blue Puppy" (the stuffed dog he accidentally left at a doctor office and they threw away). Ethan's happy that Dorito and Blue Puppy will be at the dump together. Weird. Very weird. Needless to say, we are now being bombarded with requests for a new pet. *sigh* Well, birthdays are fast approaching…

Callie and Dorito

Ethan and Dorito

 

We had a safe trip back home and are somewhat back in our routine.

Onto the medical stuff.

Ethan still has pneumonia. He’s doing amazingly well with it – I can’t believe how “normal” he is even with his lungs the way they are. He’s still doing all the same things he normally does. Granted, a majority of his time is spent sitting playing legos or coloring so that helps! We have a recheck for his pneumonia on Tuesday. After that we’ll return to cardiology to figure out the next step. They are waiting for his lung xrays to see what’s going on. Obviously, we can’t really move forward with another heart procedure until his lungs are clear. Hopefully the doctor will find that they’ve improved at this next appointment! On August 1^st we go to pulmonology to see if they can come up with a new idea to help his lungs. The pediatrician is discouraged that all the steroids, antibiotics, and breathing treatments aren’t working.

His neuropsychology results came in the mail yesterday. They were disheartening. Apparently Ethan didn’t cooperate as well as I had hoped – even though I did kind of expect it. This affected his scores. We’ll end up having to retest later when he can pay attention a bit more. He just still wouldn’t focus and pay attention well enough to get accurate readings. They noted that this will be a major problem in school. I’ll have to schedule another meeting with his school to go over this and finish up plans for kindergarten. Basically, I’m thinking we’ll probably go with the original plan for attending this kindergarten. If he’s struggling too much or having problems, then we’ll decide if we need to switch to a Goddard school or something with more one-on-one, hands-on types of teaching methods. The test results say he’ll need frequent breaks, limited distractions, and mastery of each skill before moving onto the next to avoid frustration. His language is also a huge barrier (and was during the testing). Ethan gets extremely frustrated when asked to repeat himself. I guess he’s just sick of constantly trying to get his words right and nobody understanding him. L After one or two times trying to repeat himself, he’ll just give up and say “Never mind!” I have a feeling that we’re going to have to attend additional speech therapy outside of his school. I’m not sure what they’re providing will be enough for him. Hopefully I’m wrong, but we’ll see. They also warned that he's at risk for depression and anxiety. He definitely has a lot of anxiety, but hopefully that's something that we can work out easily. :/  

I also had a procedure done in the middle of June. I found out I had something called May-Thurners disease. My left iliac vein was severely compressed by an artery in my pelvis. It’s apparently what has been causing my blood clots for the past ten years! I’m so glad we’ve finally figured it out! I had two stents placed in my iliac vein to open up blood flow. I can already tell a difference in my leg! The healing went a lot slower than I expected. I don’t know how Ethan does this! I had major bruising and swelling in my groin for 3 weeks! I also had a lot of pain for the first 1.5-2 weeks that I didn’t expect. Ethan’s up playing normally the next day after his caths, so I definitely didn’t expect mine to be any different. Boy, was I wrong. That boy is tough! Thankfully I’m doing SO much better now. I’m back to my normal routine and my bruising is almost completely gone now! I have six months of blood thinners to take, then I should be done with those for life!

Me recovering from the cath

 

That’s enough for now! Please keep us in your prayers. There will be a lot of appointments coming up soon that need to go well. I know we were supposed to have his cath this past spring and open heart in the winter, but now I’m not exactly sure what the plan is. I should find all that out at our next cardio appointment soon. I also will be playing catch up more, so another post with our summer outings will be coming soon! :) 

new meds

All right...finally an update!
Two days after our neurology appointment electrophysiology called to schedule a holter monitor. We got right in thankfully and did a 24-hour monitor. Ethan did great for it even while having to wear it to school.

Stickers always wreak havoc on Ethan's skin. Thankfully these healed up within 2 days :)

The weather was really great so Ethan was able to play outside, exert himself a bit, and do his normal routine so the doctors could see how his heart handles his daily activities. We got the call on Friday saying that the results look good! Apparently his heart rate is strong and even - thankfully! We've had so many rhythm issues with him throughout his life that I was pretty nervous about these results! He's already on two medications for it, so I didn't know what to really expect if the results came back bad! So relieved we don't have to worry about that now! :)

You can see the holter monitor pouch sticking out beneath his sweatshirt

Friday afternoon we got the call from the doctors saying that Ethan could start Adderall. *shudder* I went downtown to pick up his prescription since they couldn't call it into the pharmacy due to it being a controlled substance. I made sure to pick it up Friday so he could take it over the weekend and I could observe him. I didn't want to give him a pill Monday morning and send him off to school. There are a bunch of potential side effects (heart rhythm issues, racing heart, etc) that I wanted to watch for. Saturday he handled it pretty well! No heart issues as far as we could tell, but he did have some of the smaller side effects. His appetite was terrible (anorexic effects are a problem with this drug) and he had the "come-down effect" they warned us about. It's just him getting extremely whiny and cranky late afternoon as the drug wears off. He also DID NOT SLEEP! They said this could cause sleep issues, but wow he didn't go to bed until 3:30am and then was awake for the day at 7:30! I couldn't believe it!
Today went so much better. His appetite was still definitely decreased, but he ate a pretty decent dinner later in the day. Maybe we'll just have to give him lots of food at night when the meds wear off. Heart kids definitely can't lose weight! We also didn't really notice much of the "coming down" effect like yesterday, so hopefully that won't be a problem. If it is a problem, he'll need another med to take in the afternoon to counteract it. I definitely don't want to go that route! I pray that tonight he goes to sleep - he's still wide awake now at 10pm.
Tomorrow he returns to school. I'm going to ask the teachers to let me know if the meds are improving things or not. Their report this week will help determine if he needs a dose change or a different med. I pray that this really helps him and he can finally relax enough to pay attention and participate in school!

My parents recently went to New Orleans and brought the kids back some masks. They loved them!

Ethan is also dealing with a MAJOR case of separation anxiety. It started a few weeks ago and hasn't improved at all. :( Don't know what started it, but it definitely needs to stop! I can't leave him at all! Every time I try to run to the store, drop him off at someone's house, etc he goes into panic mode. It's just screaming and crying terribly - and I have to actually pry him off of me! I end up having to take him everywhere almost all the time! We even had to resort to watching church online (which we do whenever he's sick anyway) because he wouldn't handle going into his Sunday school classroom. *sigh* I pray that this ends quickly because it's driving me nuts! :)

On a happier note, we had a kindergarten open house last week! Ethan was able to tour the school, see some kindergarten classrooms, and meet some teachers. He of course wasn't social with anyone - even though a little boy tried to chat with him and be his friend. He really needs to figure out how to communicate with other people or else he's going to be in trouble next year trying to make new friends! Hopefully he'll continue to improve with his speech and that'll give him the confidence to hold a conversation with his peers. He is looking forward to kindergarten, so that's so good!

The kids have also been enjoying playing with the dog and going to the park in the warm weather we had yesterday!

Ethan was pretending to be a "lifeguard dog" - which is apparently a police dog. He was very excited to see one on TV when we were watching the news about Boston, so now that's what he wants to be! I told him maybe he can be a policeman and own a police dog, but actually being the police dog is going to be difficult... :)

Callie riding Moose

And for the park:

Please keep Ethan in your prayers that this medicine helps him out and has none of the side effects. Please also pray that his sleeping and separation anxiety issues go away!

Also please keep a fellow heart family in your prayers. I usually don't post about other heart kids, but we've been following him for a long time since he has heterotaxy just like Ethan. Sadly, little Ryker earned his angel wings a couple days ago. Please keep his family in your prayers!

I'll keep you all posted with how Ethan handles his meds this week and any new news :)

Neurology

We went to the neurology clinic last week. Ethan has been struggling a lot in school, especially this year. We went in to have him evaluated for ADHD and any other problems that are common in CHD kids. Our doctor gave a talk to our heart group last month, and explained all about how ADHD has an extremely high prevalence in CHD kids - around 40-50% as opposed to the normal 4-5%. After our appointment he claimed that Ethan definitely does appear to have ADHD. He also said Ethan has motor apraxia - which after the heart group meeting I had suspected. This means that his coordination is terrible basically. Sequencing motor functions is a struggle - things like skipping, jumping, and more complex motor things as opposed to the basic walking, running, etc. We already know he was diagnosed with speech apraxia years ago. Thankfully he's been progressing in his physical therapy, and hopefully will continue to improve as the warm weather comes and he gets out more to play and practice.

For the ADHD we are trying to find out if medication will be allowed. Most of the meds for this contain stimulants and/or things that mess with the heart rhythm. Since Ethan already has major rhythm issues we're not sure if he'll get approved or not. Hopefully between the cardiologists and neurology they can find the right medication to help him. He also said that getting his ADHD improved will help him sleep. The boy just cannot sleep - and the doctor thinks maybe his brain just can't shut down at night to allow him to fall asleep. Hopefully we can get that figured out too. He didn't know what to do about the middle of the night waking up though. That has nothing to do with ADHD apparently. Ethan's normal night schedule is bedtime routine starting about 8:30. By the time books, songs, and prayers are done it's about 9pm. He doesn't actually fall asleep usually until around 11:30pm, then wakes up again between 3-4am. Then he's up for the day between 7-7:30am. That's just not nearly enough sleep for him - especially with his heart!

They also are considering a headache medication, but I think I'm going to try to hold off on that until after his next cath. Cardiology is going to put a stent in the SVC to relieve the pressure there, and we think that might be causing his frequent headaches. If that can get fixed without more medication I would be thrilled. That will be happening soon (cath in the next couple of months) so hopefully they'll have no problem waiting on the medicine.

Neurology said they would talk with cardiology this past week, so we should know within the next day or two about the medication plans. We are supposed to return in about three months to do a full neuro exam - takes about three hours including the neurocardiology clinic, neurology, and behavioral clinic. That should be interesting...  :)

Other than that things are going fairly well. Ethan is sick right now with a lot of congestion and a wet cough. He's back to his full routine of breathing treatments and the vest. He was really bad over the weekend, but today he's showing signs of improvement so hopefully he'll be feeling back to normal soon!

And here's some pictures of Ethan playing with a worm he dug up this past weekend. :) This boy is a nut!

Heart Diagrams and cath pics

Here you can see the vein narrowing in the center of the picture. The old stents are all visible - they're the stuff that looks like mesh.

 

Here are some pictures of some stents in his heart before any ballooning dilation.

  



Here's the same vein as two pics above, but after dilation. More stents are visible in this picture. Those circle loops spaced our in a vertical line on these pictures are his sternum sutures from his open heart surgeries.

 

These are just some of the cath pictures that Dr. G sent over. I think these are really interesting, so I thought I'd share them. I also requested a new drawing diagram of his heart. I had one a long time ago when Ethan was a baby, but with all the work he's had done I needed an updated one. Dr. G sent over the one they use pre-caths. He is so great, he even labeled it for me! :)

 



Here's the labeled diagram of Ethan's heart from before this past cath and stent placements! Below is a diagram of a normal heart to use as comparison.



 
 

Ethan is doing very well. He returned to school Monday. :) Unfortunately we are still trying to get his INR therapeutic. He is currently still taking Lovenox (belly shots) much to his dismay. We had to order a whole new week's worth since his blood is still too thick. We were making slow but steady progress increasing his INR by 0.1 each day. Three days ago he was at 1.7. Our goal is to be between 2.0 and 2.5. Yesterday's test showed that his INR dropped to 1.4! :( I have no idea why it dropped since he hasn't eaten anything that affects his INR (green veggies and such) and he hasn't missed a dose of medicine. This morning's test was 1.6, so at least he's starting to climb again. It's very frustrating, but please pray that he get in his range quickly so we can be finished with these shots! 



Belly shot bruises



 



Cath review and pictures!

Ethan had his heart cath on Monday. Things went VERY well and we are so relieved! Thank you all for your prayers and support throughout his hospitalization! It means so much to us! Here's the details on all that happened.

Pre-op went very well as usual. Ethan had his Versed to keep him happy and calm before surgery. It definitely did the trick. :) He went to the OR and went on the table at 8:30. He did so well and commented on how "He loved the room." :) The Versed was definitely working LOL! Right before they put the mask on him to put him to sleep he told me he had a secret for me. He said "I love you". It just melted my heart to hear that right then :)

Pre-op snuggles with Daddy

 

Time for Mommy's snuggles!

It took the usual few hours to get access and pressures checked. Then they placed two covered stents in his left pulmonary artery. This is a small collateral artery that is his only connection between his heart and left lung (the bad lung). This is also the part that continually clots off every few months. These covered stents went inside his old stents to hopefully stop any chance of cells growing through the stent and closing off the artery again. We obviously can't lose this artery! Dr. Golden (cath doc) thinks this will really do the job well, but is still concerned about how his cells are going to react on the ends of the stents. He doesn't know if the cells will grow around the ends and try to close off there. We just pray that this isn't going to be the case, but it's definitely something we'll be watching for vigilantly! Dr. G. also pointed out that these stents made 7 for Ethan! He called him "Stentman"LOL. My wallet is filled with all his stent cards! *sigh*

The procedure went very well with no rhythm complications thankfully! I was so worried about that since he's had so many complications with that in the past. They were prepared and waiting with all the medications to get his rhythm in control just in case, but a mom still worries. The cath was over around 3pm. Then they called a little while later from the OR saying that they were having the bleeding issues again. They couldn't get his neck to stop bleeding from where the catheter was inserted. Of course that starts my heart racing since it brought me back to the bleeding mess of last time! They were able to stop it, then they extubated him and the bleeding started again. More pressure was applied for a long time and finally he stopped bleeding and pressure bandages were applied. His total bleed time this round was 1 hour.

Dr. G came out to talk with us after the cath and tell us how it all went. He said he is optimistic about how the stents will work and said they are placed well. He had peeked at the conduit and saw the narrowing around the sides of it. Last cath in September he placed 2 covered stents there. The stents are holding up great, but the artery touching the stent is narrowed already where they meet. He said there's nothing he could do with that since he didn't feel safe at all ballooning that open or placing another stent. It would just crack his conduit again and we'd be in another VERY dangerous situation. He said they do not plan on touching his conduit due to the risk, so the only step left is the open heart surgery to replace that. We have been expecting this surgery for a while now (it was supposed to happen last June and then again last September) so this didn't come as a surprise. He thinks we can hopefully wait until early next winter though before going in to replace that. That will give Ethan more time to grow before placing a bigger conduit in.

He then discussed a new finding with us. For some reason that he couldn't figure out (I say it was God) Dr. G felt the need to measure an area he hadn't looked at in years. He decided to check out the SVC in his neck on his way out after finishing the stent placements. He did some measurements and found out that there is an almost 50% pressure difference in a spot in his SVC! This is huge! The pressures above this spot were much higher than they were supposed to be, and the pressures below were obviously much lower. He thinks this could be the reason for the huge bleeding problems we're having as the caths finish up. There's just too much pressure built up right in his neck there to get the bleeding under control. He said that definitely needs to get taken care of soon, so we'll be having another cath to balloon that area and probably place another stent in the SVC. This next cath will be done in about 3 months he thinks. He didn't feel comfortable taking care of that during the procedure on Monday though. His plan was to be "in and out" to avoid any complications. He always reminds us that he has an amazing track record with caths, and pretty much the only complications he deals with all are with Ethan. :/ We love Dr. G and trust him completely (obviously or we wouldn't have him take care of Ethan his whole life). Ethan is just "one of, if not THE, most complicated case they have" according to his cardiologists. *sigh* Way to be a record-breaker, Ethan. ;) Dr. G basically wanted to have a successful complication-free cath, so thankfully we were basically able to do that this time!

Post-op! Pale, but doing well

 

 

When we saw Ethan post-op he was extubated and resting pretty comfortably. He looked pretty pale, but that's to be expected after what he went through and the blood loss. He didn't need a transfusion thankfully, so his body was able to just recover on its own. He woke up with his typical raw throat from the breathing tube, so he started in on his ice water and popsicles. Recovery went great and the only problem he had were some achiness in his leg, headaches, and nausea. He still is recovering a bit in the nausea department - once he starts eating something he wants to puke it right back up. Thankfully this is getting better each day, but please continue to pray that it goes away completely and he gets back to his great appetite!

He always gets really red, warm, and a bit puffy after his caths for some reason

He had a great recovery - probably the shortest one ever! We had a private room for the first time in a LONG time! I think this really helped him out! He had a very restful night only having to wake up at 4am for his second round of IV antibiotics, at 5am for a chest xray, and one other time for vitals. Much more rest than usual in the hospital! :) He woke up hungry and happy! I was so relieved! He behaved so well in the hospital this time, so that is a huge blessing!

Coloring fun waiting for breakfast

 

Playing some LeapPad games

 

Child life has improved SO much since our last visit! Maybe they're listening to all the survey responses after all! :) Ethan received a gift bag in the recovery room filled with markers, a hat, card games, coloring books, a magic kit, and some other games and activities. It was so nice and so unexpected! They even posted a schedule on the door of our room of the daily group activities in the playroom! This was something I put in each survey that we LOVED at Rainbow, and were so disappointed that the Clinic didn't do. Rainbow is so great about having fun activities and games going to keep the kids happy and entertained. We definitely miss that, but it seems like the Clinic is on the right track! :) YAY!

Finally made it to the playroom :)

 

Don't let the face fool you, he was SO excited to see a tractor to ride!

 

Ethan had an echo Tuesday morning. They weren't able to get a good picture of the new stents unfortunately, even though they scanned for well over an hour! It was frustrating, but hopefully everything is still good! We return for a post-op appointment on March 20th. Hopefully we can get a good picture of the artery then and it's all open and working well.

Echo time

Waiting around for discharge news...took a lot longer than we thought!

Things are going very well. Ethan is taking the week off school to fully recover. He restarted his Lovenox injections (the blood thinner shots into his belly). He has to do these shots twice a day until his INR is in his range (2-2.5). This morning's reading was 1.4, so we still have a little ways to go unfortunately. He HATES these shots, and I totally understand since they hurt terribly! I couldn't stand doing them when I was on them, so I feel awful for him! Hopefully we can get in range quickly and stop the shots soon!

He has kindergarten sign-ups going on now, so we're trying to get all his paperwork together to register for fall. I can't believe he'll be in kindergarten next year! I also have some questions for Dr. G at our next appointment like if he's supposed to skip gym class next year, etc. We also have an upcoming appointment with neurology to assess Ethan. I attended a lecture through our local Mended Little Hearts group with the doctor recently. It was great and really informative, so I'm looking forward to our appointment with him! He discussed all about CHDs affecting kids in ways like ADHD, Autistic characteristics, headaches, etc. He basically described Ethan perfectly during his presentation! We'll see what he has to say and how we can help him for next year being in "big kid school".

And...Ethan tried playing Go Fish (the card game) yesterday for the first time. He loved it, but here's an idea of how the game went.
"Me: Okay, now you have to ask me for a card. Look at your cards and see what you need to make a match."
Ethan: Okay.
Me: So say 'Do you have a 2?'
Ethan: Yes.
Me: No. I mean, you ask me if I have a 2. That way you can get your match.
Ethan. Yes. Here you go. (Proceeds to hand me his card.)
Me: No, you need to ask me for a card. Say, 'Do you have a 2?'
Ethan: Yes.
Me: *sigh* Ask me for a card.
Ethan: Go fish.
Me: Really? "

He did catch on for the most part and enjoyed playing LOL



Silly boy :)

One last thing...Callie just finished fundraising for Hoops for Heart. So many of you donated for this program for the American Heart Association. She submitted a whopping $715! I spoke with her teacher today and she said Callie's donation blew everyone else's out of the water! She is the highest fundraiser of the school by far! :) Thanks so much to everyone!