Most of you know that Ella has been diagnosed with
Alopecia. She had been losing a lot of hair until recently..... it has been growing back! It was not noticeable unless you really knew it was there because it is on the back of her head. I first noticed it in August, as were getting ready to go to my girlfriends house for a party. I was putting Ella's hair in pigtails. This is what it looked like:
Not a big deal, but startling, nonetheless. I did some Internet research (don't ever do that, BTW), and came up with the conclusion that she had this thing called Alopecia and she was going to lose all of her hair (typical mom response, don't you think?!). I took her to the ped the next day and he confirmed my thoughts (the Alopecia part, although he wasn't hopeful about her future) and told me to go to a dermatologist. So, off we went and got the same answer, although this doc went as far as to say that because of her age and where the spots were she had a 75% chance of losing it all. Our next stop was Hopkins and they were a bit more hopeful. They gave me a prescription for a steroid cream and sent me on my way. To them, her prognosis was a positive one. I was now as confused as ever, but understood that's the way of the disease. There is no way to know or tell or determine what will happen next. Jon and I decided against using the cream. She can make that decision when she is older. The cream only encourages hair re-growth, it does not stop hair from falling out.
A few months later, in December, this is what her head looked like:
More hair had been falling out, but I noticed that it had happened a few weeks after she had had a fever (the week of Thanksgiving, to be exact). Then I got thinking about the first time I noticed the patch (and yes, back in the beginning of August I had noticed more hair than normal falling out as I brushed her hair in the morning but you have to know Ella's hair to realize how thick and adult-like it is. I thought it was her normal "shedding" time.) and remembered she had a fever back in mid-July. Both times the fever was a freak thing. It only lasted 8-10 hours and got really high with no other symptoms. Huh.......
This brings me to the current day where she is running a 102.2 fever. Poor thing, she is miserable! I almost hope my theory is wrong and that a fever is not jolting the disease, because her head now looks like this:
And her hair has been growing back quite rapidly!
So, can you all please say a quick prayer for her? I know this is going to be a life-long thing for her and I've already given this whole thing to God and am comforted to know that He is in control. That being said, we all know God wants us to come to Him with our troubles, and so that's what I'm doing. It makes me feel so good when I can go to Him and lay it all down.
As you can see, they are fairly alphabetized, but backwards-ish. Anyway, I had taken a photo of my actual pantry some time ago for something else and managed to find it, so I'll post that, too:
It has looked better and it's looked worse, but again, for the most part it's organized. I think when Jon thinks of the movie, the main idea is the fact that every thing has to be facing forward so it is readable. I will turn a box and a can until I can read what it says.