Wonderful news!

Hi Everyone!

We signed a lease at the apartment complex practically next door to Mia's! We get the keys on June 8th, so right now Robert and I are in Sacramento going through the house, figuring out what we need to eliminate and what absolutely needs to come with us. The apartment is only 607 sq ft, so it's even a little smaller than I originally thought! We need to get rid of 800 sq ft of stuff, plus the garage, so we have our work cut out for us! We'll be taking a break from it all for a few hours - today is our wedding anniversary! It's gone by so quickly... it's so hard to believe it's been 5 years already!

To make a very exciting story short, Mia has begun CPAP!! I know most of you have no idea what that is ... CPAP stands for Continuous Positive Airway Pressure. It means that Mia is still on the vent on all of her normal settings, except for an important one - a breath rate!!! Her RT was curious because he noticed Mia was breathing above the vent quite a bit, so he tried her on CPAP ... and she did great! He thought he was going crazy, so he brought in another RT... yup, Mia was breathing on her own! So he brought in the nurse practitioner for the last 5 minutes, and she was still doing great! Mia breathed on her own for 15 minutes!

The next day, Tuesday, Jay tried it again, and she did great! On Wednesday, he did it again, and she did great! Mia will be doing CPAP everyday for 15 minutes when she's wide awake and active. Everyday, Mia has been blowing us away! She gets so worn out after the 15 minutes is up, but that is a HUGE improvement!!! Her co2's are staying great and her volumes (how much air fills her lungs) is great when she's breathing by herself, too. The RT stays with her the entire time to make sure she doesn't set off the apnea alarm (stops breathing).

We are so excited for Mia!!! We're so excited that Jay noticed and took a chance with her. Oh, and Mia's been pretty much on room air all week!! =) What a big girl she is!!

Continue praying for us as we transition down to San Jose. Packing and eliminating is going well so far, but keep praying! We're planning on having a yard sale on Monday to try to get rid of most of the things we don't need ... and to try to make some money to buy furniture that will work for the small apartment!

Oh! Last Wednesday, May 26th, was Mia's 1 year anniversary of being a patient at CRC! So we celebrated, of course! Everyone loved me - I took a Costco carrot sheet cake along with some petite brownies. =) Mercedes made a thank you sign for everyone at CRC and my parents brought a Thank You balloon! =) I wrote out thank you cards to most of my favorite RT's, nurses and staff. I had to limit myself, otherwise I would have had to write over 100 cards!! =) I'll post pictures soon.

Keep praying for Mia's healing!

God bless,
Rachael