Brookley's Scrapes, Scratches and Scares

If you're reading this before the previous post you should probably read that one first to understand why we're writing this. Of course with Brookley's broken elbow we got to thinking about how many things have happened to Brookley in just here short four and a half years. Then we thought it would be interesting for others to see what an amazing girl Brookley is and what an inspiration she is for her courage and strength. The following is a list of what we can remember of painful and scary moments she has had to deal with:

- Born with two heart defects: Ebstein's Anomaly and Ventricular Septal Defect
- Has a partial lung obstruction, possibly caused by her heart defects, but we're still not sure what the exact cause is.
- Spent a week in the hospital for RSV at a month and a half old (Her first smile was the day we left the hospital)
- Two visits to the ER for what we think was Croup. (It might not have been Croup but she was having a very dificult time breathing and coughing loudly.)
- An outbreak of canker sores in her mouth that made it very hard to eat or swallow.
- Three visits to the ER for Wolff-Parkinson-White (WPW), which is an accelerated heart beat or around 240 bpm caused by Ebstein's anomaly. (She now takes medicine three times a day to prevent this from happening again.)
- Four Febrile seizures (fever seizures) with two ambulance rides and an overnight stay in the hospital. (Probably the scariest thing to have happen when you don't know what is happening)
- Altitude sickness causing several visits to the hospital in Utah and Yosemite. (We now know what is happening, so we take oxygen with us)
- Two urinary tract infections (UTI's)
- Head stapled when she split it open on the edge of a table (Most impressive because she didn't even cry or flinch when they stapled her, but Dad did both I think)
- One dislocated elbow
- One broken elbow
- Countless head, elbow and knee scrapes

We've lost count of how many ER visits she's had but she has visited six ER's (Visalia, two in Fresno, Yosemite Valley, Provo, Salt Lake and Vernal). Some of the visits probably weren't as necessary but with the heart defects Mom and Dad aren't going to take any chances. Like I said Brookley is an inspiration to us because she never lets anything keep her down and is usually up and at it the very next day like nothing ever happened.