Level 4 States

This past Sunday we were in Allentown at Parkettes Training Facility for Pennsylvania's Level 4 State Competition. Emma's team did a great job! They all had their best all-around scores. In Emma's age division there were 23 girls which is a lot. Emma started out on beam which is her best event but she had a fall which is not like her. She still scored well...8.275 (9th place). Then she headed off to floor. She did a fantastic job. It was the first time she did a round off back handspring with no coach on the floor or spotting her. I cried she did so well...she worked so hard to be able to do that skill and her floor scores all season would have been high if she had that skill. It was great to end the season with that routine. She got an 8.85 (9th place). She went to vault and I was a little nervous because she wasn't vaulting well in warm up. But she got her highest score of the season...8.9. She wanted a 9.0 so bad, that was her goal for the meet, one judge gave her a 9.0 but the other gave her an 8.8 so they average the scores. So after 3 events she was 4th all around! Then the dreaded bars...her nemesis all season. She was very nervous, messed up on a simple skill which isn't good because she's missing 2 major skills in the routine already that she's just not been able to do all season. So she scored a 6.75, her goal was to get a 7.0 since last meet she got a 6.9. Oh well...she dropped all the way down to 19th all-around with that score. But she had her highest all-around with a 32.775 and she had so much fun! We are so proud of her!

Carey had her infusion today. Boring as usual, especially since the room was so empty today which is very uncharacteristic. Usually every chair is filled and when one leaves another takes the chair. When I got there it was just Carey and a boy Myles who has been there before when Carey's been there. Then he left so it was me and Carey. She did one of the crafts her friends gave her and she watched Bride Wars and ready Dog Fancy magazine. We discovered while looking for shoes that her left foot (the one that has the arthritis and osteo) is a smaller size than her right. Almost a full shoe size. Hmmm, we see the ortho next month so I'll talk with him about that.

Keegan shoved a bead up his nose last week. Who knows how long it was there, I thought it was a tic tac Emma had spilled on the floor earlier that week. 2 doctors, 3 nurses, tweezers, nose spreader, ear scraper thingy and suction machine were used to remove that sucker! He's all boy!

Hope everyone has a nice Easter. We won't be coming to Erie this year. The girls long weekend was taken away because of snow makeup days.

Take care!

Jenn

One sport season has finally ended!

Yes, swim season is over! Divisionals were held at our pool and it went smoothly. Carey has not been swimming great the past 3 meets and we were hoping she would get out of her funk but she didn't. She started out so well this season but she says she doesn't want to swim anymore but unfortunately it's the only activity that she can do right now and she's going to have to do it. Hopefully she'll get back into it again when it's summer season...she swims better in the summer because she loves being outside. Emma swam very well. She finished 11th out of 30 in the backstroke just a smidge off her best time and she swam 2 seconds faster in the breaststroke finishing 14th out of 24. She also swam in the medley relay (back, breast, butterfly and free) swimming the freestyle and she swam close to her fastest free time but the girl doing the fly left the block before the breaststroker touched the wall so they were DQ'd. They would have went to all-stars if that wouldn't have happened. Now Emma just has States on Sunday and then competition season for gymnastics is over....however these moms want our girls to go to another meet in May which I don't want to go to and Emma doesn't either...she's ready to be done competing and get back to doing the "fun" stuff at practices.

Carey had her appointment yesterday with the rheumatologist. Our appointment was at 4pm and we didn't see him until 5:20! He said the bloodwork #s showed a positive sign that it's working as one of the indicating numbers of inflammation was 38 in January and before her February infusion is was down to 4. There was another osteo# he wanted to compare but they didn't do a urine test on her in February like they were supposed to so he couldn't compare. So I told Andy to make sure they make her pee in the cup before her infusion next week. He also said another girl the same age as Carey came in with the same thing in her jaw. He's awaiting the biopsy results to make sure it's not infection but he believes it's CRMO. So he said he'd put us in touch w/the mom if the results turn out to be CRMO. He also took her off the sulfasalizine which is the arthritis med since we don't think it's helping. He put her on an anti-inflammatory but if she starts to get worse (the limp) then we'll go back to it...it's hard to say because she does have arthritis in that ankle along w/the bone inflammation so we'll see. She also is having problems with her right heel, where the achilles tendon meets the bone which he wants to watch...people w/Chron's and Psoriasis (two things that people w/CRMO usually have) usually get arthritis is that area of the heel so he wants to keep an eye on it, it could be she just hurt it over compensating for the other ankle while jump roping or playing volleyball in gym.

I'll update you on how Emma does at States this weekend. She's really excited!

Take care,
Jenn
http://www.theredmondblog.blogspot.com