What have we learned over the last several months to last few weeks of not posting? We have learned that Payton has more people praying and caring about her then we ever could wrap our heads around. When Payton was released from the hospital 3 weeks ago, our lives went back to "normal!" We were taking each day in stride and thankful for every good day we got with Payton. At the same time, we took for granted the amount of people that care about her and wonder how she is doing. The saying, no news is good news was what we went by. We do have some follow up's and we all agreed one last journal post was in order! 

Payton has been doing amazing! She is back to her sassy, and energetic personality (did I mention sassy)! She is back to dancing daily, singing daily, playing basketball in the yard and being a normal 10-year-old little girl. Her last hospital stay she was released on a Sunday, and that Monday she went back to school and has been in school full days since. She is 100% back in all aspects. 

We followed up with her main neuro, and they are extremely happy with her progress, and signed off (for now), they will always be part of her team if the work at AFCH (win). We had our first appt with Rheumatology and we were extremely happy with the conversation. They do not believe Payton has anything autoimmune long term. She had a "reactive" infection back in December that sent her brain into a tailspin but did not cause any permanent damage to her brain (another win). He is part of her team for anything future related and will keep a close eye on her if needed going forward. 

We WON the appeal process and can get Payton into see Neuroimmunology (WIN)!! We don't expect anything different to be done when we see them but have comfort that they will be part of Payton's team for future.

In the meantime, we have been talking to DRs from other hospitals (sometimes it's all in who you know) and everyone has said AFCH did exactly what they would have done. One Dr that I have the upmost respect for said it this way, "as hard as it is, you don't want a diagnosis for Payton, if you get one that means it will follow her for life and something much worse is happening". We never thought of that way, but he was so right! Kids and Payton are resilient which is why each time she has bounced back from these episodes quickly. Do we ever want to go through this again? Absolutely not! But as her parents we can say without a doubt we did everything possible to fight for our daughter and make sure we consulted with several very respected and reputable Drs and medical professionals. We love each day we get with Payton, and in our minds, we are just back to normal life. 

We want to say thank you to everyone that has reached out, donated money, bought shirts, food, gifts, prayers, and hugs. We know we will never be able to do justice in telling each of you how much that meant to our families. For now, we are going to enjoy the Spring/Summer, we are going to enjoy watching Preston play his last year of High School baseball and get ready for his next milestone. We are going to enjoy being a full family again and sleeping in our own beds each night! We are going to enjoy all our kids and the world through their eyes. But most importantly we are going to continue to take this day by day, and hope and pray we never have to go through anything like that again but prepare that it is possible. Until then, we will silence these journals and no news is good news in our world!