Ok, so these blogs are not going  to be in any order at all - well not until I am totally up to date from October last year - so bear with me ok?.

The title of this Blog says it all - Christmas.  It's the most wonderful time of the year - & I totaly agree with that Andy Williams, well when things go according to plan I do..........

As usual each year I always prepare Christmas early, now when I say early im talking after Easter time I start making the list and snapping things up.  Please don't screw your face up reading this thinking OMG are u mad? I can assure you im not, im not even taking organised to a whole new level either - Im just being what I call it prepared!  When you have a child with life-limiting conditions, you want them to have & experince everything in the world that they could possibly do - The most important things to me is my family, and family times which we share with everyone, so this is things like birthdays, easter, etc.... but more importantly its Christmas time - it's Getting the decorations out & all of us decorating the tree, put up the lights, write out the lists to Santa after sitting with the Argos book & Toys 'r' us book  for 2 months LOL :-) playing Christmas songs, lighting the cinnamon candles - so when your child takes unwell in the middle of summer and your not sure if they can fight this battle again - the same things goes through your mind - Omg is this going to be it, is she going to recover blah blah blah......... Don't get me wrong I know how amazing Katie is, and I know how far she has come & how much she has proved people wrong! I pray she continues to do it forever, but when the ambulance has its lights & sirens on and Katie's tummy has distended so much & they don't know whats wrong with her (REad my blog - Touch & Go)That explains it all........  So since then thats when I really started preparing for christmas.

We were asked to do some stories for the newspapers (I know you must be getting fed up opening up the papers & our cheesy faces smiling back at you) Ill put the links on just in case you didn't see them, it will also save me going into details 

http://www.eveningtimes.co.uk/news/editor-s-picks/we-live-for-katie-but-need-a-break-1.1053135  This story is from September which is focusing on Respite which will be another blog, I promise - I know its something a lot of need so I will be blogging the reasons behins this story!

http://www.thescottishsun.co.uk/scotsol/homepage/scotlandfeatures/3271739/Brave-cerebral-palsy-tot-defies-odds-to-battle-on.html   This story is from December, and it's just a really nice family story about how we plan Christmas and how the girls were really looking forward to it - & basically just how thankful we are every day to be blessed with our twincesses :-)  On the back of this Story we were approached from the magazine That's Life - we were featured in their christmas bumper edition - again I just wanted to raise awaireness and give hope to other families in the same situation, and to let them know they are not on their own.

Christmas didn't go as planned as we had hoped, Katie had been in Yorkhill at the end of OCtober for a few procedures (endoscopy, bronchoscopy, botox injections round her face, her lungs washed and scraped, and her tummy washed) The botox was hoped to help Katie's secretions, as she was on a full hyociane patch every day which was just too much! Anyway, the procedures is the next blog......  Katie bounced back from all she had got done and was at home, November Holly had the cold and obviously passed it on to Katie, who took it a lot worse we increased her anti-biotics for a few days in the hope we could prevent any further chest problems, it worked! 

The weeknd before christmas Katie's breath started to smell (thats the first sign when we know she is in for something) then the reflux got worse, and she was signing she was sore, she was still her cheeky wee self and didn't seem too bothered by it when she wasn't on a feed,  On the Sunday KAtie was getting really aggitated, she was finding it hard to cough with out being really sick, then the blood started coming up (coffee ground staining the hospital call it!) it was dark and it smelled of acid, by this point Katie was continually trying to force her hands down her throat, she never does that to be sick! The snow was really bad in our wee village so Derek phoned an ambulance to take us to Yorkhill, they were here in minutes and got us straight to Yorkhill.  As Katie is fasttracked and with all her symptons we were taken straight through to the Short stay ward, we had taken Katies stained vests with us to show the doctor, she was still bringing it up anyway in the hospital.  He examined her over, sounded her chest and lungs, took her temp, the usual orbs - He told us we could take her home, I explained in detail the signs of when Katie is going to get really unwell, I told him if she didn't have iv fluids (as she wasn't keeping feeds down anymore) she would be really unwell and would be even worse and longer at recovery! He said as Katie wasn't dehydrated (at this point) and was not floppy, she was still very active and was still signing etc..... he had no reason to keep her in.  So we took her home, I started her on dyorolyte instead of the milk just to give her tummy a rest, early on Tuesday the 23rd she was ill, she couldn't even keep down the dyorloyte, she was very lethargic, her wee eyes were black and had sunk into her face - she looked grey - She basically looked the way I told the doctor the previous night she would be!  Back to Yorkhill, instantly admitted onto the ward and put straight on IV fluids and pain releif, Hallelauigh..... In the meantime I am running back and forward between home for Holly and Yorkhill for KAtie, Derek had to take time off work and stay in the hospital with Katie.  She was suppose to be at her first nursery christmas party onthe Thursday and she missed it - I was so upset, it was something we had been looking forward to for her sake, mainstream nursery with her twin and it would have been their first wee party - Anyway, Santa gave me Katie's present and I took it up to the hospital for her :-(

We were really worried that she woudn't be home for christmas, I just didn't know how or what to do! Do I stay with KAtie and Derek be home for Holly? Do I take all her presents up to Yorkhill for Christmas morning, or do I leave them in the house so she can open them with holly? But then that would mean Holly couldn't open hers up on christmas morning - which I couldn't do that ( you are probably getting the drift how I am always beating myself up with things)   Thankfully, Christmas Eve at lunchtime Katie was on her way home with her daddy Hurrrrreyyyyyyy.

The most important thing was that we were all together in our own house on Christmas morning watching the twincesses open up their presents - That really was the best present we could have had.......