ITP, Riding, Sledding, Snow Angels and the ER??

Sarah Mei continues to struggle with her chronic ITP. This month her counts fell low enough, she required a treatment. The only upside to a treatment is her platelet counts usually go high enought that she is allowed to ride horses for a few weeks. That is her FAVORITE activity, and she takes full advantage of the opportunity.

Torie and Michaela are wasting no time in teaching Sarah Mei how to jump Hustler our 28 year old mare. We've owned Hustler since before Michaela was born. She has taught all the girls how to ride, so I guess she is used to the drill by now.

The timing of Sarah Mei's treatment also worked out perfectly. The snow fell shortly afterwards, so she was allowed to sled. Riding and sledding...double-fun.

Michaela was a good sport and pulled the girls up the hill...over and over and over....

While the girls were sledding, Torie had fun riding in the snow.

I think Brego was questioning her sanity at this point.

It's hard to believe that this horse is the same horse...

Brego and Torie have their 1st big show of the season in four weeks. I think Torie has her work cut out for her.

After sledding and riding, the girls made snow angels.

Life with five daughters - soon to be six - is amazingly fun! I hear families say they can't adopt because their children are too old. I love having older children and younger children!! It's so sweet to watch the interaction between them. Don't use that as an excuse. It's beautiful!


***I wrote the above post Sunday afternoon to be posted on Monday. The pictures were taken earlier in the week. After the original post, we had a slight development...***

Last night Sarah Mei took her last ride for a while. The hematologist gives her a window, based on her platelet trends, and Sunday was her final day to ride, probably for months. It's always a bittersweet ride. Just as she was finishing, Hustler our VERY old, typically VERY quiet mare, inexplicably decided to canter away with her.

Needless to say, Sarah Mei took her 1st "flying lesson", as we like to refer to falling off a horse in our family. Of course this is not an unusual occurrence at our house but with an ITP child, it requires a trip to the ER...yuk. Thankfully her platelet count was still at 89 (a number that would have horrified us 9 months ago but which is our new "good" number now).

We will make a follow-up visit to the Dr. today to check for internal bleeding but everything looks fine.

I loved the ER Dr.'s comment..."I'd rather see this than have a child sitting on the couch playing video games all the time." Amen!

Never a dull moment in our house...