Claire
Vital Statistics: Claire Teresa Hoppe
Birthday: October 14, 2003
Hair: Red
Eyes: Blue
Current age/grade: 3 years, preschool at Ledgewood Elementary
Claire is the baby of the family. She was an unexpected "bonus baby" born to us
when I was already "past" 40 and Rick was 56 years of age. I felt she was having seizures
in utero, which turned out to be true. She was delivered via planned c-section and
while we brought her home after four days, we knew she needed more care than she was getting. Claire was definitely a case of Mom's instincts are almost always right. Dad's, too.
We video taped her seizures and brought her and the tapes to a local neurologist when she was a week old. Our pediatrician, a wise man who was rightly alarmed by her appearance at her one week checkup, had called his office to say he was sending us right over. (That pediatrician has since quit pediatrics. We still miss you, Hameed.) Dr. Neuro-via-the-net never examined Claire, just glanced at the video tape and declared "ah, she'll outgrow those" and proceeded to ask us how Tim was doing. (Tim being mildly famous in local medical lore.) We, of course, wanted to hear what he had just pronounced. Only when we called our ped did we realize that a physical exam would have been nice, and that perhaps a second opinion was in fact a good idea,and allowed ourselves to be referred to UW Madison neurology.
This time we saw Dr. Carl Stafstrom, who is an actual pediatric neurologist! He was calm, serious, but with a dry wit that made me like him instantly. While I should never admit this online, because someone he knows will read this, or he will Google himself, his appearance immediately reminded me of Mark Shubb, the baritone for the fictitious (but still awesome) Folksmen from the still more awesome movie "A Mighty Wind." He admitted her to Children's
Hospital for a video EEG study. His finding was one of "epilepsy with myoclonic seizures". He got her started on Phenobarbital and Carnitor, the seizures were brought under control, and we breathed much easier.
Claire has been in the hospital eight times since then, usually due to lactic acidosis. Each time Claire gets sick (a cold, ear infection, 2 kidney infections, etc.) she
becomes violently ill, as she does not have the proper energy sequence to do
this "extra" fighting to live. So the hospital has gotten her through many illnesses
that otherwise would have ended her life. For awhile Claire had some developmental delays, expressive language especially. She was hypotonic (floppy), and blah blah blah. But she's been in an "at risk" since she turned 3 in October, and is doing GREAT. Best of all, we've been able to deal with all of her illnesses at home since then!
We are so thankful to live in a
country where we can get such great medical care, because we are well aware of the suffering of so many children in the world. In many countries, none of our children would have lived to see their first birthdays. We really need to express an attitude of gratitude for the immense resources available to us.
Claire's current obsession is the same as it has been since her first words: kitty! She loves cats. So Hello Kitty is big. Pink has been and is her favorite color. She is, to my chagrin, discovering "My Little Pony" though we've never let her view it on T.V. She also likes Dora the Explorer, the Wiggles (Greg is her favorite, and we haven't told her he's out), and Jack's Big Music Show (the only one that I like, too, at least the music videos with Steven Drozd and Steve Burns.)
Claire does love music, has since she asked me at 21 months to "sunshine?" in order to get me to sing You Are My Sunshine with her, and life for her revolves around this. When she isn't listening to music in some form, she is making it up. We all love listening to her made up songs. Attempts to record them are usually thwarted in that way toddlers have of freezing when a camera is sensed anywhere nearby, so we all just try to enjoy and remember. Her once peach fuzzy bald head now has reddish blonde ringlets that reach to her waist. Her weight is up to normal. She can walk, talk, and has nine family members wrapped under her little finger. She is a very lucky little girl.
Page update: May 5, 2007
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