The 'Would Be' Christmas Letter

Greetings To All Our Dear Family & Friends!

Our intention with putting our blogspot in on our Christmas cards was to have a Christmas letter on the blog, ready to go when all card recipients received them. Obviously, this didn't happen; however, we have a good excuse as to why it didn't, which we'll go into below.

For some time now our family complaint has been that our family had been ill a LOT as of late. Well, we discovered we had an unusually high level of carbon monoxide being released in the upstairs area of our home, and that the reason for this was that the furnace panels were on incorrectly, thanks to an a/c repairman who worked on the unit this summer! The most unfortunate recipient of this 'discovery' was Natalie, who had the highest concentration of carbon monoxide in her room.

Natalie came home from a night caroling on the riverwalk feeling slightly ill, and (as she is known to do) Natalie took to her bed for a little r&r. Only by the end of the week, it was getting harder and harder to wake Natalie up, and it didn't seem like she was getting any better. At the end of that same week, there was a weird smell in the house, and as a precaution we turned all the heating units off and just threw some extra blankets on the beds for the night. The next morning our energy company came out and tested for carbon monoxide, found the levels to be hazardous and the mistake with the upstairs heating unit. They were great about staying until the house had aired out enough that our air was safe to breathe again, and made sure to stay until they felt comfortable that the unit had been repaired satisfactorily.

At that point, we were advised by our pediatrician to take Natalie in the the ER for testing, and sure enough, she had an alarmingly high level of carbon monoxide in her bloodstream. She required 12 vials of jet-black blood to be drawn until her blood started to look more normal, and she needed oxygen treatment, an IV and fluids for dehydration, and an EKG to monitor that her heart and organs were not permanently damaged by the exposure.

After a day at the hospital, she returned home and was able to eat a few bites of food (which was MAJOR improvement!) but by Wednesday she needed to be seen in the ER again as she had fallen ill that morning after over-doing it the previous day. She had two more vials of blood drawn (again a deep, blackish-red) and we were advised that she would need at least 14 days of taking it easy before she would be considered ready for 'normal' activity.

We are SO GRATEFUL to God for Natalie's recovery, as slow as it has been, and that He has spared our family from what had the potential to be a disastrous tragedy. I (Nia) finally had the enormity of it all 'hit' me when I heard Ella & Natalie sing their solos in one of their choir concert pieces before Christmas. I took to crying so hard I thought I might not be able to recover, and sleep has been difficult, to say the least. Yes, we have a carbon monoxide detector now!

Told you we had a good excuse for not getting our letter done in time...we will update the blog later in the week with our 'year in review', and pictures from our Christmas time together. Until then, God Speed!

Love Much,

The Meissler 7