I will never forget that day our little princess was born.
It was the first day of spring 2001 when Pria entered into our family. It couldn’t have been more perfect day. She made child birth easy for me, a quick 5
hour labor and a few pushes and there she was. She had ten little finger and toes and the
sweeties little cry.
Tony and I had her name picked out a good year before she
joined us, Pria Antonia. Pria meaning,
beloved and sweet natured, Antonia meaning praises worthy, it was a perfect fit
for her. Life was great. We had a prefect little family, and the day
we learned Pria was to be a big sister we couldn’t wait to share the news with
her. She was so excited and couldn’t
wait to take on the new role. Her bother
was due on her birthday and that didn’t seem to bother her at all, in fact she
thought it was pretty cool. So they
would have had to share the day, but for her that was OK as long was part
pink.
The day finally came when Pria met her baby brother,
Tanner. She was so proud. She was holding him in her arms. She must have been practicing holding her
baby dolls, because she was a pro.
Little did we know that her natural instinct to neutering her brother
would be so important? In fact, the
nurse came and took Tanner out of Pria’s arms and imitated him into the
NICU. This crushed her. Having a doctor and nurse walk in and take
her brother from her arms. What a tough
day that was, explaining to her that something was wrong with her brother, and
yet not really knowing ourselves. For
eight days our four year old daughter was the glue that held our family
together.
A year later Pria pulled out her glue gun again and helped
keep Tony and I together as we faced another eight day hospital stay with
Tanner. She managed to turn this ordeal
into a quest to make the best of the situation.
It was around this same time that Pria’s sweet little pixie
girl voice began to change. At first we
thought she just had a cold, but after a couple of weeks of no improvement off
to the doctor we went. With no answer
and her voice sounding more and more like a young Demi More to the specialist we
went. This is the beginning of our relationship with Dr. Pranski. After a scope down her throat and a month of
medication into exploratory surgery she when.
Diagnosis - Recurrent Respiratory Papillomatosis, or RRP. This news came just on the heals of Tanners
diagnosis, and Tony and I felt as if we could handle no more. We sat on the top
level of the parking structure after meeting with Pria’s doctor and wept for a
good hour. How were we going to go home
and explain to our daughter that she was going to have to under go a life time
of surgeries every six to eight weeks for at least another twelve years?