Nassau

We arrived in Nassau at about 8 in the morning and we had a full day there as we were not leaving port till 2 am, so we had plenty of time to get breakfast and all. It was raining off and on most of the day and when we got off the boat it was raining and there was some people giving tours so we decided to take one to keep us out of the rain for a while. So here are some pictures from out day.
The view from our veranda...
the Atlantis Hotel.


Our tour guide......


The kids in front of the fort.
The fountains at the Atlantis hotel...









Amelia and Nate with the guy cleaning the aquarium.

This was Sean Connery's first house in the Bahama's ...(wow I know huh? Hey it was raining what else were we to do?)



The Anna Nicole Smith house....


Amelia & Nathan with the lights of Nassau in the back ground....

And back inside this is who Amelia ran into....

Oh to be a true princess...............................................

The Disney Wonder.....

I interrupt this crazy roller coaster night mare I am on to go back to the lovely vacation memories.


Ok after two full days at Disney we headed out to Cape Canaveral. We were there a little early and decided we needed to grab a few last minute things and since we were there, we took a stop in Cocoa Beach, just because.

The kids walked on the beach for a few minutes and then we headed to our port....and that's where we spotted our ship.


We had to go through customs security and then into the Disney terminal....


Once on the ship they had a lunch buffet set up in two different restaurants. We chose the one on the Deck 9 as everyone else was heading to the one on deck 3.




After we ate they said our rooms would be ready for 1:30 and our luggage wouldn't be there till late. We were lucky when we went to view our room, our luggage was waiting for us! yay...
The room was beautiful!


We had two navigators veranda. We had a tub shower combo and a separate area for the toilet, all together we had 4 sinks! We had lots of room and the boys had one right next door and we had adjoining doors to the rooms that stayed open the entire time.
After we ate and checked out the room there wasn't a lot of time before it was time to do the famous drill.....oh yeah they were so excited.....



except for these two nuts....


After the drill we were headed back up to deck 9 for the Bon Voyage party...this is after all Disney and it was a great party as the ship set sail and since we left a little early because the kids wanted to go and check out the kids club this is who we ran into in the halls...



Then it was on to the clubs and after we got them signed in, which I have to say I would not have left my kids there if I didn't feel so secure there! They gave us a pager and the kids had security wrist bands they were scanned in and we had to present a room key so they could see our pictures and then we had to give them a password. They asked for the pass word every time we picked them up! I didn't think the kids would want to go there but boy were we wrong....Ty and I spent lots of quality time together. Marshall had a teen club that he went to and as long as we were on the ship that's where he was, so we rarely saw him.

The food was great! The lounges were a lot of fun for Ty and I. I have to say there was something fun for every one and there wasn't hardly any fighting between the kids...mostly because Marshall didn't eat supper with us every night we had the 8:15 seating and that was too late for him to eat. He gets acid reflux really bad. Which no matter he would not have eaten all the good food that they had, as it was Nate and Amelia got the same thing to eat every single night! But that is another story for another day, it's late and I am tired and I have a 1st grade field trip tomorrow...
When I find out when and where we are going for transplant I will post. Dr Wagner did talk to some one at Cincinnati Children's Hospital and the insurance that we have will be accepted there, but he is still trying to convince them to let us come to Minneapolis. I know that it is all in God's hands and I am putting my faith in Him.
Blessings,

Excuse my while I vent....

OK back to fucking reality....
This is the letter that I just received from the financial coordinator from Fairview/University of Minnesota....

3/3/2010

Hello Kelly,

We spoke briefly on the phone on Monday and I wanted to do a follow up email with you regarding the insurance benefits for Amelia.
I spoke with Blue Cross of Louisiana Transplant Case Management this morning in regards to the limitations on the Transplant Specific Lifetime Maximum.
As you know under the Blue Cross policy there is a major medical lifetime maximum for Amelia of $5 million, however there is a Transplant Specific Lifetime Maximum of $300,000.00 which would include all of the transplant stay and post transplant stay for all services and all providers with UMMC, Fairview.
Unfortunately with the estimate for an Allogeneic BMT for Pediatrics, I would not be able to financially secure based on the $300,000.00 for Amelia.
Also you had informed me as well as the Transplant Case Manager at Blue Cross that the Employer Group is unwilling to allow for more transplant coverage.

I did contact the prior authorization dept. at Louisiana Medicaid today and they informed me for any non emergent out of state services to be approved medically, a Referring Dr. with Louisiana MA would have to write a letter of referral with supporting documentation for Amelia to come to UMMC, Fairview and this would then be reviewed by the Louisiana State Review Board to see if they would allow for coverage for Amelia to come to UMMC, Fairview for transplant services.
Unfortunately UMMC, Fairview and most likely all other providers of services (UMP, Home Health, Pharmacy) are not enrolled with Louisiana Medicaid and would not be able to bill for services rendered.

The medical approval and financial approval are two separate processes, so if Louisiana MA were to approve Amelia to come for BMT at UMMC, Fairview each provider of service would have to negotiate a contract with Louisiana MA for payment and every provider of service would have to approve the agreement with Louisiana MA.

I have sent an email to the BMT Coordinator and I will send the email to Dr. Wagner as well.
At this time I would not be able to financially approve any services for Amelia at UMMC, Fairview other then an initial consultation.

If you would like a letter regarding our financial requirements to secure an estimate for transplant for Amelia I can definitely put that together for you and send to you through email. Please let me know if you have further questions regarding this email.

Thank you,

Beth

Beth Beamish
University of Minnesota Medical Center, Fairview
Transplant Financial Case Manager

So in an effing nutshell....She is not going to transplant where the best doctors are...period.
We don't know when and we don't know where..what we know is that her counts keep falling and she needs a bone marrow transplant before something really serious happens!

Keep praying, please keep praying!!
I promise I will get back to the vacation, after all I will need the great memories to take me away from this hell of a night mare.

Vacation

I have to say this was the best ever vacation!!! The Disney cruise was sooooooooo AWESOME!!
We left here Thursday the 18th and headed to Florida, we arrived around 5, grabbed something to eat and then headed to a hotel to get some sleep. The next morning we headed to the most happiest place on earth...or so they say....Disney World! We had two days there so we needed to make the most of it and that is what we did. Since we were just there about a year ago, we decided to do thing that we didn't get to do or things we really like the most and wanted to do again.



Amelia and Nate's favorites




What they did with their Funyuns!





We explored Tom Sawyer's Island...Ty actually did pretty well on the very uneven ground and barrel bridge.....




Eating lunch in Mexico, the the ride...



Test track was really high on the list. So was Toy Story Mania. Well as you can guess how the two days went, lines, rides, eating, more lines and rides and stuff and so forth!

I have more pictures but my nite time cold medicine is kicking in...gotta go to bed before the screen becomes a total blur....Trust me I have about 1,000 pictures to go through and I'll show you some from the camera that my hubby bought me for my birthday the day he wrecked an underwater Fuji camera that I love...LOVE, LOVE!!!!

Soon...

I know, I know..We've been home for a few days now but I am way up top of a mountain of dirty clothes and as soon as I see the floor again I will be back to tell you all about this AMAZING vacation!!!!



But for now enjoy what Marshall did....hehehehe.....(i promise it wasn't my idea it was our tour guides)


What Marshall did at the Atlantis hotel in the Bahama's.....