Andi's Army (2025)

11/03/2024

Hello all of Andi’s wonderful followers! I haven’t posted on here in a while, but our girl is growing strong! She is almost 21 months, weighs 21 pounds and is full is spit and vinegar!

A quick update on her health…..her heart is STRONG and her kidneys are doing well also! She will be getting blood work done this summer since one of her kidneys is only half the size of the other, but both are functioning normally as of now!

The only issue we are dealing with right now is her teeth. You can see in the last photo they are completely destroyed. She has “severe enamel Hypoplasia” which in her case is caused from kidney failure after birth. Some of her teeth have only a thin layer, while her molars have NO enamel at all, they are just exposed dentin. Which you can see the back molar in the pic is just soft and spongy 😪 this does make them extremely cold and hot sensitive, and she wont eat anything that requires major chewing.

That being said, she goes in for oral surgery Wednesday morning for 4 pulpectomies and crowns on all her teeth! She will have silver in the back and porcelain crowns in the front. She hasn’t been under anesthesia since all the trauma in the beginning of her life, so please say a prayer for her (and one for me because I am going to be a wreck) and I will post afterwards with an update! Thank you all for your continued support and we will post again soon!! ❤️❤️❤️

24/06/2023

1 year old!!! This time last year I was just landing on the life flight plane in Denver, not knowing if I would ever be going home with this cute little stink muffin!! But you did it! You’ve come so far!! Here is to MANY more birthdays Andi Lee!!! Time to celebrate with brother who shares this birthday with you!! 🥳

23/03/2023

9 months old today! 🎂

We made it back from Denver yesterday with some news from her appt. It went okay…We have to get a kidney ultrasound when we get home, said her kidneys in the hospital here were really bright which is common in a newborn as well as an indicator of being really sick. So we have to check that they are darkening. He also said she had such a severe acute kidney injury that her levels were to the point of dialysis so it’s a miracle they are normal. He did say it’s highly likely she will have some form of kidney disease in the future. They can’t go injured like that without scarring and that leads to problems later in life. The heart and kidneys go hand in hand so when the heart gives out the kidneys are the first to take a major hit, so that was not the news we were hoping for. But she has beat the odds so far so all we can do is watch her grow, love her tons and pray she stays healthy!!

23/02/2023

Happy 8 months Andi Lee! Whew! The time has flown by! And I would be lying if I said I wasn’t a little bit relieved that she is getting older! 😵‍💫

Having a tiny baby with health problems makes for ALOT of sick days and nights. If felt like for a while she was catching EVERYTHING there was to catch! RSV, c-diff, croup 3 times, influenza b, double ear infection…you name it she had it! We are headed back to Denver in March for some important follow ups and tests for her kidney function and digestion! So send good vibes for that!

Now though She is the happiest little thing and lights up a room with her smile! She WILL NOT take a bottle for anyone, but She is finally gaining good weight and loves to eat! She is almost on the move and loves her big brother more than anything! Andi you are a blessing baby girl and I can’t imagine life without you!! ❤️

01/12/2022

Our squishy little girl is growing and healthy! We got our butts kicked a couple weeks ago with a bad influenza..after a couple trips to the ER (because I’m paranoid) we are finally on the mend! Her last cardiology appointment showed no changes, which is okay news for us. We were hoping that her septal defect would be closed, but it remains the same. The Dr. Told us as long as she isn’t showing symptoms from it then it is fine for now. Much love to you all and we are beyond excited to be spending our first Christmas with our miracle tiny heart warrior!! ❤️

25/10/2022

Our little heart warrior ❤️

21/09/2022

To my tiny girl. You have made me so proud and so much stronger as a mother. We have been through more in these first 3 months than most have in a lifetime, in and out of hospitals and overcoming obstacles I never could have imagined! Im sure there will be a many more to come, but As a family we have grown to love a little harder, cherish the little things more and more and will continue to do so until the end of time! Happy first 12 weeks of living Andi! ❤️

12/09/2022

You guys are truly a blessed army! Your prayers have helped in so many ways. 12 DAYS I spent admitted in the hospital…What started as a months worth of constant stomach pain turned into another nightmare. 4 CT scans, severely inflamed small intestine, more blood work that I can count, an endoscopy with biopsies, a colonoscopy with biopsies, neither which showed problems on the inside, it was all on the outside wall of the bowel. 2 paracentesis procedures to remove 2100ml of fluid from my abdomen, vaginal untrasounds, organ ultrasounds, and an ultrasound of my heart and NONE of the Doctors here could figure out what was happening to me. They originally were calling it duodenitis, then small bowel blockage, then they thought maybe Crohn’s disease, then Spontaneous Bacterial Peritonitis, but none them fit my entire kaleidoscope of symptoms. The GI doc said in over 30 years of practice he has never seen a case like mine. One doctor came in on Friday and let us know the next steps we’re going to be cancer screenings….I was to get a bone marrow biopsy and a few other tests for lymphoma starting today. She even broke down in front of us started crying with us…it was horrible.

All this time I was relaying information to my OBGYN back home as she was following me so closely, always checking in on me, calling me to get me through the hard times of being in here, feeding me confidence and information to help us understand. She was calling doctors and researching my symptoms and it was HER that discovered a change in my blood work nobody else was looking at. She told me my Eosinophils in June when I had Andi were normal at 3% and the blood work I have now showed them at 45%! AT about the same time my biopsy from Cody came back, and it fit the marker for a rare disease called “Eosinophilic Gastroenteritis and Eosinophilic Esophagitis”. I slipped this information to a general surgeon that came to see me and he thought it was extremely interesting and worth looking into. The lightbulb seemed to come on and they took me off antibiotics and started me on high doses of IV steroids and we waited. Well the miracle we wanted happened and over the weekend the pain started going away!!
The time Dr. Andrea Chisholm Invested in me figured out what none of the other doctors had yet, and for her I will be FOREVER grateful. Her intelligence, kindness and friendship got us through this terrible time and she never stopped obsessing over figuring this out for me. It has been a summer from hell and we are just dying to get home again and try and settle in for good!! Again thank you all for the prayers!! After all we have been through we are very lucky! ❤️

11/09/2022

Hey everyone!

This is Allison, Courtnie’s sister. I just wanted to pop on here and give you all an update.

In Courtnie’s last post, she mentioned having a couple medical issues and being hospitalized. Shortly after, her condition got incredibly worse, and she has been in Billings at Billings Clinic Hospital since Monday.

Unfortunately, I don’t have many details to give right now because we don’t have any definitive answers. The doctors are doing everything they can to figure it out. I know how incredible this army is and how well everyone’s prayers worked for baby girl. I’m coming on here to plead for that same energy into Courtnie while she battles what ever it is that’s being thrown at her. I will update AS SOON as I have some sort of answer to give. 🙏

04/09/2022

Andi has been having a great summer! She is the happiest baby, and growing at her own pace. She is 10 weeks and 10 pounds, getting some fat rolls and looking super healthy. She has spent tons of time with family here in town, and took her first little mini vacation to Lake Sakakawea in North Dakota to meet her first cousins in my side of the fam! She loves to smile and coo at her big brother and sister and her most favorite thing is the ceiling fan in our bedroom!
She also had her first bottle this week with grandma. I just spent 3 days and 3 nights in the hospital with a stomach bleed, so learning how to have a bottle was not really a choice, but she adapted eventually and didn’t give grandma too hard of a time. I am doing okay, didn’t really get answers as to what is causing this problem but I will follow up with a GI specialist this next week. It’s has definitely been one of our worst summers on record, but also one of the best since she has made her comeback and fit in so perfectly with our crazy wild family. She is the strongest little girl I know and the fact she is doing so week after what she has been through proves it EVERYTIME! ❤️

16/08/2022

Andi had her first appointment with the Pediatric Cardiologist back home today. Everything overall looked good so far. She does have a small hole in the upper left chamber of her heart, they said it will likely close by 6 months of age. If it doesn’t we will re evaluate at that time wether it needs closed surgically or not. They also mentioned her bi-cuspid valve IS genetic, and down the road it could leak causing aneurysm or stroke, so immediate family does need to get checked for it also! It will matter in the long run and for my Children’s children. They also said her “gradient” is 16mm, which I believe is the “flow” through the aorta and she is happy with anything under 20. Long term it is sounding like it’s fairly likely Andi will have another surgery to balloon her aorta in Denver. It’s just not possible to know exactly when. She told me the signs to look for that it is narrowing again, and that it will most commonly happen in a growth spurt. She said anywhere from age 5-8 and again possibly when she is a teenager. So only time will tell. The Doctor did mention one lifetime restriction for Andi and that is weight lifting. She can perform athletics normally, but lifting weights will need to be strictly avoided for her. She will be closely monitored for the months/years to come, but All in all though she will be treated like a normal baby and we will check everything again monthly for 3 months and evaluate after that.

04/08/2022

I’ve been writing a post and deleting it over and over for the past week now, wondering how to say thank you without it sounding cheap instead of portraying how we feel for EVERYONE’s kindness and generosity towards our family. Everything that has been done between words of support, donations, gifts, and prayers from family, close friends and strangers has been so uplifting and heartwarming. I can’t even begin to express our gratitude, you have all done something for us that I can never truly be thankful enough for, or repay. All We can hope to do is show the kindness in some way that you have shown us. Wether it be prayers, donations or words of affirmation, I can PROMISE we will pay it forward anyway we can. Knowing now how much it helped emotionally I can only hope we can make families who need support feel the love that you all helped us feel during the extremely difficult time with Andi in the hospital. So we THANK EACH AND EVERY ONE OF YOU. I saw what you did for us. I felt the love, and someday I hope I can show you all individually, in any way I can the same that you showed for our family. We are all adjusting to being back home, getting through Covid running it’s course through our house, celebrating summer birthdays, and trying to have some relaxing fun before we the chaos of school starts. Just know I think of all of you daily, and I get all choked up knowing people out there care for my family as much as I do. It truly means the world ❤️

Andi's Army