Hope for the weary.

Miss Ava after her strenuous test day. She is starting to get swollen.
In you go Ava. Where is Ava?
Daddy's watchful eye. How are they goin to watch and keep together 8 drips and 4 antibodics. Yikes!
They were figuring how to get her on the scan bed. Decisions! Decesion!
The doctors and nurses taking Ava to the CT scan. The elevator was huge!
Here she was on Monday morning. The swelling is not there yet.

Here is her burned arm. It is actually looking much worse. The final decision will be made tomorrow as to whether or not she will need a skin graph.


Well so onward we go. Sunday and Monday was all about worrying over the swelling and the urine. After much tweeking they finally got her to pee great again. Brian calls her a "wild race horse!" So yesterday we did bronchoscopy they went down her breathing tube with a camera and a small suction secretion device. THey did remve a lot of mucus plugs, however the after xray showed little improvement. Her belly has really gotten swollen and her abdominal pressure was being monitored in her bladder. I insisted on more tests to figure out why her belly kept getting bigger. So after persistance they ordered a scan. So she had to leave the room for the first time in 8 days. We told her she was going for a ride!

The CT showed a few parts of her bowel was swollen badly. My theory was that her right lung was being compromised by the swollen belly. No brainer for us. Once again we were fighting for some sort of a diagnosis. Now since her bladder pressure was being monitored they felt if it rose any higher surgery would need to be done to release the pressure. So again we waited. At about 8pm the level rose to 16. The docs decided surgery would be a must if it hit 20. Well you know Ava she keeps us popping, at 4am Brian wakes me up and tells me she has hit 22. The room got busy and we felt sad. We both gave Ava a pep talk and told her this was only a gray day and that the sun would come out tomorrow. She was pretty well sedated. So off we went to wait. She is so strong. Her stats stayed great the only thing they had to help her out on was her blood pressure. She has so much strength.

The surgeon reopened her incision and some of the bowels popped out. He could see a abcess. No wonder the antibodics weren't working it has a clear coating around it not letting the medicine penetrate. Good news was as soon as the pressure was released her lungs function improved quite a bit. They put a few drains in her belly and then covered it with gortex patch, the same material that is in her diaphragm. It really doesn't look as bad as I thought it was going to look.

Now my Mom had no clue that she had surgery at 5am. She woke and immediately felt God speaking to her and she felt a strong need to pray. I see this as a sign. A wonderful, amazing sign.

Ava doesn't look like Ava. My tiny peanut is so swollen. They are telling us she might get worse before she gets better. Always, always on our toes. But every second is so worth it. All our girls are our strength and our joy. We are not sure why this is happening but we do know that God will never leave us. He is here. I can feel his presence. My heart is calm.

Thanks for all the prayers. She has followers from all over the world. Plus she has angels watching her and giving her power.

~Terri