Sunday, August 9, 2009

... Every cloud has a silver lining....


Posted Aug 9, 2009 3:48pm
Hi everyone.

I want to tell you all thank you SO MUCH for your uplifting messages and your encouragement. Thank goodness for this blog! It’s been a rough couple of days and I’m glad to have been able to tell you all what was going on, without having to explain it over the phone. Talking about all of this has made Adam feel better, but I’ve really just been very happy to let the website do the talking. We all deal with difficult news in different ways.

I was hoping to wait to post this until I got the results of the EEG that was done on Friday, but Katie told me I should really let you guys know what’s going on. We’ve had a pretty good weekend and have gotten some more positive news. We met with the neurologist on Friday. He looked at the ultrasound and examined Sarai on Thursday night. He said her reflexes are good and her muscle tone is also good. He measured her head to compare it to the measurement after birth, and her head is growing at a normal rate. (Sometimes when the brain isn’t developing, the head doesn’t grow as fast.) Like I said, we don’t have the results of the EEG (test to measure brain activity), but the doctor on Saturday believes that it won’t show anything abnormal either. (Prayers please!)

When I first got the news about the PVL and cerebral palsy, the first thing I said to the doctor was, “Is there anything they can do with stem cells?” Adam and I decided, about 4 days before Sarai was born, to bank her cord blood. The doctor responded, “Absolutely not. Studies aren’t even being done on animals at this point.” [Cousin] Julie did a little research and then so did I and we both found that that’s not the case. If you’d like, go here…

www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23572206

All this gives me a lot of hope. I know we’ll have a long road, but we’ll be getting her every treatment and therapy they’ll give us. For now, Sarai is developing perfectly normally. She’s started taking all her feeds by mouth, they took her feeding tube out. The doctor on Saturday said we’ll probably be bringing her home by the middle or end of this week.

Mom, Katie, Bill and Steve were all here visiting this weekend and mom will stay for the next few days, maybe the week. Thank goodness they were all here. This morning I woke up with a fever and was unable to go to the hospital for the first time. Sarai is having an MRI tomorrow (more prayers please!), if I can’t go, at least Mom and Adam can.

So, we just take things one step at a time from now on. We really can’t predict what will happen. We’re just giving Sarai all the love in the world. Like they told me, she’s a champion!

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