Dec. 20

We've spent most of our time at the hospital or showering and sleeping off our exhaustion at home the past two days. Francesca is "okay" this evening. She's not good, but we don't think it's the end either. The last two days have been exhausting.

I really don't want to relive all the details, so I'll give a brief overview and then will focus on the positive. She's been very, very sick the past two days. She is peeing a wee bit but needs to pee more. They started her on a new bout of steroids (10-12 days) to help wean her off the ventilator. Apparently if she's on the ventilator 30 days or more she could have chronic lung damage, so they want to get her off it as soon as possible. She's not eliminating all her fluids, so they're oozing out into her tissues, which is why she looks like the Pillsbury Dough Boy. :-) Unfortunately no, she's not just gaining weight. We need her to eliminate these fluids. They put her back on the harmonic ventilator because she wasn't doing well on the other one. She gathered more air on her right lung this morning which compressed her heart and made it stop around 9 this morning. So we got a frantic call asking us to come in right away. They did get her heart beating again with CPR and two bouts of epinephrine.

The doctor said this morning she has a "high likelihood of dying." He also asked us to consider again whether or not we'd want to revive her should her heart stop again. So those are the gory details.

I don't want to focus on that. If I just focus on the horrible details and all the things going wrong with her, I won't be able to go back. And she really needs her mom and dad right now. This morning Adam and I decided to have her baptized at her bedside. We would have preferred to have it done by a Unitarian minister, but we didn't feel as if we had time to spare. So we asked the hospital chaplain to do it. She did a good job. She used a little seashell to hold the water, and we both participated by dabbing a bit on her head. Then she gave us a certificate and a pretty gold angel ornament with pink gems. We'll have it engraved with her name.

We also called our friend, Linda Neu, who does Quantum Touch healing, and asked her to do a session or two with Francesca. She came this evening, and we spent about an hour with her around Francesca's bed. Without going into a lot of detail about quantum touch, I'll simply say it works. I've had it done on myself. To learn more, feel free to visit the website http://www.quantumtouch.com/. And if you would like to contact Linda yourself, her email address is newneu1517@earthlink.net. Anyway, after about 10 minutes Francesca started moving around more, and her oxygen absorption went up from 90% to 99%. That is very good and a small step. Linda's coming back tomorrow night for another session.

Many thanks to Stephanie for her suggestions to make Francesca more comfortable in her bed. Either we or the nurses will roll up a cloth diaper and stick it under her arms and legs to prop them up so she's not splayed. I think she likes it. She certainly looks more comfortable.

Thoughts are energy, and she and we can feel your love and prayers. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Please continue. Whenever you think of our pumpkin, please imagine her surrounded by angels and white light, protected, laughing and giggling. Please envision her breathing, and please envision water flowing (she needs to let those fluids go!). We love you all very much.

The first picture is of her yesterday, and the next one is her today. I think her face looks less puffy today. The one with the three of us is right before the chaplain came in to baptize her. And the last one is our "little kitty," Mickey, trying to comfort me as I slept this afternoon. Because everybody needs a kitty on their head as they sleep....