Remembering

I wrote this a few months back, but didn't feel it appropriate to post it until now.

As I was posting about Madi's second birthday I couldn't help but think back to one year and ten months ago when this very same sweet little girl was life flighted to Boise in critical condition. They didn't even know if she would make the ride there. I was in the helicopter. I remember the fear that had a hold of me something fierce. I remember the cold, still, dark night as we flew over cities and the Pilot tried to make small talk to keep me from losing it. I remember how I could "hear" her crying even though it was impossible with the noise. I remember wishing that I could hold her close, or even hold her at all. Everything happened so quickly, yet not quick enough. I remember running along side her incubator as she was rushed into the hospital, talking to her and telling her everything was going to be all right, through my own uncertain tears. I remember listening to the doctor as he showed me the xrays telling me I had to make a choice and make a choice now and wishing with every fiber of my being that Isaac was there with me. I remember when they sedated her and how lifeless she looked lying on the crisp white sheets. I remember them putting a very large needle into her side to drain the fluid from her lungs, and the surprised look on the doctor's face upon discovering what she had. I remember looking out the window of the room and seeing my parents faces looking in as they waited patiently outside. I remember numbly agreeing to eat something for the first time in 12 hours, but refusing to sleep. I remember the next two weeks sleeping in the same room as my sweet daughter, hoping and praying and praying and praying that she would make it through this. I remember the battery of blood draws, feeding tubes, xrays, ultrasounds, sedatives...that she endured. I remember her crying and wishing I could hold her, but being unable to. I remember Gabi coming to visit and running down the hall into my arms and hugging me. I remember Gabi kissing Madi saying, "It's okay Madi, it's okay." I remember the devastation when her chest tube was accidentally pulled out, and the relief following because it had been plugged. I remember how Madi looked at me, smiling, telling me with her sweet expression that it would all be okay. I remember not allowing anyone to take pictures of her with all of her tubes and lines running off of her because I didn't want to remember any of that. I remember Isaac telling me that we needed to have faith. I remember Isaac there every step of the way.
Last summer as we were driving to Utah for a family reunion and we heard a helicopter overhead. We realized it was a life-flight helicopter headed towards primary children's and also realized it was exactly one year from the day Madi had been life flighted. We had an unplanned moment of silence as we both reflected on past events and how far we had all come in the last year. Whenever we hear a helicopter we say a silent prayer for those who may be experiencing a traumatic or life threatening experience like we once did.
Feeling especially grateful that Madi is still with us. We couldn't imagine life without any of our girls.

 



 Madi 1 1/2 weeks after coming home from the hospital (almost 3mo.)

 

For those of you who don't know what I'm talking about, this is the story.

The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

The Good.
We had Madi's doctor's appointment today, and it went pretty well. She's 12lbs 6oz and 24 1/2 inches long. She's following her growth curve, which is exactly what we want to see. We also had an x-ray taken today. The results showed that there is less fluid in her left lung, and the heart and trachea are back within "normal range." All in all, our prayers continue to be answered. We didn't have to make a trip to Boise today, thank goodness! Per our discretion we are able to reintroduce breast milk again, and wean her off the yucky formula.

The Bad.
Not really too much to report here, I just thought the title was catchy. :) We are sad that there is still some fluid in her lungs, but as long as it continues to improve, we are good to go. There is some worry with reintroducing breast milk; and that is if her body doesn't tolerate it, her lungs will start to fill up again, which is the reason we are so hesitant to take this next step. The doctor said that Boise recommended to wait 2-3 months. When he called Boise to ask for a more definite time period, 2 or 3 months, they said "yes. " Basically there isn't a whole lot of research done on this to really know an exact time period of how long these things take to heal, so it's really up to our discretion. No pressure, right?

The Ugly.
On a lighter note, I seem to be suffering from post-partum balding. Haha! Seriously, though, I'm losing hair like crazy! I think I might start wearing a hat when I go out, thank goodness the weather is cooler, or how else would I explain that! I was complaining tonight to Isaac about it and he said, "I don't know why you're acting so surprised, this is exactly what happened last time." True, but can't a girl complain! Seriously, a woman's body goes through a lot when she is prego and has a babe. I still don't think I'm fully recovered from my first babe. It's sure worth it though!
For all you ladies who have had two plus kids, you have to read this post! I hope you enjoy it as much as I did! (I say two plus kids because let's face it, the first kid was way easier to bounce back from!)

Thanks again for all of your love and support!

By Small and Simple Things

Yesterday I was going through old mission pictures and letters. It was a lot of fun looking back on my mission, and being able to recall some pretty amazing and wonderful experiences. As I was looking through some letters I happened to find a page that had been ripped out of a coloring book. I unfolded the page to see a carefully colored picture of an ant that was putting up a piece of wood, a support beam. The caption on the page read, "Little pieces of wood helped hold up the walls." I didn't give this picture any thought beyond how sweet it was that a young child in one of my areas had taken the time to color and give me this picture. They may not know or understand the magnitude of what was written on those pages, but I think I now do. "By small and simple things are great things brought to pass" (Alma 37:6.) Like the ant in the picture, the beam he was putting up was quite a bit smaller than the other ones in the picture, but by putting up that piece of wood, it helped hold up the walls. "Little pieces of wood helped hold up the walls." Those little pieces of wood are the small and simple things of life.

I want to thank all of you for your love and support in regards to Madi these last few months. We have felt your love and your prayers. Simple things like a smile, calling to see how we are doing, prayers, and several other things have all contributed to where we are now. All of these small things truly have made, "great things come to pass."

We have another doctor's appointment this Thursday for Madi. At this appointment they will take a chest x-ray to see if there is fluid in her lungs. If there is, there is a possibility that we will need to return to Boise for her to once again have a chest tube put in (they say the pain that she will feel is similar to dislocating a rib). If this is the case, we don't know how long we will be there for. I am very nervous about this, considering all we went through before. We are hoping and praying for the best. I would be so grateful if you could keep Madi in your thoughts and prayers this week, and especially on Thursday. Thank you again for all you have done.

Four Months and an Update

Madi is four months old today! It's hard to believe how fast time has gone. I feel like it was just last week that I was waddling around with a big 'ol belly- so grateful to be done with that! Madi is doing really well. She is gaining weight like a normal babe, and is full of smiles for anyone. We love both our girls so much! Gabi is 23 months, and will turn two in just three weeks! Time sure does fly!

The Girls watching a movie together (Probably Nemo)

This only lasted a few minutes :) Note Gabi holding Madi's hand so she won't touch the "butt"ons

Gabi trying out her winter coat for the first time

Our smiley girls!

Gabi playing with a big puzzle

Getting ready for church

Gabi sure loves her little "Mami"

Little Madi

Self-taken family pic, this was the best one...haha

Madi with her new toy (thanks Heidi!)

Gabi sharing, or stealing- sometimes it's a fine line for her :)

Some videos for your enjoyment.

As for an update, we go into the doctor's next week for another chest x-ray of the Madster to see how she's doing. If her lungs look clear, she can start having breastmilk once a day. Depending on how she tolerates it, she may be able to make the transition completly off of the special formula within a month. Here's for hoping!

Thanks again for all of your contintued love and support, we appreciate it so much!

All things shall work together for your good

I just woke up from my little "night-shift," which I fell asleep on. :) While Isaac was getting his lunch ready for work and Gabi ready for bed, I went and laid down next to Madi. Well, Madi was in a bassinet right next to our bed. We have to keep a close eye on her, so if she falls asleep before we are ready for bed, I prefer that one of us is in there with her. The problem with what we are dealing with, with Chylothorax is that there are really only two ways for us to know if her lungs start filling up again, 1) having an x-ray taken, and 2) a decrease capability of breathing. Since we are trying to limit the amount of x-rays that she has due to radiation exposure, the next best thing is to monitor her. She was a little more fussy today than usual, being fussy at all is unusual for Madi, to be honest. She's such a well natured baby. Since there's usually a reason why babies are fussy, we have to watch her extra close tonight and tomorrow. She's doing well right now.

As I was lying there, I felt an overwhelming sense of peace and gratitude. Despite all that has transpired over the last three and a half weeks, we have been blessed beyond compare. I see the Lord's hand so clearly, and sometimes almost literally, in our lives, I feel no need to complain. I see it in a kind word from a friend, a family member reaching out, and in our ward members as they strive to help us in any way possible. We have been so blessed.

All things considered, Madi is doing very well. At this point it's a waiting and hoping game. Waiting to make sure she is healing so that she can go back to normal food. Hoping, because there is still a chance that the formula won't work, her lungs will start to fill up again, and we will once again be in the hospital trying to figure out another solution. Even though little Madi has been through a lot, she still has plenty of smiles to offer. We love her.

Through all of this, I feel like I have gained, and continue to gain a stronger testimony. Prayer has become such a more meaningful part of our lives. I think I have learned what the meaning of "fervent" prayer is. I have seen my prayers answered in ways that I never thought possible. I am grateful.

An experience that I have wanted to share happened when we were in the hospital in the first few early days of everything. There was a lot of uncertainty that hung in the air. Day to day there was something new, something unexpected that we had to deal with. It was hard. The Sunday before all of this happened I was at church with the girls, Isaac had to work that Sunday. It's always a struggle when he's not there, especially with a wandering almost two year old. I had to nurse Madi. So here I was holding Madi, and trying to keep up with Gabi and usher her into the mother's lounge at church. As I was sitting in there trying to keep Gabi entertained while I fed Madi, I heard bits and pieces of what the speakers where saying. I have no idea who it was that was speaking, I think someone from the high council, and I only heard a small portion of what was being said. He talked about prophets in the later day, and trials that they endured. He talked about the importance of not saying, "Why me?" but taking the experience and utilizing it for your benefit. "Search diligently, walk uprightly, and be believing, and all things shall work together for your good..." (Doctrine and Covenants 90:24) The entire stay at the hospital the words, 'and all things shall work together for your good' kept echoing in my head. At first I was mad, how could my poor, helpless, beautiful child's suffering work for my good, for our good as a family. Why did I keep hearing that in my head? No good seem to come of what was happening as we encountered test after test after test, each taking it's toll on our sweet Madi. It wasn't until I understood the rest of this promise, did my faith begin to increase.

When we first entered the hospital, my heart was full of fear. Fear of the unknown. As time went on, I was able to learn to trust in the Lord, with all my heart- not an easy thing. There are still several uncertain things that we are dealing with, but we now have a calm reassurance that everything will be fine, everything will "work for [our] good."

Chylothorax

Chylothorax is a type of pleural effusion. It results from lymphatic fluid (chyle) accumulating in the pleural cavity. It's cause is usually from the thoracic duct or one of the main lymphatic vessels that drain into it. (wikipedia) In short, chylothorax is a result of a leak in the thoracic duct into the pleural cavity (sack the lungs are in) filling the lungs up with chyle, and depleting lung capacity.
On August 18th, 2010, our sweet little two month old baby girl, Madilyn, was life-flighted to Boise due to this condition.
I have been reluctant to write about this until now, due to all of the emotion that has been involved, but I feel that it's important to write it down.
On Sunday, August 15th Madi started choking, coughing, and then threw up, which was very unusual for her. We were concerned, but it didn't happen again that night. We decided that since we had her two month appointment the next day, we would talk to the doctor about our concerns.
Monday August 16th we went to Madi's 2 month appointment, which included her 2 month shots. She did relatively well, considering. We told the doctor what had happened the night before and, and he didn't seem too concerned, stating that it was normal for children to start spitting up more around that age.
Throughout the rest of the day we noticed that Madi was fussy, wouldn't eat, and seemed to labor in her breathing. We were concerned, and weren't sure if it was due to the immunizations, or what had happened the previous night. Monday night we were over at the Tree's and Madi was acting really hungry. I tried to feed her three different times and she refused to eat, even though she hadn't eaten in awhile, and was hungry. I went to burp her thinking that she had swallowed a lot of air when she was crying, and she started choking again, and wasn't breathing. She gagged, but didn't spit up, and continued not to breathe. She went stark white, and then started to turn blue. I was scared. I patted her on her back and she started to breathe, and then started to cry. We were both concerned. We took her home and I tired to feed her again. She ate really well, but when I went to burp her it was followed by more coughing and spitting and gagging, all while her trying to catch her breathe.
We decided to call the hospital, since we live 30min. away from the Twin Falls hospital. They were of no help whatsoever. She didn't have a fever, so they said not to worry, but to get into our doctor the next day. Neither of us slept at all that night, so concerned about our sweet little girl. The next morning we called to make an appointment with our doctor, but he didn't have any available appointments. We made an appointment with another doctor, but we later cancelled it because we had seen that doctor before, and didn't have a very good experience. We called the doctors office and talked to a nurse who told us not to worry, it didn't sound like a big deal. At this point Madi was very pale, had labored breathing, and was very lethargic. She was eating, however, so we decided to take the nurses advice. We went about our day as normal, and went to Twin as a family to run some errands.
Madi continued to be very lethargic, and we tried to wake her to eat. She finally ate a good amount. I thought maybe she was more used to me feeding her at home, so we headed home. When we got home I tried to feed her again, but she wouldn't eat, when I went to burp her, she started coughing and throwing up. We asked Scott to come over to help Isaac give her a blessing, which he promptly did. We then decided that we needed to take Madi into the ER. We went to the hopital in Gooding, which was the closest.
We were erring on the side of caution, figuring that we would be back home within an hour. Renae came over to watch Gabi. We packed a quick diaper bag, and were on our way.
When we arrived we were suprised and grateful that they weren't very busy. We went in, they took her vitals, and we waited for the doctor. All the while Madi was smiling and talking, like usual. They had a hard time assesing her O2 (oxygen) levels, they kept reading about 85. The doctor came in and lectured the nurses saying that no way could a baby look as good as she does and have a 85 O2 reading. Somehow a nurse finally got 95, and they called it good. We waited for several hours. They had pediatric trauma patient come in, and because Madi looked so good, they put that child in front of her, even though he came in after. In the meantime they put Madi on oxygen alternating with albuteral to open up her lungs. It had no affect on her respiratory rate. It was at this time the ER doctor started to become concerned and took initiative to get things rolling.
He told us there might be some serious things going on. Little did we know the implications this statement would have in the weeks to follow. They took her in for chest x-rays and then sent us to a trauma room. I knew that once we were sent into that room, something was going on. Madi was not doing so well at this point. She was hungry, had been poked many times, now had an IV in her foot, and she was really tired.
The doctor called us into his office, just a few doors down. This was just the beginning. I was not prepared in any way, shape or form for what he was about to say. He showed us the x-ray where, with our inexperienced eyes viewing x-rays, we were clearly able to see that her entire left lung was filled with fluid, pushing her heart completely over to the right side as well as pushing over her trachea. Her right lung also had fluid in it. She was working off of half of one lung. Our sweet little girl was in a lot of pain. He then told us he didn't know where she was going but she needed to leave as soon as possible via life-flight either to Boise's children's hospital or to Salt Lake. I completely lost it. I heard our baby girl crying, and so I left and went to her, feeling so numb, in such shock at what I had just heard. Isaac stayed to work out the details. I went into Madi's room and held her, not really knowing at that point if she was going to make it. I held her in my arms looking at her perfect little body, thinking that if I could take this all away from her, I would. I wish I could have.
Isaac came in and told me they were getting a special team together in Boise that would come pick her up, and a special team that would be ready when we got there. I told them I was going on the helicopter. Isaac would have to go home and get Gabi, and drive there. About a two hour drive from Gooding.
As we waited for them to arrive, and I held Madi in my arms, all I could think of was how I couldn't lose her, I just couldn't. As Isaac was about to walk into the room, he was talking to the doctor who said, "If it had been one more day, she probably wouldn't have made it."
For the next few hour, there was a lot of uncertainty about what the final outcome would be. We still didn't know what was going on with Madi; why her lungs had filled up or what the fluid was. They suspected pneumonia, but weren't sure.
The team arrived and immediately went to work getting Madi into an incubator, which she would be life-flighted in, and getting her hooked up to all the monitors. It was hard not to be able to hold her and console her and hard to see her in so much pain. I felt very confident in the team, of two very knowledgeable women as they talked me through what they were going to do, and what would happen when we arrived there.
Due to space limitations, I sat in the front with the pilot. I have never been in a helicopter before, and the unsteadiness of it due to wind only added to my anxiety, however I was very grateful that they let me go.
That 40minute flight was excruciatingly long. The whole time I was praying that she would make it, not knowing what was going on in the back, since we are separated from the back. My heart ached, and my mind raced.
We had to land at the airport, since the helicopter had to land early due to a warning light going off, which is standard protocol, apparently.
We then waited for an ambulance to come and pick us up. Suprisingly Madi had done very well, until we landed. She's a motion baby, I guess she slept the whole ride. I talked to her through the plastic of the incubator, and she calmed down a bit. The ambulance arrived and we loaded up and headed off to the hospital. We arrived at the hospital and went straight up to the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit of the St. Luke's Children's Hospital in Boise. They rushed her in to a room and immediately began transfering her into the bed and hooking her up to all sorts of monitors. My parents, who moved to Boise about 4 months ago were already at the hopital waiting. Unfortunately I didn't have time to talk to them, decisions had to be made. Dr. Christenson took me over to look at the x-ray while they put a new IV in Madi. He showed me the x-ray I had seen in Gooding, supposing it was pneumonia. He said that the only real option that we had was to put a chest tube in and drain out the fluid. We would then be able to know what the fluid was, and go from there. I felt very confident in him, and we went ahead with the plan. When we went back in, they already had the IV in place, and began to prep for the chest tube. The chest tube would be placed through her ribs in the the pleural space, where the fluid was. I had my mom go call Isaac to keep him updated on what was happening, since he was still on his way. They sedated Madi and went to work.
Dr. Christenson first inserted a needle that threaded the tube in, much like what is done with an IV. As soon as he took the needle out liquid came squirting out everywhere. He took a sample, and then hooked the tube up to an apparatus that gently sucked the fluid out. The amount that initially drained out was approximately 8oz in just the left lung! They didn't know how she was able to breathe. Soon after Madi came too. She was given some pain medicine, since chest tube are very painful. The doctor was suprised to see the substanc that came out was a yellowish color, the color of Chyle. They then had to determine an entirely different approach, since they thought that she would have pneumonia, and not chylothorax. In some ways it was good, on others it would lead us on a long journey, that we are still on.
The next few weeks were filled with uncertainty and a lot of trial and error. Madi was in the intensive care unit for 5 days, and then remained in the hospital for another 7 days.
She is now home and is on a special formula that is low in fats, since the fats that she was eating before is what was being dumped into her lungs. She came home this last Monday, and so far has been doing really well. We are still concerned, and will be for a long time to come. She will continue to have regular x-rays for the next several months to make sure that her lungs don't start to fill up again.
Gabi is doing well, and is really cute with her sister. She comes up and talks to her, telling her all about whatever it is she's talking about. She gives her kisses, and hold her pacifier for her. They love eachtother. Madi loves watching Gabi, and I can just see her trying to be like her as she gets older. We love our girls!
There is hope for full recovery, and no lasting effects from the chylothorax.
Even though this has been really hard, we have learned a lot, and drawn closer together as a family. We have witnessed miracles, and felt the loving arms of our Heavenly Father wrap around us as we struggle to be strong for our children. I know I personally have gained a greater understanding and appreciation for the Atonement. I am so grateful that we have the knowledge of the gospel, I feel like I would be truly at a loss without it.
There are many other things that I could go into detail about, but I feel a little emotionally taxed right now. If you have any questions at all, please feel free to leave a comment, and I will respond as best I can.
Thank you all for your love, support, and prayers. It has made a bigger difference than you will ever know.