Still in the woods

Continue to pray for Sara. Her fever is gone for the most part, but it did show up again later yesterday morning/early afternoon. She is having blood work done this morning to figure out what kind of infection we are dealing with.

And yes, it did all change as suddenly as my previous posts read. Jennifer was with her Saturday morning, neurosurgeon came by and was very happy with her progress. He said if the CT scan Monday looks good we will go home Wednesday. I came to switch with Jennifer around 2pm, and right before that Sara threw up. We have learned that throwing up, intense throwing up is a sign of a shunt problem. I rock her most of the afternoon, she doesn't want to eat, and throws up twice more. Through all of that we notice the fever. Other than her last shunt infection, she's never had fever.

The doc orders for the temp in the room to go down and that night was my first night sleeping in a refrigerator. Later that evening both docs show up (neurosurgeon and pediatrician) and want to tap her. But he still has this expression - this baby was fine earlier today, this makes no sense. They tap her and he tells me in short order, the shunt is clogged we will replace it Sunday morning at 10. Both docs look at the cerebral spinal fluid (CSF) and it is clear, looks good. Cloudiness or coloration are signs of infection or other problems. They still don't think infection. The cultures on the CSF tell otherwise and that is when plans changed Sunday morning.

Now the concern is that her CSF is yellowish. Again, blood work this morning and cultures should tell us what we are dealing with. You can also pray for her tummy. She continues to have trouble pooping. She continues to be irritable and fussy. She is not sleeping soundly. This could partly be because she has to stay on her back and she is a tummy sleeper. She would sleep great if she could hold one of our fingers all night. Unfortunately we can't stand all night. It's really funny, I can see the difference in her heart rate when she is holding my finger and when she isn't. She will relax and her heart rate will get down between 110-120 when she is holding my finger. I slip it away and as soon as she realizes it about 10 seconds later she is at 130-140.

We continue to believe that God is going to get Sara through this, that's walking by our faith, the eyes of our heart. But our physical eyes still struggle to see that clearly when she continues to have so many setbacks. So pray that the eyes of our hearts would be strong to see clearly and trust strongly in our Father in Heaven that promises to never leave us nor forsake us. Pray we would sense His strength and the presence of Jesus Emmanuel (God with us) through every minute of every day and night. We'll keep everyone posted so you will know how to pray. Thanks for all your encouraging words.