OK, fellow Prayer Warrior - We are in need of some "KNEE Time" for a precious 11 month old who is the youngest daughter of Karen (mennonite sewer from Penn) a fellow blogger at Naptime Seamstress -http://naptimeseamstress.blogspot.com/Her precious baby Gwen picked up an e-coli infection which moved into a kidney disorder-pancreatitis/HUS. So here is a pic of precious 11 mo old Baby Gwen & the lastest of several postings, (this is rather long so as to get you caught up to date)
8/5/10
"Baby Gwen" is in pain! She now has a condition called pancreatitis, which is some sort of irritation of the pancreas. Because there is no medicine for this, the treatment is no food or water by mouth. The pancreatitis is also very, very painful. She literally screamed in pain for four hours last night - and that was after two doses of morphine, one dose of tylenol, and four doses of another strong pain killer. That gives you an idea of how painful this is.Currently, treating her is a very complicated issue. The HUS (causing the kidneys to not function properly) requires her to not have fluids. The pancreatitis requires her to not have food, thereby requiring fluids for her nutrition. The lasicks (spelling??) is the drug of choice for supporting the kidneys, but irritates the pancreatitis. Most pain medication would be filtered by the kidneys, but hers aren't working properly, so that limits the pain medicine choices. So you see the rock and the hard place.Please pray that the Lord would relieve her of this pain. It is so hard, so very hard to watch her be in such pain. The nurses and doctors are doing what they can, but as a mom, it is so hard to believe that they're doing all they can. And yet, I'm sure they are - after all, it's their job and they're certainly well-educated. So, pray for us too. Karen's husband Stephen relieved me and stayed last night with Baby Gwen at the hospital so that I could come home and be with our other girls - O, H, and C. (the first I've seen them in 5 days!) So, pray also that we can continue to meet all our daughters' need for parents while giving Baby Gwen our attention and energy.Thank you! Mom Karen
8/9/10
Thank you, Gina (Home Joy blog), for asking for prayer for "Baby Gwen". So many of your readers hopped over and left me such encouraging comments - Thanks to all of you, too.
Baby Gwen's kidney function is making the "King of Nephrology" happy - not dancing in the streets happy, but not mad - that is a good thing. He thinks she will need more blood, so that's evidence that not all things are looking up. But, we're encouraged at the number of wet diapers she's having. So, no dialysis today, but maybe tomorrow.
Baby Gwen's pancreas problem is getting worse, so they're ordering an ultrasound, more bloodwork, and the potential insertion of an NG (nasal gastric) feeding tube.
Also, her potassium is very low, so they're monkeying with the IV nutrition bags.
She's been acting a bit more like herself - a wee bit fussy at the nurses, but not bad; pulling on the different wires; and trying to sit up (she falls over right away, because she's so weak, but she's trying).
Thank you all for your prayers - it's trying, but we certainly do feel God's Hand moving in all of this - from the nurses and roommates we get, the other parents we've met, how the doctors are testing and treating - all of it has been passed through God's Hands first and we're resting in that thought. Mom Karen
8/12/10
Yippee!!! An email of almost all good news - lots of prayers answered! Baby Gwen needed NO dialysis Sunday or Monday and on Tuesday they removed the dialysis catheter and put in an NJ feeding tube (goes through the nose and bypasses the stomach, going right to the intestines).
Her blood counts stayed level two days in a row (after her fourth transfusion), so no transfusion today; tomorrow is to be decided after they see the numbers from today. The ultrasound of her gall bladder, liver, pancreas were normal.
Her lipase numbers (the elevated number showing the pancreatitis) had been off the charts (4000 --- normal is somewhere in the 200s) for several days. They have dropped to 900 by this morning. Since they've dropped so much, they are going to start her on clear liquids by mouth sometime today and see how she handles it.
They've stopped the IV nutrients and are up to 20 ml of breastmilk (about 4 tsp.) an hour with through the NJ tube.
Isn't that great??!? All of a sudden I'm starting to feel much better myself! Thank you all for praying; now you can all praise God with us for these answers to prayer.
There are still some concerns that we're praying about - Baby Gwen's potassium is still low and her blood pressure is still high. She is being medicated for the high blood pressure and they say she might still need to take that even when she comes home. - But let's pray about that, okay?
No one has mentioned a time to come home yet - in fact, two nights ago, they moved us to a private room because Baby Gwen was having trouble resting because of all the noise. (That itself was a direct answer to prayer. I noticed that Baby Gwen was bothered by the background noises of children crying, people visiting, TVs on, etc. but didn't think there was anything to do about it. It was a nice surprise when the nurse told me they were going to move us.)
Baby Gwen has been sitting up, playing, reading books. I took her for a wagon ride yesterday (you should have seen that - imagine a tired mommy pulling a wagon AND the IV tree. Yeah, people were moving out of the way. I was scaring myself!)
So that's how we've been. Again, thank you so much for praying for Baby Gwen and for us. And thank the Lord for the improvements we're seeing!
Mom Karen
PRAYER TRULY WORKS !!!
Happy Stitching,
Auntie Pam
Ephesians 2:10
"Each one should use whatever gift she has received to serve others, faithfully administering God's grace in its various forms"
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