Nov 25, 2006 Update on Lily
// November 25th, 2006 // No Comments » // Lily Rush
Thanks to all of you who have been so faithful to pray for Lily Anne these past few weeks. We continue to give thanks for all that God has done in protecting our new baby girl.
To bring everyone up to date, it has been a wild ride in the first two months of Lily’s life:
9/21/06 Born 6 pounds, 14 ounces. She’s beautiful!
9/22/06 Chokes, turns blue, and is put on oxygen by the nurse.
9/24/06 Released by the pediatrician after being diagnosed with reflux.
9/26/06 In her second night at home, Lily stops breathing again, requires rescue breathing, and goes to the hospital by ambulance.
9/27/06 A barage of test reveals severe reflux (what caused the breathing problem). The tests also reveal that Lily has a large hole in her heart (Ventricular Septal Defect – aka VSD) which we are told will eventually require open heart surgery.
9/28/06 During the blood work, we are told that they discovered Lily’s platelet count is extremely low. They order a lumbar puncture to discover why. The first lumbar puntcture is unsuccessful, requiring a second go-round of this painful process. During the first procedure, they apparently nicked a blood vessel – leaving cloudy spinal fluid which brought on additional fears and tests. In the end, they discovered nothing else wrong, and the platelets came up on their own.
10/6/06 Lily finally gets to return home, now with a nighttime heart and breathing monitor.
10/18/06 After vomiting constantly for three days, Lily is re-admited to the hospital for fluids and more testing. After spending 24 hours focused on what everyone considers more reflux problems, one wonderful doctor suggests that she undergo another ultrasound. In doing so, they discover that Lily has a condition called pyloric stenosis (a thickening of the walls between the stomach and small intestine which makes it difficult for food to pass through the digestive system–as a result all the food that goes in comes back up).
10/20/06 Lily undergoes surgery to correct the pyloric stenosis. Within hours she has almost total relief from the vomiting. Following the surgery, she continues to suffer from reflux, but a condition much more managable than before, and without all the vomiting.
11/17/06 Dr. Wong, Lily’s cardiologist, does a follow-up echocardiogram . He tells us that, as expected, her heart condition is worsening, and that her left ventrical is enlarged to accommodate for the extra pressure. Lily is still less than 9 pounds, and Dr. Wong tells us that the Austin surgeons would like her at 11 puonds before they do the surgery. This is disheartening, as she is having difficulty gaining weight because of the VSD.
11/20/06 We travel to Texas Children’s Hospital in Houston to meet with the surgeon there, as well as a local cardiologist. The doctor reinforces everything we have been told by Dr. Wong. The surgeon in Houston is completely comfortable operating on Lily at her current weight, and we are told that the risks for waiting much longer to operate would be greater than any possible gains. We are scheduled for open-heart surgery in Houston with Dr. Fraser on January 23, 2007. Lily will check into the hospital on 1/22. In the meantime, Lily is on Lasix 3 times a day now – medication to help keep fluid out of her lungs – and we continue to pray diligently for her to gain strength every day to prepare for January.
