Enough of the doom and gloom

Lately it seems like the end of the world is near. Stock market crash! Economy in the toilet! Cats puking everywhere! I ask you, when will it end?

Its not just the economic woes, its also the health concerns of kiddos around us. We had Leah go through surgery two months ago. Another good friend had to send her little guy into a major surgery a few weeks ago (went well, he's recovering nicely). Now another CDH kiddo has reherniated and is not doing well. A friend of Emma's who was born with a heart defect is having to go in for "urgent" surgery. All of these kids are 5 years old or younger and should not have to go through these things. I guess we were sheltered from so much if it since Emma was born healthy and has always been healthy (knock on wood!). If your kids are healthy, give them a big hug and a kiss and pray that they stay that way forever.

I actually got to meet the mom of the CDH kiddo yesterday in Iowa City where her little girl in in the PICU. They live on the eastern side of the state, but she was one of the few CDH kiddos I knew lived in Iowa. Her family actually made the decision to deliver her at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) because of their experience with CDH. CHOP is a long way from Iowa, but in their hearts they knew that was what was best for their baby. She did extremely well and the mom has been a champion for supporting other families going through CDH. Now she is faced with the fact that two years later things could go bad out of the blue. The little girl reherniated (something like what Leah did), but instead of a quick laproscopic fix, she had a bowel obstruction as well and they removed a section of her bowel, they had to close the diaphragm again with a patch, she's had mulitple infections, she's still on the ventilator, she had a skin burn due to a type of dressing they used, and now they had to re-open her abdomen to releive pressure--they have a mesh "patch" over her inscision until the swelling of her internal organs goes down. The swelling was impacting her ablity pee and get bad fluids out of her body, and was also compromising her lungs. Two weeks ago she was a smiling, happy two year old who loved to dress up, sing, and dance.

Anyone got good news to share? I need to lift this dark cloud and feel like things are good in the world - - although holding a one week old precious little girl did help some this weekend.