Round 2

Hello my dear family (and friends)!

Last week (Thursday) Brighton was admitted back into the hospital :(. That day things just seemed to be off with her and I noticed that she seemed to be really warm when I got home from the grocery store. I ended up searching all over the house for a thermometer and found that her temp was 102.8. My heart sunk. A fever was bad... really really bad. I started making calls to see what the doctors suggested and just like we thought they wanted B back to the hospital ASAP. They even offered to sent the Angel team again. Comforting right? She was ok so Shaun and I loaded her up, asked the neighbors to watch Carter, and we headed back down to the same hospital she had the surgery at. Sadly, I guess the only way for kids to get admitted is to do their time in the ER.  We walked in, they rushed us to a room and started tests right away. They did everything they could thing of, even did a lumbar puncture to make sure is wasn't meningitis! Sadly everything kept coming back negative but Brighton was actually starting to look worse and worse and after the lumbar puncture, she even stopped breathing! It was terrifying. Obviously the doctors didn't like that so finally 10 hours later she was moved back up the the CSU. The next day they found that the blood cultures they took were starting to grow bacteria which was pretty much a sure sign that her little heart had caught an infection.  They let the culture grow for a few more days and were able to narrow down exactly the strain and how strong it is. Because they were able to narrow it down so much they were able to pick a specific antibiotic that would attack it as best and fast as possible. Since then Brighton has been SO much better. She's awake a lot more, eats really well, and even makes cute little coo's that melts our hearts. Because she has a pretty intense bacteria, the doctors feel it would be best to stay here 6 weeks while the antibiotics run their course. Obviously it's slightly depressing, but honestly somewhat nice as well. I think having her home would be a little stressful. I would worry about the antibiotics and her IV's. Especially with wild man Carter around. He's very curious and very fast these days. I also like the idea of us going home with a healthy baby. Today Brighton had to have a little procedure done to put a central line in. Pretty much this is a permanent IV that runs from the back of her shoulder to the top of her heart. By having this she doesn't have to be hooked up to any wires and won't have to have any more blood draws!

To put the line in they put her completely under and even put in a breathing tube. I think they do this because its a pretty delicate procedure and they need her to be as still as possible. Taking her down was sort of hard but knowing that she was pretty much just getting an IV, I was able to hold back the tears. For once. Still sucked walking away, that never will get easy. She was down stairs for about 2 hours and when she came back I more or less ran to the hall and scooped her up. Its been nice this time around, there hasn't been really any restrictions on holding her or leaving the room and I'm loving it. From here on out we hopefully wont have anything more to report. It should be pretty boring and we are actually praying that it is. I wouldn't mind at all if I went crazy from the repetition. Slow and boring is a wonderful thing when it comes to hospital stays. Through all of this I cant begin to say how thankful I am for good, caring doctors. Everyone on Brighton/s case, the cardiologist that diagnosed her, her pediatrician, and the staff here at CHOA have been better than you can even imagine. Her pediatrician even made a trip down to come visit her and gave me his personal cell number! Amazing I tell ya!

Everyone has asked how we are doing and handling it all. And to be 100% honest, Its hard. Something weird though is that I feel like I've become numb to the stress, anxiety and fear. I've learned over the last few weeks that everything has to be taken moment by moment with Brighton and swallowed in tiny doses. Seeing my little girl go through so much is horrible and I would give anything to make it so no children had to endure this. Shaun and I have both have decided that there should be some earthly law that sickness doesn't apply to children under the age of 18. Being a parent to such a sick little kiddo is draining and its not fair that these little kiddos have to go through something like this! There's been a few days where I feel like I'm standing in a standoff with some imaginary cloud trying to take take my little girl from us. But we are winning. The doctors are behind us pulling their guns faster than the cloud and he is getting weaker and weaker. There has been so many scary days but there has also been some really amazing moments. Seeing Carter give his sister kisses and hugs, or hearing Shaun walk in  and say "hey sweet heart" brings so much happiness. I absolutely love having her here on this earth and having her be apart of our family.

Carter is also doing awesome. He's my favorite little buddy and always has us laughing. He's had to sacrifice a lot as well the last couple months and I know its not easy on him. Honestly thats probably the hardest part of all of this, not being able to be with both kiddos as much as I would like. But he's getting lots of attention from grandparents and we do our best to spend as much time with him as we can. Right now he is getting more and more wild as the days go on. He has found a new love of climbing and will scale our fridge, stove, and even the dining table. He is all about getting a rise out of people so he will run up and "scare you" then fall on the ground laughing when you scream or jump. He also does this funny thing where he arches his back and pushes out his belly. We cant help but laugh our head off when he does it. Why in the world he does some of the dorky things he does I will never know. But I love it. He's also started to understand us better and will respond with "ya" or  "uh" when he does and doesn't want something. Most of the time its "ya" no matter what so things can get quite confusing. His stories have also become quite elaborate and animated. He will lean forward with his fist out and turn bright red he gets so into them. Pretty much he is a BLAST to have around.


Thats it for the update as of now. I'll try to keep up on this more. Shaun and I both feel its a good way to journal this whole adventure so check back in periodically if your curious! Also, here is a few pictures as of late. We love you guys!