Overdue Update

Things are going pretty good. Lizzie had a good day yesterday, although she was really lethargic. We ended up getting a cat scan yesterday and it showed that she still has fluid built up on the right side of her brain. Her drain is working, but she still has the buildup, so tomorrow they will likely do another surgery to put a permanent shunt in to help with draining fluid from the brain into one of her arteries likely into the heart for the body to handle the fluid.

They had talked about doing a surgery today, and even had one scheduled to remove some of the fluid, but she is doing pretty well. We had ANOTHER cat scan today that basically showed the same thing as yesterday. I think she'll have one more tomorrow before the shunt. Thank goodness our insurance deductible has been met a long time ago(two weeks seems like a long time in our circumstances).

Last night my Sister Rachael, and her husband Casey came to visit. We had such a nice visit and Lizzie was smiling and laughing a lot. It was really fun to see. Carol went home yesterday afternoon for her second night at home with the kids since this whole thing started. She is at church with them now and I hope she has had a nice, much needed break.

Lizzie has been getting up to go potty now and it is good for her to get up and around. She has been taking a lot of steps on her own and I think is making some progress. She has been able to keep her body straight without assistance when going potty and she couldn't do that last night. As Carol mentioned in our last post, our Doctor thinks she may have had a stroke a week ago on Saturday. Her left side of her face is still droopy and we hope that will come back.

Another piece of good news is that they backed off of some of her sleep medication last night and she still slept and has been more alert today. She still is on a ton of medication, but it is nice to get one out of her system.

They have a small church service here on Sundays, it is only about 1/2 hour and she wants to go with me today. I am excited for that and hope she does well in her wheelchair. They will also come in and do a primary lesson for her after church.

Overall, we still have a lot that we know we need to go through. First and foremost we are hoping her surgery goes well tomorrow. We are happy with her progress lately, but it feels like a lot of 2 steps forward 2 steps back. I didn't think we would be here this long, and we are likely going to be here another 2 weeks I would guess. I would be lying if I didn't say that recently it has started to wear on us a little bit. But Carol and I were both able to go home this weekend and spend time with our other children and that has been really nice for us. We also still have so much love and support from our family and friends and that helps to buoy us up. We hope that Lizzie continues to progress, as she does we'll be able to come home a little more often. Please continue to pray with us that she can make progress. We are so thankful for all of the kind things that have been said and done in our behalf.

I think it is important for everyone to know that Lizzie is happy and is really not in a lot of pain. Thanks again for everything. Here's to a successful surgery tomorrow!