August 13, 2010
Hello!!!! How is everyone?!? I pray that God is blessing you and your family as He is mine.
How are we, you ask?! Well, we have begun our new life here in Little Rock, Arkansas!! Happy Birthday to Glory Danielle Morton…she is 3 weeks old today!! And, might I say, a beautiful baby!! You couldn’t hide it with a million tubes, needles, and probes if you triedJ
First of all, let me tell you how Glory is doing from a medical perspective. She was born on Thursday, July 22nd and had her first surgery on Monday, July 26th, to place a “G-tube” in her stomach, which will be used to feed her eventually. She then had her first of three heart surgeries on Wednesday, July 28th. As I mentioned before, this was the most critical and involved of the three heart surgeries that she will need, and she is recovering really well! She is making slow, steady progress, which is what the doctors want to see after an open-heart surgery. They have kept her on the ventilator because, after the general surgeons consulted with the heart doctors, both parties agree that it will be best for Glory to go ahead and repair part of her esophagus issue. After the CT scan on Monday, it was determined that she does have a fistula (an abnormal connection) between her esophagus and trachea that is located on her lower left side. This is in addition to her esophageal atresia (a disconnection in her esophagus). The surgeons believe she is recovering and is strong enough to go back to the OR to close off the fistula. They will do this surgery on Monday and it is scheduled for 7:30am. They have told us this is not a major surgery. At three months of age, they will operate again and repair her esophagus. They have not used her G-tube to feed her yet since they found a fistula, and they were worried that she might aspirate any food given which could and probably would be fatal for her. After they close off the fistula, they will begin feeding her through her G-tube so that the stomach and lower section of her esophagus can grow in the next couple of months. They hope that by letting her get physically bigger, they will have less of a section of her esophagus to connect. Because this surgery will be in a few months, it will keep her in the hospital for some time since they usually do the second heart surgery from 3 to 6 months of age. When she is awake, she is checking everything out with her huge eyes. She loves to get “baby love” from mommy…I can fold down one side of her bed and kiss all over her face while she bats her long eyelashes in approvalJ
Overall, the doctors seem very pleased with her progress. As I have always thought, she is proving to be very strong. She has a long road ahead of her, but we have great hope for her. Please pray for her this weekend as they will be continuing to push her and wean her off of medicines and the ventilator so she will be ready for surgery on Monday. Please pray for the general surgeons on Monday…that they will see and be able to repair the fistula. Your continual prayers are why we have made it this far.
As far as day to day life here goes, the rest of us are adjusting quite well. I have been staying at the hospital with Miss Glory during the day while Philip gets to spend time with Eliana. Then I have been coming back to the hotel and he goes back up to see Glory after the nurses have done their shift change in the evening. We are still staying at our hotel which has worked really well for us thus far. We are beginning to think about other longer-term housing here. Please pray that we will make the right decision about that. Also, we are looking for a preschool program for Eliana to attend. We really feel like she would benefit from some structure at this point and she also is wanting to be with other kids. We have visited a couple of preschools, so please also pray that the details of that will fall into place for her. Otherwise, she is doing really well. She was able to play with Bright, Zion, and Brave the other day before they left on their overseas adventure. She also loves when her girl cousins, Emma and Anna, come to visit. She blows kisses toward the hospital every night to Baby Sister Glory.
Can I tell you something? I am different. I have changed. Not in a bad way…it’s actually good, if you can believe that. Things that used to be very important to me have become less of a concern now. Every day that I have Glory here with me is a blessing. It’s freeing, actually. In a weird way, it’s much less stressful than worrying about details that mattered to me before. As I have anticipated writing this e-mail, I have pondered over and over how I could explain this very feeling, as I know it will be hard to understand. It’s almost as if I have a heightened sense of awareness of the good things around me. Oh, don’t think that I feel this way each and every minute of every day. It’s a continual learning process, this new feeling. Even as I write this, I begin to doubt and wonder how I will handle things to come. But I’ve gotten this far, right? The new me is becoming more and more prevalent, right? As an example, I met a very nice woman today as I was running errands in the 100 degree temperature. I was explaining to her what had brought us to Little Rock and about Glory. We continued to talk, and at the end of the conversation, she began to tell me how sorry she was and wished me well. For a moment, for just a split second, I actually thought, “Why is she sorry for me?” There are moments when I feel so blessed to have two beautiful daughters that I actually wondered for a moment what she was talking about.
Let me tell you something else…this is what GOD can do. These feelings are not my own, but I want to share them with you. I would never in a million years wish for any situation of this magnitude for any one of you, but I do wish you could begin to feel the freedom that I feel as I only have one source of strength. So, tonight, as I drink this extra-chocolaty chocolate milk (wish you were here with me, Uncle D), Eliana is sound asleep on her new big-girl zebra-print pillow (thank you Isabella, Connor, “Sissa”, and Kyle), and Glory is resting well with the greatest nurses in the world (thank you, CVICU), I am going to be thankful to be alive. Will you join me?
Love and miss you all,
Kerry Morton