Baby Steps for Libby and STEPS for Reagan

Things are improving for Libby as you will read in the following posts. The kids are doing great. They are getting along fine, no fighting or anything...continues to bless me! Reagan is trying to take steps...makes me sad. BUT she is almost 14 months old, so it is time! The babysitter, Araenae, is picking up all of the kids at school and taking them to the park...I could get used to having a fulltime sitter. I wanted to post here, and then back to laundry I go!!!! Thanks for checking in!!! Gracie sounded MUCH better last night than in the days before. Please continue to lift her and Eric up as they wait bedside with Libby...I keep thinking of that chorus "God will make a way, when there seems to be no way, he works in ways we cannot see, He will make a way for me..."

Lib had a good night. Her urine output has picked up significantly, which is a great sign that things are improving. Her temperature normalized after about 1am. Dr Fraser is cleaning out her wound right now. We will hear from him afterwards about the plan. Thanks for checking on us. Love, Gracie Dr Fraser was encouraged by how good Libby's wound looked today. He anticipates taking her to the OR tomorrow or Thursday along with the plastic surgeon to close at least her sternum (breast bone), possibly the skin. More likely though is that the skin closure will occur later after she has had a "wound vac" on the wound for about a week. We have never seen this, but the response we keep getting from medical personnel is that it is near miraculous in improving wound healing. It really is like a vaccum that helps to "shrink" the wound. Eric spoke with the plastic surgeon yesterday who anticipates being able to do a more simple closure than we were originally prepared for. Another piece of good news is that her culture from yesterday is not growing any bacteria. This is really important because continued growth in the would be an indication that they may not be able to clear the infection no matter what they do. So we are thankful for baby steps. We are doing better today also. A fellow heart mom posted on her page about moving from traumatic shock to miserable acceptance and beyond. I think that is so true!! The shock is wearing off, and hopefully we will move from surviving to thriving soon. We feel loved by all of you! Love, Gracie