Libby Update

I got a partial txt message from Gracie tonight. She "sounded" down. I know that she is stressing over all of this. I am sad about the speech. I was the one that mentioned her "strange" speech a week of so ago. It just wasn't right, and my gut was Stroke, but I couldn't say that, I just said that she was talking weird. Who am I to say??? It just wasn't 'right' when she was talking to me, especially when she was saying "Mrs. Stonecipher".

Pray for me that I will know how to be helpful during this hospital stay. I want to be helpful and not in the way!

Headed to bed with a heavy heart.....

Libby has had a stable but difficult day. Blood and urine culture have not grown anything. She has felt pretty bad with lots of wretching that I'm sure would be vomiting if she could. Motrin seems to help with the "feel bads" and Zofran helped the wretching.

She had an echo that was unchanged from December. The cardiologists doubt that this is a return of her chest infection from October. We hope they are right.

I (and a good friend) have noticed that Libby's speech seemed different, but I was having a hard time putting my finger on it, and it has been intermittent. Today, I realized that her speech is slurred. Because of that and a history of sinus infections without much runny nose, they did a CT of her head and sinuses. There appears to be "sinus disease" on one side, but likely not enough to explain her current symptoms/labs. It does appear that she may have had a small stroke "remotely", or a while ago, but that is all I know for now. We will hopefully get more info tomorrow. She is at risk for strokes given her heart anatomy.

The last piece of information we got is that Mason (our 7 year old) complained that his throat hurt, and he developed a low grade fever. His strep test turned positive immediately, so we are hopeful that maybe Libby has also had strep. It would be a great diagnosis compared to the other things it could be!! They sent labs to evalute that this evening.

Thanks as always for loving us and checking on us. We are of course concerned, and tired, and leary of repeating last October. Please continue to pray for wisdom and discernment for the doctors, and peace for us, especially the boys. This morning I called Mason before he left for school and he said "Here we go again! Two months in the hospital!" While we all hope and pray not, we know that we can handle what comes because God gives us strength!

Love, Gracie