January 20, 2006

4:30 am - the phone rings - its the hospital. Emily's abdomen had enlarged again. She had to be taken to surgery immediately to find out what was wrong. A leak had developed where the 2 ends of the intestine were connected during her first surgery. They had to take those ends apart and rather than reconnect and risk a leak happening again, they decided to give her an ostomy and let her grow and heal before reconnecting her. This is not the news that we wanted. This meant her stay in the NICU would be extended and recovery would take much longer than we anticipated. She was sedated pretty heavily on morphine. She was SO swollen with fluid that she weighed in at about 10 lbs. It was so tough seeing your child looking so helpless when there is nothing you can do but hold her tiny hand and look at her.