Home again, home again… Well we managed to make it back home in less than 48 hours this time. That’s pretty good for us. Ellie basically had another one of her spells after her bath on Thursday night. Her left side went limp and she was pretty irritable. We spent the next 16 hours in the Emergency Department at Vanderbilt Children’s. All of the testing came back again just as we expected. Blood vessels not getting enough blood flow in the lower right side of her brain. They feel like the bath she took was probably too warm and it sent all of the blood rushing to her extremities. Which decreased the blood in her brain in areas that were already running low. Basically it mimics a mini-stroke but they called it a vasospasm. The best course of action right now is to give her a half of a baby aspirin, a calcium channel blocker medicine, and extra hydration every day to keep those vessels wide open and flowing. One of the Neurologists also told us today that even though they evacuated the subdural fluid collection last week there is fluid back in the space. This is good clean cerebral spinal fluid this time and it is to be expected that where there is an empty space fluid will collect. However, what they hope will happen is that her brain will expand back and fill this space in so the fluid will not collect. Her brain has been shifted slightly to the left for almost 2 years because of the big tumor and the fluid. Neuro-Surgery told us last week that they hope her brain will move back, but it may not. The midline shift in her brain can cause balance issues, put pressure on her other blood vessels, affect her eyesight and focus, etc. So our BIG prayer request right now is that her brain will quickly expand and move back in to place on her right side and send that fluid collection back to all the places where it really belongs! Do it Lord! Show us that her brain has moved back on the next MRI! Thankfully Ellie was up and playing like crazy once we got home. She was good in the hospital but she still fussed every time they messed with her and she wanted to sleep a lot. It’s now her way of coping. One she saw that we were headed home; she perked up and became our old Ellie once again. PRAISES • To God be the glory for everything. Once again, he has seen us through! • All of the prayer warriors that follow Ellie’s young life. You’ve covered her in prayer from literally around the world! Please pray for… • The baby aspirin, calcium channel blocker, and extra hydration to keep those vessels wide open and flowing! • Her brain to expand back in the gap and be perfectly aligned once again. • This to be the last time she has to have one of these spells. It was pretty frustrating to head back to the hospital on Thursday night. We had had such a great day and it was literally shut down in an instant. The ER was so full when we got there; we had to wait in a conference room until they could get her in. The ER is a wonderful place when you need it, but you really don’t want to have to go there. You see a lot of bad stuff. But there is some good too. Ellie draws quite the attention to those in the waiting room. Of course she was crying and in pretty bad shape. But her little bald head with all of its scars still leads people to believe that she is probably sicker than she really is. People look at us with such pity. At one point I had to take her to the bathroom in the waiting room by myself because we didn’t have enough hands for someone to go with me. A woman waiting helped me with the door. Later on, that same woman mouthed to my mom from across the room with hand gestures saying “I’m praying for your baby girl!” As you would walk by each room in the ED, it was like looking at people who are just broken siting there in their prison cells. Their child was there lying in a bed, usually crying, and there they were in a chair with tear stained faces. We felt the same as they did most of the time. It felt like a terrible nightmare for quite a while. Then in a moment things didn’t seem quite so bad. I saw a little girl, probably about 5 or 6 years old, go by sitting on her mom’s lap on a stretcher. An ambulance had just brought them in. They went in the room next to ours. Nothing appeared to be seriously wrong. But within 5 minutes, every light in their room was on and there were a ton of loud noises. Something had drastically changed. Before we knew it they were racing her to a room across the hall, doctors and nurses were everywhere. The sign on that room said Trauma 1. For 30 minutes, there was a flurry of activity. Shortly after that they wheeled her out intubated and on life support headed for the ICU. As bad as it was for us, Ellie was laying there comfortable and sleeping peacefully. At that moment, we actually felt blessed that it wasn’t as bad as that little girl. Several hours later as we went to take Ellie up to her room on the 6th floor, one of the nurses in the ER saw Ellie and stopped us as we went by. She said, “hey I know you. I was working at the desk here the day you found out about the brain tumor. How is she doing?” She had still remembered Ellie and that day over 2 years later. We took that moment to proudly tell her and her co-workers that even though she had just a 10% chance, God had healed her and she is cancer free. They were so happy to hear the good news. While we really don’t understand the ‘why’ in all of this, it is evident that God’s hand is in it and He is there every step of the way! So happy to be home again! Still standing with our Shining Light of God’s Promises and praying for continued miracles! Blessings! Mike, Kerri, Ellie, and Sadie Taliaferro
Posted on: Sun, 17 Aug 2014 03:33:57 +0000
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