Easter Sunday 4/12/09

Happy Easter Sunday to everyone. May today bring you the renewal and resurrection of spirit that this day was meant to give.

As for the Frees, we are doing OK. Things are not exactly moving forward, but things are not getting worse either. Kaydee has been playing Little Dribblers, until she badly sprained her ankle. It was black and blue all the way up her leg. She missed three games out of the 10 that are played, but one game she went in anyway because another player fouled out. She was very brave and we were very proud of her. Cooper has been playing baseball. He is doing great and having a lot of fun.

As for Kensley, she has had a hard month. It all started after our Omaha trip. In Omaha she had to have a barium dye X-ray of her intestine, and she had a scope of everything(basically a colonoscopy and a endoscopy). This was very hard on her as you can imagine. She was recovering from the trip and tests, until she broke another central line, which J. told you all about in the last blog. While we were in the hospital getting the new line, we decided to have her G-tube placed in her stomach. This was not a simple procedure as it should have been. Kensley's stomach had shifted up under her rib cage and had to be pulled down and sewn to her abdominal wall in order to put a feeding tube in the correct place. It has been very hard to recover from this surgery. She was soooooo sore for 2 weeks. Also, her stools increased and became all liquid. NOT FUN. Watery stools cause Kensley to have a hard time maintaining her fluids and like anyone with diarrhea, she can become very dehydrated. So, we have been battling these things for weeks now, and Kensley has not gained any weight. We think that all the manipulation of her bowel and stomach, combined with travel and teething have caused her to develop bacterial overgrowth in her bowel. This is very common for Short Bowel kids, because most of them do not have a valve to control the flow of bacteria(which is naturally occurring in your bowel) from the colon to the small intestine. We will start an antibiotic treatment on Monday. Hopefully that will help her absorption and weight gain. We are not going to church this Easter. There will just be too many people there and we need a break from any bugs and other complications. BUT, through all of this Kensley has remained her happy and cheerful self. She plays and crawls and laughs and puts us all to shame with her positive attitude. Cruising the Hall!

Minnie Mouse Kensley!

NO NOSE TUBE!!!!

As for J. and I. We are pushing through each day. I admit that the days are getting to me. I wanted so much more for Kensley. I had hoped that we would escape this horrible affliction with some shred of a normal life, but we won't or at least we haven't yet. There is still time for God to work and I pray that He will. And there are worse places to be. We are not on a transplant list, just hoping to receive organs that might or might not save her life. And, our precious child is not mentally or developmentally challenged. She is active and happy. And, we still have a lot of time. Kensley is not quite a year old and her bowel could adapt a lot more and give her the ability to absorb fluids. Maybe even one day she will have fewer than 3 stools a day. There is still hope. We will keep keeping on and I hope that you all will too. There is still hope. There has to be, the tomb is empty! Tana