Summer's End

As we sit bedside at Children's Hospital, once again I'm realizing that Mia's blog has suffered as the business of life takes over and posting updates to things like Facebook make it easy to fill in the gap. 

But the quiet time sitting bedside as we watch for even the slightest improvements in Mia's condition make for good reflection time. 

I was going to post some pictures of Mia in her hospital bed, hooked up to wires and tubes and breathing apparati, as she is right now but it didn't feel quite right. 

What she, and we need right now is love and happiness sent our way, not worry and fret, as a picture of her here at the hospital would only show a moment in time and not the bigger picture. 

The truth: Mia got incredibly sick, and if we hadn't gotten her to the hospital last night and instead tried to manage this at home as we usually do she probably would have died. 

An angel came into our home last night, a new nurse we had never met before who was just coming to meet and greet, to potentially take a few shifts as one of our home care nurses. She saw how Mia was struggling, jumped right in and starting doing some respiratory therapy with her. She asked, "Why isn't this child in a hospital? They could treat this infection much faster with IV antibiotics." 

By that point Mia had gotten much worse, really struggling to breathe and it was clear what had to be done: the ambulance was called. I'm confident Francesca and I would have reached that same conclusion sooner than later but I hate to think that by that time it may have been too late. We both have been so sleep deprived in the last week that we weren't thinking with the clearest minds. 

Divine intervention truly. 

She's improved a lot since last night but still has far to go. Her blood pressure is too low, her heart not strong enough to keep it high without IV medication and her lungs are still clogged with pneumonia. They had to stop her normal diet, which is the one thing keeping her metabolic condition and seizures in check. But they're slowing getting her back to where she needs to be. We, and the doctors are hopeful.  

So with that said I thought I'd post some pics of our little summer vacation from a couple of weeks ago, a great time spent with family and friends. I'd rather you see Mia in this way, more smiles and love being what's needed here than worry or comcern. Thanks for reading, it feels good to write and connect again.