Talking to Her Dad on the Computer

Mariska was awake thought we would share. We're talked to Sam together. Mariska is doing well. Some days I think she doesn't need her feeding tube anymore, but others I'm grateful we she has it still, like when shes too exhausted to eat but starving.
Her hair is long as ever in the back starting to grow more in the front, when it grows a little more we'll have to get her pictures taken. I wanted the tubes to be off of her face but that's just part of our little girl for now, we'll have to wait and see.
We have had bad moments and good ones. One hard time for me was when I didn't flush out her feeding tube which ended up clogging. I tried for almost 3hours trying to get it to clean out all while crying and thinking I broke her I broke her. I called my mom had her come over, I knew if I didn't get it unclogged I would have to pull it out and put a new one in. This is not something I was looking forward to. I called the home nurse she told me what I didn't want to hear if I couldn't get it cleaned out I would have to replace the tube. oh the joy. Sticking something down someones nose isn't fun. When my mom came over one of the ward members come bringing dinner, I was so nice not to have to find something to make. Thank you to all that brought dinner for us! Her husband is an RN, so she had him come over and help me with the tube. I Tired the first time but didn't get it in, I had him give it a shot success! we taped in place and I no longer broke her. :)
That night is when it truly hit me that she was home and mine. Our little miracle!
Thank you for all your thoughts, prayers and support.
Love Melynda and Sam

First Day Home

Her first time in her bouncy set. :)
updating soon!

The 9th

In order to take Misky home we had to do a 24 hours of just us taking care of her, so much for getting help. This was just to make sure we knew how to do all her meds and to make sure we could care for her. This way if we had any questions they could answer them when we had all the nurses. well we pasted :) I felt a lot more comfortable taking care of Mariska after we did this, I knew we would be ok at home.

Going Home?

The Cardiologists just same in for their morning rounds. We're changing her feeding's to every three hours instead of two. This should be nice, waking every 2 hours to help feed her and pumping every 3 has become a little bit to much for me. Now I just hope she can keep all that she eats in her belly. Her cardiologist said we're going to plan on discharging for Monday. Can it really be true? Is Misky going to finally get to come home and out of PCMC?? I have to tell the truth I'm a kind of scared about taking her home, what if something happens. I guess that's normal for a new parent to feel, its just very intense. I not for sure if we'll have to take oxygen home or not I think we might same for the feeding tube, ugh. We'll learn how to place and check for placement and then it will feel like second nature to us. Have to remind my self to take baby steps. Time to check on Misky, maybe I can get a nap or two today. Would be nice to get some christmas shopping done and pick up a tree and have it ready. hmm Chistmas, can wait to have Christmas with Misky. Thank you for all your prays it blows me away to see how much people care. :) until next time. Melynda

She Moved!

Mariska was finally moved to the third floor. Which means shes getting better and will be able to come home soon. :D Sam and I are so excited. I went to do my motherly duties, when I was done they had moved her out of the PICU to the CSU (Childrens Medical unit) I was waiting to see if they had a bed upstairs before I left and came back to she had been moved up. I happly tool all her Chirstmas things off the wall and set out to find where she had been moved to. Shes in the "O" sectoin. I am amazed at how much love everyone has shown us in the past few difficult weeks thank you for that and your support. Love Melynda and Sam

Just Air...

They took Misky off the high flow oxygen this morning. Just one step closer to having our sweet baby girl finally at home with us. Hard to believe that shes three weeks old today, time has gone by so slow but amazingly fast. Doctor Hawkins came by tonight told us they are going to do her swallow study tomorrow. They have her drink some dye then take x-rays to see if it goes to her lungs or if it goes to her stomach where it should go. If she passes then they can give her milk orally instead of having a feeding tube going to her small intestines. Dr. Hawkins asked if she's loud when she cries, we said yes and so did her nurse. Dr. Hawkins said that's a good sign, means she will probably pass her swallow test. Thanks for all the prayers and support, it has been a great help to us. :) Melynda and Sam

Suprise Suprise!

It has been about 2 weeks since mariskas surgery. Friday the 3oth they were talking about changing the size of her breathing tube that goes into her throat and they said they were going to take the tub completly out just to give her a try telling us that they dont expect her to do well at all without the breathing Tube and for us Not to Expect Much. The Reason why they were saying this was because that had ealier taken x-rays and found that her Right Diaphram is Paralized which dosent allow her right lung to expand fully. Even though this was the case We Really Didnt Want to listen to the doctors and we decided because she was having a difficult time we should give her a name and blessing which we did the saturday the 1st which just happened to be the night before they were going to change out the tube and test her. On sunday Morning they took the tube out to see how she would do and when we talked to the doctors they said she was doing Great! All the Doctors were suprised and didnt expect her to do as well as she was doing so they asked us to wait a day before we could hold her. It has been now Well passed a day since then and We have now held her many times. The Doctors say that she is doing Good. Although her Diaphram is still paralized she is doing good. They say she is breathing fast but this is normal because kids with this condition go home breathing fast anyways. They Said they dont know for sure how much her parlyized diaphram is contributing to the fast breathing and say we will just have to wait and see if it heals fast or slow. Her Nurse has explained that they expect to be taking the Oxeygon down and that she will go out of the PICU Tomorrow the 5th of Dec. Hopefully this is the case and mariska will Continue to improve, But the way she has progressed thus Far We expect her to continue and We Pray Come Home Soon. We Thank All of you for your Prayers and Support. Sam & Melynda

She's a Tough One

So It has been a week since her Surgery and things are seem to be going smoothly. She has been taken off her blood pressure medication and they are slowly taking down most of the medications. The Doctors say she is doing very well for having heart surgery. Although she looks slightly blue in the face, she has gotten all her color back and isn't pale looking anymore. The Doctors say that she will be slightly blue until she has her last third surgery, because she isn't getting enough oxygen. She Seems to be progressing well, The Nurses says that she must be reading a manual on how to get out of the hospital because she is doing much better than expected and they say better than the majority of children that go through this surgery. Today They told us that they were going to try and let her breath on her own, and see how she does. We hope that all goes well, she is a very strong girl and is teaching all our family a great lesson. We thank all of you for your support and will continue to keep you updated on the latest news. Sam & Melynda

Prayers are Being Answered

Great news, Has continued to come about after mariska's surgery. About 40 hours after surgery they said that she was doing so good that they could already close her chest. Melynda and I were so excited to her this because this wasnt expected until at least 3 or 4 days after surgery. We were told that it normally takes at least that long to close her chest. So they ended up closing her chest and there was still a risk that they may have to open it back up because the heart is not used to the pressure. So still praying and hoping everything will still go well. She started to Improve even more than the Doctors Expected. We were so overwhelmed with joy when we heard the news that she is progressing faster than normal and they are now gradually taking off her medications little by little and everything continues to go Excellentlly. As the Nurse Says she is doing "Stellar" and Continues to improve rapidly, We Want to thank everyone for all the many prayers that you have offered for us, we know god has been with us at this time and this trial has helped our family draw closer to our Savior. We will continue to keep you all posted and want to again thank you all again for Every tiny thing that you have offered us and done for us, It means so much to us to know we are being watched over and looked after. Thank you All very much. We are Looking foward to the day when mariska comes home, which as things seem to be progressing with be fairly soon.

24 Hours After Surgery

So It has been more than 24 hours After surgery and The Doctors say that everything is going as planned. This is great news because they said the 24 hours after Surgery were most critical. Mariska Is doing good. She has such a strong will to get better that she kept trying to open her eyes so the nurse had to sedate her a little more so she would get rest. Right Now they Say that it can take anywhere from 2 to 4 weeks for her to recover from surgery. Now that Surgery is over and things are going better. Now We can get some sleep, and food, It is somewhat hard to think cleary when your running on 10 hours of sleep for the last 5 days and eat one meal a day. Thank you all again for all your prayers we are amazed by the amount of support that we have recieved through this Incredibly Difficult Time. Sam & Melynda

Mariska First Surgery

Update November 19, 2007 at 10:32 PM MST

Mariska Went into Heart Surgery This Morning at 7:30 A.M. and came out at 1:45 The Doctors said that The Procedure Went Well. Even though the Surgeon mentioned that the aorta was the smallest he had ever seen. They Said it all went very well. Mariska is now in recuperation, and we will now she how she does her first 24 hours after surgery Which is the most important time. Thank you all for you Prayers and your Support It has meant so Much to us. We can Tell That those prayers are being answered

Please Pray for Us...

To all of our family friends and loved ones: 11/17/07 Our baby I finally here! She was born on Wednesday the 14th at 9:18 am at Mckay-dee Hospital in Ogden, UT. A beautiful 6lb 11oz and 20in baby girl. She is was the perfect baby and is still. After Mariska was born they brought her to me placed her on my chest, as we were laying together all I could think is life doesn't get any better then this! After she was here Sam went with Misky to get all the new baby stuff done, like her shot and bath. I was taken to a recovery room. Then the fun came it was time to show the world or all that came to show her off to the world, with visitors and cameras. Sam and I loved this part, holding her small little body and gazing into her small little angelic eyes. The only problem was that we had a hard time getting her to eat. She would suck then get sleepy, so we would let her sleep and try again in a little while. Thursday we went to the discharge class, while we we're there the hospitals pediatrician, since we had yet to pick on before hand, pulled Sam out of the class to tell us that she was very healthy normal baby girl, what exciting news. They wanted to keep me and the baby because she was group strep B+, as was I so I was given antibiotics while in active labor with her. This is just a infection that some babies get,this feels much like the flue your body aches all over. After the class she still wasn't feeding every well, So we had the lactation specialist come and help me with a few feeding Mariska was starting to get the hang of it and everything seemed to be going ok. Misky like to slurp and was a bit lazy, we had to coach her with a syringe and a tube we would give her a little then she would suck. Silly silly girl. I was about to change her dirty diaper, when the nurse came in and said they needed to do some normal tests on her. Then when they came back in they said she was dehydrated and breathing really fast. They thought at first she was breathing fast because she was dehydrated and that she was borderline NICU. They wanted me to have a nurse helping me when ever I was going to feed, just to make sure she was eating and not playing games. So they asked if we would mind if they gave her a bottle, she happily drank down the 20lm. Everything seemed to be going ok and then they came back in and said they want to do some more tests on her because things were not going well. When she came back to us after the tests had been taken and were waiting on the results. She came back to us we held her for a little while, I was about to nurse her and a nurse came in and said not to feed her because they wanted to see the results first. About 5 minutes later the RN came in and said she needs to go to NICU to get an iv to get hydrated and they had found she had an infection and she needed antibiotics. They told us we could come in and see her in an hour after she was all hooked up. We had the RN walk us down to the NICU so we could see our baby girl, around 10 pm. We had to scrub up to our elbows before we could go into the the NICU area. Then we went in to see her, the emotions started to come a little but we knew she was getting help she was needing. All she had hooked up to her was the IV and a few other monitoring things like her heart rate and blood pressure and was given something to help her be a little sedated. She was still under the hospitals pediatrician, she was doing ok. We went and back to our room and tried to get some sleep, I hadn't gotten much sleep in the last 72 hours, just a few short naps her and there. We get a phone call from her pediatrician at 12:30 saying that things have changed for the worst, she was going to need a breathing tube because she was having a hard time breathing. She was breathing 3 times as fast as she should be. 15-35 normal breaths per min normal, she was at 130 breaths per min. My heart just melted, when she said things had changed for the worst I thought we had lost her. As she called one of the head NICU Nurses was trying to tell us this before the doctor did, she came in just as we we're being told. She said to give them 15 mins to get her set up and then we could see her. Sam and I got dressed and headed back down. When we got down their the doctor introduced her self and started to check Mariska's body, she didn't like what what she felt, said that her heart was slightly larger then it should be and so was her liver. They had already did some x-rays and said her heart looked large, gave her some more drugs and brought in a tech to do an ultrasound on her heart and said it looked like the left valve of her heart was very small. They brought in a cardiologist to double check and see what he thought. When he came they said that she has heart problems and needed to be life flight to Primary Children Hospital. The sweet nurses had packed all my bags and every thing I was going to need after I left them, they called my OBGYN to see if I could be checked out early and to get my prescription. This is where the real fun started, They opened up her umbilical cord and put two tubes to make sure the valve she used to breath in the uterus didn't close, because the main one had never developed. They flew her down and my mom drove us down to the hospital, we got there just at the same time life flight did. We meet with her new nurse and a few of the doctors. We stayed with her for a while, then we fell asleep on a sofa some where, and got about 2 hours of sleep. They called us in and explained what she had is called Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome. Then explained that they would need to do open heart surgery and she would go into surgery on monday if we were ok with it. They decided monday because they wanted to make sure all the specialists would be with their team. This condition that Mariska has is a life long process of several surgeries throughout her life and possibly medication all her life. We would greatly appreciate any prayers you can offer for her and us to help us get through this together. We know that she is a blessed daughter of our heavenly father, and we are very grateful to be blessed with her in our lives. Melynda and Sam Anderson