On October 14, 2003, I sent out the following email to family and friends:
Hello, Prayer Warriors!
Today is a day of great joy and I am revelling in it. Annie had her surgery this morning to ligate her PDA. The surgery was successful and she is resting back in the intensive care unit. She and her sister, Mary Jo, are in adjoining beds in the newly redecorated unit. Annie was making such remarkable improvement on her breathing in the last few days [why? they don't know. I do...] that the doctors decided to strike while the iron was hot and get the surgery done. She has been dealing with a blood infection, but the antibiotics seem to be keeping it at bay enough to allow the surgery. She will probably be on a long course of antibiotics [30+ days of oxycillan] to defeat the staph aureus bacteria. FYI--the staph aureus, while bad, is certainly not the worst bacteria one can have; and the oxycillan is the appropriate drug to treat it. It's not the nuclear weaponry of antibiotics, just the surgical strike team. On the clot issue, her leg is looking better, but the toes still look dark purple or black in some places and there's a lot of dead skin on the surface. But babies can make soft beautiful skin better than anyone else. The heparin treatment is being monitored very closely and seems to be helping a lot. The surgeon today was able to do Annie's surgery and still keep her on the heparin. It seems counter-intuitive, but he went in thoracically [through the body cavity] rather than through the scope. He told me that he could actually see the field better rather than "poking around in the dark" as he would do with the scope. She has a chest tube draining the fluid from her lung gently. Her respirator settings are not stellar, but pretty darn good given a major surgery. When I went to see her and sing to her, she looked up at me as if to say, "I'm O.K., Mama".
Mary Jo is back on the nasal cannula and back to eating mostly breast milk. She's off any antibiotics and they're increasing her feeds as quickly as she can tolerate them [hurry up! she's HUNGRY!] Both the girls, now the equivalent of 32 weeks gestation, LOVE their pacifiers. The nurses had to cut Annie's to work around a ventilator, but those girls can suck. I would like to ask for prayers of thanksgiving for allowing us to weather this storm thus far and ask for continued persistent prayers that both girls avoid any infections, adverse complications, traumas or tragedies while they continue to grow and heal. St. John Vianney said, "God commands you to pray, but He forbids you to worry." Good advice. Thank you so much for all prayers, sacrifices, encouragement, help and understanding you have extended to our family. I am forever grateful. Love-- Ruth Anne :)
What was going on: a moment of relief and a good day in the NICU. We were falling in love with our girls more and more each day.
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