Ashley's Morning

Ashley is still consider to be very ill, but she is in stable condition this morning. Her vitals have remained stable throughout last night and into today. The only thing that they have found to be wrong with her is the pnuemonia. The infection from the pnuemonia has caused sepsis which is affecting the amount of her ostomy output. Since the output from the bowel is so much they did the scope yesterday and have not found her to be in rejection. We are so thankful for that. They are now in her room doing a bronch procedure in her lungs. They will take some of the secretions and culture them so that they might find a more specific "bug" to treat. At this point we are using some very powerful, wide ranging anti-biotics on her and they seem to be working. Ashley has not spiked a temperature at all. She is very, very swollen and we are hoping that they will be able to "dry" her out a little. The extra fluid in her body has seeped out of the vessels where it belongs and is collecting in the tissues. This causes her to look very scary. Her face is so large and her little eyes are bulging out of their sockets. This is one of the hardest parts for me.

How wonderful it has been to have my family here with us. Dave and the kids finally arrived around 12:00a.m. They spent some time with Ash and then I took the kids to our apartment. The kids love the apartment and it felt really good to have some type of a "home" to bring them too. We watched the Polar Express together all cuddled up on the couch. We finally decided to all go to bed. My heart was overcome with emotion as I listened to the children pray for their baby sister. Blake was on my left and Allison was on my right. I snuggled down under the covers between them and we poured our hearts out to the Father asking for miracles. When it was my turn to pray the tears flowed freely and by the end we were all crying for our Ashley Kate. I allowed them to ask as many questions as they felt they needed to and then our tears turned to laughter as we just enjoyed the time we had together. Eventually they both fell asleep and I laid between these amazing little people and thanked God for making them mine. I needed them and they needed me. My life is good and I am so blessed.

I am really proud of them both for being so loving and brave. They love Ashley so very much and they like to walk into her room and peek over at her. They do not touch her because of her suppressed immune system, but you can see the love and the joy in their eyes. They are both so very good at scrubbing their hands and wearing masks around her. They do not complain. They are just happy to be near her after being so far away.

God has blessed us this morning. We are together. We are a family. We are here with our Ashley. We will help her get through this. They now pray that she will wake up before it is time for them to go home. This would be our new Christmas miracle. Please join us as we pray for their wish to come true. I know He is big enough to make this happen in her life.