An Update on SK

We continue to be in recovery mode here.  Sophie Kate is getting better and better every day.  We can see it in her eyes and in her smile. Metapneumovirus has left the building but in its wake it has left our girl with compromised lungs and a weakened immune system.  The doctors told us it would take months for her to recover from this and they seem to be right. 

She is currently requiring anywhere between 3 and 5 liters of O2, baseline for her is 2 liters.  She is still dropping her O2 sats on a daily basis, but has improved on the frequency of those episodes each day.  We continue to give multiple breathing treatments throughout the day and we are having to suction her more than normal as well.  We are, however, headed in the right direction, as almost all of these areas have improved since we have been home with her.  

We went back to see her pulmonologist last week and he too is pleased with the progress she is making at home. However, he feels as though Sophie Kate needs to stay out of school for the months of January and February.  He said the risk was just too great.  He told us she will get sick if she returns to school now and with the compromised state of her lungs, she will wind up back in the hospital.  Her lungs will not handle another respiratory illness well at this point.  He encouraged us to be patient with her recovery...it will take months he said.

We are having to do so much without her and I don't like it. We went to church Sunday while a friend stayed home with her, it was weird being there without her.  I felt like I had left my heart at home.  It was wonderful being back among these folks that love and support us so much, but we were missing our girl.  We just don't feel whole without her with us.

She has come a long way since this picture was taken...

We are seeing more smiles each day like this one from Christmas Eve...

It is an absolute privilege to be by her side.  Just as she wakes up each morning with a smile as bright as the sun ready to take on the day, God too gives me the strength to face each new day with renewed energy.  It is never easy, I don't mean to imply that it is.  There is hurt and pain in our hearts, but there is joy as well.  She has such a pureness and sweetness about her.  Her smiles continue to right our world.

1 Peter 4:11 "Whoever speaks, is to do so as one who is speaking the utterances of God; whoever serves is to do so as one who is serving by the strength which God supplies; so that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom belongs the glory and dominion forever and ever.  Amen."