Happy Birthday, Esther!!

Today is Esther's 13th birthday! How thankful we are to have her as part of our family! We love you, Esther!

Here is my sweet, brave girl on Monday when she was waiting to go to the operating room.



And here she is on Tuesday with her favorite younger sister, Lydia.



Esther's wrist is still quite sore, but it seems to be healing well. She is under doctor's orders to baby her left arm for a few weeks and so has been excused from loading the woodbox, carrying heavy loads, and other such activities that might put a strain on her arm and endanger the development of the fistula.

Regarding Samuel's recovery....we are, as usual, having to deal with complications. It seems he has a blood infection. His ever-attentive doctor ordered blood cultures on Thursday after Samuel's temperature was a bit elevated. We got a call this morning saying that one of the three cultures was growing a Gram-positive bacteria. We relunctantly abandoned our birthday plans for Esther and headed up to the hospital where Samuel received a whopping dose of two different antibiotics through his catheter.

The blood cultures (and antibiotics) will be repeated again tomorrow in dialysis. A course of action will be determined once we have a little more information. It is very important to get rid of the infection before it has an opportunity to settle anywhere else in Samuel's body. Our prayer is that the infection is localized in only one of the catheter's two lumens and that the antibiotics will be able to clear it out. Unfortunately, grim reality and past experience leave us with little hope that the catheter can be salvaged.

The bad thing about removing a catheter is the discomfort and inconvenience of having another one put in. With Christmas on Thurday, the requirement of negative blood cultures before a new catheter can be placed, and a limitation on how long Samuel can go without dialysis, the timing of putting in a new catheter will be tricky.

My coping mechanism of trying to find something good in every situtation leads me to be thankful that we now have a likely explanation for Samuel's slow recovery. His surgery was a week ago today and I can finally say that he has actually eaten something more than half a slice of toast.

Esther has so graciously and selflessly given up her birthday plans today as I dealt with Samuel's issues. I feel badly for her, but am also very proud of her mature response! By this evening, we were in the midst of a blustery snowstorm so ended up cancelling our plans for a birthday dinner out at a restaurant. Instead, we have nestled in and are having a Pride and Prejudice movie marathon - all 5 hours of the A&E production. It is one of Esther's favorite movies.