One day at a time

SUNDAY PM (Sunday am Canada time)

First of all, thanks to everyone who has been helping us during this tough time, and for all of your prayer and support. This has been the most difficult thing we have gone through in our lives bar none, but with God’s help we are getting through. Things finally feel like they are starting to progress in the right direction, and our agency, Children’s Bridge has been very helpful in arranging things and keeping in constant touch while we are here.

The interpreter that joins us at the hospital has been great. Her english name is Elsie and she is fluent in English and is also great with helping us manage at the hospital as she is staying there with us from 8am to 7pm – and sadly enough helping us hold down Eliana for the many nasty treatments she is getting. It has been heartbreaking to see our daughter endure what she has!!

Eliana is recovering from severe bacterial pneumonia as well as a viral component. The good news is her fever broke this morning and she has been sleeping most of the day. She is still lethargic, with little voice left and eating very little – throwing up what she does eat (sorry for the details), but we are praying for a very fast and complete recovery. She has not stopped breathing again like she did twice before so great news as that just about put us over the edge emotionally! The doctor today said her chest is sounding much better.

Olivia has bronchitis, but had 2 IVs, yesterday and today, and some medicine that our nanny is giving her (bless her heart!) and this has seemed to work so far. Her fever is now gone, and her breathing better. She is still coughing and throwing up periodically but much less often and she looks bright and alert. We need to take her back in tomorrow to see if everything is OK.

The goal now is to get Eliana’s respiratory system calmed down, as well as the fever gone for at least 24 hours so we can fly to Beijing. The doctors here want to keep her hospitalized for a week to 10 days to completely recover but we, consulting with our agency, are getting out as soon as we can. While this paediatric hospital has good doctors and nurses (truly), it is a very unpleasant atmosphere (I’ll spare you the details!). Also you have to bring 100% of what you need (water, syringes, Kleenex, cutlery, all food, sheets, towels, etc etc) as NOTHING is supplied other than the medications and the metal, rusting cribs for baby and adult to sleep in together, so we are needing to plan endlessly to figure out what to bring each day. As a “day in our life”, our current hospital room of 5 cribs is “home” to the other 4 families that do their laundry, bathing, eating, baby’s very public bathroom breaks etc all in our room with an attached “open air” bathroom. There are some of these things we would rather not have witnessed.

When we get to Beijing, we will likely need to visit the hospital there again but at least we are closer to our trip home as the paperwork needs to be finalized in Beijing before we can take the girls home. The rest of our group currently in Beijing said the hospital is good there. We are hoping that between tonight and tomorrow Eliana’s fever stays down and that she regains some strength so we can fly to Beijing Tuesday afternoon, finish our paperwork in a rush (the Embassy has agreed to help out with this), and still keep our flight back Thursday. We need Eliana to have an amazing night tonight and day tomorrow for this to happen.

Thankfully we are both in health still. Andrew deserves the “best dad” award for pulling off these nights at the hospital – he also needs more sleep so he doesn’t get sick.

MONDAY am

Great news, both Olivia and Eliana had a good night last night. It has now been 24hrs since Eliana has had a fever so this is a definite answer to prayer. We will know later today if she is fit to fly to Beijing tomorrow.

Thank you for your continued prayers and support!!

Andrew & Margaret