Dear Family, Friends and all those who have been praying for Lorena,

 

Today ,Thursday January 4th, we thank our Lord and Saviour for His healing hand in Lorena's life. She still has a lot of healing to do but today was an other step forward into her journey of healing.

 

This morning when we came to intensive care Lorena was doing well again and the swelling in her leg and foot had gone down a lot over night. Her wound on her foot had a dressing on it and she was sleeping comfortably with the help of the morphine. The breast milk feedings were started again at 1 cc per hour and quickly increased to 2 cc per hour. Things were looking up.

 

At around 11:30 we got the news that she was ready to be released from intensive care and around noon we were moved to the 2nd floor in a specail little bed. She loved the ride and slept right through it all. She was moving up in the world already....to the 2nd floor. We were moved to room 2116 this time which is even a nicer room then before as it has a private entrance and a nicer view.

 

To us this move felt like such a relieve again to know she is again on the road to recovery after all those difficult times earlier this week. This called for some sort of celebration. So I decided enough of only wearing hospital things and pulled out her little hat so that she can wear something of her own, besides the mitts, for the 1st time.

 

Soon after she moved into the new room we had more reason to celebrate. Yip it may sound funny but we were overjoyed she had a poopie diaper because this means her intestines are working and she is not rejecting the feedings, an other step on the road to recovery. Mom got to change this diaper....the 1st one since she was born. yeah!!! Except I soon realized that it has been 8 years ago since the last diaper changes. I forgot if you pull away the old diaper you better get the new one on fast or they might aim and squirt.

She probably figured well you are happy with a poop, I will show you what else I can do. Well we all had a good laugh. When Jeremy came from school we all had a good laugh too when we told him how happy we were with Lorena having a poopie diaper he said " Well it must be an amazing experience to poop for the 1st time".

 

At around 4:30 Dr. Eccles the surgeon who operated Lorena came in to see how she is doing. She comes and sees her lots and all the orders for feeding etc are her decisions passed down to the nurses. We are extremely thankful for her skill and all she did for Lorena. She had more good news. Since the feedings are going so well her feedings would go up to 5 cc per hour at 5 pm and hopefully up to 10 cc per hour by tomorrow. They want to bring up the feedings as soon as possible as they really don't want to put the same stuff  (nutrition) through the iv again that has given her the burn wound earlier. So we are thankful that Lorena is digesting the milk so well this far. She is also not on the morphine any more but on Tylenol instead.

 

Now we hope and pray that there will be no more set backs and Lorena is on the road to recovery. We also look forward to "more boring days" so to speak as this one week in our lives has been so difficult and draining. What an emotional roller coaster. Now I am hoping that my "stress thermometer" will show that the stress has gone way down. I could measure the amount of stress by the amount of breast milk I was able to pump or not. When things went well the milk went up but when things went badly the milk went down. I call it my stress thermometer. I now need to get relaxed or else Lorena may catch up to me and I will not be able to keep up with the amount of milk she needs.

 

Today again we were brought a wonderful meal from one of our church friends. She said it could last us 2 days but it was so good it only lasted this one meal. We are so thankful for nutritious meals as we don't seem to fit cooking into our schedule as we come home to late in the evening.

 

Again we thank you all for your prayers and hope you rejoice with us as Lorena seems to be back on the road to recovery. Please pray that all her feeding will go well and that she will heal from the operation as well as the chest and foot wound and that hopefully there will be no more set backs.

 

Praise God from whom all blessings flow.

 

With love

Lodewyk, Rena. Janita, Jeremy & our little fighter girl, Lorena