To Mia

Dear friends,

I'm going to share a little secret with you. We have been writing this blog for our daughter, so when she is old enough to understand, she will have a record of what happened to her. So tonight, I'm going to write this post to Mia.

My dearest daughter Mia,

Your mother and I love you so much. You are the light of our lives! Today is the third day after your cranial vault surgery. Your mommy called the hospital at 6 am to see how you were doing during the night and they said everything was fine. We arrived at the hospital and went to see you on the third floor, in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (or PICU). When we went inside the PICU, there were lots of people gathered around your bed. The attending doctor in charge told us that you just had a small seizure, and they gave you some medication to stop it. We didn't know why you were having seizures, since you had never had them before. The doctors scheduled different tests for you today, to find the cause of the seizures. First they put all these little sensors on your cute head, 28 of them I think. Then they listened and watched the electrical signals your brain was making. During this EEG test, you had another small seizure, but the doctors thought it was a positive thing so they could graph what your brain signals looked like during a seizure. After waiting for hours, they took you to the bottom floor of the hospital to give you a MRI test. This test gave the doctors many pictures of your brain. They were looking for fluid or blood or something touching your brain that wasn't supposed to be there. We went down to the cafeteria and waiting impatiently for them to bring you back to the PICU. You were brought back to the PICU about 5:40 PM and your mommy and I were unhappy the nurse didn't call us on our cell phones like she had promised to. You had another seizure while downstairs for the MRI test, that was the 7th seizure you had today. We asked about the results of the MRI test, but they said the doctor in charge would talk to us after the shift change for the nurses. So, at 8 pm, when the shift change was over, we went back into the PICU, and the doctor in charge asked us to go into this small room so we could talk in private. I was scared, because I knew that doctors don't take you into private rooms to tell you good news. The doctor in charge said the MRI showed that on Thursday, when you were having the skull surgery, someone made a mistake and didn't give you enough fluids to replace what you had lost. So your blood pressure went down, and that triggered the irregular heart rhythm. Your heart was out of rhythm for somewhere between 2 and 10 minutes, they don't know how long for sure. But they do know that some parts of your brain were deprived of blood for some time, and that caused damage to your brain, just like if you had a stroke. They don't know how much damage, we have to wait and see if you can breathe on your own, if you can see, lots of things. Sweet Bunny, we love you so much and we cried and cried and cried when the doctor told us about the damage to your brain. We wanted our little girl back, and we don't know if you will be the same. But God knew, in eternity past, when you would be born, when you would have all your surgeries, and that this would happen to you. He was not surprised or shocked. God has a perfect plan for you! His plan doesn't make sense to your mommy and I, but we trust God with all of our hearts. His plan is better than our plans, and God loves you even more than your mommy and I. After we cried for awhile, we told Grandpa flash and Nana box, and they listened to the doctor tell them the same thing she just told us. Then your mommy asked if she could hold you. The nurses helped move all the tubes and wires and mommy held you in her arms and rocked you in a rocking chair. Your heartbeart and breathing got relaxed when mommy held you, and the nurses said you were doing great. Then we kissed you goodnight, and we when to George and Lory's house to write this post and go to sleep. Tomorrow is Sunday, and we will go back to the hospital and see the MRI pictures and have more explained to us about your brain. Sweet Bunny, nothing will ever change how much we love you and want to hold you and kiss you. We love you all of it, Mom and Dad.