greetings from another sick bed...

Hello, it's me again - Mr. Matt. I am sick with a nasty cold, which I have been fighting all week. So today I am staying here at the Ronald McDonald House, resting, napping, drinking lots of water, taking some Day Quil, and, of course, doing the most therapeutic thing I can think of, watching football. But the most important thing I am doing today is reading your comments and getting inspiration to keep on fighting and praying for my little Anna Joy.

I did go see her this morning, and she had a quiet night. She is just resting now. Yesterday they put a "filter" on the ECMO that is basically a dialysis machine. Her kidney's are working okay, but they do have some injury simply because of all the stuff her body has been going through lately (a lot? that's an understatement...). So the doctor wanted to help Anna out and get some of the extra fluid off of her body, specifically the lungs. As of this morning when I left, she was negative fluids. That means the amount of fluids that have been given to her (through IV's, adding blood & platelets, etc) is less than the amount that she is "peeing" through the filter.

By the way, isn't my wife a beautiful writer? Her prayer post last night was amazing! She has such a tender heart that knows how to cry out to her God. Can you all see why I love her so much?

So, I'm going to move on to some more light-hearted stuff. I think we told you that Isaac came to visit yesterday, and he will be here for at least a couple of days. We went to eat lunch yesterday and the restaurant had a live three-man band there. At one point, Isaac started "singing." Really, it was nothing more than him holding out different notes, but he kept on doing it! The greatest part of it all, we were all just laughing at him! Randy, Cathy, Katie, Alissa and I just couldn't stop laughing! In fact, other patrons were enjoying him too! It was too cute. And extremely therapeutic. I couldn't help but think "that is just what my wife needed! Thank you, God, for our little boy!" And we enjoyed the food - immensely. We went to Patty's Eggnest, which apparently is a new restaurant near Northgate Mall. We've been there twice now, and highly recommend it. Oh - bring a wheelbarrow for your leftovers. HUGE servings...

Another slightly humorous (and disturbing...) event happened the other day. We were in our room, getting ready for bed. My wife was sitting at the computer, reading/crying over the comments, and asked me to bring her phone to her. I got up, walked to the table, and grabbed my water bottle and brought that to her. Uhh...what?!? Yes, I brought her my water bottle instead of her phone. I'm not sure what my subconscious mind was thinking (oaky - it wasn't!!!), but there you have it - my brain is officially fried. We had a good chuckle over that.

So, back to Anna, since I realize that she is the reason most (if not all) of you are reading this blog. Who cares about Matt & Alissa, right? Okay - I know some of you do too, so don't get all in a lather. Anyway, tomorrow may be a big day. If her lungs clear up enough they may do another trial of ECMO. It's very possible that the next trial off ECMO will be a pass/fail test. If she tolerates it well, they will keep her off and we'll move forward with getting her healed up. If she doesn't, it likely means the veins in her lungs aren't big enough, and she will not be able to sustain life on her own...

So we'll see if they want to do a trial off tomorrow or not. We should find out in morning rounds. I'll try and remember to post something after we find out what the plan for the day is. But please don't be disappointed if you don't see something too soon tomorrow, as my thoughts may be focused on the events of the day and I may forget to update you all. However, at some point we will get a note to you all.

Your prayers have been truly amazing, and they are giving Alissa and I (and the rest of our families!) hope.  We believe our God can still move. Heck! maybe He already did and we are just waiting for the doctors to confirm it!

Loves, hugs, and thanks to you all.