Praying for yet another Parchment heart baby.

For those of you from our home town of Parchment, you probably know Dodi and Jimmy Leckie. Dodi gave birth to a beautiful little girl yesterday, Sydney, and much to there surprise, Sydney has a severe, yet fixable, heart defect called Transposition of the Great Arteries (Vessels). Of course they were ambulanced to UofM and settling in....I think! I have posted a photo to help explain the problem. The pulmonary artery and aorta are flip flopped and their is a hole between the right and left atrium's. This simply causes the blood to do some mixing that should not be. They will be doing a balloon procedure tomorrow in the cath lab to close the hole but it will take open heart surgery to correct the vessels. I saw Dodi and Sydney this evening in the NICU, and Sydney looks just great. She is not a "blue" baby at all! She is comfortable and praying that she stays that way until surgery. Please pray for the Leckie's as they endure this very scary time in their lives. Now, for an update on the princess. She had a fabulous day! Up until the 10pm feeding, she didn't throw up once and ate her peaches like a champ. She actually ate half of the baby food container of peaches in one sitting. Now, this is definitely an improvement and she even is getting the hang of opening her mouth to take bites! This was such an exciting day for her....and mom! She will finish her IVIG treatment at 2 am and then blood work in the morning to reestablish her baseline numbers after all of treatments over this last week. So, we shall see.

Cole called me tonight after his game and said that he had 3 home runs! ha ha Well, for those of you that know how t-ball works, everyone gets on base and the last batter ALWAYS hits a home run!! ha ha He is batter #1 so they must have hit in reverse order tonight. ;-) Too cute!

On a heavy note tonight, remember the photo that I posted last week of Lindsay visiting her two heart brothers that were in the hospital too.....Ethan and Tommy? Well, Ethan got to go home for one night and then was right back in the hospital on Sunday. He is suffering from an awful disease known as PLE, Protein-Losing Enteropathy. This occurs in 10% of kids that have had open heart surgery and research is still being done as to why this happens. Anyway, sadly, Ethan is loosing his fight and is in the PCTU right now. Things do not look good and I am afraid that his time is running out. I ran into Colleen, Tommy's mom, tonight and she shared the heart breaking news with me. I can't begin to tell you how frustrating this must be for them for Ethan to have gone through all that he has with HLHS and now this is what happens?? Do you remember around the time that Lindsay was born, my mom mentioned Taylor Grainger? Well, Taylor also lost her battle with PLE and was also born with HLHS. This past weekend was the 2 year anniversary of her passing. I know this because this is our wedding anniversary. ;-( Anyway, ever since Taylor passed, we have been a contributor to Children's Hearts Fund to help fund research to prevent and find the cure for PLE. Maybe that can be the donation you make for Lindsay's birthday......I know that it will be mine! http://www.childrenshearts.org/
To the Bilpo's: My heart can't ache enough for you right now. Ethan is a true fighter and will always be in our eyes. I know that God is holding you close and will comfort you in these days to come. Taylor will be right there welcoming Ethan, I know it! Sending hugs!
With Love and a heavy heart,
Suzie