Love will hold us together

A friend has passed along a beautiful song that has really spoken to me and i just wanted to say that I have really felt this love. Check out Matt Maher "Hold us together" for the full song.

Love, will, hold us together
Make us a shelter
to weather the storm
And I’ll, be, my brothers keeper
So the whole world will know
That we’re not alone
This is the first, day of the rest of your life
This is the first, day of the rest of your life
‘Cause even in the dark you can still see the light
It’s gonna be alright, s’gonna be alright

This is the picutre of Charlotte that I am holding in my mind, she will be saying CHEEESE like this again soon.

April 13th: Part Two

You guys have been amazing.

Thank you all so much for your prayer and support. It is so great to see so many encouraging emails waiting every time we open up our inbox. At this time Im sure you understand that I cant possibly respond to everyone's wonderful offers, or even thank you for the specific things done. But know that we appreciate each and every one of you. We could not do this on our own, you talk about how strong we are... but we are truly being held up by you.

We have seen such an amazing prayer network spring up, I cannot believe the support. All across the country... and world! God is so great and it is on his promise we will stand. Jeremiah 29:11 For I know the plans I have for you, "Declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.

Charlotte is doing amazing. Already by this evening she was alert and starting to pull off all her gizmos and gadgets that keep her monitored. They took out her breathing tube, gave her just the little nose oxygen supply plug. This made her look much less scary. Soon even the oxygen wasn't needed. Next came out the line into her stomach. She really started to respond by this time, mad mostly, but thats to be expected. Her right leg has more power and control than we have seen for three weeks, she was squirming and kicking off the blankets. Her right hand could tighten a little when I put my finger into it but it did not seem to have any power to it, it is still quite still.

By about 10:00 she was responding to a few questions, do you want some juice got week nod. I dipped a little sponge into some water for her to suck and she went wild, "more" she said and started mouthing around for the sponge. At one point I was too slow between dips and she found Daddies finger and chomped down. Two glasses of water later we got a big "More" with a big nod, it was so good to see that it really was our spunky little Charlotte in there. Unfortunately we had to take the water thing slowly as to not overwhelm her little tummy after being empty for so long. Again she got mad and started ripping things out. Sort of like the HULK only she turns red.

Her poor little head is quite swollen on the one side. She has a big C shaped incision from temple curving back and then around to the top of her ear. But its amazing to think what went on today. I mean really, her head was open for over 3 hours this morning and now here she is demanding her water, kicking off her blankets and pulling off her monitors. It also looks like her hair will cover most of the incision, no scar should be visible. We have had amazing doctors and nurses, they have all put up with Rob very well. The first anaesthesiologist that we had came back to visit us because he noticed that Charlotte and his daughter, Juliet, shared the same birthday. After we visited it turns out that Yolanda and his older daughters birthdays are less than a week apart. He knew we are from out of town and gave us his home phone and cell number and said call any time if Yolandas bored and wants a playdate with someone her age or we need anything for Charlotte. Isnt that special! We have had wonderful care here.

I had better get going to bed, Charlotte is in the ICU and has her own dedicated nurse tonight. We are taking advantage of that and will sleep soundly in a nearby room. Tomorrow we will likely be back in our shared room upstairs.

Thank you all, With Love from Allison, Rob, Yolanda and especially Charlotte!

April 13th: The longest day of our lives

Wow, that was one of the longest days of our lives!

It started at about 2am when Charlottes heart rate dropped really low. Our nurse ran in to check her vitals, she was not responding and we could not wake up. "Code Blue" was called and our room swarmed with about a million people, I think half the hospital staff were there. It was awesome how fast their team responded, some of the nurses and doctors were short of breath from running. Our surgeon was called in, things swung into motion. Honestly it was all a blur. The entire operating team was paged and waiting for the call should they have to start at 3am. We all headed down to ICU where things could happen quickly.

Charlotte responded wonderfully to the combinations of drugs and techniques they used to stabilize her. A strong saline was given to draw some pressure away from her brain. Some steroids, something for pain... Im not even sure what else. They put in a breathing tube to help too. Our neurosurgeon, Dr Hader, really wanted to give her the chance to stabilize so that the team did not have to come in at 3:00. She responded well and he gave the Ok for everyone to get some sleep. If they would have had to start at 3am he would not have had is usual team of anaesthesiologist and nurses, his team has been working together for 7 years. So we really prayed that Charlotte would settle.

Around 6:30 or so they started getting everything ready. She was mostly prepped already during the course of the night. Around 7:30 we gave her a last few kisses and she was whisked away to the operating room. Initially we had been told the the operation could take 2-4 hours, once her MRI came back and they got a really good picture of the beast we were warned that it could take up to 7 hours! Thankfully a good portion of it was right at the surface (maybe about the size of... um... something bigger than a toonie, an oreo cookie maybe) that made access to it really easy. We were so blessed to be surrounded by family during the whole wait. The nurse came around to give us an update, things had started well. That definitely helped calm our nerves.

We were able give her kisses again shortly after noon. Amazing to think of what was done in those few hours. She spent just over 3 hours actually in the surgery. They were able to get out everything they could see. Thank you all so much for all your prayers for this. The tumour itself does not have the characteristics of the really benign tumours that Dr Hayder had first speculated about. Unfortunately he said it does look to be a little more on the aggressive side. We will not know for sure until results come back from foothills, hopefully Friday or Monday. Please continue to pray that this is a non-aggressive tumour.

We have seen the pre and post MRI scans side by side, amazing. This tumour was 8cm by 6cm on the top surface. It was huge. Already it looks like her brain has regained some symmetry. There should be two cavities with fluid that run parallel down either side of the center, but the tumour had pinched her left one closed. This has opened up already and is looking more symmetrical. We have been told that it will never "bounce" back to fill that cavity but it should move back a little.

I do have more to say but they should be removing her breathing tubes soon and I would like to be there........signing off for now.

Thank you all for standing beside us on this long hard day.

Allison