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Sunday, May 9, 2010

Abigail's Health Update

Abigail Charis Wright was on March 28, 2010 at 11:43pm. She just barely squeaked in our Anniversary; which is also Craig’s birthday. Two years in a row God has given Craig a beautiful wife and beautiful daughter; what could be better? Craig got laid off from his job two days before Abigail was born. This turned into an amazing blessing as he was able to be at home and help Karissa with the first critical weeks.

When Abigail was two and a half weeks old we had the scare of our lives. After a night of being extremely fussy and not eating well she developed a fever of 101.9 which rose to 102.4 by the time we got to the hospital. A fever in a newborn is a big deal and they immediately began a whole batch of testing including a spinal tap, x-rays, ultrasounds, blood samples, urine samples, and stool samples. Infant veins are tiny so it took six different attempts to finally get a functional IV. She was put on high dose intravenous antibiotics for seventy-two hours while waiting for the labs to come back and determine exactly what caused the fever.

We ended up staying five days and four nights in the hospital. The nurses put an extra cot in the room so we could both stay the entire time. Abigail’s fever was developed because of a Urinary Tract Infection. The ultrasounds determined she had a backflow of urine from her bladder into her kidneys, causing the infection.

Since then Abigail has had a VCUG, a special type of x-ray, and determined she has two problems with her left kidney. The valve on her ureter which keeps the urine from flowing backwards isn’t closing all the way; and she may have cysts. For now she will be on a low dose anti-biotic indefinitely to prevent further infections and get testing done every year. Most babies with this problem outgrow it. If it doesn’t disappear by age five she’ll have surgery. She will have a follow up ultra-sound to find out for sure if she has cysts on July 21st. If she does further testing will be necessary.

The day after getting home from the hospital Craig got a phone call from a staffing agency and started a new temp job in the afternoon. This job has been incredible to us. It’s two miles from home instead of forty; so Craig’s been riding his bike to work. His past job had cut hours to 32; the new one is giving him 40 hours and pays better! God has blessed us incredibly during this time of need. During the first four weeks of her life we didn’t have to cook SINGLE meal. Friends and people we don’t even know kept on showing up night after night. We made a list of everything we have to be thankful for during these five weeks and it is pages and pages long. God has taken such good care of us and has given us peace and comfort during this time.

The past week we’ve also been at the doctors about once or twice a day as we work through another problem. Last Friday Abigail had blood in her stool. The doctor’s believe she is either allergic to a certain protein in dairy or has C-Dif; a type of bacterial infection causing swelling of the intestines. While we wait for a clear answer to come from the lab’s Karissa has completely eliminated dairy from her diet. Abigail has an appointment with Gastro-Intestinal at Dartmouth Hitchcock on May 20th.

Despite all this Abigail is doing great. She’s gaining weight like crazy, sleeping six or seven hours at night, and has recently started smiling. It brings us unbelievable joy to have our little girl smiling up a storm. Thank you all so much for your prayer and support.
- Craig