Trinity Update

Hopefully everyone enjoyed a beautiful week! Trinity is still recovering in the hospital and doing great. She moved from the PICU to the Peds floor yesterday afternoon. She no longer has the head dressing and they removed both her IV's. She seems to still be in a lot of pain and discomfort ( I guess if I had surgery on the back of my head I think it would probably be uncomfortable to lay on all day long). We are crossing our fingers that she gets to come home today. Shannon took last night's shift at the hospital. It was nice to sleep in my own bed and take a shower in my shower.
Aubree came to the hospital the other night and read a book to Trinity, so I added that picture. She really loves her sister and is always so concerned about her. I also added the picture of her head. I know you can't see it real great, but it gives you an idea of how big the incision is.



We really appreciate the words of encouragement and the prayers. It has been a long week for us emotionally. Hopefully we will be updating in the next few days to say that she got to come home!

Chiari Decompression

Hello to everyone! As the afternoon drags on and the day continues Miranda and I are feeling a little exhausted, but relieved. The surgery went very well and Trinity although in a lot of pain is doing well. She just finished dominating 6 ounces of formula. The doctor was a little concerned that her heart rate went to over 200 while she was being fed, so they are drawing blood to make sure everything is ok. The doctor thinks that her heart rate rising was due to being in pain because she was being moved around.

The surgery itself went very well, and was much needed from what doctor Gilmer said. She said that when she got inside the back of her head and neck she found that there was a membrane that had formed over a portion of her spinal column which was restricting the flow of spinal fluid to the 4th ventricle in her brain. I'm not 100% sure what all of this means or causes, but I know it was not good. The picture above shows with the dashed line exactly what part of Trinity's skull was removed. If you look closely at the picture you will see that there are two portions of the drawing that have diagonal lines on it. One is the Arch shape and the other is the small thin bone that you see that looks like a bridge across the spinal column. With these two bones gone her spinal column will have room to function properly with no nerve pinching or spinal fluid restrictions. This will also give the stem of Trinity's brain more room to reside and therefore function properly.
Thanks again for the prayers. We could really feel them this morning. This by far has been the toughest surgery to go through. She will be in the PICU for tonight and then hopefully moved tomorrow to the Peds. Tonight they will be checking on Trinity every hour, this will make for a long night. We will be sure to update if anything comes up. Trinity sends her smiles to all of you!!! :) (This picture was taken a couple days ago, she is such a happy baby!!)

8/26/08

Just wanted to update everyone with the time of our surgery. It is Wednesday at 8:15am. We think the surgery will last about 3-4hrs. She will be in the hospital at least 3days and in the PICU for 1-2 of those days. She currently has a really bad stuffy nose. They will not do the surgery if her snot turns green or if she starts to cough. So please pray that the cold does not get any worse and she starts to feel better by tomorrow morning. Shannon's mom, Kathy, is here to help us until next week and then my mom, Paula, will be out to help.
For some of you that haven't heard our exciting news, Shannon recently got a promotion with Pella Corp and we will be moving to Minnesota. He starts his new job on September 15th. We went looking for houses last week, but did not have any luck, so we would appreciate your prayers as we continue to find something. The girls and I will then move somewhere around the 15th (if the doctor lets Trinity leave) to Iowa for a couple weeks until we can find a place to live. We are really excited for this move since it will put us closer to home. We have a lot of homework to do in finding good doctors again, but God will direct us in all the right ways!!
We will keep you updated after Trinity's surgery. Thank you for your prayers before, during, and after the surgery.

Enjoying the Cool Air!!

We really don't have anything new to report. This past week we went back to Iowa and enjoyed seeing everyone. Trinity and Aubree are always so good in the car. Trinity is doing pretty good. She had another round of shots a couple weeks ago (still didn't feel anything). We don't have any appointments this week which is really nice! We haven't heard anything from Dr. Gilmer since she has been on vacation, as of right now the surgery is still planned for August 27th. We will have a lot of help from both our parents while Trinity recovers from the surgery. Trinity is showing us some progress with her physical therapy. She is showing more strength in her neck and she turns her head more to sounds. We still have not got her to rollover, but hopefully that will be in the near future. She also will not be able to start eating any solids until she can hold her head up. She still don't have alot of upper body strength like other babies her age do, but we never give up and keep working with her everyday.
Thanks for checking in on us. Sorry we don't have a lot to report. We hope you are having a great end to your summer!
Love~The Arthur's