A Great Day

Brooklyn is sitting at home in her Dad's new armchair!!! She has her new favorite blanket from Hailey Hutchings:) Thank You!

We are so happy to have her home and she hasn't stopped smiling since she got home!

Thank you all for your thoughts and prayers, we are a long ways from over but this is one milestone I am happy to have here!

At least she is smiling!

Well as you can see from the pictures her spirit is up anyways. She is laughing, smiling and itching. She went on two wagon rides today I think that was the highlight of her day, other than squirting her Dad with a syringe full of water when I showed up to see her tonight and to think that her Mom and the Nurse set me up "just turn around they said :)"

Her blood work is still not where it is suppose to be. Although I am very anxious to get my daughter home and my wife back I am also comforted that they are not forcing us out to soon, the last thing I want is to have to return with even more problems. We will be there on a day to day basis until her blood comes back to where it is suppose to be!

A special thank you has to go out to Grandma Angell for staying with Nickole and Brooklyn over Monday night and to Grandma Dew for helping out with Maddux and cleaning our house the last few days. We are so blessed to have all of you in our lives. So many of you have jumped in and helped us in our time of need and that will never be forgotten.

THANK YOU FROM THE BOTTOM OF OUR HEARTS and legs :)

Little to Update

Well yesterday there was little to say other then that her leg was itching and it was driving her crazy which in turn was driving Nickole crazy because she is constantly whinning! The doctor came in this morning and said that there were some indications in her blood that they did not like so they were going to watch them for another day and maybe send her home on Wednesday. They want us to go home but they do not want to send us home just to cause more problems and have to send us back.

Poor Nickole is sick now because of little sleep, worrying about Brooklyn and being in a hospital with all kinds of other sick children. Please pray for her that she will have the strength to keep going and that she will get better soon!

Little Happening

Well right now there is not much to really tell you. Brooklyn has basically been lying in bed with little to do other than eat, sleep and be medicated. Dr. Siddiqi will go in tomorrow and replace the dressing around her leg and check for any infection, if everything goes ok we might be able to go home on Tuesday. Although her pain level has been pretty high so if she is in need of morphine we may have to stay a little while longer.

Thanks again for all of the support.

Chastised

Seeing as nothing really happened Friday I will relay a story that both my wife and mother have chastised me for. On Thursday PCMC came around and asked if they could take some pictures of Brooklyn! They may use these in upcoming advertisements or marathons and things like that. While PCMC was there taking pictures Brooklyn had some visitors, every once in a while volunteers will come by with dogs for the kids to see and it just so happened that Brooklyn was being visited by a big dog named BEN. PCMC thought that it was so cute that they took pictures of the two of them together.

I guess I do have to admit that even in this trying time Brooklyn is still one of the prettiest girls I have ever seen!

Okay Nickole and Mom are you happy now :)

Painful But Recovering

I'm going to keep this one short and sweet!

Brooklyn is in quite a bit of pain today, but that is to be expected the day after a surgery like hers. Other than the pain though things seem to be going well and as far as we know there have been no complications to the surgery. She did have to get another blood transfusion though.

Thanks for following Brooklyn's story!

Skin Grafts

Well today was the day we have been looking forward to for what seems like an eternity!

The skin graft was scheduled for 3 P.M. well at 3 we found out that she would not be going in until 5 P.M. which to be honest I figured at that point they would push her back until tomorrow! Brooklyn was very anxiety ridden from 2 until 5 which was hard on all of us. We did end up going in at 5 and we were told that she would be in surgery for about an hour and a half. Well at 7:15 Nickole called back to see if everything was okay and they told us that they had just gotten Brooklyn out of the surgery room and she was in recovery, Dr. Siddiqi came out and talked to us shortly after Nickole's phone call. Dr. Siddiqi said everything went fine, it was a big area to cover and that there was a possibility that 10% of it would not take but if that was the case her body would be able to grow that skin to compensate (how amazing is that!). He said that he ended up taking the skin from the thigh of the same leg that was infected, this is actually a relief so that she can lift her butt off the bed to move her body around where she wants it! He is going to go back in and look at in on Monday and if all goes well she should be able to go home on Tuesday!

Her recovery time will be about 2 weeks before she can put weight on her leg and 4 weeks before she can return to school. Heck we were thinking that we wouldn't even be out of the hospital until 4 weeks from now. There is a possibility we will need to go back in 2 years from now if we want some reconstructive type surgery, but we will cross that bridge when we get there! I will try to get more information from the nurses tomorrow and post anything new.

Thank you for all of your prayers, comments on the blog and well wishes. Please feel free at this point to come up and see her. She is on the third floor in room 3036. You can also call her or my beautiful wife Nickole during normal waking hours :) at 801-662-3036. A special thanks goes out to all of those that have helped us in this time of need you know who you are and we will never forget the kindness you have shown to us. It has made this trial so much easier than it could have been.

Not Much To Report

Well today there is not really much to report!

Brooklyn was taken off of oxygen today! She started eating real food, but had a hard time holding it down.

Dr. Siddiqi her plastic surgeon came in today and said we are going to get started on skin grafts tomorrow at around 3 P.M.. Brooklyn wanted to know what he was going to do, he looked at us for reassurance and then told her that they would be taking a little skin off of her good leg and putting in over her bad leg where the skin had been removed and that her good leg would look a little pink for about a year and then it would look normal again. Needless to say she was not very happy to hear all of this. I kept telling her positive thinking up here (brain) creates positive results down here (her leg). If all goes right and the skin graft takes we might even get out of the hospital by next week! We are not trying to get our hopes up to much though.

Brooklyn and I have had this thing going where she has a sticker with her name and pertinent information stuck to her right shoulder. I keep telling her "I'm not sure why they would tattoo an 8 year old girl like that." She gets really upset and says "Dad it is not a tattoo it is a sticker!" I have probably done this every day for the last 3 days and I always get the same results!!! Oh how I love to tease her.

Well until tomorrow, Good Night!

Out of PICU

Well today was an amazing day. It is funny how some things that we would normally consider little become really big deals.

Our morning started off kind of bad, I guess I shouldn't say bad just stressful! Today they had to change her sponges on her leg which pulling the tape off the sponge where it is attached is very painful. The tape is used to hold the sponge in place as well as seal the vacuum for good suction so it is on there pretty good. They ended up having to sedate her a little bit to get the sponge changed (she was screamin' like a banshee ). After that they put a PICC( http://www.cpmc.org/learning/documents/nur-piccline-ws.html ) in her arm that will remain there until after we go home so medicine can be given to her.

Now here is the crazy part, around 2 P.M. or so the nurse comes in and starts pulling all kinds of things off of Brooklyn. IV's were pulled out, certain monitors started getting turned off and we just figured they were going to change things out like they had done in the past. She still has the feeding tube in and the PICC as well as monitors to check her vital signs. Well the M.D. over the area comes in and tells us they think that Brooklyn is well enough to be moved to a normal room and they also felt that with her diabetes that the nurses in the PICU might due more harm to her than good at this point because of the way you need to count her carbs and watch her eating and that the rooms up stairs would be able to help her more.

Well I guess what i'm saying is they kicked us out!!! This is actually one time you are glad to be kick out of somewhere.

It was almost immediate when we walked in the new room that Brooklyn started acting like Brooklyn again. She was laughing, coloring and asking to eat. We had to inform her that they didn't want her to eat until the morning which didn't make her happy, but if that is what she has to complain about things are great.

We still don't know when the skin grafts are going to start, but we are hoping soon. Today was a really good day!

Uneventful, Thank Goodness

Well today was pretty much uneventful and after the week that we have had that is very much welcome.

Her breathing has improved since yesterday and the fluid in her lungs is slowly going away!
Her vacuum that pulls the infection out of the wound was clogged with blood today so they had to come in and switch the tubing out. While they were doing this I kept Brooklyn's attention by talking about our Disney World trip this last May and the things we would do when we got out of the hospital. She is very nervous about her leg at this point asking questions like "Am I going to die, will I walk again, will I be able to kneel again and jump on the trampoline?" As sad as it is to hear these questions it was nice to be able to answer all of them and really that all of them are a positive response.

After this talk that we had her spirits improved greatly. Earlier in the day no matter what face I pulled and what dance I danced and every other stupid thing that I would never do other than for my daughter I could not get her to smile. After the questions I answered for her she was giggling and telling me how much she loved me. I wanted to live in that moment for the rest of my life.

Thanks again to all those who have helped our family and continue to give us your support. We love you more than you will ever know!

Well until tomorrow, keep your chin up and pray for Brooklyn's quick recovery!!!!!

P.S. on another positive note Maddux's basketball team ended up 7-1 this year! Good job Mad Dog, we love you!!!!!!

Happy Valentines Day

This picture is a picture from after Christmas with the kids in their swimsuits using Brooklyn's Christmas present to Maddux. It always makes me smile, so I thought on a good day like today it was appropriate especially since I left my camera in the car today!

Well I'm going to make this one short and sweet seeing as it is late and I'm really tired.

Today was a relatively good day. Brooklyn got her breathing tube out today, although she is still on oxygen. She had some low numbers in her blood so they decided to give her a blood transfusion which did what it was suppose to do and brought her levels back into range.

She was very awake today and I'm sure it was nice for her to be able to express to everyone what she was trying to say rather than use hand gestures! We watched a lot of Disney Channel today and to be honest things are a lot funnier when you have a good day then when you have a bad day!!!!

The funny story of the day was that while Nickole and I get kick out of the PICU between 7 and 8 P.M. we go and have some dinner at the cafeteria. Tonight after dinner we ran to Albertson's to get a few things for Nickole and Brooklyn. On the way back it was a little after 8 and we received a call from the hospital. I was very freaked out at first, but the nurse said Brooklyn wanted to talk to us. When Brooklyn got on the phone she asked me where we were! :) I guess she was wondering why we didn't walk through the door right at 8 P.M. I assured her we would be right there and she was fine with that.

Thanks again for all your support and for keeping up to date with Brooklyn's situation. Oh and Happy Valentines Day.

Forecasted Showers, But Sunshine Just Around The Corner

Well today was a roller coaster ride of events! Brooklyn did wake up some today and was very feisty but before we get to that lets start at the beginning.

As we prepared for the surgery this morning it had come to every ones attention that Brooklyn had developed a blood clot in a vein just above the infected area. Dr. Scaife said we would look at it today in the O.R. and decide what we were going to do. As it turns out he decide that it was to risky to leave alone so they removed the vein (Hey what's one more scare at this point right :) ).
Dr. Scaife also told us that this is the rare flesh eating disease that you hear about sometimes on the news. They believe after these two follow up surgeries that they have removed all of that bad bacteria and Dr. Scaife told us that he is more than likely done with his portion of the surgeries now and will be following things through with the plastic surgeons.

After surgery while we were waiting to get back in to see her the head nurse over the PICU came out to the waiting room and told us that they had been following some fluid build up in her chest cavity and would like to go in and remove it. My wife is right on top of these things and knew that would be the best thing to do especially sense she mentioned that the fluid could be carrying some bacteria :( . They pulled approx. 4 oz. of fluid out of her chest and sent it for analysis which will be back in approx. 2 days. )

Once we were able to get in to see her the rest of the day went pretty well! Although the vacuum machine that pulls the toxins from her open wound was not working right and they came in and opened the wound up in her room and Dad assisted in keeping Brooklyn calm why they put a new sponge in and cleaned up the wound. For any of you that know me and the sight of blood you would have been laughing. Hey but I was tough until it was over and then I went to the waiting room before I passed out.

She woke up and was excited to watch the Hannah Montana Concert on the hospital movie station and to see those that came to visit. She was very itchy (I'm sure from all of the medicine) which her mom tried to help her with, but Brooklyn shoved her hand away and did it herself. If looks could kill Nickole would be dead right now, hum I wonder who she gets that from!!!:) It is good to see her awake.

The skin grafts will be put off until mid week so they can let the toxins get out of her system as much as possible.

On a side note I have to tell you all thank you for your calls, prayers and thoughts. I was talking with the nurse today that pushed for Brooklyn to be sent to the PICU. We both believe that it is because of our Heavenly Father hearing our prayers and blessings that she is where she is today. The fact that we caught this so early, thanks to Dr. Swinyard (Brooklyn's Diabetes Dr. who gave us some suggestions over the phone of what he thought it might be) and that we were presented with an open bed in the ICS unit of the hospital where they know how to spot Septic Shock, That our nurse felt prompted after the first day to push us to get to the PICU and have a surgeon look at her, that the Doctor that we had to perform the surgery is one of the top surgeons in the country for these types of cases and especially that her mother has had instinct and promptings to do everything necessary to save this little girls leg is just amazing. I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that Heavenly Father had a hand in saving this little girl and her leg. I am very grateful as I sit here tonight to know that Heavenly Father must have something very special for her to do because for as much as she has been through she is still going strong!

I would like to thank those of you that have come up to show us your support. Brooklyn will hopefully be out of the PICU in approx. a week, but we understand that we will probably be at PCMC for about a month. I would ask that if you are thinking of coming up to see her that you wait until we are out of the PICU only because we can only have 3 people in the room at a time and it is very difficult to get people escorted in and out of the PICU which really wears on the poor nurses trying to enforce the rules.

I love you and ask that you keep Brooklyn in your prayers and thoughts.

New Day, Bright Future

As you can see by these pictures our poor baby is hooked up to all kinds of pumps and machines. Her leg has black sponge over the skin that has been removed and a vacuum has been attached to it to pull any infection out of it! The black area is the area that will have skin grafted on to it.

I'm sure she will be happy to see herself on the web this way :)

Well today was a little bit of a struggle but things are looking up. Her vital signs were a little off today so the skin graft has been put off for a little bit. Her body is looking a little more normal today then it had the past few days. She had an extra 3 liters in her, so her body and face were swollen about as much as physically possible before bursting. Today she is still swollen but she looks more like Brooklyn again.

The PICU kicks you out between 7 and 8 both morning and night. When you get back at 8 it is just like the old Myrvyn's commercial where everyone is waiting outside the doors moving there hands like blinking lights for the doors to open. Then the doors open and we all swarm in like bees to there hive! When we got back at 8 Brooklyn was was awake and fighting the nurse. She has restraints on her hands so she can not pull the tubes and IV's out, so it is more like a one way fight (the restraints win every time). The nurse said that she had been mouthing "I WANT MY MOM!". It was good to see her awake and she recognized both Nickole and I.

Other than that today was pretty uneventful! Actually at this point that is kind of a good thing!

I will try to keep this updated as time permits.

I would feel very ungrateful if I did not thank all of you for your prayers, fasting, calls and thoughts during this rough time. Also a special thanks to those who have been assisting with distribution of information, helping get Maddux to and from and help around our house. You will never believe how nice it is to have people willing to help you in your time of need.

We love you and our grateful to have all of you in our lives!
Brandon

Brooklyn's Struggle

Well here is the story of my beautiful daughter as it sits today!

Friday night Nickole noticed that Brooklyn was running a fever at bedtime. We took her into the pediatrician on Saturday with a temperature of 104. The Pediatrician, because there were no other signs, advised us to give her medicine and baths to keep her temperature down. We did this and her temperature would fluctuate from 101 to 104, crazy enough they don't freak out until it is about 107. Sunday afternoon Brooklyn started saying that her foot was hurting and by about 6 P.M. she was limping around on the ball of her foot and her heel showed some signs of swelling. We decided that based on a phone call to her diabetes doctor for a second opinion and some things that he had said about possibly a bone infection that we would bring her back to the Pediatrician Monday morning, knowing that this new symptom had presented itself. Keep in mind at this time there was no visible signs of infection! At 12:00 A.M. Monday morning Nickole had Brooklyn in the tub trying to keep her 104.9 fever down when she called me to come and look at her foot. On her left heel there was a red line that looked like 2 w's (WW). At this time we called Primary Children's and asked for their advice. They can not give advice over the phone so we called our on call Pediatrician on PCMC's suggestion and after describing it to her she advised us to get her to Primary Children's because aggressive infections need I.V. antibiotics ASAP.

We brought Maddux to our Neighbor's (Thank you Ray and Ellen) and headed for PCMC. We arrived at approximately 1:30 A.M. and by the time we had the doctor look at Brooklyn it appeared that she had bruising around her ankle similar to a bruise from someone punching it. They admitted Brooklyn to the Hospital and started treating her for Cellulitis. The nurses were positive about the steps being taken although they could not give her an MRI because her vitals were not stable. So I head home that night with Maddux and dropped him off at school and headed to work to get a little done before heading up to PCMC. I received a call at about 9:00 A.M. from a distraught wife telling me I needed to get to the hospital right away they were moving Brooklyn to the PICU because the infection was getting worse & Brooklyn was sceptic.

By the time I arrived at the hospital and parking at the U of U hospital because I could not find one parking spot in the PCMC 4 story parking lot. I rounded the corner to the PICU and the surgeon was talking to Nickole telling her the Bacteria was spreading to fast to wait for an MRI so we needed to get her in immediately to remove the infected areas and do what we had to do whether it was in the skin, muscle or bone. There was a possibility that she could lose her leg , or even worse her life. Nickole was being told this before I got there, as soon as she spotted me she broke down sobbing uncontrollably.

After 1 hour in the Operating Room Doctor Scaife (the same doctor that reconstructed the poor kids leg that got blown up by that homemade firework this last 4th of July 2008) came out and told us that the had to remove a bunch of skin and tissue off of her left leg but that it had not progressed into the muscle or bone! The disease is called "Necrotizing Fasciitis Type A Streptococcus Pyogenes" We will be going back in on Wednesday to check the skin and muscle and make sure that we got all of it. I stayed up with her all night Tuesday night in the PICU feeling helpless.

Wednesday they went back in and found no further signs of the bacteria except for the vein they removed above her knee. We are so grateful to feel the presence of our Heavenly Father in our lives & our many blessings being answered.

At this time we are looking at Brooklyn getting skin grafts (spelling?) on Friday if her vitals get under control. Her leg will be disfigured due to the tissue under the skin being removed in the infected areas and the grafts being put directly over the muscle, but hopefully not very bad and the important thing is she will have use of her leg. I will try to keep you informed as much as time allows.

I want to let everyone know how much the phone calls and prayers and fasting mean to our family. I believe it is because of your love and our Heavenly Father's kindness that Brooklyn is still here with us today!

While we are in the PICU I would ask that you continue to call but wait until Brooklyn is out of the PICU to visit. They frown on anyone other than the Grandparents and Parents coming in and to be honest it is emotionally draining. I know Brooklyn would love to see everyone when the time comes she can be in her own room again.

In closing I have to say that Tuesday was definitely the scariest day of my entire life. I'm grateful for my Beautiful Daughter and look forward to spending many years to come with her. Although we know the road ahead is not going to be easy we look forward to the challenges and being with her and sharing many more adventures as a family. Hopefully the adventures will be a little less hard than this one.

Thank you again for your love and support!

Brandon