Skip to main content

Twins!!

This is a long story that has been going on for 9 months. My friend, Dina Rich, is having exploratory heart surgery today. Her husband is a reservist who works with contractors in Iraq. He was home this spring on leave and they discovered upon his return to Iraq that they were unexpectedly expecting. Then they discovered they were expecting twins!!! The pregnancy was extremely difficult and Dina had to manage care of their incredibly difficult 3 yr. old all with her husband fighting in Iraq. Thankfully he was able to come home in early December. Only 5 days after his feet touched American soil they had a routine OB appointment at 36 weeks and Dina had severe preclampsia so they did a C-section to get the babies out. Dillion and Katia were 5 lbs 11 oz and 5 lbs 7 oz. They are doing great and off all feeding tubes already at 1 week old today. After the C-section Dina complained of difficulty breathing. They discharged her anyway. She went to the ER yesterday and went into congestive heart failure. Then they found a heart murmur and now they are planning on doing exploratory heart surgery today. They have no family support what so ever!! I will be traveling out of town for the holidays so they will have even less support available. Please pray for Dina that they find answers and help her heal quickly. Pray for the family unit to be strong to lift her up. Prayer is sooo powerful. Thank you for all your prayers and please continue to pray for Dina, Ed, the babies, Katia and Dillon and big sister, Dania. They decided they were rushing things and post poned surgery for Dina yesterday. They gave her some different medications and she seems to be responding. They have determined it's a heart murmur and leaky valve that she has probably had for a very long time, but is only a problem now because the stress and strain from the pregnancy and preclampsia. There is talk of more tests on her heart. One they will put a camera down her esophagus to take a closer look and one involves putting a cath in her heart. They have not completely ruled surgery out, but the posibilities are decreasing as she continues to respond to the medication. They moved her from ICU to a regular room so I have taken Dania to see her and they are allowing her to go downstair and spend time with the babies as well. Today was full of GREAT news. They did the test with the camera down her esophagus, but didn't need to put the cath in her heart. Dina will NOT need surgery. The stress and strain from all the extra fluid and preclampsia was very hard on her heart, but it is looking strong and should recover with meds, rest, and time. The babies will be home tomorrow and Dina should be released tomorrow or the next day. Everyone will be home for Christmas!!!

Here are a couple pics.



Here is a clip of big sister Dania playing at our house.




Everyone is home safely from the hospital!!!!

Labels:

Comments

Valorie Leonard said…
So glad the family is home from the hospital. We will pray for continued strenght and health.
8:16 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Santa Claus is Comin' to Town

Well, I'm not sure what made me think I could sew. . . I thought sewing a santa suit wouldn't be too difficult if it was part of a "kit". The base playgroup was doing some Christmas pictures of the kids and I thought I could get the suit done in time to have Daniel take an early lunch and show up as Santa. Well this "kit" had very confusing directions. They may as well have been written in Japanese!!! After spending an entire 3hr naptime studying and attempting to cut out the pieces I was beyond frustrated and ready to cry. I ended up using my resources and sending out a very desperate email to EVERY email address I had for people that lived near me (there are some playgroup lists with emails of people I don't even know). Within 30 minutes a friend, Erin, from my MOPS group responded so I called her and she was able to help me figure out how to cut the pieces out correctly!!! Ok so the pieces are cut out, know what do I do!?! Well. yesterday I r...
3 comments
Read more

Daniel's Surgery

It's 1:30am and been a very long day. Daniel's surgery was pushed back quite a bit today and we are just getting home from the hospital. The doctor gave us some neat pictures and I hope to get them along with all the details added to this post in the very near future. Thanks for all your prayers and please continue to pray for a speedy recovery. WARNING WARNING WARNING the following pictures are not for those of you with weak stomachs!!! Here is his Gall Bladder (everything here is normal) This next picture was explained with some big words. My teaching background kicked in so I rephrased what the doctor was telling me in words I could understand and he said I was understanding correctly. This is Daniel's colon an it should be able to move freely, but there is a spider web kind of forming around it trapping it. The doctor was able to cut it free. Here is Daniel's small intestine. It was getting caught up in the web as well, but the doctor was successful in freein...
3 comments
Read more

Plumbing Plunders

Well this may get a little long winded as our plumbing problems have been on going for a long time. For those of you who don't know we built a brand new house and moved in April 14th, 2006 so it's less than a year old. This past summer I noticed that our toilets and sinks gurgled often and in August I called the builder to send the plumbers out under our 1yr warranty to check it out. They came and basically made me feel like I was hallucinating. They said they cleaned the lines and there wasn't anything suspicious so if they gurgled again to give them a call and they would come back out, but if they were REALLY gurgling the problem would mean tearing into our foundation and we wouldn't want that now would we. No, I didn't want that so when they started gurgling again in the fall I just ignored it as the plumber said it wasn't really an issue. Well in February 2007 it could no longer be ignored as sewage started coming up the drains in our shower and bathtub...
1 comment
Read more