Brooklyn Update

They did some more testing on Brooklyn yesterday to see how the flow of urine was from her kidney to her bladder and it looked pretty good. They still felt that there was a blockage at the top of the ureter where is connects with the kidney so they put a stent in yesterday. This should open up the ureter to allow the fluid to drain even better (i guess its a similar concept to tubes in the ears?). Anyways, the surgery went well and she came out of sedation fine this time. She will have to have the stent for a couple of weeks and then they will have to surgically remove it. They will test her again and see if it made a difference and then decide what to do from there. The doctor said "we are either going to be friends for a really long time or a really short time". I hope its a short time but thats just me!

Brooklyn in the Hospital

Brooklyn (4 years old) had to have emergency surgery on Wednesday of last week on her kidney. It was supposed to be a 45 minute outpatient surgery and up to 2 hour recovery from the sedation. When they were conducting the surgery they found that the infection was a lot worse than they anticipated and it got “stirred up” inside her. This spiked her fever to over 105, dropped her blood pressure to 66/over something and she went into shock and was in and out of consciousness. Needless to say they rushed her into a resuscitation room of the ER and it took about 30-40 minutes (but seemed like an eternity while I was watching) to get her stabilized. We thought we were going to lose her.

So what was supposed to be an ordeal of a couple of hours turned out to be 4 days at Primary Children’s. She is stable now and at home. She has a tube come out of her kidney that is draining the fluid into a bag that she has called her “juice bag”. After the infection is cleared up we will need to do some more testing to determine the cause of all of this. Worst case scenario would be removing her kidney. I hope that this isn’t the case but looks like more surgeries are to follow depending on the results of the tests they will perform. My wife is taking her on Thursday to have a test done so hopefully we will know something then.

Birthday's

I thought I would update one all about the Giffords getting older. Brookln turned four on July 18th , I can't believe I have a four year old. CRAZY! My birthday was on July 29th and I am now 25 years old. For Brooklyn's birthday we had a "Princess Party", my parents came to our house for cake and ice cream, we had it really low key. Brooklyn got a "BIG GIRL" bike and a barbie. It was Fun.

For my birthday Shad and I went to Lagoon and spent the night at the Sheraton, and then saw "Dark Knight". We had a blast! Shad even did the Sky Coaster, (I would never be caught doing something like that). Thanks to my Mom, we had 2 days without the kids (what a great present!). Here are some pics from Brooklyn's party! Enjoy!

Brooklyn's Princess Cake!

Brooklyn's Big Girl Bike, and Chanlder picking his nose! (Gross)

My Dad, Brooklyn, and Chandler.