I'm in Landlocked State--not in Hometown, but in the state capitol which has a state-of-the-art research medical facility. My sister gave birth on Aug. 3 to a baby girl with a diaphragmatic hernia. One lung was underdeveloped because her liver was in her chest cavity taking up all of the space. Niece had a successful surgery to repair the hernia, is off of ECMO, and is recovering better than expected. She is still on a ventilator (will be for many weeks), but they expect her to get a feeding tube today. So, things are way less stressful now. Being off ECMO is a big deal; her survival rate increases dramatically. She's 10 days old, and apparently quite strong. Yay NICU medical team!
We came in the week before and have been taking care of Nephew. He's three and awesomely fun. We have found some amazing playgrounds in the area to take him to and have basically just been in full-on distraction mode. He's been great.
Landlocked State is in GodLand. Husband and I are heathens. My family and everyone they know has been praying and thanking God, well, religiously. I understand. But I am grateful for the doctors and nurses that performed the surgeries and have been administering her care, and the engineers and doctors who developed and refined the technology and the medical procedures that were used. She's a very lucky baby to have been born with this condition now instead of 20 years ago.
We'll still be here for another week or so, with intermittent internet.
2 comments:
"...grateful for the doctors and nurses that performed the surgeries and have been administering her care, and the engineers and doctors who developed and refined the technology and the medical procedures that were used."
This one gets under my skin too.
Akin, though not on the same scale: my friends & family who insist on elaborate prayers to thank Lord Jesus for giving them the food we're about to eat, yap, yap, all the while never saying a word of thanks to the very real women sitting at the table who have, in fact, actually, usually, prepared (and very often helped to earn) the food we're about to eat.
Oh, well. Glad, nonetheless, that the baby is doing well!
When I taught preschool, my partner insisted on having our 3s and 4s say grace at lunch. So I added my own list of people to thank, starting with farmers and ending with the cafeteria workers. Oh yeah, we also thanked the cows and chickens and tomatoes, etc. My kids also knew where their meat came from, which came in real handy when they lost plastic meat from the home center--they just used the cows from the farm. I also taught them about the environmental impact of McDonald's, which made some moms happy as it turned some kids off McD's. Environmentalist vegetarian atheists make great preschool teachers.
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