The "Ballin's"-- Mike and Jamie
Staci and my Mandy "Lou"
Girl Time! Sarah Tucker and Corinne
My Katie Bugs and Robin
My family away from family - The Forbis's
Corinne's with Miller!!
Grandpa Mike and Mommy
Grandpa Mike and Pat
One of my best friends "Aunty Ronda"
Tuesday- Thursday August 2nd-4th
After our decision to take Corinne off of the vent in a week we emailed our family and told them the news, that we would only have 5-10 days with Corinne and if they were able to we would love for them to come and meet her.
We had so many friends in NWA that wanted to meet Corinne so we decided to set up a “visitation” of sorts on Wednesday and just have everyone come up at once and take turns coming back to see Corinne. Our doctor worked it out so Corinne could be moved into a private NICU room with one on one nursing care, this would make it more convenient for the hospital, other patients, and our friends and family that were coming to meet Corinne. We also had professional pictures scheduled for Thursday, by one of my favorite photographers, Mika Beth Edwards.
Up to this point Corinne usually “slept” most of the day and had very few active or awake moments and while we were at Children’s she had very few seizures. Once we got to Washington Regional she started waking up more, became alert for minutes at a time, moving multiple limbs at a time, reacting to light, sound, and touch....and started having multiple seizures a day and more fluid buildup in her lungs, so much so that Respiratory therapy was coming every 2 hours to suction her and do their DTP “ bopping” ( it’s a little paddle they tap over her chest to open up her lungs and dislodge some of the secretions she was having).
During the next few days it seemed like the more visitors we had, the more time we spent with her, the more stimulation she received, the more alert she became, and the more seizures she would have. I was so excited to have our friends come to visit her and a photographer come to take pictures but I was so worried that we would over stimulate her… I didn’t know what to do, so I stuck to the plan of having our friends come and it was definitely the right decision because so many people got to meet our amazing blessing!!
But that night I had another bubble burst….my daughter was dying and I had to plan a funeral!!! I am 30 years old; I don’t know where funeral homes are, cemeteries, how to plan a service. Wrapping my mind around that was SO difficult for me. Also at this point we had no family in town and we were offering full care to Evan, I didn’t know how to do it.. I know this sounds dramatic but honestly I didn’t know how to care for my living son, my dying daughter, my grieving husband; communicate with our helpful friends and our inquiring families. It was all too much!!!!!!!!!!! And again I broke down.
As always our family and my sister was there to help. The next morning my dad arrived at our house and his job was to get funeral information for me, Ryan’s parents said they would be here in 2 days to care for Evan whether it was for a week or a year, my sisters had their flights schedule to come in and help with everything. Again I was blessed and amazed by our family!
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