Sarah in the Hospital

Well, this is Richard, so this may be short. We just wanted everyone interested to know what was happening. On Thursday morning (Sept. 2) Sarah was admitted to the hospital and diagnosed with appendicitis. She was in surgery late that afternoon and was appendix-less by evening.

-Sarah pre-op. She was very tired

Her appendix didn't burst or anything, but her blood test was really high for the White Blood Cell count (WBC) when she arrived (about 2x expected). She was a sick girl, and didn't look much better post-surgery:

She's been up and down, and was in a lot of pain the last few days due to air in the abdomen/intestines, her incisions, inflammation of the abdominal cavity, etc. It breaks your heart as a parent when your child is crying from pain and calling for help when there's nothing you can do about it. What a mess. She's finally doing a bit better, though, and we hope it continues. Her WBC count is finally close to normal today (Sun. Sept. 5), and she's not screaming for us to change the channel if someone on TV is eating. We still have to wait for her to eat solid food and get the intestines moving again before we can get her out of the hospital, though. So there's still progress to be made. Poor girl. But she's at least doing better each day. Here's Sarah enjoying a few bites of popsicle:

Unfortunately, it was only seconds before she stopped eating, but it's progress.

I guess we just have a post-birthday curse for serious injury. Emma broke her leg 1 week after her birthday and now Sarah gets appendicitis a few days after hers. We're going to have to watch out after birthdays from now on.

Anyway, that's all for now. Keep us in your prayers, please. We really appreciate all that everyone's done to help. We'll update more when we can.