An after Christmas feast which included some
undercooked meat was the problem.
Haddie's little body reacted to the undercooked meat and the bacteria
living in it by causing bloody diarrhea, vomiting and abdominal pain. She was sick for about 1 week prior to coming
in, and when she got her, she was really sick.
She wasn't talking to us, she was just crying in pain. We knew she needed surgery, but weren't sure
if she would survive the surgery or not.
We talked and prayed with the family, who agreed to let Jim do
surgery. Jim found that most of her
small intestine was diseased from the infection of Pigbel. He removed part of her intestine, but had to
leave a lot of disease bowel inside. Her
recovery after surgery was slow.
It took her a long time to be able to take
liquids and even longer to take solids.
Everytime she would try and eat or drink something, she would cry in
pain, vomiting at times. We tried
everything we could to help her. We gave
her IV fluid, we gave her nutritional supplementation via a tube in her nose -
but still she struggled to keep anything down.
She lost 8 lbs while she was with us.
We considered another surgery, but her nutritional status had
deteriorated so much that we weren't sure she would survive a surgery and if
she did, weren't sure there was anything else Jim could do in there.
Finally, Haddie started to take liquids, and
over time she started to take solids, to the point where she got to go
home. For so long, all I heard Haddie do
was cry and moan in pain, so I was pleasantly surprised to see her back for her
followup visit eating an orange and talking to me. She has regained about 3 lbs of her 8 that
she lost, but has a ways to go yet. She
still has pain at times when she eats, but no where like before, and she isn't
vomiting, so that is a huge blessing. It
was a joy to see her and I would ask that you would continue to pray for her
complete recovery.
