I’m really happy to let you all know that Helen is coming home from the hospital today! The cardiologist saw her this morning and gave the ok.
Helen will need some gentle care for the next few weeks, but she is really doing well. Thanks for all your prayers…we really appreciated it!
Helen has left the ICU and moved to a regular pediatric care unit. She had some fluid around her lungs on Friday, but that has subsided. All in all she is doing very well! She’s eating solid foods and she has been playing with toys on the floor. She’s no longer tethered to the bed by all those tubes & wires, so Rachel has been able to walk around with her.
There’s no definite word yet on when she’s coming home, but it may be as early as Monday. Thanks for your continued prayers!
Here’s a couple pictures of Helen from today (Saturday):
Helen continues to recover in the pediatric intensive care unit (PICU) at Children’s Hospital in Minneapolis. She had her chest tubes and ventilator tube removed this morning. She was moved to a more private room so she could have fewer distractions. She was awake during much of the day, but she was kind of crabby and we tried to get her to sleep more. Every time she was offered a drink (glucose water only at this point), she sucked it down very quickly, which is a good sign (since she has never been a very fast bottle drinker).
The nurses think she’ll leave the ICU either Friday or Saturday; from there she’ll go to a regular care unit in the hospital.
Here’s a picture of Helen with Rachel holding her. You can tell that Helen is not quite herself yet:
We are very relieved to report that Helen’s surgery today was very successful and her prognosis is very good. She had the surgery at Minneapolis Children’s Hospital to fix her heart defect. She had a ventricular septal defect, which is a hole between the pumping chambers.
After meeting with the anesthesiologist, surgeon, and several of the nursing staff, we went into the OR with Helen at about 1:00 pm today. We were there when they put her to sleep and then we said goodbye to her. After about an hour of preparation, the surgery itself began around 2:00 pm.
At about 3:15 pm we got word that the surgical team had been able to successfully close the defect. A patch was not needed; the stitches alone were enough to close it. They also removed some excess “muscle bundles” that could later obstruct the valve. At that point Helen was taken off the heart-lung machine and an echocardiogram showed that the hole had been completely closed, with no leakage.
At about 5:00 pm we were allowed to visit Helen in the Pediatric ICU. She is laying on a bed and she looks so very tiny on it. She has a large bandage over the incision where her chest was opened to access her heart. She has many tubes and monitoring devices on her little body. Helen is currently sedated and is on a ventilator; they are telling us that the ventilator will probably be removed on Thursday morning.
It is hard for us to see Helen in this helpless state, but the nursing staff is very competent and kind to us, and very good at explaining what they are doing. Rachel has enjoyed “talking shop” (as a former ICU nurse), although there’s a lot of differences between pediatric and adult ICU care.
We appreciate all the prayers that have been spoken on our behalf. Thank you so much! Please continue to pray for a quick and event-free recovery for Helen. She will likely be in the ICU for a couple more days, and then spend another few days in a regular nursing unit until she is discharged, sometime around the middle of next week if all goes well.
As many of you who are reading this may know, our newly-adopted daughter Helen has a heart condition called VSD (ventricular septal defect). We had an appointment with a pediatric cardiologist in late August at the Children’s Heart Clinic in Minneapolis, and after taking a careful look at her heart and discussing options, we agreed that she will have open heart surgery. It is scheduled on Sept 12th at 1:00 pm. Please pray for little Helen and for us as we care for her. We have been told that she will be in the hospital (Children’s Minneapolis) for 5-7 days after the surgery. Rachel will probably stay at the hospital most of the time. Jeff will take some time off work but may go in to work some days (we’ll see). Laura will spend some of her time with her grandparents and/or aunts and probably some time at home with Jeff.
This is not really a surprise…we’ve known all along that Helen would probably need surgery to repair this defect (which is a hole between the two ventricles in the heart). The surgery is not without some risk, although it’s a procedure that is done quite often and the surgical teams are very skilled. We really don’t have an option to not do it…without the surgery her heart would keep working harder and harder and eventually she could have congestive heart failure and permanent lung damage. So we leave it in God’s hands and trust that he will take care of little Helen and make her well.
Thank you for your prayers.
Here’s a recent picture of Helen. Go to her photo album for more pictures.
If you’re interested in learning more about VSD, these are good resources:
Our prayers go out to those affected by the 35W bridge collapse that happened yesterday at 6:05 pm in downtown Minneapolis. We heard about it around 6:30 from Len, Rachel’s dad who called us to tell us the news. My dad called us at about 6:45 to ask what we knew about it…he and my mom were out to eat at a restaurant and had been told by the waiter that a bridge had collapsed.
This disaster, although it has not caused anyone we know of to be hurt, is disturbing nonetheless. I’ve personally probably travelled over that bridge thousands of times over the years, and also travelled under it on the West River Road or SE 2nd Street. I went to the University of Minnesota from 1988-1993; I lived in the Seven Corners Apartments right next to 35W in 1992-93; Rachel lived in the Dinkytown area from 1995-96; I had classes for my MSSE program in the West Bank Office Building of the U of M right by the bridge; and all the other countless times driving over that bridge to get to destinations north of the river…
I sincerely hope that some good will come from this tragedy. It was heartening to hear about the bystanders who stopped to help people without hesitating to worry about their own safety. And hopefully once the cause of the collapse is found, bridge safety around the state and country can be improved.
This is a picture of the I35W bridge collapse in Minneapolis. In the background is the Seven Corners Apartments building, where Jeff lived in 1992-93.
An aerial view of the collapsed 35W bridge:
Well, we have made it back home to Minnesota! We arrived around 1:00 pm on Wednesday, and Len & Mary Lou (Rachel’s parents) picked us up. Joel & Becky Sutton (our pastor and his wife) and their two kids also met us at the airport. (Hope Sutton, their daughter, is also an adopted Chinese kid.)
We tried to stay up as long as possible to get back on a normal schedule, but I could only make it until about 4:00 pm. I woke up once at 9:30 pm when Rachel and Laura went to sleep, but then I slept until 5:30 am. It’s about 4:00 pm right now, and I’m not too tired, so I think I’m doing pretty well.
It is great to be back in our own house again. I especially am appreciating the soft mattress on our bed. We also enjoyed eating Chipotle, one restaurant that hasn’t made it over to China (yet, anyway).
Helen is adjusting to her new home. She met our dog Martha, and they seem to be ok with each other.
The weather here in Minnesota is hot, but after southern China it really doesn’t feel so bad to us. That’s one bright side to the extremely hot weather we endured over there!
Here are a couple pictures from our journey home:
On Monday we took it relatively easy and did not venture out much. We did some shopping and Laura did some more swimming in the pool. We took pictures with the two other Children’s Home families in the White Swan Hotel lobby. Here’s a picture from that event:
We also did some shopping on Monday. Here’s a picture of Helen with “Helen’s Shop” in the background; this is one of many shops in the area that cater to adoptive families.
Today (Tuesday) we had our oath-taking ceremony at the U.S. consulate. With that done, we now have Helen’s immigration visa, and when we get back through U.S. immigration in Minnesota, Helen will be a U.S. citizen!
We are going to bed early tonight and getting up extra early in the morning (4:30 am). We will leave the hotel before 6:00 am for our 8:20 am flight from Guangzhou to Tokyo (a 4 1/2 hour flight). After a short layover there, we will have our 11-hour flight back to Minneapolis, where we’ll arrive at 12:40 pm the same day (due to losing a day crossing the international date line).
We are really excited to be coming home! It is going to be wonderful to get back into a more regular routine…no more living out of a suitcase, and no more sharing a single bedroom/living room/dining room/office/den! We’re also excited to have Helen meet her other grandparents and her aunts, uncles, cousins, and friends back home.
On Sunday we were treated to a tour of the city from TieJun (TJ) and Tao, friends who live here. Tao is the sister of Hai, one of the Chinese post-doctoral students my parents hosted in Minnesota. TJ and Tao also have a 5-year old son, Harry, who got along well with Laura. They took us to Yuexiu Park, which is the largest park inside the GZ city limits. It boasts the Sculpture of the Five Rams…according to one source:
The Sculpture of the Five Rams is often thought of as the symbol of Guangzhou. It was placed in the park in 1959 and depicts the Chinese legend of how creatures from Heaven rode into the city of Guangzhou riding rams and carrying rice. The story is interpreted to mean that Guangzhou will never suffer from famine.
They also treated us to a delicious and elaborate meal at a restaurant near the park. Later that afternoon, we were honored to visit their apartment home in eastern Guangzhou, where we rested from the heat and had some nice refreshments. We were also honored to meet Tao’s mother and TJ’s mother and father.
We sincerely thank Tao & TJ for taking the time to show us around their beautiful city. Following are a few pictures from our day; for more pictures visit the photo album.
Wow! We have had Helen for one week now. In some respects it feels like it has been longer. It has been wonderful to see Helen’s progression of attachment to us and to see some of the real her. She is such a happy and inquisitive girl! She loves to play - especially with paper. We think it possibly is a novelty to her. She can entertain herself folding, unfolding and turning the same piece of paper for a long time. She also likes the “I drop it, you pick it up game”.
She started to learn to feed herself last night. When I would feed her Cheerios she would just open her mouth and make no attempt to try to feed herself. When I would try to have pick them up herself she would pick them up and purposely drop them. Last night she went from hiding her hand under the bib to taking the Cheerio from my fingers and putting it in her own mouth and then clapping. She then would start to fuss if you didn’t give her praise for doing it. If she could talk, one of her favorite phrases would probably be, “Do it again!” I think we have a little ham on our hands.
We are really impressed with the variety of food that Helen will eat. She will try anything and can eat a lot for her 14 lb body. Laura has been quite adventurous as well. She will try most things but has settled on rice (white or fried) being her favorite. She has done really well without her allotment of milk. Here the milk is reconstituted which she does not like. She has decided that her belly button does not call for milk anymore, it calls for food. It will call for milk in Minnesota only.
Laura is doing great as a big sister. Sure it is hard adjusting to sharing her parents especially after having four adults at her beckon call for two weeks in Hong Kong, but she is doing well. It has been wonderful to have Ross and Karin here to help take care of Laura and make our transition smoother. I have heard the other families talk about how they miss their children at home and I am so grateful that I have mine all here. The other day when I out of the bathroom, Laura and Helen were sitting in Laura’s little foam bed and Laura was singing to Helen about how God made all of the big things.
Laura loves the swimming pools here and has readily taken anyone one up who invites her. That is her favorite time to be outside. She has been a real trooper walking lots of miles around the cities with us. She is ready to have cooler weather as she said yesterday, “I don’t want to go outside, I’ll get all hotted up again!” It has been consistently in the 90’s and very humid. I think that we also look forward to temperatures in the 80’s with less humidity. Here we come Minnesota!
We are all very eager to get home and to establish our new routine. Even though we know that there will be a lot more things to keep us busy we miss it - especially our own beds (In China, they prefer extra firm beds) and turning the water faucet on and drinking from it!
Here is a picture of our two girls:
