Yesterday, when we arrived in Gemma’s room, the nurse looking after her knew a lot about Gemma’s family and life at home. We had mentioned briefly before we left home that we would think about looking for a “hanslammetjie” for Gemma and Bryce to rear. Gemma and her nurse had been discussing names for her baby lamb – oops – the pressure to find one is now on. It is really hard to understand how she is able to talk so much, because when we are around her she doesn’t say much and we can see that she is in a lot of pain. This characteristic is incredibly touching, it’s as if she knows she has to be brave when she is on her own, but when we are there, maybe she feels she can just relax and knows that we are there to look after her. One nurse laughed and said Gemma had asked her to please leave the room because she was talking too loudly. Gemma slept for most of the day yesterday, so nearing nighttime she had a bit more energy and it was very difficult to leave her. She eventually fell asleep at about 10pm, but the morning nurse said she slept right through the night. Her oxygen levels have been lower than they should, there could be many reasons for this, possibly a side effect from the painkillers. The nurse wanted to give her extra oxygen. This started making her a bit upset, until we reminded her that her great grandfather, Bunka, uses a tube like that in his nostrils for a couple of hours every day. She was then happy for us to take a photo, so we could show him at a later stage. We have been mostly focused on the fact that the operation was a success, as well as her recovery and healing, that for the first time in her life we have not even been concerned about her blood sugars. On that note, however, the blood sugars have been excellent so far. She has been on a 5% dextrose drip and her sugars have been stable for the first time ever. The only drip that has worked in the past to keep her sugars stable was a 10% dextrose drip. As excited as we would like to be, we know it is still early days, and the true result will only show when she is off the drip and starts eating. We are still hanging on to that hope that a miracle is going to happen!!!!!! Our little girl deserves it! In the first blog I wrote "Gemma's second pancreatectomy" I mentioned that I had received an email back from an CHI specialist in the States, who had not encouraged us to do the surgery. I wrote back to him saying that although we are extremely thankful that he had taken his time to contact us, we were going to take the advice from our SA endocrinologist. I received a reply from him last night saying that he completely understands, and he is always a bit reluctant to give advice as he doesn't always know what the medical facilities are like in other parts of the world. He wished us luck and asked us to let him know how it all goes. Although I already know that this was the right decision, it was just like another little weight off my shoulder when I received this email. Lots of love to you all! 3 Comments
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