2009 - A year in review

Dear Sarah,


Well its been a long 12 months, so I thought Id write this note to you so when you are older you know just how far you came in the first 12 months.

12 months ago today we arrived at the hospital to be introduced to "Ruby", you now sleep with Ruby every single night and Ruby is the bear with Diabetes so she is just like you. As you get older ruby will help you with your Diabetes, one injection for you, one for Ruby.

Arriving at the hospital that day we knew deep in our hearts they were going to tell us you had Neonatal Diabetes, we just had no idea it was because you didnt have a Pancreas, at the time to us all it meant was you would need insulin for the rest of your life, oh how we wish it was that simple!

You were laying there in your humidicrib and had just received your 5th blood tranfusion, not bad for a 5 week old! You weighed a massive 1016 grams!

You achieved so much over the next 3 months, we were told that you have a very slim chance of survival and that we should think about making arrangements for you.

Every step of the way though you showed everyone that you had the strength to fight this. You battled NEC twice, you battled bleeding in the brain, you battled the continous fluctuation in blood sugars, malabsorbtion, lung infections the list goes on.

We were over the moon to bring you home after 16 weeks, it was the absolute highlight of 2009, you defied the odds and the Drs and you never gave up.

The next 3 months saw you settling into life at home, we had many Drs appointments and we still struggled to control your diabetes, but 3 months after being at home you had grown from 2500grams to 3700 grams - not bad considering all you deal with.

Between months 7-10 it was tough - you got sick in July and the Drs had no idea what was going on, you battled a bad reaction to your immunisations which landed you in hospital for 11 days with a stay in PICU just for good measure! You battled chest infectioons and Pneumonia numerous time, you ruptured your ear drum and went into Diabetic Ketoacidosis, but you battled through it all and continued to grow and amaze us.

Months 10-12 were an amazing time. We learnt alot in these months. You went into cardiac Failure and had open heart surgery, you scared us after the surgery with another emergency call but you bounced back and came home 5 days before your birthday.

Your Bday was amazing, I was so elelated that we made it, it was such a fantastic day and you looked so so healthy and happy. Your nanna and pa even came from interstate to help you celebrate.

The week after your bday you had to have a MRI. You had another reaction to the Anaesetic and took 12 hours to wake up. You then collapsed a lung and got Pneumonia again. It was a nervous wait for your results. Finally the results came in and we breathed a sigh of relief that your seizures hadnt caused any brain damage.

We found out that you have a condition with your bile ducts. There is no treatment and no cure, only baindaid solutions. We just know with the strength that you have had over the last 12 months that you will give it everything you have though.

You have taught us so many lessons over the last 12 months, you have introduced us to people we would have never known. You have shown us strength that we didnt know we had. We are so very thankfiul for that.

My precious girl - We made it. Im declaring a new year! You were never expected to see 2009, so to be here with you seeing in 2010 makes me incredibly proud. Here is to a year of happiness, tears, joy and healthy times ahead.