Little London

Our sweet little niece, London, is in the hospital yet again. The third time in her one year of life. She just turned one on the 13th. Here she is with some of her gifts.

London has failed to gain very much weight since she was born. By six months she was around 8 lbs. By one year old she was just over 13 pounds. She has been given a concentrated form of formula since she was just a few months old and when that didn't help her gain weight, she has had a feeding tube to pump formula directly into her stomach. With all that she has been through, the doctors are still baffled at why she still fails to gain weight normally. She may look like a 6 month old but she is walking and as happy and active as any one year old.
Four weeks ago she contracted Rota-virus and couldn't keep anything down. The doctors urged her parents to continue to feed her normally even if everything went right through her and she threw the rest up. She was admitted to the hospital after a couple of weeks of this and lost a full pound in one day after being admitted to the hospital! We don't yet know what damage was done to her intestines from the weeks of diarrhea.
Last week the doctors decided to put in a PICC line that goes in her tiny arm and into her heart to pump food directly through her circulatory system. Over the past week she has started to gain some of the weight back, little by little. In the past few days she has kept some fluids down and we are hopeful that the PICC line can be taken out soon and that her body will be ready for an exploratory surgery to help us possibly find out once and for all what is going on in her little body.
She is constantly in our thoughts and prayers and we know that she will get better soon. Below is a photo of London in her hospital crib. For her nearly two week hospital stay she has been in isolation. So she literally hasn't left this room for almost two weeks.

My sister-in-law posted this picture. I'm just going to copy what she posted on her blog because I know she'll tell the story better than I can. She said, "We are still in isolation and so we have not been able to leave our room for many days now. Often during the day time London will point to the door and we will stand in the doorway and she will wave to everyone that walks by. Her new trick is that she likes to walk over to the door by pushing her IV poll over to it."

 Sweet, little, London, we love you! And we are going to keep on praying for you until you are all better and home with your family again. We can't wait to see you this summer! Get better and we'll see you soon!