Losing battle

Beloved family and friends,

I am tired. I am worn. I am beginning to feel as though I am fighting a losing battle. Isabel is doing worse than she ever has before.

It began a week after she came home from the hospital. She had a little throw up here, now and again. As the days passed, it became more frequent. We spent $250 on Homeopathic meds and a cleansing program for Isabel over the next two months.

Christmas day, Isabel tolerated her last diluted feeding at 2:00 pm. From then onwards, she would vomit dry heaves, mucus, bile every couple of minutes for the next three days. The acid from her stomach is burning her skin and the constant vomiting is keeping her from sleeping.

James and I have been working around the clock trying to give her several mL's of water every half hour to watch her throw it up only seconds later.

I am so scared. I have faxed a desperate message for help to several paediatricians and I have heard back from none of them. We have been communicating with our Homeopath every couple of hours and they are the only ones to date who have questioned the excess gas she is suddenly producing.

Isabel is gaunt and incredibly frail. I will be taking her back to the hospital in the next hour. First, I will print a medical history document so that the handful of doctors who come in will not ask the same stupid questions. I will also need to print something about Isabel's emotional needs, likes and dislikes in the event that I am unable to be with her at some point.

We don't know what more to do, how much longer to fight, whom to seek and when to finally accept that God's Will may very well be that she leave us.

I held her against my skin in a hot bath a few hours ago and sang to her as her frantic eyes kept moving back and forth. I sang and cried for it felt as though my baby was dying in my arms. "Ave Maria" filled our ears as I poured my heart out in prayer through song. This is the song I sang with my sisters when grandma was dying only days before they took Isabel from my womb. This is the song my sisters and I sang when our uncle unexpectedly drowned in the Saskatchewan River nearly two years ago. And this is the song I will sing if it is time to let her go.

Pray for our strength for I am weak. Pray for our Isabel, that God's Will be honoured and that life be breathed into her for as long as we can ask. Pray that perhaps we discover something new this time and can turn this around quickly. Pray for these tears to stop, for I feel as though I am drowning in this heartache. And at last, pray for our Melina. She is so innocent in all of this whirlwind and I fear the effects of this turmoil.

I do not know what more to ask. Perhaps only that the sound of Isabel fill our ears for the rest of our lives, whether present or only in our hearts. God be with us through this journey.

Amen.