Journal Shadow Wrought's Journal: Thoughts and Prayers... 19

One of my wife's very good friends from high School has a very sick little girl. She's been diagnosed with Aplastic Anemia, which means that she currently has next to no immune system. So she is vulnerable to a wide range of infections, even from bacteria that is otherwise beneficial. As I understand it, and this may be too graphic for some, she currently has an infection in her intestines which breached one of the intestinal walls. This leaked fluid into her torso which has been causing her breathing difficulties. The normal treatment is to drain the fluid, find the hole, and surgically repair it. Since she has no immune ystem though, any type of incision is extremly risky because of the chance of later infection.

Finally over the weekend they had no choice and began draining her abdomain. She's 9, weighs ~60lbs, and they have already drained over a gallon of fluids from her. Unfortunately that doesn't seem to be enough yet, and she has already stopped breathing twice. So the next step is to drain directly from her chest and do whatever they can to mitigate the risk of infection. She's in the ICU now, and any prayers or positive thoughts you could send to her and her family would be very much appreciated.

Thanks.