Our Sweet Niece Brooklyn

This week has been the longest week of my life. Our niece Brooklyn (my brother Brandon's daughter) has been struggling for her life. She has had a bacterial infection in her left foot and leg. She has diabetes and that has made this process even harder on her body. She was admitted to the Primary Children's hospital in Utah on Monday. They were having a hard time trying to stablize her so that they could take her in for a MRI. The infection was spreading too fast to wait so they had to take her in for an emergency surgery. They had to cut tissue and skin from the heel of her left foot and up the back of her left leg to the bottom of her knee. (It was a blessing that the infection was not in the bone and that she was able to keep her foot) On Wednesday they took her back into surgery and thought they had gotten all of the bacteria and could treat the rest of the infection with antibiotics. However today it looks like the bacteria is starting to spread on the top of her left foot. So they may have to go back in tomorrow and remove more skin. The past few days have been hard on her body. She has been heavily medicated. Today was the first day since the surgery on Tuesday that she has opened her eyes and has been trying to communicate. That is good news for us. She is currently hooked up to seven machines and has tubes in her throat. She didn't like waking up to all of that. The doctors are still saying she is not out of the woods but we are trying to stay hopeful. She will need skin grafts and a lot of physical therapy to help her walk again. Her leg will also be a little deformed because of the tissue they had to remove. The good part is that she will still have her foot and leg and will hopefully be able to regain use of them again. They are planning on taking her back in tomorrow and are hoping they can get her blood pressure to go back up so they can start the skin grafts. She has a long road ahead of her but she is a tough little girl and I think she can make it through this. It has been so hard to not be able to be there with them. We are keeping Brooklyn and her family in our hearts and prayers. We believe she has made it to this point because of prayers and fasting. So if you could remember to pray for Brooklyn I would appreciate it. My brother is going to try to keep his blog updated for those of you who know them and would like to know what is going on. Here is a link to his blog, http://brandonandnickoledew.blogspot.com/