Now that I have a few minutes to sit down I'll tell the story so those of you who weren't here on Sunday will hear it.

Three weeks ago (Aug 22) Jaela caught a cold. About a week later she seemed to be doing better and getting over it. We went to Shriners on Monday and Tuesday of the next week (Aug 29-30) and she seemed to be feeling sick again on that Tuesday. She wasn't eating as well and was fussy. We took her to the doctor on Wednesday and he prescribed and antibiotic. It got rid of the mucus in her throat but she still wasn't herself. The next Tuesday (Sept 6) we took her back to the pediatrician because she still wasn't getting better and still not eating. Jaela got checked into the Logan Regional Hospital for dehydration and she was given fluids through an IV and seemed to perk up a little bit. They did every test they could think of and all of them came back negative except one and all it was positive for was a cold. We took her home Wednesday night and put her feeding tube back in so she'd stay hydrated. She cried and cried and cried so we took her back to the pediatrician on Thursday and he prescribed the equivalent of morphine because he thought she was in pain. We gave that to her and she stopped crying and fell asleep. Well she didn't wake up for about 36 hours. We thought that maybe this was her body's way of getting rid of the illness. She started to look a little blue and purple so I put her oxygen on 1/16 liters an hour. About 9:00 PM on Friday she started crying again and even a dose of pain medicine wasn't helping. We were up all night. On Saturday morning (Sept 10) Jeremy said "enough." He told me we were taking her the the emergency room immediately. We ran out of the house as fast as we could and raced to the hospital. As soon as we told the receptionist in the ER that Jaela was having trouble breathing someone came out and grabbed her and took her and Jeremy back before I could even sign the paper work. A few nurses were checking her out, and then a few more nurses were with her, and then a doctor, and then another doctor, and then more nurses. They switched rooms so they could accommodate more people. The doctors walked out into the hall to discuss what to do. They came back a few minutes later and told us they weren't sure if it was an allergic reaction, or kidney, lung, or heart issues. They told us life flight was on it's way and she'd be headed to Primary Children's. We put her on the helicopter and jumped in the car to chase after her. My parents were able to be here when she arrive and stayed with her in the ER until we got here. As soon as we came in the doctors came in and said they suspected heart failure. They were going to admit her into the ICU and evaluate her further.

Once she was admitted they did and echocardiogram (ultrasound of her heart) and said that it was large and they needed to get her on medication right away. We felt like we finally had an answer for why she was sick and now she was on the road to getting better. We were so tired so we had my mom stay in the room with her that night so that we could sleep for a while. At about 3 AM my mom came and got us and said they were doing a lot of tests and changing a lot of equipment and maybe we should come back. When we got to her room they had turned her oxygen up to 10 liters and her levels were still dropping. They tried a CPAP machine which seals off her nose so all of the oxygen gets in her body, but she was still dropping and she was getting wores, fast. Our wonderful doctor said that he felt like she needed to be intubated (a machine that does all the breathing for her, basically life support) and it needed to be done quickly. The problem is that they have to stop her heart and with it already failing they didn't know if it would start again. And chest compressions would destroy her rib cage and her lungs wouldn't have enough support to function. All the doctors and nurses left the room at that point to give us a minute to say goodbye. There was a time when I was holding her and I thought she was gone. We have never been so scared and so sad in our entire lives.

Our moms were with us and we asked them to start calling family members to gather at the hospital to support us if she left us, and to pray for her to get better if she made it.

They started the intubation process. Jeremy stayed with her but I had to go lay on the floor in the hall. Jeremy came out a few minutes later and told me that everything went ok and she was still alive.

That's the story of why we're here. It's nothing of what they think medically but Jeremy will have to write that but he's supposed to be studying so I'll have him write it later. But we still have Jaela and she continues to take huge leaps forward each day. She has defied death twice in seven months. She is strong.