Spa Day and a Scare

Yesterday, our friends Sarah and Audrey came over to treat Gracie to a spa day. They brought yummy spa snacks, soothing music, and showered Gracie with much love and pampering. Sarah, a devoted Catholic, prayed the Rosary for Gracie and Audrey used some energy healing practices with her. Audrey worked on opening her Chakras. These are centers of energy, located on the midline of the body. There are seven of them, and they govern our psychological properties. The chakras located on the lower part of our body are our instinctual side, the highest ones our mental side. As you can see, by the look on Gracie’s face in this picture, she very much enjoyed herself!

After her spa treatments, we gave Gracie a bath and then dressed her up for a photo shoot. She opened all of her wonderful gifts from the Children’s Wish Foundation and she was very interested in a few of the toys that played some catchy music. The one that made car noises also intrigued her! It was great to see her awake and alert during all of the days events and we got some great photos.

Later that evening I was thinking what a great day this was with so many blessings to be thankful for, mostly for her loving friends who want do to whatever they can to try help take care of her. I fed Gracie through her NG tube at nine, as usual, and she was peacefully sleeping, wiped out from the day’s events. A few minutes later I went in to check on her and noticed her stomach convulsing so I grabbed the suction expecting she was going to have a little spit up and I would just clear it out with suction. She then spit up but the secretions just kept on flowing this time, I couldn’t keep up with the suction. I yelled to Brien who came running to help lift her up so she could breathe. Her lips turned purple and then she quickly became very floppy, as she couldn’t breathe due to all the secretions that were coming so fast and even out of her nose at this point. Luckily, Brien picked her up and gave her some vigorous pats on the back, her lips returned to pink color, and she started making noises. I don’t know what I would have done if Brien hadn’t been there, I feel like I truly panicked while he stayed amazingly calm.

It’s been a rough evening. She went back to sleep for a while but then was fussy and awake again several times last night. Both Brien and I got up numerous times during the night to try and calm her down with various methods. She is finally resting peacefully now as I type and I am on my third cup of coffee for the morning! After last night’s scare, Brien and I talked about how this was really a test for us as far as figuring out what we are to do in that situation should it happen again. We decided that we both need a refresher course in infant CPR so we are going to put that on the priority list for sure. I pray every day that we won’t need to use those skills but I also know it’s better to be prepared.

So, this week Gracie asks you to do something that you have been putting off doing for a while. For us, it’s the CPR class. For you, it may be just mowing the lawn or returning a friend’s email. Whatever it is, don’t put off today what you can do tomorrow. Gracie wants you to avoid procrastination this week.