happy easter to all!

the local namibian Easter bunny will find himself confronted with very different conditions this year: firstly it will have to hide the eggs in the trees wrapped in watertight packaging and use a boat to come and hide them! we have passed the 1200 mm watermark, the highest ever recorded rainfall in history. living in a semi-dessert environment makes us appreciate every drop of water, but it is enough now. our farm animals are suffering from various rain-associated diseases and it must be terrible for them to be outside in this constant rain. the other condition that the easter bunny will have to get used to is Cara....she looks so different now and he might not recognise her anymore. her complexion has changed, her health and energy levels. we have a completely changed child now. we are very humbled to be able to witness this miracle transformation first hand. from her 5 kgs lost she has regained 3, so we have 2 more to go and beyond when the muscle build up through more exercise will kick in. we are 11 weeks post-op now and are scheduled for another check-up with the pediatric cardiologist next week. the 20 cm long chest scar is healing very nicely and the last Dermabond piece has just come off. she still coughs and we really hope that she process of lung expansion will be over soon and that it is not something else causing it.
Dana and family....Cara still sleeps with her red hearted dog pillow you brought her to hospital. she loves it! her 2 cats Tipsy and Tapsy get a lot of attention and she is sooo happy to be back and able to cuddle with them. Alec is getting used to the idea of having a normal sibling relationship and that his sister is a lot more active now. she has been at school for the past 5 weeks and 4 of them in boarding school and is coping very well. she is now able to walk over the school bridge without any assistance at the same pace her classmates are walking. such an achievement for her! previously somebody had to walk her across the streets through traffic and that was always risky and tiring for her. she has missed more than 2 months of school and has still managed to bring home  86 % in her maths test where the class average was 76 %. with the other subjects the teachers are helping her and we are very grateful for their support and extra efforts. so what more can we tell you? we as parents are extremely relieved that we have made the right choice for Cara with Dr. Hanley and his team. they have advised us that she will need another open heart surgery in a couple of years to bring the homograft to adult size, but that will be relatively minor compared to what she has been through. the big operation on 2 february 2011 would not have been possible without the tremendous support and response received in various forms from all over the world for which we thank you all from the bottom of our hearts. it feels to us as if we also got a second life now, we are able to plan for the future and have so much more energy and hope for years to come. Life is beautiful.....

weekly update

Good morning to all. herewith the weekly update, there is not enough happening to justify a daily blog. Cara is about to finish her first week of school and it went ok, also it was a short week with independence day, a swimming gala on thursday and the teachers generally not giving her too much homework so that she can adjust to the pace once again. next week she will be able to return to boarding school and she is very much looking forward to being able to spend time with her roommates. Her schoolbag still needs to be carried by someone else as it is too much weight on the sternum, and she is not allowed to participate in sport yet, but other than that she should be able to cope with the weekly school routine. we had another check-up with the cardiothrorasic surgeon on tuesday and her lungs are clear, so the effusion will not come back and she is allowed to follow a NORMAL diet. yipee!!! at last!!! so we had to organise a pizza for her, smoked viennas, and just tasty, fat containing food for her and she is eating lots. she does suffer from allergies right now and is on medication and that has led to a persistent dry cough which we struggle to contain, also at night now. she is also very demanding and she needs skills to cope with the trauma and the situation in general. time will heal lots of things too...
we have crossed the 1000 mm rainmark here on the farm and managed to have more vehicles stuck in the field, including the cattle truck on our farm entrance road. what a year, this must certainly be the record year rainwise in the history on this farm. it is about to start raining again....
we are trying to post a current picture of the madam ( another nickname for bobbies ) on the blog but currently she does not want to be on a camera. we wish you all a wonderful weekend!

another week past op

hello to everybody. cannot believe how fast the week has gone past! we are basically 6 weeks past-op now and according to the medical experts, by now the immune system should not be supressed anymore and she should become a lot better. we had a small setback last week Friday in the form of a stomach virus which made her throw up but Rita soon had this one sorted out! so from a very low weight of 28.8 kg we have her back on 30.3 kg and have to get her back to her pre-op weight of 34 kg and then beyond that as she is severely undernourished right now and has been previously. but everybody who knows her can testify that she has had a very healthy appetite and eats big portions. so mama/ me/ moi can testify that long term patients are very difficult and she is still subdued, quiet and very demanding and edgy, but this is all due to the healing process. the sternum is fully healed by now and she will be able to return to school after the independence weekend. somebody will have to carry her schoolbag for her in the first couple of weeks as that is still to heavy for her chest. in a couple of weeks time she will probably also be able to return to her boarding school and her group of friends, whom she misses a  lot. she dreams a lot too, all part of the process to get rid and work off the trauma. for now we keep her busy with cooking, her cats and toys. we have over 930 mms of rain since the start of the rainy season and all damms are still overflowing. like our neighbours says, at least this year we do not have to worry about cattle standing without water in the field somewhere. our favourite, brand new hobby is retrieving stuck landcruisers, trailers and tractors out of the farm ( they get stuck on trackroads! ) and if we do not have our own to pull out we assist the neighbours as they seem to have taken to the same hobby. we have also created a new work outfit...black rubber boots and yellow raincoats...very fashionable. have a great week and best regards from us all here on Progress!

farmroutine

hello to all the fans! we have been to the local peadiatric cardiologist dr. chris hugo-hamman last week and had chest x-rays done, echo etc and he is very happy with her progress and has taken her off some medications and also thinks the chyle's effusion has healed ( thanks to orgon and rita ) but says we should for safety sake just stick to the diet for another week and then slowly start re-introducing. the only medication she is on now is the diuretic and the fluid restriction is also a thing of the past. cara is very thin though due to a lack of muscles and restricted eating choices, but will hopefully come back to her old weight soon. she has lost about 4 kgs and has picked up only half a kilo so far.
we are almost over the jetlag, it really hit us this time after so long in the states.....
the cats tipsy and tapsy are being trained by cara to become circus participants...she spends hours with them and has started knitting inbetween the movies ( she loves those and soon there will be no more movies left she has not seen.....she just watched beethoven and absolutely loved it )
today it has been raining non-stop and everyting is wet, wet, wet. we had over 800 mm rain by now, our average is 350 mm. have a good evening!

Cara is back home!!!

Cara and Sonja have arrived home yesterday morning with a two hour delay from Frankfurt and were greeted by their families. Cara was very tired but delighted to be home and see her father, Alec and her cats.
They are now on the farm and continuing the long road to full recovery. We will continue to keep you posted on Cara's recovery. The new photo on the blog was taken on the day when the two left the states for home.

frankfurt

frankfurt is actually not cold and cara is missing out on her snow......yes we have landed in deutschland and as cara was tired we went to the sheraton for some napping time. we are now back at the airport enduring a 2 hour delay because of some airline part that is not here yet for air namibia and will hopefully be on our way shortly. one thing i never told you all about is how kerri and claus roggensack managed to cara back to eat food by ordering lean biltong ( yes the real african stuff, not american beef jerky) from somewhere in the midwest over the internet and getting stuck in the snow and having it personally delivered by kerri.......that was extraordinary and cara gets her measured 1 to 2 ounces every day and is absolutely delighted.
 thanks so much you 2!

we are leaving....

hi all, i am very happy to report that we are about to board the lufthansa plane to frankfurt. we are at the beautiful san fransisco aiport now and checked in after we have said good bye to a whole lot of people and having had a surprise dinner at flemings with diana and barry last night. barry kindly dropped us off at the airpot and cara in in good spirits and very happy to be on her way home. so we will try and send you an update from cold frankfurt, if not then hopefully when back in namibia. take care and once again thanks for all the support, we would have not been able to go through this without knowing you are all with us all over the world!

progress

good morning to all and yes, cara is progressing every day and becoming stronger by eating properly again. she loves her movies, participates in conversations, gives me plenty orders ( which hopefully explains why you hear so little from me ) and is generally trying to get over the whole ordeal. thank you all from all for the many mails, texts and calls on my birthday, that was great, i had beautiful flowers from my dad and a dinner celebration by the bryans last night but the biggest and best present was that we could, just prior to that, take cara home and out of the hospital after a successful surgery! it was actually exactly the time when it was 12 pm at night in namibia, the start of my birthday....magic at work.
so due to local expert claus roggensack we managed to have extra lean biltong delivered by his lovely wife kerri and it tastes great to cara and she loves tucking into that.
today we have a visit planned to lafayette and orinda and will let you know more tomorrow. it is very cold here but the forecasted snow is not here yet.
have a fun weekend!

second full day out of hospital

things are improving by the hour. we have just done our compulsory post discharge x- ray and clinical examination and although there is a tiny bit of fluid build up, the team does not warrant it significant enough to have us come back on sunday or postpone flights. on the normal straight up chest x-rays they never saw fluids only now as they wanted them to be taken from a different angle. next week friday in green lovely namibia they want us to see the local cardiologist dr. chris hugo-hamman and also go for a chest x-ray to just make sure about the fluids. the fluid amount is very insignificant right now but within a week it could potentially build up because of the chyles effusion. so we saw dr. lynn peng again, the cardiologist who did her cath in august last year and dr. michael shillingford the senior surgeon who operated on cara and said good bye to all of them. the medical research teams are doing the first tests here in stanford to replace homografts and shunts through the groin artery, so hopefully in 5 to 15 years when cara is due for her replacement this will be a routine operation instead of another open heart surgery. 

so, we are leaving this hospital now for good hopefully and will be working on getting back to our land of the brave departing on monday and if there are no hick-ups enroute be finally landing wednesday morning. in atherton we have very bad at&t signal reception, we can see there were a couple of people trying to call and then we cannot hear them. bye for now!

first night out of hospital

we slept like logs, neither the calls nor sms could wake us up this morning. cara is much happier after 12 hours of interrupted sleep and she enjoys going to the fridge and being able to pick her own food and drink from the fat free range. she is very conscious about it and asks me every time: does this contain fat? so i really think this was the best thing that could have happened to us, she is out of her lethargy and takes a lot more interest in her life again. she says hi to all and thank you for sending her all the good vibes. will let you know tomorrow what the chest x rays says, ok!

discharge day ( thought this day would never come )

so, the chest tube is out, another x-ray was done to see no air is trapped in there, another x-ray done to check that no fluid was built up over night at 5 am this morning ( she must be quite radioactive by now with these daily x-rays ) and we are waiting for the lung profusion people to open so that we can get that done. we have packed quite a number of bags with all the stuff collected over the last 3 weeks here in the hospital and after a visit to the pharmacy to get his discharge medicines we are driving to our home base in atherton. diana and barry bryan have been fantastic in looking after us and letting us use their home and car! cara was actually discharged yesterday but she chose another night in hospital over having to get another poke / iv inserted for the lung profusion. so she suggested to the team that they can leave her current iv in and she will make sure nothing happens to it overnight, but legally you are not allowed to leave the hospital with an iv, so that plan did not work out. we also had a busy day yesterday as it was a semi public holiday ( presidents birthday ) here and people had time for a visit. susi, bill and lara waibel originating from wehr, germany but living in berkley came and also claus roggensack with clara ( namibian roots ) and mark and patty ( past visitors to progress but from the usa ) and they all cheered us up!
now the challenge remains to see whether there is fluid buildup, so the delicate balance between fluid intake, diuretics and output without loosing too much weight, minerals and sticking to the no fat diet remains. on thursday we have to redo a chest x-ray and check for fluids....so we are holding thumbs!!

day 21 in hospital

dear all,
you know that you have been a long time in hospital when the nurses after couple days off come and say hi mrs kibble are you still here? but......there seems to be some progress today. they took the chest tube off the suction for 24 hours and x-rayed the chest to check for fluid build up and there is none. so in a couple of hours she will get some morphine and then the chest tube will be surgically removed. then we have to wait again and do x-rays tomorrow and a lung profusion to see what the fluid output etc will be like. so this is the first ray of hope that we are moving in the right direction. normally the body would be able to get rid of the fluids and the chest tube could have been taken out long ago, but because of chyles complication and the damage to the lymphatic system the body cannot do its normal job. so cara is at the physio gym right now. oupa wolfgang has just come to say good bye as he is catching his flight back now via frankfurt on the lufthansa flight that we were supposed to be today. but we told him he must take a good look at our seats and make sure they are there for next week and cara and i are visualising that we will be sitting there a week from now. i am a bit late with my update today as it has been a really busy day in her room. the surgeon actually just came in and removed her chest tube, so we will update you tomorrow morning again on the plan. also dr hanley paid us a visit today the first time since after the operation ( actually only mike saw him then ) and that was very nice of him. he explained to us what had happened as he had to do so much dissecting and that he is fairly confident that only many little lymphvessels have been damaged as opposed to actually the main thorasic duct. this assumption they make from her drainage pattern. so this is good news, although cara will have to stick to her diet of less than 5 gr of fat per day for the next 5 weeks ( and she loves her hearty food........)
have a good start into the week!

sunday

hi all. the chest tube drainage was down to 34, so we are tentatively hopeful that the rate of drainage is decreasing. we just had the team here and the surgeon ( dr. michael shillingford ) who has operated on her and we are discussing various possibilities. he had different draining values altogether now so i requested that they consult with dr. hanley to get it from the horse's mouth, so hopefully by tomorrow we should have an answer. they really just want to make sure that she is not filling up on her fluids in the chest cavity before sending her home back into the bush. so her spirits are better as she is begging us to watch movies again and she hast started doing a cat puzzle of 300 pieces. she does not like all the many people and and there are only very few of the personel that she talks to ( such a little snobby ). so today we will have the lewis family come again and they should be here soon. Bye...

update

i am getting the first notices that there is no update yet....i am sorry! thought everybody would be enjoying their weekend somewhere in the lovely countryside and not checking their mails and blog. we got held up by a lovely family who visited us here in the hospital all the way from Los Angeles. Thomas has been operated 3 times on his heart area ( also unifocalisation ) by Dr. Hanley and is here in Palo Alto for a gymnastics contest. so inspiring to see such a charming and vibrant young boy with lots of enthusiam and strength. so we hope cara took a good look at her future! anyway, her chest tube drainage is on 41 today which is great, but we do not want to get our hopes too high as in all likelyhood it will be high again tomorrow. so we are playing the waiting game for now...waiting for the rain to stop ( permanently the last 3 days )....waiting for bobbies.....

last day of week

it is friday and once again the hospital is winding down only to come back on monday in full force. we had lots of rain yesterday. cara's running stitches ( zig zag around her chest wound ) were removed by a surgeon yesterday and that hurt quite a bit. she had sushi though last night and that cheered her up. the daily movie also does. still difficult getting her to walk more, but she needs to do that to get rid of fluids. the chest drainage is up a bit from yesterday but the general pattern seems to be one of slowing down, although very slowly. so we wish you all a nice weekend, enjoy and make the most of it!

day 17 in hospital

hello to everyone. cara is getting a bit stronger and is eating and drinking more. she does not need oxygen or heart monitoring anymore and only takes mild pain medication during the day so that the pain does not restrict her from moving. she is still on the diuretic lassex which she will have to continue taking for a while to drain fluids from her chest cavity. so we are on day 14 of chest drainage and tubes in, very frustrating as without that chest tube we could get out of this hospital. the cardiologist told me yesterday that once patients are past one week of drainage it unfortunately tends to carry on for some time. but, her rate of drainage seems to move in a pattern of slowly going downwards every 4 to 5 days and it looks as if we have reached another lower level, as yesterday it was 71 and today 36, this has been the 2 lowest consecutive days so far. the surgeons want the output below 30 for 2 days in a row, then the tube can be removed. so there is a glimmer of hope on the far horizon. we will keep you posted!

yet another day

GM. cara's chest tube output needs to be low for three consecutive days in a row for the chest tube to be removable. currently it is low one day and the next it is high again and nobody here can tell us when her body will be able to heal the surgical damage that was done to her lymphatic system during the huge operation. it takes 6 to 8 weeks on a low fat diet to have the ducts close but i heard of a 3 year old yesterday who had to stay for 6 months for it to heal. so for now we are stuck in the hospital, cara is not allowed past the entrance of the hospital until the chesttube is out and the securities are vicious outside. i wanted to take her to a shop yesterday and are not allowed to do so. she is getting stronger day by day and walked a lot yesterday and also climbed two stairlevels. best regards!

another endless day

no change from yesterday still on the draining chest tube, a cough is unfortunately settling in, but her spirit is a bit better in that she is showing interest in various things and is asking when can we fly back. we took a long walk with her to get to the computer so i will keep the update short today as i have to walk back with her now/ till tomorrow!

valentine's day

hi everyone and happy valentine's day ( a big thing here in the states, very commercialised ).
yesterday was a fun day as we first had a visit from a local family that was operated last year by dr. hanley and they showered cara with gifts ( gameboy games etc ) and then claus roggensack / geia who is originally from namibia but has been living in san francisco for the last 15 years or so came by with his lovely wife and 3 gorgeous little girls ( sbetter start investing in some good anti-boyfriend equipment for the future, claus! ) and also brought cara heart shaped ballons and more gifts. so that was really sweet of them all.
sorry i am late with my daily update but we had to wait for the surgical team to do the rounds first and wait for a diagnosis. the chest tube is still passing fluids and hence we are staying put in the hospital. she is off the oxygen bottle and is actually good without any. so she has one emergency, inactive iv line in, her oxygen meter and her blood pressure monitor, that's it. after all those many pipes and drains this is an achievement! so she takes walks around the hospital twice a day now and watches some movies but also rests a lot. the low fat diet turns out to be a real bummer...how on earth is she supposed to get back her appetite, strength and weight on that? this makes one realise that at any time complications and setbacks to her recovery can occur and the medical team has advised us today that this rocky path can take up to 6 months, both physical and emotional. the success of the operation/ procedure is one thing, but the time after that is very critical. we have to hold thumbs also that her donor homograft will stay in good working condition for a couple of years before replacement is necessary...so unfortunately we cannot say that everything is over now and we can go back to a normal life, our path ahead will be marked with lots of care for her and check-ups with the cardiologist every 6 months and coming back to california when needed.
we are getting she occassional laugh out of her and this morning she commented that her voice is good now, yeah. so, tiny steps every day, we will keep you posted!

quiet sunday

it is quiet and misty here, just like one of those wintery overcast cape town or european winter days. we had a big setback yesterday as we have found out that cara's thoracic duct got severed/ damaged during the surgery and that she was passing body fats through her remaining chest tube. this is not uncommon during such extensive surgery according to dr. brink from cape town, just adds to the recovery time in hospital unfortunately. the chest tube has to stay in longer as they do not want body fats to accummulate in the chest area. that means that our discharge date around midweek is postponed indefinately. she has to be for 6 weeks on a low fat diet ( max 5 gr of fat per day )  for the duct to heal up. she has lost 3 kgs already and is getting very thin as we cannot get her to eat the hospital or any food in the required quantities. she is regaining her spirit day by day though, for which we are greatful. hope you are all enjoying a peaceful sunday!

another weekend in hospital

morning to all. we have reached another weekend in the hospital and it is actually good that it gets quiet here now as during the week somebody knocks on our door every 5 minutes from social workers to physiotherapists to radiologists to priests to chaperones to charly the hospital dog ( a golden retriever, just darker than annuk, the kesselmann's dog. but cara was not really interested, she just wants to have her cat tipsy to cuddle with....but, we made progress yesterday. cara took her first walk around the ward ( with chest tube and oxygen bottle ), played uno with the physiotherapist after her exercise regime, watched madagaskar and et, sat up in a chair a couple of times during the day and....most importantly...we managed to get her to smile! she is on pain medicine so that she does move around and can get rid of fluids in her chest. she has one last chest tube in and one inactive iv for emergencies, but she is getting all her medicines orally now. she still has some oxygen via a nasal canule and her blood pressure and oxygen get monitored continously. yesterday, in addition to removing one chesttube which got closed up with steri strips she also had the heard monitor wires taken out that were stitched into her flesh. those wires ( 2x2 ) were about 10 centimeters long and were attached to the heart for monitoring purposes......... we had to keep a straight face for cara's sake, but that was not easy.
also, she had spare ribs last night, only 2 small ones, but at least something to help her regain her strength.
thanks to the diekmanns, finkeldeys, delochs, rumpfs, hegers, eggerts, hess, walz, heubachs, roggensacks, rainer graef, the boarding school kitchen staff ( cara says your food you cook for her is a thousand times better than the american hospital food....) and karin and her group of boys, the little comments made her chuckle, and she misses the group. beate, we got your sms and e-mail, great news! so we are starting another acitvity day for bobbies. best regards from stanford hospital ( they were the first hospital in the usa to to do a successful heart transplant in addition to a  successful heart and lung transplant ) and enjoy your weekend!!!!

first day and night in general ward

well, what can i say, when we arrived in 3 west, they moved us into a big ward with 3 screaming kids. oupa put his oropax into his ears and practised mental calmness ( isn't he so good at that ), put when i arrived in the afternoon and had one hour of this ( i am not good at all on that ) i blew top casket. so that produced some fast results and now we have our own private bedroom with ensuite bathroom, dvd player and a notice on the door to keep quiet. it can be done! cara desperately needs to sleep after all the monitors and bleeping in icu so that she can get back her strength. she still has one chest drain in and fluid on her lugs and they want her to sit up more and be more active so that the fluids can loosen up. she also needs to cough more and breathe deeply, but all that hurts so she still gets pain medication during the day so that she can become active. also need to get her to eat and drink more as she is still very shaky and wobbly and needs to gain her strenght back. she is very subdued still and hardly talks, does not want to watch tv ( that was her favourite hobby before the op ) or play gameboy....nothing gets her out of her shell right now.
healing takes time and it is a very intense period now for us to help her on her path to recovery. we miss home and the rain...here the frost is on its way, very cold at night but still sunny days.
sending you our warmest regards from the hospital, sonja, wolfgang, cara

from icu to general ward

today is a big day for bobbies as she will be moved from icu to 3 west ( they call that their general ward ) where she will be hopefully in her own room with bathroom and a sleeper couch for mom as sitting on the chair next to her bed in icu during the night is a killer. they have just removed her arterial line and the iv from her neck also came out yesterday. one chest tube will be removed by the surgeon later and the other one still has to stay in which makes moving around difficult. she is very quiet and subdued and does not sleep much, hopefully she will be able to rest better in the next room without beeping monitors. the hospital has started a beads chain for her and every milestone she achieves earns her a bead, always in different colours.
liebe familie kesselmann, seefeldt, luehl, dainat, rom, mercker, theissen, von blottnitz, metzger, schonecke, witt, schwalm, bergmann, gogol, kutz, raith ( swakop, windhoek, kapstadt ) kehrer, rust, du plessis, vogel ( trier und swakop ), tietz/von leipzig, baas, roeschlau, hamman, truemper, denk, nolte, raupert.....danke fuer eure sms und/ oder e-mails, sie bedeuten uns sehr viel und sie sind angekommen, koennen sie nur leider nicht individuell beantworten.
dear familie kibble, kuklenska, levy, burger, van zyl ( x2 ), von wielligh, viljoen, moffit, keim, mccallum, pope-ellis, meuwesen, francis.....thank you for your sms and or e-mails , they mean a lot to us and have arrived, we unfortunately cannot answer them individually.
have a superduper day!!! bye for now.....

wednesday

hi to another morning. mike has just returned from his 12 hour night shift ( had to fix him bacon and eggs now ) and it was quite tiring as she was awake the whole time, wants to drink and eat food and is not quite allowed to do that yet. at least her vocal cords have returned somewhat after the removal of the pipes and we are able to hear to some extend what she wants. that has taken some frustration away from her. just now she asked me if we could leave the hospital now. she is already ordering the nurses around and mike has warned them that they should be prepared for a tough time when she is back in full swing......
she is off all drugs ( antibiotic, narcotics, blood pressure medicine, lassex ) except for some anti-inflammatories and quite restless moving around a lot in her bed. today they want to sit her up in a chair for a couple of minutes. she still has fluids in her lungs and needs to cough them up, which obviously hurts and she does not want to do that.
grandpa wolfgang arrived yesterday and is doing his shift now at the hospital bed. cara said "hallo opa" and also asked where kymmie is. right now she is watching disney channel....
so from yesterday to today we see big improvements and she will hopefully go from strength to strength from now on. have a great day, will speak tomorrow again!

tuesday

well we have made  progress today in so far that the ventilator pipes are coming out of her lungs in about 30 minutes. YIPEE! this is a big step and they will be removing more stuff in the course of the day. 2 days ago they took the heart line out and one IV is also out on her hand. the dressings get changed every 48 hours and her scar is really neat! she will have to get oxygen feeding pipes through her nostrils but will be very happy to be able to talk to us. just now she was crying from despair as she cannot talk to us and she beats her arms in frustration. Mike will drive to the airport just now to collect Wolfgang ( it is shift change now )who is flying in from Germany and helping me until we can come home and depending on her progress over the next 2 days Mike might decide to fly back on thursday when he feels comfortable that she will be ok and after he can communicate with her. he has been away from home and Alec since the 2nd of january.
please remember to always e-mail us to progress@mweb.com.na and NOT soanga as that is only an airmail account for me to do e-mails via any internet connection and it will give you a server rejection message. cara still needs emotional, spirituell etc support from you all as this is very important now on her road to healing completely. thank you for all you are doing for us!
best regards from Lucile Packard Childrens hospital, Sonja and Mike

monday

today one can see that the hospital is back in full swing after a somewhat quieter weekend with the superbowl season closing yesterday with their final match. needless to say that there were a lot of parties on saturday. cara is healing slowly, a bit every day, tiny steps to recovery. when the whole team this morning was around her bedside ( they do this once a day ) the senior cardiologists explained to us why they did not want to remove the ventilator just yet ( hopefully during the course of the day ). she is lying on her side now to help the fluid from her lungs to drain. she is on transitional medication that are neccessary prior to removal of the pipes. once the pipes are out she will not be kept sedated anymore so there will be lot more movement on the chest and she will have to cough the fluids out herself, which is sore and that is why they are delaying the process. she is on a diuretic drug called lassex now. they have also switched her from the heavy sedation drug ( cannot remember the complicated name ) to the lighter morphine one. so they prefer to leave the pipes a couple of hours longer in verses having to put them back in after they see that the lungs cannot cope on their own. when she wakes up and opens her eyes we talk to her and she responds with a nod or a shake, depending on the question. at times she is so frustrated with the pipes and her inability to speak that we need all our strength to leep her from ripping the pipe straight out of her mouth. we are looking very much forward to when we can communicate again with her!!! we miss her wisdom beyond years, her intuition and her ability to keep us on our toes.
sleep well should you be in europe or africa and have a good day should you be in the americas!
also, my namibian sim card +264-811246924 has failed me, so Mike is still contactable on his namibian mobile +264-811276924 and moi on +1-405 3658887. you can also e-mail us on progress@mweb.com.na, just be aware that we cannot open attachments or view pictures. will send another update tomorrow this time. bye for now.

another recovery day

good evening to africa and europe and good morning to the americas. we had a stable night and and she is making small steps to recovery. they said to us from the beginning that the icu period will be around one week, so we are on day 4/5 and it looks like the ventilator will come off today. she has some fluid on her lungs and they do not want to treat it with the draining drug lassex as that can have an effect on her currently stable blood pressure, so they are hoping that she can cough the fluid off once the pipes are out. they are still keeping her sedated so that she can heal. she does not like the tubes down her throat  and wants to rip them out when she has her brief awake moments. she is also on antibiotics and a whole batterie of other drugs, very confusing to us but these teams have so much experience on how to treat these patients after this massive heart surgery that we just have to put all our faith in them. she gets monitored one on one at all times by a highly trained and competent nurse called brandi with the cardiologist coming around every hour. she has varicose veins stockings on her entire legs to prevent the formation of clots and some massaging apparatus on her lower legs to increase the bloodflow through the body. mike does the day shifts ( 12 hours ) and i do the nightshift ( Kymmie prefers to call it the graveyard shift ). sadly she had to leave yesterday, she has been a pillar of strength for bobbies and us and has done everything possible to assist us in these trying times, for which we are very grateful to her. your sms and e-mails are cheering us up, it is nice to get news from home. we will have another beautiful day today in california with summer temperatures during the day and icy nights. in about a weeks time it will start raining here too and getting cold again. i do hear some voices there from the semi desert country that say they had enough of the rain??????

Day 4 of Recovery...

Morning to you all, well at least it's morning here....last night Cara had a lovely nurse Liz from Michigan. It was a steady night, apart from her blood pressure dipping at times, due to fluid on the lungs. Her room is cosy and quiet with natural light, gorgeous big window - she has music playing next to her to distract her from the machines - as there are many and they are rather noisy. She still is not happy with the tube in her mouth and her strength to try and grab it is incredible. She also has 'beads of courage' which is a necklace and each and every day she receives a variety of beads, for her rewards for all the hard work she is doing to get better. I have some lovely photo's, which I will post on my retun to Namibia. She also has beautiful pink tulips from her mum and a butterfly balloon in the window. I am collecting a coffee - Starbucks of course, as we may not be in ICU from 7 till 7.30am. Walking around the hospital is lovely - there are gifts decorated on the walls from every country you can image - each being very unique.
Sadly I, Kym - Cara's Aunty, depart California, the cosmopolitan city very much like Cape Town, at 10.30am today. I will be flying via Frankfurt with a stop over of 8hrs, which I hope will asssist with the jetlag. I will be back in Windhoek by 07h10am on Monday morning straight to work - I so wish I could stay, as the days and nights, will be very long now for Mike and Sonja. Yesterday Mike had the day shift for 8hrs, followed by Sonja - we then all went for dinner and I took my place at 21h00 till 07h00 - it's incredible how quickly time flies - and Liz the nurse was constantly busy and very informative - nursing really is such a vocation.
I feel very calm and deeply moved by the miracle, that I have witnessed first hand. I am positive Cara will contine to move from strength to strenght, in fact I told her so last night!
I shall continue to give you updates - as I will be in touch with Sonja, each and every day. We have a Facebook group too - Heart for Cara - if you wish to access it.
Have a lovely weekend all.
Your presence and prayers are always close.

The next day (Friday)

Today, Cara is looking very good, she is stable after the second operation and had a peaceful night.
Her nurse today is Alyson, she is lovely and keeps talking to Cara and reassuring her.
She is opening her eyes, and not too happy about the tube in her mouth and keeps wanting to try and take it out - however the nurse gently whispers to her, that it will come out soon but for now she must relax and rest. We are hoping this tube will be removed later today. She is doing really well and is in her own ICU  room now. Mike is by her bedside, doing his shift, while myself and Kym are at the home in Atherton, where we are staying thanks to a very kind family, doing some admin and giving you all an update.
Sleep tight - till tomorrow.

Day 1 of Recovery

Good morning to Namibia.
Our day started a bit rough this morning about 12 hours ago, with a call from the hospital call saying her blood pressure was low and they needed to take her back into the OR (operating room) to check for blood clots. So they eventually only did this at 2pm and removing the clots and the blood that had accumulated inside her chest cavity. The good news is now, that she returned 3 hours later into the CVICU (Cardiovascular Intensive Care Unit) with her chest stitched up and closed, as they had left is open by means of a 'bridge' after the first surgery, and had only planned to stitch it together on Friday afternoon, so no need to do that later, kind of a two in one deal. She keeps waking up lightly and calms back down to sleep, when we talk to her. Currently we are playing classical music to keep her from moving, as with 5 IV's and the ventilator in her throat. We are aiming to take baby steps, every day to nurse her back to full health and the next step, would be to get her off the ventilator within the next 24 to 48 hours. We have a bed space assigned to us, here at the hospital, as we are not allowed to sleep next to her bedside in the ICU. She has a very sweet, caring and highly capable nurse called Terry during the day, who is assigned exclusively to her monitoring her vitals at all times. Twice a day at 7 in the morning and 7 in the evening the shifts change for the medical nursing teams and then the parents have to leave the ICU for 30 minutes. So much for today from the Lucile Salter Packard Childrens Hospital, Palo Alto, California.
Thank you once again for all your text messsages, calls, emails, thoughts and prayers - be assured that Cara and ourselves are feeling them over here.

Bobby is Beautiful

We've just returned from the hospital of a super sonic long day for all.
The day began with Cara, otherwise known Bobby to close family, saying to mum and dad, that 'it's better to be small, then you don't know what's coming...' so wise for her age.
The operation took 15hrs in total. We arrived at 6am at the hospital and it's now 2am ...
Dr Frank Hanley - 'The angel' came to deliver the greatest news at around 1.30am this morning. He explained that he could do the anticipated two stage unifocolization, all in this one surgery.
This means we do not need to return in 6 months - if her recovery is strong and she has no complications. We've visited her in ICU and she is looking pink - she is resting peacefully and we need to build up our energy for tomorrow now too - so we are off to get some much needed rest too.
Please continue with your prayers and support as Cara begins her recovery. Goodnight xxx

All tests completed prior to Surgery

We've just returned from hospital and completed all the neccessary tests.
It took about 5hours in total, I really didn't like giving blood, that was the hardest part, as I hate needles.
All the other tests were okay.
I did receive a really cute blue and gold teddy bear.  
Afterwards we had a lovely lunch all together at an Italian Restaurant, in California Street in Palo Alto,  which was delicious. I had my favourite, angels hair with fresh tomato sauce with basil and shavings of parmesan followed by the very best dessert - lemon panna cotta.
My surgery is scheduled for 9am tomorrow, which will be 7pm in Namibia. The operation will be a minimum of 12 hours, and my parents and aunty Kymmie will be updated every four hours.
I am doing some reading and homework and then we are all watching Harry Potter 3.
We'll be up early tomorrow at 6am, so we'll be early to bed.
Please keep me in your prayers, send me postive thoughts and strength, and hold my hand tomorrow.
Thank you.

Arrival in Stanford, San Francisco

Hi all,  the flights were good, very long, there was unfortunately no snow in Germany, I was really hoping to see snow, as I have never seen snow before, but there was a little bit of frost on the cars.
I'm staying in a lovely family home, in Atherton, which is in a suburb, only 5 minutes drive from the hospital in Stanford. The people here have been very very kind to me. We have been settling into the new time zone, I keep looking at my watch, and can't quite believe when it's morning here, it's evening at home. I am waking up, really early in the morning, but sleeping very well as I have a very comfy bed which is like a cloud. San Francisco has warmish days but very cool nights.  There is a really cute dog - here called Cody. I've learnt a new game called Back Gammon and doing some homework. We also watched a great programme on Cake Decorating. I am feeling really well, and I've been eating healthy food, they have got some of my favourite foods namely cherries! I am going to make sure I have a good nights sleep tonight, as we are going to be up at 06h30 tomorrow, to be at the hospital on time at 07h15, for all my pre-tests.  Bye for now xx

hobbies

forgot to tell you all that I love cooking and that I want to become a chef when I have grown up. also enjoy arts, reading, game boying and my Disney channel. my favourite pets are my 2 cats Tipsy and Tapsy. they are the cuddliest animals on this earth.....

Hi,

I am Cara Kibble (for those of you who do not know me yet) and I was born on the 4^th of November 1999 in the Mediclinic hospital in Windhoek, Namibia. When I went with my parents to the Comores about 8 months later, they discovered upon our return that my haemoglobin levels were double than they should be and when I went for medical check-up for a tropical virus they discovered that I had a congenital heart disease. We had to fly to Cape Town for my first heart catheter and Dr. Pribut and Vosloo wanted to operate on me for Tetralogy of Fallot but realized that I had something far more complicated, i.e. no true pulmonary artery what so ever. So they sent us home, as I had my own “bypass” as they called it. When my baby brother Alec was weaned 2 years later my mom and granny took me to Munich for another opinion and Dr. Daebritz also declined operate on me due to the high risk involved. So we first adopted a wait-and-see approach as we were confident that with time something could be done. I feel ok but have very blue lips these days. Last year my parents were referred by our heart surgeon in Cape Town Professor Brink to Dr. Hanley in Stanford, California. After having to do another catheter in Cape Town last year May which was not successful as they could not get into my arteries, my parents decided to see Dr. Hanley in person and find out what options are available to us. With the Stanford hospital's advanced equipment they could measure all the pressures and decided that I am an excelent candidad for a unifocalization procedure, which will entail 2 open heart surgeries within 6 month of each other. Once completed I will be able to play sport like any other child and also be able to walk to school unaided. I will also be able to be just a normal teenager. So I am really looking forward to that with lots of positive energy for the next month or so…..

Anyway, we are flying out of beautiful, green Namibia (we had 450 mm already on the farm) on Wednesday night, 26 January 2011and are expected to arrive via snowy Frankfurt in San Fransisco on Thursday, 27 January 2011. If you want to get to the Californian time you simply subtract 10 hours from the Namibian time. I will have to acclimatize and go for echo, pre-op procedures, etc. on 1 February 2011. On 2 February 2011 is the BIG day with a 16 hour procedure and I will ask my mom to keep you all updated daily after the operation as I might not be conscious yet, ok?

You can post comments to me online on my blog. Thank you all for the kind presents, thoughts, prayers, well wishes and positive energy you are sending me!

Lots of love

CARA