Looking back, the first time I realized that I was needed was the day my daughter called me from the Children's Hospital in Birmingham, AL.
She was crying and was terribly upset, and she said, "My daughter is in critical condition, and I am afraid she is going to die."
My granddaughter had already gone through a twelve-hour surgery where the doctors cut through the top of her head down to the base of her mouth to repair a basal encephalocele and save the pituitary gland.
I stayed the night, sleeping in a straight-back chair.
My granddaughter seemed to be improving, so the next day I went home.
The following Tuesday, my granddaughter took a turn for the worse.
She was leaking spinal fluid out of her mouth, had two strokes, and was in a coma. The doctors said that they would have to repair the leak; this would be her second surgery.
I stayed at the hospital with my daughter until my granddaughter stabilized, which was about a week.
Prayers were going up everywhere by everyone we knew, for my little granddaughter to survive.
God answered those prayers.
It was a long haul.
While she was struggling to survive in intensive care, we tried to keep busy by taking long walks and going to the restaurant to eat.
We would go to the children's harbor where my daughter got her haircut, and I could work out on the exercise machines, and where we also washed clothes.
The Children's Harbor was built for parents and their families to use while their children are staying in the hospital for long periods.
We could only stay for short periods of time in the Intensive Care Unit, and sometimes, when they had to admit a child, or one would die, we would have to leave, and that was quite often.
My granddaughter's condition looked critical from the day she was born, and I did not want to get too close to her.
I guess I was afraid of her dying, but I did want to remember her, so I got out my camera and started taking pictures of her every time I saw her.
My granddaughter is an amazing little girl, a real fighter.
She came through two complex surgeries and came out with a different little girl.
She was so frail, and I was so afraid to touch, to feed, or even hold her.
She gradually began to come back to us.
Her smile slowly came back.
The strokes left her completely paralyzed on the right side. The left side of the brain controls the right side of the body.
We later found out that she had zero blood flow to the left side of her brain.
We kept praying she would roll over, crawl, or someday walk.
She could walk with a walker, but never on her own. When she falls from a sitting position, she cannot get herself up.
She depends totally on others to take care of her.
