Gracie Jean Lockyer passed away this morning at 8:08.
The family has asked that we not be saddened but to join them in rejoicing because Gracie is in heaven. Gracie has finally made it home.
Thanks to everyone who prayed for Gracie and her family. Please continue to keep them in your prayers.
If you would like, you can leave them a message in the guest book at the CaringBridge site.
***Update as of 1:45PM - Gracie is off the heart and lung bypass machine but she is still fighting for her life.
Currently they are trying to get her bleeding to stop before closing her chest. Also her oxygen saturations in her body and in her brain are low and they are trying to get them up to an acceptable level.
She is not out of the woods yet and continues to need much prayer!***
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***Update as of 10:45 AM - The surgery is still going on and the doctors are disappointed to see how small Gracie's pulmonary arteries are.
These are the arteries that will have to carry the blood to the lungs after the surgery. The doctor is attempting a procedure to enlarge these arteries as much as possible with extra tissue.
Please pray that when she is ready to be taken off the heart and lung machine are Noon that this improvement to the arteries will work. ***
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Gracie's surgery has been MOVED UP from this Thursday morning to TODAY. She is scheduled to go into the operating room at 6:30AM.
The doctor's felt like this was the right thing to do since Gracie has been doing so well the last week and the operating room is free all day.
Please pray for Gracie and her family!
And if you are interested, Amanda has posted Gracie's history on the latest journal entry at their CaringBridge site.
Thank you so much for your prayers!
It's Miracle Monday again and, I'm asking you all to pray for a miracle.
This edition of Miracle Monday is now closed. If you have a miracle you would like to share, please come back next Monday. Thanks!
Please read Gracie's CaringBridge page.
Gracie's mom, Amanda is asking(begging) for your prayers.
A representative from the hospital ethics committee met with them today and told them that the doctors feel like Gracie is dying and that Todd and Amanda are just prolonging the inevitable.
Please read this update and pray for them.
It's Miracle Monday time. Today I would like to talk about the miracle of Gracie Jean Lockyer. I've posted about her many times before and asked for prayers. Today, I am posting to ask for more prayers but to also talk about the week she just went through.
On Wednesday, her parents, Todd and Amanda, were called in because the doctors thought that Gracie was about to die.
They unplugged Gracie from many of the machines keeping her alive so that Amanda could hold her and rock her as she passed away.
But as she held her, Gracie started to improve!
These are Amanda's words:
"I will never be able to describe holding my stiff, cold baby girl who’s heart is being controlled by a pacemaker and is breathing completely by ventilation. Her oxygen saturations were dropping and dropping as were her pressures.
Then out of the blue--her blood pressures spiked and she began to breathe on her own. Then, they began little by little to wean her support because that’s why they thought she was still living…but as we watched the support come down--she kept on living.
Then, a follow up echo of her heart showed BETTER FUNCTION than ever."
And this is from the latest entry in Gracies' CaringBridge journal:
"Todd and I have been called in 4 times since Wednesday and told that it looked like Gracie was going home with the Lord. He has seen fit to spare her life every time. Each time we are on an emotional roller coaster and only being able to keep it together with God’s help (the same goes for the whole family). But, His strength is perfect. We thank God for another answered prayer---
"AND THEY THAT KNOW THY NAME WILL PUT THEIR TRUST IN THEE: FOR THOU, LORD, HAST NOT FORSAKEN THEM THAT SEEK THEE.” PSALM 10:10
Lord, we will continue to seek thee for everything--we claim the above verse with all of our heart."
God continues to work miracles in Gracie. But what amazes me even more, is the faith that Todd and Amanda continue to place in God. They are such wonderful examples of trusting God with all your heart.
Please pray for them all.
If you would like to share a miracle, it's simple. Just post a miracle on your blog and link it back here using Mr. Linky below. Please mention "A Mom's Life" and my URL in your post. And if you want, you can use the Miracle Monday button in your post as well.
Have a great Miracle Monday!
This edition of Miracle Monday is now closed. Please come back next Monday if you would like to share a miracle!
Last week, Beverly By Grace, was inspired to leave a sweet miracle after she read about Gracie's story. Beverly wrote about a friend who lost a young child, Maci, to Leukemia and how her children prayed to God to save the child. In the end, the Lord brought Maci home to be with him but her death caused Beverly's children to start asking questions about God and what they could do to get to heaven to be with him.
We may never understand why God did not answer the prayers to save Maci but we can trust and believe that "all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose." - Romans 8:28
Please remember to pray for Gracie this week.
And if you are interested in teaching your children scripture, Beverly has a free printable to help you with this. Go check it out - after leaving your miracle here, of course!
This edition of Miracle Monday is now closed. Please come back next Monday if you have a miracle you would like to post. Or if you are looking for inspiration, please check out the link in the sidebar for all the other editions of Miracle Monday.
It's Miracle Monday and today I'm asking for more prayer for Gracie Jean Lockyer.I need to give you all an update as she has had a very rough week. (The text in quotations is taken directly from Gracie's CaringBridge site.)
She was scheduled to have a heart catheterization on Thursday but they couldn't do the procedure because she took a turn for the worse on Wednesday night.
"She has had a continuous fever; there is no profusion to her hands and feet (meaning they could not get a pulse); her lactic acid has been going up; they have increased her vent and added additional heart medicine; she has needed blood and fluid but she has a tendency to fill up with the fluid quicker than she should, making her "septic"".
At one point on Thursday, they "were told that she went into shock. Her blood pressure dropped to 40/20 and she had no blood flow to her arms and legs. They added epinephrine--a heart medicine--and went up on her other heart medicines."
And while they were doing a test on her abdomen, they discovered that she has a fracture in her femur. "Because Gracie has never been able to maintain nutrition in the PICU, she has weak bones. Sometimes sick babies are as fragile as old people." So her leg is now in a little cast.
Her parents, Todd and Amanda, have become tired and weary. You can hear it in their posts on Gracie's CaringBridge site.
They continue to put their trust in God but they as well as Gracie, need our prayers.
Please pray for Gracie and Todd and Amanda.
If you would like to share a miracle, it's simple. Just post a miracle on your blog and link it back here using Mr. Linky below. Please mention "A Mom's Life" and my URL in your post. And if you want, you can use the Miracle Monday button in your post as well.
PLEASE NOTE - when linking make sure to link to your Miracle Monday post. Do not link to the front page of your blog. If you have any questions, email me and I will be glad to help you. My email address is in my profile.
Have a great Miracle Monday!
Miracle Monday is now closed. Please come back next week if you would like to post a miracle. In the meantime, please browse the Miracle Archive on the sidebar for inspiration!
Welcome to another edition of Miracle Monday!I would like to thank everyone for their kind words last week. It is nice to know that even though I am not getting a lot of miracles each week, the ones that are being written about and linked back here, are inspiring to those that visit.
This week I would like to give an update on Baby Gracie. Gracie's mom, Amanda, posted this timeline on their Caringbridge site highlighting all of the medical ups and downs of Gracie's life.
Through all of this they have not lost their faith in God and to me, that is a miracle in itself! Notice at the bottom, Amanda calls Gracie's life "112 days of MIRACLES"! I would agree!
GRACIE JEAN LOCKYER
Born March 7, 2008
Life Flight to Duke March 8
March 9-12 CODED w/CPR--Apnia spells-Quit breathing in daddy's arms--Heart rate drops
March 12- Heart rate drops (5 in 10 minutes)
March 13-Open Heart Surgery-came off EKMO
March 14-18--Great recovery (extubated March 17, going to stepdown on March 19)
March 19--CODED--1 hour of CPR (No brain damage) Placed back on EKMO
March 23- Came off EKMO on Easter Sunday
March 25- Chest closed
March 26-April 6-- Grim time--Gracie filled with fluid, had many strange heart rhythms, some heart drops
April 7-- Doctors feel Gracie is turning the page towards recovery
April 9-- Gracie has 4 heart blocks-Heart "flat lines"--CODES (Code alarm is sounded 3 times) CPR w/once again, no brain damage!
April 10-15-- Gracie is hooked up to external pacemaker which catches 30+ heart drops (heart blocks)
April 15- Gracie has surgery for internal pacemaker--(Post surgery has very low heart rate and pacemaker range has to be changed)
April 16-19- Gracie has numerous heart drops with very little stimulation. Pacemaker catches heart rate.
Doctors find clot in atrium.
Fluid develops again--worse than ever and Gracie is put on Jet Ventilator (very high support)
April 19-- Doctor calls family in and says Gracie looks "grim" and may not survive the day
RECOVERS FROM DEATH
April 22--Gracie has heart cath, receives Broviac line in liver and cut-down arterial line. Doctors find she has a 3:1 Sano shunt--(very rare).
April 26- Gracie CODES AGAIN w/ pacemaker. CPR and emergency medicines!
May 2-- Gracie has collapsed lung for 2 hours when chest tube comes loose
May 6-- Gracie is diagnosed with Hepatitius C
May 9-- Hepatitus C test proven false!
May 12-- GRACIE PLACED ON HEART TRANSPLANT LIST
May 16-- Gracie has spinal tap to check for meningitus
May 23-- Gracie's T-Cells come back low and doctors send tests for Digeorge or SKIDS--Gracie put in isolation.
Left chest tube is pulled!! AMEN
May 26-- Initial test show Gracie is partial Digeorge--Gracie comes out of isolation
May 29-- Echo discovers another clot in Gracie's heart (atrium)
May 30-June 11- "Feeding and Growing time"
June 10- Right chest tube pulled!!
June 11--Gracie placed back in isolation b/c of late Digeorge results.
Mommy holds Gracie!!
June 12-- Gracie's lung collapses and she receives a second spinal tap because of persistent high fevers! Gracie gets another right chest tube!
Daddy holds Gracie!!!! First time in a long time!
June 13--Gracie is extubated for almost 6 hours!
June 14-20-- Waiting to extubate again. More high fevers! Right chest tube pulled again (June 20). Heart medications successfully weaned.
June 23-27-- Gracie battles Infection and puffiness once again.
June 28-- GRACIE RECOVERS AGAIN AND LOOKS TOWARD EXTUBATION ON MONDAY OR TUESDAY!
JUST TELL ME....
IS HE ABLE?
I KNOW HE IS!
HER LIFE IS A TESTAMENT TO HIS POWER!
112 DAYS OF MIRACLES!
Please keep praying for Baby Gracie.
If you would like to share a miracle, it's simple. Just post a miracle on your blog and link it back here using Mr. Linky below. Please mention "A Mom's Life" and my URL in your post. And if you want, you can use the Miracle Monday button in your post as well.
PLEASE NOTE - when linking make sure to link to your Miracle Monday post. Do not link to the front page of your blog. If you have any questions, email me and I will be glad to help you. My email address is in my profile.
Have a great Miracle Monday and thanks for participating!
It's Miracle Monday once again!Today I would like to give you an update on Baby Gracie. She was born on March 7th and the doctors discovered that she had Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome which essentially means that the left side of her heart was not there.
She was rushed to Duke Hospital in Durham, NC. The doctors performed the first of three surgeries that would be needed the first two years of her life. Two weeks after the surgery she was supposed to head home to recover.
Unfortunately, she did not recover as she should have and two and a half months later is still in the hospital at Duke. She coded multiple times, received a pacemaker and fought infections and swelling.
Three weeks ago the doctors placed her on the heart transplant list and Gracie and her parents began the long wait for a new heart.
This whole time, Todd and Amanda, Gracie's parents, have been continually asking for prayers for Gracie. Almost daily, they would post updates and specific prayer requests to Gracie's CaringBridge page. They have been asking people to pray for a new heart if that is God's will but they never stopped asking people to pray for healing of Gracie's own heart. They never stopped praying for a miracle.
And through all of this, Todd and Amanda have remained faithful to God. So faithful in fact, that they have been ministering to other families staying with them at the Ronald McDonald house that don't know God's love.
And on Friday, Amanda posted the following update:
"Dr. Jaggers came in and spoke to Todd and I. He SHOCKED us to say the least! Here, we've been waiting for a transplant and wondering if the transplant team had gotten any offers.
Well, today, Dr. Jaggers said that Gracie was IMPROVING and the decrease in her chest tubes may indicate that the VENTRICLE is relaxing and she is getting.......better!!!!
Now, we're not sure for sure--but here is how he explained it to us. BASED ON THE LAST FEW DAYS, Dr. Jaggers wants to see if this may be a turn to Gracie's own heart healing!
I asked him...."So, if you got a beautiful heart offer today, would you transplant her?" He said...not today. He explained that the transplant is a "last resort" and could be very risky on Baby Gracie. The chance of her surviving a transplant today may be 50/50 (but that's just the numbers). He explained that it is a VERY HARD call to make. She would not be off the list, but at this time, if she's looking BETTER, than he'd rather sit back and watch her the next few days to see if she improves....NOW WOULDN'T IT BE WONDERFUL IF SHE DOES???
This is a beautiful answer to thousands of prayers. Wouldn't it be a wonderful miracle if God indeed healed Gracie's heart?
Please continue to pray for Gracie's healing and if you have a moment, please go to her CaringBridge page and leave a comment. Todd and Amanda look forward to reading them every evening after they leave the hospital.
If you are going to participate in Miracle Monday this week, it's simple. Just post a miracle on your blog and link it back here using Mr. Linky below. Please mention "A Mom's Life" and my URL in your post. And if you want, you can use the Miracle Monday button in your post as well.
PLEASE NOTE - when linking make sure to link to your Miracle Monday post. Do not link to the front page of your blog. It is important that you link to the Miracle Monday post so that when others are reading your miracle in the future, the link will take them directly to your miracle and not to the front of your blog.For an explanation on how to do this, please check here. Or, you can always email me and I will be glad to help you. My email address is in my profile.
Have a great Miracle Monday and thanks for participating!
I would like to ask everyone who is reading this to please take a moment to pray for baby Gracie. I first asked you to pray for her several weeks ago.
Since then she has had her ups and downs, but it seemed as if she was about to turn a corner. However, according to the latest update on her Caring Bridge page, it seems as if things have taken a turn for the worse. Following is the entry that her mom, Amanda, made this afternoon at 1:00pm.
URGENT!
THINGS HAVE TAKEN A TRAGIC TURN THIS MORNING. IN THE LAST 40 MINUTES GRACIE HAS BEEN CODED THREE TIMES IN THE PICU.
AT ONE TIME SHE FLAT-LINED AND RECEIVED CHEST COMPRESSIONS.
THE DOCTOR ON CALL SAID HER HEART IS LOCKING UP AND THE VENTRICLE IS STOPPING FUNCTION AND THEY DO NOT KNOW WHAT IS CAUSING THIS.
PLEASE PRAY
GOD IS IN CONTROL -TODD AND I ARE HEART SICK AND VERY EMOTIONALLY DISTRAUGHT. PLEASE PRAY. WE WILL UPDATE AS SOON AS WE CAN.
Here is Gracie's Caring Bridge link if you would like to receive updates or if you would like to read more about the time she has spent in the hospital:
http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/graciejeanlockyer
Thank you.
