Sipola and I are sitting in the parents center at Primary Children's Hospital. She has been very sad this morning and so I just had to get her out of her room. She received an email this morning from her class so I thought I would bring her down to the computers so she could email them back. When we got here, we ran into a lady that I had met last week in the ICU. I still don't know her name. Her daughter was brought to the hospital last week the same day as Sipola. She was having seizures and was not doing well. When I talked to her she said they had put her daughter into a coma to see if they could stop the seizures. She said they are trying everything they can do but nothing seems to work. She said there is little hope for her daughter. As I sat and talked with this mom last week I thought how lucky I am to have a little bit of hope. Something that I didn't have any of last week. Last Tuesday or Wednesday (I can't remember) when I looked at the doctor and said, "please tell me my daughter will be coming home with me." and the doctor said, "we aren't sure that is possible right now. It is not looking good for her to ever make it out of the icu." I never thought I would be sitting next to her while she is emailing her class. I have a sister and sister-in-law that thought it would be helpful if they would put Sipola's name in every single temple in the United States and then called my sister-in-law and had her put it in the New Zealand and Tongan temples. I am not kidding you when I tell you that the very next day Sipola started to feel a little bit better. The doctors were dumbfounded. They had no idea what happened and how she was starting to get a little better. They went from talking about the mortality rate to saying, "maybe there is hope for this little one to go home." Oh, how blessed we are to have all these people praying for us. How blessed we are to have all these people fasting for us. Tevita told me that I really need to be strong and have faith. It is so hard when you look at your daughter and there is no life there. When she is struggling with every breath she takes. When she can't keep her eyes open for more than a minute. But the words of her blessing kept coming to me. Uncle Raymond told her in that blessing that her body would be made whole again. So after a couple days of hopelessness I decided that I would no longer feel like that and all I would do is think positive thoughts. I would only talk about her getting better and coming home. I wish that I could send some of those positive vibes to my ICU friend. As I sit and talk to her I just cry. She just cries. Today she said she will be clinging on to the hope that electric shock therapy will help her daughter. I asked her if she was LDS and she said yes. I asked if her daughter's name was in the temple. She said yes. So I told her to have faith and stay strong and we would continue to pray for her. She gave Sipola a hug and I told her that I hope one of these days soon she will be hugging her little one. Sipola is 8, her daughter is 9. I felt bad for running into her because my little girl is doing so much better and hers isn't. But I am SO THANKFUL that my little one is sitting here by me and not stuck in a bed. Today is sad for her but at least we have today. At least we have progress. At least she will be coming home sometime. I will NOT give up hope. I will NOT think negatively about her recovery. She has come so far and I KNOW that she will continue to fight so that she can go home soon. This morning she started crying and saying that she doesn't want to go on a mission. I told her she doesn't have to if she doesn't want to. She said, "well, I don't want Braxton to go either." I said, "why?" and she said, "I am going to miss him so much and I don't want to be away from him for that long." I said, "Sis, don't worry about it now. Brax is only 12." She said, "yeah, but soon he will be 13 and that is a teenager which then turns out to be 19 and then he will leave." This little girl has a heart of gold and I am so thankful that she is ok. We have a long road ahead of us and it is going to be hard. But we have a road and for that I am so grateful. To all our friends and family, I'm not sure how we will ever be able to repay you for all you have done. We will try though. Please keep praying for this little girl. I love you all and can't wait to see everybody again! p.s. If this doesn't make sense, I'm sorry. I just have so much stuff going on in my head and I just need to get some of it out!
