"Love You More" Heart Home

The "Love You More " Heart Home will be in Beijing China. Teresa loved to say " I love you more" and these were her last words to us.  In Teresa's memory  we want to help other orphans in China who have severe cardiac disease like her. 

Ed and I  have partnered with Little Hearts Medical.  Little Hearts Medical was founded by Tanya and Mike Lee and is an approved 501 c Foundation.   Shortly after Teresa passed away , Mike and Tanya came into our lives.  We quickly became friends and learned that our children had been together for several years in China and were friends in the same orphanage. Mike and Tanya have the same vision as Ed and I about helping orphans with heart disease. We quickly started planning how we could make this dream come true. We traveled to China in September and brainstormed with Serena , Lily, Diana and Theresa from Chunmioa Little Flower on how exactly we could reach this goal.

We established a budget and the steps necessary to open the Heart Home.  We partnered with two Hospitals and four Cardiac surgeons and Cardiac Internationalists in Beijing.  We visited the two Hospitals and helped  train the nurses in post op cardiac care for very fragile children. We visited two orphanages and helped  train the caregivers on Cardiac care for the children.  We also partnered with Philips Medical Equipment in China who has agreed to supply  portable heart echo machines for us  to travel to the orphanages and help identify children with cardiac disease.

We have all the plans in place to open the Home , all we need now are the finances.   It will only cost $ 80,000 to run the home for one year.  This will include;
1.  A 25 bed home with the ability to expand in the future.
2.  5 rooms for poor families to stay with their child while we provide them with the medical care necessary for their child.  We will also train the families on how to care for their children before returning to their homes and provide them with follow up care.
3.  All cardiac surgeries.
4.  Medical equipment, furnishings, medicine, food and clothes.
5.  Nannies
6.  LOVE

After the first years expenses have been met , the Chunmioa Foundation will help to cover the costs of all medical care for the children.

It is only money and when you think about it, it is such a small amount of money that is needed and it will have the ability to help so many children.

If you are able to help us raise the money , there are several ways you can donate.
You can donate through  Pay Pal on Teresa's page or Little Hearts Medical .org page.
Or you can send a donation to : Little Hearts Medical, 20 Apple Tree Ct. ,Baltimore MD. 21228

All for you sweet girl !  You spread your love for others with your hugs and smiles and now from heaven you will help children get the medical care they so desperately need and in doing so you will also help them to have their own families. Then all the children will know the love of having their own families!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Emilia is still in the hospital recovering from an infection.  She has spent 31 of the past 49 days in and out of the hospital. What started out as one infection quickly became another and then another.  For the past 2 weeks she has been battling sepsis, toxic shock and MRSA.  She has endured another surgery  to clean the infection and reposition the pins. She has undergone several tests including several ultra sounds, an  Indium Scan and an Upper GI along with countless blood tests.  She now has a Picc line and a feeding tube to help her regain the several pounds she has lost.

The infection in her leg has finally cleared up.  She now must start eating again to be able to go home. She will continue with IV antibiotics at home for several more weeks.

Emotionally it has been very difficult for her.  When she saw the picc line in her neck and the feeding tube, it reminded her of everything Teresa went through and she was afraid she was going to die also.

Child life has been fantastic working with her to alleviate all of these fears.
The nurses have been so supportive and loving.  One brought her tow trucks after she learned that Emilia wanted to be a  tow truck driver when she grows up.  Another nurse brought her a huge stuffed dog to keep her company. 

Unfortunately she has spent Halloween, her birthday and now Thanksgiving in the hospital.

We are praying she will be home soon and able to enjoy all the chaos, noise and love that being in a family provides. This is the best medicine of all.

Over the past several weeks a lot of people have commented and asked "how do you do it?"
Doing "It" really is not a big issue now.
 Several years ago, as we struggled with "our will" and "Gods will", it was very difficult to do "it".
Now we are resolved to doing Gods will. Once we let go of holding on to our own selfish desires we have found great comfort and peace in doing "it".  Sure we are tired and at times the journey seems endless but we hold on to our faith and hope.

I wish everyone a very happy Thanksgiving with your families.

For us it will be our first Thanksgiving without Teresa.There is so much that I miss about not having her here with me to help cook dinner and all the excitement and joy she had being with her family and just enjoying life. On Thanksgiving day she would start counting down the days to her Birthday and Jesus's Birthday.  She brought so much joy into every minute of our lives , this has been the hardest thing to"get over".  In one way it may be a good thing that I am not home.

We love you more sweet girl...  and we miss you SO much !!!!
I am so grateful that God gave us three years with you here on earth.  

Our Immigration Officer

Almost 4 years ago, someone special came into our lives.
As I was preparing  our paperwork to adopt Teresa, I called the USCIS Office to ask to have Teresa's adoption expedited because of her health.  Cindy  answered the phone on that day.  As I explained to her the health of the little girl we were adopting, her heart was moved to help us.  Everyone in the adoption community knows how important your Immigration Officer is in the  adoption process.  I quickly gathered all the documents that she asked for and Cindy expedited Teresa's adoption in record time.

Over the years we  kept in touch.  Cindy always planned on coming to meet Teresa after she received her new heart.  But sadly that would not happen here on earth, it would have to wait until Heaven.

We were so happy when Cindy told us she still wanted to come and visit.   Meeting Cindy was wonderful.  Through Teresa we had a special connection that drew us together.
Over the week we went site seeing, ate crab cakes,  crab potato chips and crab soup, visited the Cemetery,  had lunch in D.C. with friends who helped to tell Teresa's story to the world and hung out with the Bartlinski Bunch and  Cindy became a member of our family.

We are so grateful that God orchestrated that day almost 4 years ago and  brought Cindy into our lives!
All because of you sweet girl.  We love you more!!!!!

Emilia-
Poor Emilia has had a really hard time.  Since she had her fixator surgery on October 8 ,  she has had one infection after another.
We thought she was on the road to recovery and then on Monday she started with enlarged and painful lymph nodes.  We went to the pediatrician and started yet another antibiotic.   On Wednesday the school nurse called to inform me that Emilia was covered in a red rash.   I picked her up from school and we went  to the pediatricians office.  By now she was in a lot of pain and starting with  a fever.  From there we went to Siani for Dr. Standard to look at her.  By the time we reached Siani she had a 103.5 fever and was covered from head to toe in redness and shaking.  The infectious  disease Doctor looked at her and knew she was in toxic shock and sent her right to the PICU. 

We started 2 more antibiotics.   The Doctor said she was very lucky that we caught it so soon because it saved her life.  

On Friday morning she had surgery to clean the infection from her bone.  The first results have come back and she now has MRSA and osteomyelitis.

The plan is to continue IV antibiotics and treat for mrsa and osteomyelitis  and wait for the rest of the cultures from the biopsy to come back to see what other nasty bugs might be hiding in her leg.

We have been so blessed with wonderfully caring sons.

Emilia ended up back in the hospital last week because the infections in her legs became resistant to the antibiotics.  It turned out that she had two different bacterias.  The one strain was very rare and had never been seen before with a pin site infection.  Her legs became very swollen and it was very painful.

After spending several days in the hospital, our son Alex volunteered to spend the night on Halloween with Emilia so I could go home and help the other girls with their costumes.  On Friday Paul came to the hospital and stayed with Emilia so Alex could go to school.  Ed and I  traveled to CHOP to discuss  Teresa's autopsy results.

Our boys would do anything to help their sisters.  They are so caring and loving.

Going to CHOP to discuss the autopsy was something we had been putting off.  But we needed to do it to bring some closure.  It was very difficult to even say Teresa's name in the same sentence as "Autopsy".

The good news  was we were able to discuss our plans for an upcoming trip. We are arranging for   The Chief of Cardiology and  The Chief of  Surgery from Beijing along with Lily ,   who is the Medical Director for Chunmiao Little Flower ( and who has also been helping us with the Love You More Heart Home),  to come to CHOP and shadow Teresa's team in surgery, caths. and on the cardiac floor.  Our team from China will then travel to Florida for the 2014 Pediatric Cardiac Conference.
This will be a tremendous learning experience for them and we are so happy we could help to coordinate it. 
Our prayer is for our team of Doctors from China   to be able to take back  many new techniques    to help the children in the Heart Home.

Another angel that is helping us coordinate the trip is Teresa W.  She is a very caring RNC who has traveled  to China many times to help the orphans.  Thank you Teresa!

This weekend we have a VERY special guest coming to visit, our Immigration Officer.   Cindy played a paramount role in helping to bring Teresa home in record time.    We have kept in touch over the past three years and we had always planned for Cindy to come visit after Teresa received her new heart.  After Teresa passed away , Cindy still wanted to visit. 

Cindy would like to visit the Cemetery.  We will also do a little site seeing. On Tuesday we will have lunch in D.C. with our producer from The Today Show along with another  very caring person from the Immigration Office.  It will be so nice to see them all again.  Just a wonderful group of people all brought together because of a little girl who had the dream of having her own family.

We Love You More Teresa!