Praying for Nandi

Nandi is the four year old daughter of a family at our church that we love. Her family is going through an incredibly difficult time right now. I personally have never gone through nearly losing one of my children and I can't even begin to understand what they are dealing with, but I feel like I have experienced just a fraction of what they're going through as I have had the honor to walk through this with them. Please take a few minutes to read Nandi's story and consider donating to her cause.   She caught a cold last week and  then with a weakened immune system she picked up a strain of Strep A. This particular strain is very aggresive and spread through her organs very rapidly. On Tuesday, 2/9/16,  Nandi began vommiting and her mother, Adele, knew that there was more going on than just the flu. She took her to the local Emergency room and within minutes of arriving she went into cardiac arrest and coded. Being at the hospital, the doctors were able to resucitate her very quickly.  She proceeded to code two more times in the ER and was successfully resucitated both times.  Realizing how sick she was they transfered her to a childrens hospital better equipped to care for her.  At this point the infection had begun to spread throughout her body, putting her system into septic  shock.  The combination of her kidneys experiencing damage from the multiple times she coded and the sepsis overwhelming her internal organs she started to lose circulation to her lower extremities.   With her lungs being severely inflamed and her heart being weakened from the infection they decided to  hook her up to a heart and lung machine called ECMO to better facilitate her breathing and the circulation of fluids in her body.  In order to relieve pressure on her kidneys and other internal organs they made an incision in her abdomen to release her intestines  and seal them in a bag externally. They weren't able to start dialysis immediately as she was not stable enough to begin yet.  Due to the discoloration in her legs the doctors were anticipating that she would lose both legs if she survived.  The only word I could think of that came close to describing her situation was "horrific".  My heart was breaking, I was experiencing emotions I didn't even know I had.  On Friday evening a test done on her brain revealed profuse brain damage.  Knowledge of the brain injury in addition to the fact that her heart and lungs had shown no improvement after two days on the ECMO machine doctors told her parents that in another day or two they would need to have the very difficult conversation about taking her off the ECMO machine and letting her go. The doctors told them that they had done everything medically possible and that there was nothing left. No hope. The one thing left was for the doctors to stop sedating her to see how she would respond. They said the only chance we had at this point was to pray that God would perform a miracle.  So we did, a lot of us, and on Saturday morning she began showing signs of improvement.  Her vital signs started showing significant improvement as did her heart and lungs.  With her heart and lungs suddenly showing more activity and taking on a bigger workload they started to turn down the ECMO's workload until it got to the point where the heart and lungs were doing all the work on their own and the ECMO wasn't needed.  This all happened in the space of half a day.  After monitoring her  heart and lungs for a period of three hours the doctors felt comfortable enough to perform the surgery to remove her from the ECMO and place her heart and lungs back in the chest cavity and close it.   Everyone was amazed that she turned around so quickly, except those of us praying for her. On Sunday Nandi was sedated and resting and she eventually began to open her eyes a little but she was still very swollen. The doctor said that if the swelling continues to go down maybe in a couple days they could put her intestines back in. Our entire church was praying as well as several other friends and family and some of their respective church families all over the world. On Monday morning they took her into surgery to place her intestines back in the abdomen and close up the stomach because she was improving so quickly.  One of the doctors asked them if they were people of faith. He said that every once in a while we see cases like this that defy science and medicine. Kondi(dad) told him that his church family and the church families of several friends have been praying. Doc said "Keep it up because it's working. There is clearly something else going on here beyond medicine." That afternoon, they were able to find a pulse in her ankles with a Doppler machine. They said she might only lose her legs below her knees. Now that she was disconnected from most of the machines they wanted to do an MRI to check brain activity.  The results weren't good. They found profuse brain damage in the front, top and back of the brain.  Because of the extent of the brain and kidney damage she'd need to stay in the ICU for six weeks for treatment and therapy.  At the end of the treatment and therapy they'd be able to better determine her outcome.  In the meantime, her swelling had drastically gone down and both legs started to show signs of improved circulation all the way down to the ankles including her right foot turning from dark purple to her normal skin tone.  One of the doctors noted that this level of healing on the outside was probably  a good sign that the organs on the inside were also healing.  Another good indication of this was that her liver enzymes were trending in the right direction.  They have since reduced the amount of sedatives that she is on.  From time to time she has exhibited irritability with the breathing tube and from pain.  A very good sign. Her legs are continuing to improve.  The doctors are choosing to wait as long as they can before making a decision about the level of amputation if needed.  The miracles of God are continuing to baffle us all. Today she is resting peacefully and gradually healing. We are believing that God will continue to perform a miracle and restore her to 100%.
As you can imagine her doctor bills are going to be enormous.  At this point, we don't know how much her insurance is going to cover and what kind of care she will need after this, but we do know that this will be an incredible hardship on her family.  At this point healthcare costs are the last thing on her parents minds.  All they want is their sweet Nandi back home at any price. Many of you have asked how you can help, me included, hurting for this family wanting to do something but not knowing how. So I set this up to give us the ability to help Nandi's family overcome this huge burden that they will be facing soon. Not to mention the missed work and the extra living expenses.  Also they will most likely have to break a lease to move into a bigger home, adding more expense to their already tight budget. The Bible tells us to bear one anothers burdens and I would ask you to pray for Nandi and to ask the Lord if you should support them financially. Thank you .