Hellllooo

Well what a mad 24 hrs it's been here, My eldest Chloe's Boyfriend has had a real bad cold for 2 days, his friends have had it longer. Chloe phoned me last night on her mobile asking what the symptoms of Swine Flu were. Straight away my tummy knotted but i told her and she said she'd phone me back. One of her friends had been quite poorly and they were getting a bit worried and wanted some advice, for some reason because i'm an ex nurse they all come to me. The day before another friend of hers had came round for advice on athlete's foot!!! Anyway she came home shortly after saying that her friend had been taken into hospital. And they confrmed it was in fact swine flu. Now we have a major major problem with this, Chloe (17) is very sick and always has been since birth. She was born with a very serious heart defect, at 3 1/2 she had her 1st open heart surgery, they truly didn't think she'd make it through the surgery but bieng the fighter she is she did. Sadly the op was unsuccesfull and the damage they had tried to repair became even worse. We kept her going on meds for as long as possible then at 13 she has whats called a Ross procedure which means they removed her Aorta and pulmonary valve, from the pulmonary they made her a new Aorta then replaced her Pulmonary with a Homo Graph (Donated valve) This op was a breakthrough for Chloe's case which is very rare. It should have given us 15-20 yrs untill th next op ...but it didn't work. Each 6-12 months we're told it will be a bit sooner and each yr it's worse. At the moment she has (in easy terms for you lol) a hole in her Aorta, Leaking from the Aorta , a Hole in her Pulmonary valve with (obviously)a leak, her heart rate is erratic, and the left side of her heart is twice it's normal size. She also has a narrowing in both valves making her heart work much much harder to pump blood through.So as you can imagine any illness can cause major problems if not be fatal. We have been so careful and extra vigilant regarding the Swine Flu. Her boyfriend called his GP this morning and they haven't confirmed if he has it yet trouble is there's another flu going around the Village and we've all been warned that as it's a particlarly nasty one it can be fatal to anyone with a serious health condition. At the moment we have 3 confirmed and 5 possible sufferers and Chloe is close to all of them. We called our GP immediatly, she contacted colleages and Chloe's specialist and they have quarantined her for 7 days, and surprisingly given her Tamiflu. Now i'm mixed on this as the medication has been withdrawn as a precaution here meaning if you have been in contact with someone who's contracted the virus they no longer get the meds as a precaution, which i think is terrible but it's my baby! So it could possibly save her life but i feel for all the people who won't get it. Anyway so far Chloe's ok she has a bit of a groggy throat but if she has it developing the drugs will (please god) nip it in the bud. In our families eyes this is the worst possible scenario of all the family Chloe is the sickest and whenever we've watched reports on the TV our first words are please not Chloe! So sorry this has been such a long drawn out post, and sorry there's no card hopefully i'll get an hr tomorrow but the phone's not stopped ringing lol People sending wishes even neighbours sending love, so it's been a wee bit stressful as you can imagine. Hopefully i'll have better news tomorrow. If praying is a habit your in then please say one for Chloe and every other vulnerable person out there, i'm away to get some rest now all the kids are sleeping! Nite nite all, hugs, Tash xxxx