Ciara's Funeral and an update on Ashling

Car here. Just looked at this website properly for the first time. Obviously, Ger set it up! He's a bit of a legend!

Well it's been a very emotional few days but we have had some closure on Ciara's death through having a funeral service for her. Because the autopsy results came back without any obvious cause of death, which was very hard to deal with, having a small funeral for her on Sunday at our home in Orewa was the best way for us to say goodbye. It was absolutely beautiful. Fr Peter, our fantastic local Priest, said the mass at our house so it was very intimate and personal.

Ashling is doing ok. Unfortunately, she seemed to sense that there was something sad happening on Sunday and she took a couple of steps back while we were gone from the hospital. By the time we got back about 6 hours later, they had put her on increased oxygen supply and had done lots more tests and X-rays because she wasn't a happy camper! We ended up having a big night at the hospital so it was a very emotional day. The doctors now think that she's a bit exhausted from working off a lung and a half, which is pretty much what's she been doing. So the surgery tomorrow should hopefully make a big difference to her. Basically they will be flattening her diaphragm, giving her squashed lung a change to inflate and moving her liver and bowel back down. It will take her a few days to recover and we probably won't see any improvement for a couple of weeks. Hopefully we'll be able to go home then and we can work on her limb problems from home. We really want to have her home for Christmas!!!! I can't imagine how spoilt she's going to be!

So that's the latest. I just want to say sorry for the poor contact over the past fortnight. It's been a complete rollercoaster, mostly plummeting downwards! But hopefully things will get better from here. We have received heaps of texts and messages that we haven't had time to reply to. Please don't feel that we are ignoring you, or that your love and prayers have gone unnoticed but things have been too overwhelming to try to keep up contact with anyone outside of the family, even with all of our families to be honest. But at least with this blog, you'll be able to check what's happening when you want to. Please feel free to add comments here. It will be a lovely thing for us to print and give to Ashling in time, to see how many people loved her before they even met her!

Finally, thank you to everyone who has sent us beautiful flowers, they have really lifted our spirits. However, at this stage because we are staying in temporary accomodation we would prefer that if you really insist on doing something of this nature, you could..........make a wee donation to the ronaldmcdonaldfoundation (as they have been fantastic to us) or to twinlossnewzealand (for the same reasons), or you can drop us in a dinner to the Ronald McDonald House, or just wait a while and get to hold Ashling and give her some cuddles! God knows she deserves them! But continued prayers and positive energy being sent to Ashling, Ger and I is perfectly sufficient, and has definitely helped us get through the hardest period of our lives! Thank you all for that.

We will add some more photos over the next few days. Lots n lots of love, Car and Ger xoxoxo