Blood Thirsty

Our week at home in SLO has been a whirlwind of activity. Tessa was feeling pretty good all week, and had a great time seeing her friends. We had a little bbq to celebrate my birthday, and it was great seeing friends and having everyone feeling good. Nana and Poppie spent a few days with us, and Tessa had a blast playing with her grandparents. Tessa's Auntie Rachel and Uncle Keith came up for a visit from SB, and upon learning of their visit Uncle Mattie and Auntie Kristina came down from SF. It was a full house, but Tessa was thrilled! Unfortunately, Tessa took a turn for the worst on Saturday.

For the last couple weeks Tessa has been experiencing some moderate tummy pain. Saturday night it ballooned into major pain. Casey and I took her to the ER around 1:30 that night, where the doctor was totally unhelpful and clearly didn't take the bedside manner class in med school. We returned home and began giving Tessa some of the oxycodone that Stanford had giving us for her bone pain. She managed a little sleep, but Sunday was crying and screaming in pain and we went back to the ER. After 5 hours in the ER, and a bunch of morphine later, we got some labs back that said her hemoglobin levels were down to 6.9. She was admitted and given a blood transfusion last night. Mommy "slept" beside her in the cot. The nurses had to check her temp and blood pressure every 15 minutes to make sure she wasn't having a reaction to the transfusion. Between that and needing morphine every two hours it was a pretty restless night. Today has been mainly about pain management. She has been having a lot of pain, so the doctor has worked out a pretty intensive cocktail of morphine, oxycodone and a few other things I can't pronounce.

The future is uncertain and being based mainly on her pain and our insurance, which has been extremely difficult (I'd venture to say that they are actually trying to prevent us from getting the best possible care for our girl: evil is the word that comes to mind). We are switching to a PPO as of Wednesday, and depending on several factors we may be transported up to Stanford.

Keep those prayer circles going and those candles lit.

Smile! We're in the ER. :/