Hospital Sweet Home

This is day five of being in the hospital, and it's starting to feel like home. The good news is that Tessa woke up on Thursday a new girl. She's smiling and even walking a little

It seems that the methadone has finally kicked in and she's in significantly less pain. I almost cried yesterday when we woke up and she had this huge smile on her face. She is no longer needing the morphine, so she is alert and her old charming self.

On Wednesday afternoon there was a huge meeting with all of the specialties. There were over twenty people present (the hospital social worker told us it was the biggest care conference she had ever been to). It was basically a huge brainstorming session. Everyone weighed in and suggested things they want to test for. The last two days they have drawn the maximum amount of blood allowed and today they will be drawing more than the maximum and then giving her another blood transfusion to fill her back up. She will have one more blood draw tomorrow, and then she will have given enough to satisfy the requirements for all of the tests they want to do. The bone doctors at the conference felt that the presentation didn't look like a metabolic bone disease to them, so it's less likely that we'll be heading to LA at this point. We've been trying to get an MRI for her for the last 3 days, but due to some flooding they are down to a few machines. Tessa has had to fast everyday only to find out that they weren't able to fit her in. So today they are canceling the MRI and sending her in for a CT instead to get the images they need. They will probably start her on a round of steroids tomorrow to see if that will help her feel better. That will run for 3-4 days, and then the hope is that we can go home.

Beyond this we will be waiting for test results; we know so far that she doesn't have HIV. Phew. The doctor told us that if we still don't have any results in two months we'll probably head to NIH in Bethesda, Maryland. The NIH clinic is renown for dealing with hard to diagnose cases. In fact it is the clinic which the show House is based on, and for some reason I find that to be less than comforting.

Anyway...here we are making the most of our new home. At least we have our own TV, internet and room service (even though the food is a few steps down from appetizing). Love to all!