Day +7: Closer to the Bottom

Sarah Today

I am back at the hospital replacing Susan and her father. Today (Friday) has been a good day for Sarah so far. She has managed to keep all her oral medication down and hasn’t thrown up yet. We colored some, made some small cards for the children at home and used the webcam to chat with Susan and the folks back home and of course slept.

Yesterday was not quite as easy. Sarah’s platelet count was really low and some blood was tracing her lips from mouth sores. The blood also drooled out onto her pillow while she slept. This did not cause her any pain, but it was a little disturbing to see. The nurses gave her a platelet transfusion last night due to her low counts. Sarah also developed a fever resulting in an x-ray of her lungs. The doctors told us it looked like a very mild case of viral pneumonia. They are doing some follow on testing to determine if she has pneumonia. Her fever has been gone today, but it returned ~8:00pm tonight.

Sarah’s has been on morphine for pain in her mouth and throat for several days now. She looks worn out and is sleepy a lot. She is not suffering greatly with the continuous morphine drip she is now on. Sarah can push a small button to momentarily increase the delivery of the morphine when she experiences heightened pain like when she takes her oral medication or vomits. She can only do this every 7 minutes, but currently only uses the button about once an hour.

The doctors told us Sarah is still doing great so you can imagine we don’t want to know what “not doing great” is like. We are grateful that she is doing as well (and as expected) as she is, but at the same time also very anxious and concerned about her fever and any infection that might crop up. Please pray specifically that Sarah will not have any infections that add complications to her recovery from the BMT during and after her stay at the hospital.

On a side note, today is Susan and my 16th wedding anniversary. Happy anniversary Susan, I love you.

Thanks for your prayers and kindness folks…
Your husband, father, son, brother and friend,
-Ben
Matthew 6:33-34

Since Ben wrote all of this a few more things have happened. Sarah's fever shot up to 103 and last night she developed a bloody nose that wouldn't stop. For the fever they gave her tylenol and for the nose another platelet transfusion. Ben said it was kinda a rough night. I am tempted to jump in the car and go back to the hospital.