Going home!

Ok...decided I needed a quick update before we head home tomorrow because speaking from experience I get really busy and overwhelmed when we get home and I have a hard time keeping people informed. So...the good news. We are going home tomorrow at 10 am. (Ok...well that's the plan. I keep adding the time because it somehow makes me feel more like it will really happen.). Discharge is always a hectic time and I always fear I am going to screw something up or forget something that is extremely critical. Today was by far her best day for nausea and feeling decent. She showered by herself, got dressed, took a walk all the way down to x-ray on the first floor, made Kenton a good-bye card, and appeased the dietician by eating three meals (kinda). She was definitely on a mission to prove it was time to get out of here. Yesterday wasn't so smooth. She had her first reaction to platelets. Platelets are such a common occurrence for her that I hadn't even noticed they were going in. Here is what I noticed: she was sitting up in her bed finishing off  a sandwich and one of her favorite orange cream slushies from the U. Suddenly she yelled, "Mom, my bucket! I am going to throw up!" I hurried as fast as I could. She leaned over the all too familiar plastic pink pale. "I don't feel right," she explained. Then she fell back on to her pillows with her eyes closed. I yelled and shook her, but she wouldn't respond. The nurse said she would stop the platelets, which was when I realized she had been getting them. We both called for a rapid response simultaneously. When the first doctor arrived moments later and saw that she was unresponsive, she punched her in the chest. Ok...so later I learned that it s called a sternum rub, but at the time, I didn't know what was going on. Timmie opened her eyes and shut them once again. Her blood pressures which are normally 125/70 fell to 80/48 and I was freaking out! After they gave her Benadryl, hydrocortisone, and fluids, she slowly started to come to, but she was foggy and complaining of a headache for quite a while. It took her an hour to recover completely and the rapid response team watched her closely trying to decide if she needed to the ICU. Needless to say, she will have to be pretreated for blood transfusions from here on out. I told her if we ever had to have another rapid response again that she was grounded! That didn't seem to worry her too much. She always pulls that stuff when I am here by myself too. I have to get to bed because somebody has big plans to go to the Homecoming dance. Not quite sure how she is going to the pull that off...but she is a fighter, and I have learned that it is good for her to set her mind on something...more often than not she achieves it, and it gives her that little spark of hope she needs to keep battling.  Don't be surprised if I fall behind on the blog updates...this full-time nursing job keeps me hopping.  But once again, thank you so much for your prayers. There were moments of comfort this admission that I knew were coming from a higher power.  I can't wait to get home to Bo and Julian and hope that Timmie can have a little time off from the scary stuff. She will have to be readmitted for about 5 days for a skin graft, but we need to give her a mental and emotional break for a couple of weeks first.