Waiting

Ugh! Getting a signal in a hospital can be almost impossible. After working on it for the past two hours I have a low signal and so I'm typing in faith that this will post.

Anyway, Ash looks pretty good. Much better than she did when we arrived this morning. She has an IV in her left hand and we have cultured just about everything possible. Now we wait.

Her electrolytes were way off. A result of the stooling out and the dehydration. Her labs show only a slight dehydration with a BUN of 24. Yes, thats out of range for normal, but Ash has been known to have a BUN of 64 before and has steadily held around 40 for weeks on end. So a 24 tells me that we have caught this part of it early and hopefully it will turn around by morning with the IV fluids that are currently running. She has had no more vomiting since waking early this morning around 5a.m. I stopped her tube feeds at that time and she hasn't taken anything by mouth today so who knows? That could be the reason for the cease in vomiting.

On the positive side of things her liver function tests came back beautifully!!! I have never seen such great numbers from her biliruben, ALT, and AST enzymes. That makes me smile. How grateful I am to know that she has a healthy, functioning liver 2 years post transplant. God is really amazing!

Another positive is that Allison and I spent Sunday afternoon in Canton and while we were there we bought Ashley Kate a new pillow case. Just in time for this admission! She is using it a little sooner than we planned(we were thinking more along the lines of her take down procedure next year), but here she sits in her hospital bed in style. Its exactly like her old one only this time Allie chose bright, vibrant, "more grown up because she's not a baby anymore" colors instead of the baby pastel shades of her old one. I think its perfect.

Ask Ash what she thinks is the best part of all of this and she will tell you She gets to sit around and be lazy and watch Blue 24/7. That really makes this child smile. I'm not sure her therapist will be smiling, but for now its what works.

I'm really proud of her. She is handling the nurses and the doctors much better than she has in the past. Just a sign of her growing up a little. She fusses a minute or two when they touch her, but she recovers nicely and is able to tolerate strangers in her room.

Our hope as always is to return home as quickly as possible. I pray that this is a simple bug that has caused nothing more than a little excess stooling and that her GI tract will recover without any damage. This is what we are concentrating on. I won't allow my mind to go back the scenarios we have faced in the past with these type of symptoms. Surely this time its going to be mild. Right?

Thanks so much for your prayers. How blessed we are to know that there are an army of prayer warriors just a click away from this miracle child we are allowed to call ours. Where would be without all of you?