One hour its Up, the next its Down

I was feeling at ease and very encouraged by Ashley's output over the last 24 hours until I emptied her at 6 am. She had been under the marks and only been replaced once by a small amount and then the flood gate opened sometime between 4 and 6 this morning. In those two hours she dumped around 220cc of stool. I have to add that to the 190 she had put out in the first 6 hours of that shift and that officially made it the highest outpouring of fluid she has had in an 8 hour period(410ccs. She is only allowed 220). Ugh! What this means? I'm not sure. We may not be transferring after all. If they become concerned with this high output it may mean we need to stay put and scope her this week. Originally I was told we would not scope unless she made 100-150ccs of stool per kilo. I believe for the last 24 hours we are at 64/k. Not quite the 100 mark(thank you Lord) but not near the goal of 40/k. High stool output is an indicator for rejection. Actually it is the only indicator Ashley has ever shown. Now it doesn't always mean its rejection, but in her case it has to date. I'm just really confused.

Looking back over my little "poop journal" (I'm not sure if you remember me posting last year around this time about my dirty little secret I kept in my purse), but it records very high output as she was healing and advancing feedings. It took us months and months after her rejection episode to heal and get her stool under control. I vividly remember the day we traveled home on a 4 day break last November or was it December? she stooled out 1500ccs in that 24 hours. I was a nervous wreck because we had fought so hard for permission to "run" home for a couple of days. Anyway, it was all part of the healing process. I'm crossing my fingers that this too is just the healing process. I'm pretty sure we won't advance feedings again today(that will be 3 in a row) and I'm content with that. I just hope the team is as well. I don't mind getting her there slowly, I just want to be able to do that at home(safely).

I suppose it will take quite a while for us to relax enough not to be jumping on the whole rejection band wagon again. It is just so scary right now. I know her bowel was really, really sick and so its going to take time to get back to "normal" if that is even possible.

Who knows. Perhaps we weren't meant to make it home just yet. I really don't have any idea if we will be going anywhere. I guess I need to quit making myself sick and just sit back and wait for rounds. I definitely don't want Ash to be in any danger. If we leave and she needs to return in 24 hours or less then that's exactly what we will have to do. Oh my goodness who would have ever thought our life would be like this? On the other hand, who would have known how blessed it would be with her in it? I guess He was the only one.

All of this is making me old. Really, really old. Gray hair, wrinkles around the corners of my eyes, and bags(large ones!). I'm not talking about my suit cases if you know what I mean. Its getting pretty ugly around here. I could use a good nights sleep and probably a chemical peel or something like that. On second thought you can scratch that last thought cause I'm not doing anything to myself on purpose that causes me pain. Wrinkles don't hurt anything other than my ego. Hospital living isn't conducive to feeling young and energetic. It just makes you old. Plain and simple.