The day is finally...

OVER. I thought it would never end.

Unbelievable things have gone on this week. Painful issues my sweet Ash is dealing with.

Her central line was placed in her left femoral vein on the 7th. I can't remember what day of the week it was, but once we arrived in Omaha and took off her p.j.'s we discovered a HUGE hematoma the size of a tennis ball at the site of the insertion. The bruising spread up across her hips and into her abdomen. She has been extremely uncomfortable and unable to straighten out her leg for days.

The IV started in her wrist to run the thymo through was infiltrating into her hand all day long. No one knew. She complained all day long and it was thought she was just uncomfortable because the vein was so tiny. She tried and tried to tell everyone something was wrong. Her hand swelled up and turned very, very dark. I just stood there thinking we were going to lose her hand. The drug is irreversible and instead of it flowing into her veins and fighting the rejection it flowed into her fingertips and cut off circulation. Once another iv was finally placed they went to remove the one from her wrist and discovered it had been placed in an artery. She now has a pressure dressing on around her wrist to keep the bleeding at bay and heat packs wrapped around her hand hoping it will help her body absorb the medication and get the blood flowing back into her finger tips. We are doing profusion checks every 30 minutes. Did I mention the new IV isn't working? yeah, it just keeps getting better.

Ashley has endured so much and the frightening thing is that there is more to come.

She needs a dressing change. The site of her line is bleeding and needs to be cleaned up, but none of us have the heart to put her through it at this time. She is exhausted and has finally stop whimpering. I think we are going to let her sleep for a couple of hours and then attempt the change. I don't know that she can take another attempt at IV placement. Its torture. Truly it is.

I just can't imagine what she must be thinking. This is not her life anymore. She must be so confused. Why are people hurting her every single day and multiple times a day and why am I allowing them to do it? I know she doesn't understand. Even tonight after four of us held her down searching for a vein to stick she signed "thank you, thank you, bye, bye." Still being so sweet and so polite but letting us all know she'd had enough.

I whispered in her ear how much I love her. I told her how proud I was of her. I encouraged her and let her know that we were going to fight this. She can do this. I know she can. She is a fighter and I've never seen her not fight back.

Tomorrow her surgeon is coming on. She and I visited yesterday before we knew the results of pathology. I trust her. I know she will tell me the truth. I'm going to ask her opinion and see if she's encouraged by anything. I'll take anything at all by this point. I need to know that someone on this team believes my girl can make it. Dr. G put this organ inside Ashley's body. She knows her anatomy more than anyone else. I need to hear her say this can be done. I just want to know how she feels.