Feeling Better...Little by little

 Ashley Kate is feeling better a little more each day.  She's not complaining near as much, no longer crying, and running no more fevers.  Her ear is still bothering her, but its getting better or else she has learned to adjust to it hurting.  I only see her pushing on it occasionally throughout the day and she only asked me to push on it once today.  She is still sleeping a lot more than normal.  She seems to be getting worn out a little quicker than she used to.

Her lab work wasn't great.  We are working hard to re hydrate her by running a constant IV of half normal saline into her line.  Her BUN had climbed up to 42 last week.  On her last set of labs we had managed to get it down to 28, but that is still a very high number.  Ash loses so much fluid each day making it almost impossible to keep her ins and outs balanced.  I had no idea until after her ex plant how much fluid, bile, and stomach content filtered into her bowel.  Now without the bowel being there her tummy has to constantly be draining out of her g-tube to reduce the amount of bile she throws up.  She is connected to a drain bag 24 hours a day and loses approximately 2500ccs of fluid into it daily.  Replacing all of that loss is tricky.


Her CBC was all messed up on her last set of labs.  All of her numbers were registering low.  I knew she had suffered some blood loss from her stoma, but was surprised at how much.  Her hemoglobin is trending lower and lower as is her platelet count which kind of explains why after tearing her ostomy bag off she couldn't seem to clot.  She bled for 4 days into her bag!

Today was a good day for her.  She got to go watch Allie's volleyball game tonight at the high school.  She was so excited!  She loves the gym!  I tried to get a few pics of her but none of them turned out.  I thought she looked really good today compared to how she looked just a few days ago.  She was happy and smiling for most of it.  Her color is good and she looks really "healthy".  She's been growing like crazy lately and I look at that little girl sitting in that chair and have a hard time believing she was our tiny gherkin.  Shes a total mess and at one point the entire huddle turned around to see what kind of trouble she was causing.  Thankfully Allie could laugh about it.  I'm so grateful the big kids aren't embarrassed by all the "chaos" that follows us when Ash attends their games. They are so proud of her they don't mind one bit that shes loud and causing trouble!

Its going to be a busy, busy week for us.  Between volleyball tonight ,cheering at the football game Thursday night, a volleyball tournament this weekend, and Blake getting ready for fall baseball, we are spread pretty thin.  Add to that the school schedule and my calendars is completely filled in!  I'm tired just looking at it, but seriously I wouldn't want life to be any other way.  We are so blessed.