One Year Ago Today: 12/25/2012 - A Hospital Christmas

(12/25/2012, Tuesday) Who has experienced having a kid sleep in on Christmas day? Granted, its an extenuating circumstance, but it still feels odd. It is nearly 1000, and Evie's still sleeping (although I have kept the room as dark as it can be.) I thought for sure she'd wake up when I moved her for her chest x-ray at 0600. Not a peep. At 0900 when she needed an insulin shot I thought, surely Evie's slept long enough that she'll wake up for this. Not to mention the three or four nurses/doctors who came in to check on her in between. But no, she's still peacefully resting. What a blessing!

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Evie woke up just before 1100. We quickly took several overdue medications, then launched into opening presents. Santa left her what appeared to be the biggest gift bag ever chock full of toys as well as the "Perky Puppy" Stompeez she'd asked him for on the 23^rd (pictured to her left below.) When I asked Evie what her favorite gift was, she indicated it was a Polly Pocket that was just one of the many items in the bag. The sheer volume of generosity from random strangers was overwhelming for me. By 1300 she wanted and needed to take a nap. It took until 1430 for her to get comfortable enough to fall asleep (the morphine probably helped). We eventually woke back up, and Skyped with Evie's sisters so that they could see her open their presents and she could watch them open hers.

It was fun for us to watch Evie's 18 month old brother via Skype. His swath of destruction was amusing to us as we were safely virtual and didn't have to worry much about the trouble he was causing. The little guy seems to have grown up a lot while we've been gone. It sounds like he's starting to talk too. (Finally!)

Health-wise, Evie had 3 bloody stools today, but they were each small enough in volume that it would have taken about five or six of them to match a single diaper during her heaviest bleeding thus far. So relatively, it was a good day. The doctors were hoping this morning that the flow of blood was decreasing because at some point, when she seems stable enough, they want to do an endoscopy. If I had to guess, I'd say we don't yet qualify for that. Evie's x-rays today show improvement in her pneumonia, and her blood work earlier today was encouraging as everything that relates to internal bleeding is trending down.

We'd been granted a special exception to the rules for today (no limit on the number of guests, and the doctors were going to allow her siblings to visit, even though their policy disallows anyone under 13.) Unfortunately, we weren't able to take advantage of that kindness due to illness (strep-throat anyone?) which developed suddenly back at our house. Evie's older sister complained of a sore throat last night. Today, after opening presents Heather ended up taking her to instacare.

Hopefully she's been quarantined quickly enough that Heather, the kids, their cousins, and their grandparents don't end up with it as well. I sincerely hope our extended family did not acquire it, and am exceedingly grateful that they made the long trip to visit us, as things at home otherwise would have quickly escalated to one of those "our camel can't hold any more straw." moments.
 

Evie and I played a few games, played more piano for the nurses, read a book, and just enjoyed the rest of our day, finishing strong by playing with Evie's new Polly Pocket (she conveniently named Evie) and a new Zhu Zhu pet named Kingston. I think we enjoyed Christmas as much as we could have, given the circumstances.

DISCLAIMER: Posts Labeled "One Year Ago Today" are a record of what transpired when Evie first became ill.  The slightly edited text comes from emails which we sent to family to let them know what was happening, and to keep them updated.  These posts are usually long, but if you want to truly understand what life was like for us, and what led to this point, it makes for great "light" reading.