Fingers Crossed!

So I didn't post yesterday for fear I would announce something prematurely. The resident hinted yesterday morning that we may be able to go home soon, but I was reluctant to tell anyone b/c I wanted to hear it from another doctor. Since doctors change around here weekly, you never know what the next one is going to say. Well, today the attending, Dr. Wiklund (who was here when we were admitted), told us it will be this week, and he's hoping in the next couple of days! As you can imagine, we're shocked to hear this!

Yesterday Chelsea was acting better, but again was not quite herself. She's sort of the same today, not quite her normal energy, only today she's falling more. Her hemoglobin was at 8.2, so I suspect she'll need a blood transfusion tomorrow. Now that we're close to a break they'll do labs daily. It's really scary to think about going home, but I'm so excited to sleep in my own bed and to tuck my little girl into her warm comfy crib! We're working on getting a home health nurse who should be able to help us for a little while each day. Because she has a Hickman she qualifies for this service! I'm scared about taking her home with this cold, but I will feel much better having a nurse there to peek at her everyday.

Have I mentioned how lucky we are to have such a wonderful support of friends and family?!!! We're just in awe at all the generosity that surrounds us, Chelsea really has a way of reaching so many people. Because of your generosity Ryan made a Walmart run today to stock up on cleaning supplies. They're working on disinfecting and antibacterializing everything right now. We're going to keep hand sanitizer around the house, I told him we even need a bottle hanging outside the front door, with a sign... 'Do not enter until sanitizing!' We're not joking around! We know that people will want to stop and visit, but we also want all of our local friends and family to know that we'll have to limit visitors, especially the first week home. I'll continue to update daily so you know when it's safe to come around, but please don't feel bad if we tell you it's not a good day. Our next investment, a quality thermometer. The hospital staff has us paranoid and on the look out for FEVERS. Evidently they're bound to happen at some point.

It sounds like we'll have to draw labs while we're at home b/c it's likely we'll need blood/platelet transfusions even when we're home. If we take her to the local hospital to draw labs and find she needs a transfusion we'll have to drive up here to do it. It sounds like we'll be driving up here a few times in between our stays, and we are soooo thankful to our friends who have donated gas gift cards to us!!!! I'm telling you we have amazing friends. My amazing Jazzercise friends (instructors and students) .... THANK YOU! I miss you so much and can't wait to come dance with you again (although since I'm out of practice I'll be dancing with you and not up front!)

We got lots of mail today! Chelsea ate most of the paper while I opened the boxes. Thanks to our T21 friends, they compiled 3 CD's of their favorite songs, mostly kids songs, but also inspirational songs, it's so beautiful. As I listen to the songs I can see the faces of our precious little friends. And Amy, we've already had nurses in here ooohing and aaahing over the picture you sent of Chelsea and Mayson together! Chelsea also got her first Cabbage Patch Baby! She's a mama. You should have seen her eyes light up when she saw her baby, I couldn't get it open fast enough for her!

One last thing, we received a prayer beeper today. How it works if you have time, you can page us when you say a prayer for Chelsea. We won't know who's praying, but it does vibrate to tell us a prayer is being said for her. How cool is that?!!! The number is 785-295-0535. This is the first I've given it out, but it's still been going off all day just from the people at church who already have the number! Okay, so that's our update so watch for our numbers to rise over the next few days and we should be headed H-O-M-E!!! Keep your fingers crossed, and keep praying of course!