We are home!!! Well, we are at my parents house. It is a big step for us and a good step in the right direction. More about that in a bit.
I attended church at my parent's ward today. It was a good set of meetings. In Elder's quorum, we talked a lot about how to make sure there is love at home. We talked about focusing on the right priorities. I mentioned how a major event like this causes us to only focus on the most important things in life. Two other thoughts out of the lesson that I want to share. First, there was an example of a jar and rocks. If we fill a jar with big rocks and then pea size rocks and then sand, you can fit a whole lot more in the jar. If we start filling the jar with sand, we can't fit all the important things in our life (the big rocks). Second, often when we tell people we love them, it can be come just a habit and there isn't feeling behind it. If we say "I love you because ..." and fill in a reason, then it becomes more meaningful to those involved.
This morning Jess said that Sarah looked like a vampire. When I got there in the early afternoon she didn't look much better. She had dark rings around her eyes and was a little pale. Her white blood cell count was .8 (normal: 6.0-17.0) and her ANC number was .3(normal: 1.5-8.5). They gave her a transfusion of platelets and of red blood cells. This helped tremendously. Her dark rings went away and she livened up. We got everything ready and were out of the hospital around 6:30pm.
Even though we are "home", things aren't easy. She still has to take a antibiotic every 8 hours via an IV, so she still has the IV in her port. A home medical company came out tonight and taught us how to give her the infusion of the medicine. She needs to take it every 8 hours through Wednesday. Hopefully on Wednesday, they can "de-access" her (remove the needle from the port). We also have to keep the area that she lives in really clean while her numbers are low. This means that she has a bathroom to herself that we clean with bleach and she is quarantined to the basement (where we are staying). The number that we are watching is the ANC number. In order for her to have more freedom, it needs to be above .5 at minimum, .75 is much better. This number represents how well she can fight off infection. The lower it goes (it goes low due to the chemo) the less she can fight off sicknesses herself.
Grandma and Grandpa has done a great job in making our area more livable, since we will be there through the month of August. The girls were previously sleeping on air mattresses in the theater room. Grandma and Grandpa talked to members of the ward and the found a set of bunk beds that the girls are now sleeping on. There are really excited for this, since we have talked about getting bunk beds for them for a little while. It was funny to watch them when Sarah came home. Lilly wanted to show her the bunk beds and they sat and talked like old friends that hadn't seen each other in years. It was touching to see what good friends my two daughters are.
One more story. At lunchtime before I left to go up to the hospital, my parents, Shannon, I and Lilly were in the kitchen talking about Gus. Grandpa Butch (Udell) mentioned that Gus and pushed the bottle against his face and got milk all over it. I mentioned that when Gus was done with his bottle this morning, he grabbed it out of my hands and threw it to the floor. We laughed at that and then Lilly said "That's my boy". It was pretty funny.
I wanted to thank each of you that fasted for us and those that are praying for us. My heart has been full today as I have felt the love and support from each of you. We are blessed to have such great friends and family.
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