Last night Shawn and I stood at our doorway and watched golfball sized hail fall all around us. The noise inside the house was crazy and although we knew our car was being damaged, there was nothing we could do. I woke up this morning and took a look, it was certainly damaged. I can't count the number of dents on the roof, hood, doors and other random panels. This is a minor hiccup in life, it's the very reason we have insurance and the car still runs, life could be worse.
I packed up the kids and headed to the hospital for an appointment with the ENT doctor. He had been called into surgery and we waited an hour before we were able to see him! Hope disliked him quite a bit as he put a tube down her free nostril to look at her throat. The good news was that her swelling has gone down and the voice box is looking less floppy. We'll see him again in 12 weeks to have another look at things as the vocal chord is still completely paralyzed.
After our appointment I popped into the cardiology clinic as Hope has looked a bit swollen. I had called them about it earlier but we couldn't find a reason to rush in and I was told to keep an eye on it, which made sense to me. A nurse at the house mentioned the swelling to me again on the weekend and I decided to go and see if they wanted to do something about it. After looking at it, they decided to do a quick X-ray and see what was going on and if she was retaining fluid. The Xray was unclear and they decided to do an echo to check out her heart function. Her heart function was thankfully looking good and we had no further answers. So...they decided to send Hope for an ultrasound to take a closer look. Thankfully a friend had graciously come to the hospital to collect Sadie and do something more fun with her while I bounced around the different tests with Hope.
After the ultrasound, it was decided that Hope should be admitted until they could get some clearer answers. It showed that she has fluid in her abdomen and also inflammation. They ran some blood work this evening to see if there is an infection of some kind in the body. Tomorrow they will try giving her a dose of lasix to see if the fluids just need a push to get out of her. If this is not successful, they are discussing the possibility of an MRI. Hope would need to be put to sleep for this procedure, so we'd like to look at her heart at the same time and not have to do it twice.
During this entire process today, Hope was not allowed to eat and went 9 hours before they finally gave her some food again. She was surprisingly patient as she waited for her food, I wonder if it felt better to have her tummy empty for a while. She is back on her feed schedule and should continue to receive feeds until they decide on further tests that need to be done.
We're not sure how long she'll be here and I've moved back into the hospital with her once again. I can't say that I missed the horrible mattress or inconvenience, but she's worth it! As I went from one test to the next with her today and spent my entire day here, I realized that I didn't feel impatient. I wanted to make sure she was ok and was willing to stay as long as I needed to. I had a feeling I would end up sleeping over! I'm off to try and get some sleep, I'll do my best to keep you all posted as we get any new information.
Please pray for our sweet girl and for everyone here that will be caring for her. Please pray for wisdom as they seek to find out what is causing the issues in her stomach, and that her heart function would continue to be strong. As for me, I'm doing pretty well with everything, perhaps I'm getting used to these surprise visits!
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