Visiting Anna

This morning Ethan and I headed to the hospital to visit Anna and check in with the medical team.  Lynne, Anna's critical care nurse practitioner, assures me that Anna is doing as well as can be expected considering the circumstances.  Anna is calm, safe, and comfortable.

She had a slight fever at one point over night, but her temperature came back down on its own.  The doctors started her on some antibiotics as a preventative measure anyway.

Today Anna will have the rest of the long MRI that she was scheduled to have this week anyway.  On Tuesday night they only took the images that were absolutely necessary, so today they need to take images of her spine to see how that all looks.

This weekend Anna will continue to be kept safe and comfortable.  We have complete trust in the doctors and nurses working with Anna.  Because of the level of care she needs, she is very high on everyone's priority lists.  In addition, lots of people at the hospital have been touched by Anna and are keeping an extra vigilant eye on her.

The "plan" is to keep Anna on a ventilator until Tuesday.  At that point she will have received five radiation treatments and four chemotherapy treatments.  The doctors would like to extubate her as soon as possible to be able to see how the cancer is responding to the radiation.  They may not know enough on Tuesday so she may have to be re-intubated if it looks like her body can't handle its breathing processes on its own yet.  We'll cross that bridge when we come to it.  But as we're learning, plans can change in a heartbeat.

As for the rest of the family, we're doing okay, all things considered.  It's a relief right now to be able to be at home and know that Anna is being well taken care of.  Matt took Kate this morning to Destination Discovery in McFarland and they both had a good time.  I took Ethan with me to the hospital and he is also finding his way into people's hearts.  No 15-month-old should ever be expected to feel this comfortable in the PICU, but Ethan is dealing with it like a champ.  I think his presence is a bit refreshing to the doctors and nurses who work with very sick kids every day.  Plus, he's a cutie who is learning how to flirt with strangers :)

Kate and Ethan both had to deal with the upheaval of life again this week.  Ethan did pretty well, especially since he's gotten much more comfortable with Melissa's presence in our house lately.  Kate had a harder time.  She was pretty emotional about little things on Wednesday evening and Thursday morning, and she wasn't sleeping very well, either.  Yesterday was theraputic for both her and me.  I told her a "Kat, Hannah, and Wheat Thin" story (based on Kate, Anna, and Ethan) that cheered her up.  Then while Ethan was napping, she and I cuddled up downstairs to watch The Lion King together.  I think both of those things helped her sort out life again.

We're planning on taking a family field trip tomorrow morning to the hospital to visit Anna and record some more stories for her.  Lynne suggested that we record our voices for Anna since she can hear, even if she isn't aware of much right now.  Last night we found a voice recording app for one of the ipads and recorded a handful of books and songs for her, plus Ethan talking as much as he can.  We're leaving that ipad at the hospital and the nurses will play those for Anna periodically.  When we're there tomorrow we can add more to the repertoire.

Depending on what our "guts tell us", we may or may not go back to the hospital until Tuesday morning.  We'll just have to wait and see.  Although Anna is in safe hands, it would feel like a really long time to be away.

Time for prayers

Thanksgiving
Please thank God that Matt and I can sleep at home for a few nights.
Please thank God that Anna is calm, safe, and comfortable.
Please give thanks that all of this is happening in Madison, not Chicago.
Please give thanks for the exceptional quality of care that Anna is receiving.

Requests
Please pray that Anna continues to be calm, safe, and comfortable.
Please pray that our family can enjoy this weekend together.
Please pray for wisdom and strength for all of the medical professionals involved in Anna's care.
Please pray again for baby Charlie and his family.  He is the fourth child of a college friend and, at only 3 months old, is on a heart transplant list.  After being cleared to return home with his family to await a heart, they had to return to St. Louis after only 36 hours and will be there until Charlie's new heart is found.  My heart aches for their family as we know all too well what kind of a roller coaster ride they are on.

Thank you again for your thoughts, prayers, and support.  We wouldn't be able to do this on our own.