Today was quite the day. Again.
Last night Benson threw up three times. There are few things worse than a little one with an upset tummy in the middle of the night. He was miserable and so were we. He is doing much better today as far as the tummy goes. However, now he has a fever, cough, and runny nose. Poor guy. He stayed home from preschool with Jared and thankfully got a little nap in while watching a movie. He’s feeling a little better tonight and we’re hoping this sickness doesn’t linger long. It’s nice that it’s at least the weekend so I can stay home and take care of him. Claire has got a runny nose and we’re praying the sickness stops there for her.
Dialysis was not so good today. Shortly after we got Claire started, the machine kept alarming that there was a blood leak. It didn’t take very long for all of us to see the blood leak in the dialysis membrane. There are lots of little tubes in the dialyzer that the blood goes through. The dialysis solution that “cleans” the blood runs all around the tubes, but the blood and the solution NEVER touch. Except if there’s a blood leak. One of those small tubes was cracked/broken and we could see her blood leaking into the dialysis solution. This exposes her blood to the clean but NOT sterile dialysis solution and that exposure means possible infection. Because of the risk of infection in ‘returning’ her blood to her body, they simply had to stop dialysis and literally throw the whole circuit of blood away. 80 Ml of her blood gone. That is A LOT of blood to loose for a little one. That is heartbreaking for me to see as a mom. Her precious blood that she needs SO much, gone. She looses some blood each time she does dialysis, but we’ve never had to ‘dump the whole circuit.’ Not good. Because of the loss of so much blood, she will get a blood transfusion tomorrow. We’ll add it to the list….making that her 15th blood transfusion.
After all this happened, I heard many of the nurses say that in all of their years of being a dialysis nurse, they had NEVER seen that happen. They were taught about it and read about it, but had never actually seen it. Only one or two of them said they had seen it, many years ago, and only once or twice. They believe it was a manufacture defect and don’t think it was anything they did different to cause it to happen today.
On the bright side, I had a great visit with some friends in the area and feel uplifted by the service that has been offered to our family. We are blessed to be a part of an amazing Church family who has stepped right up and assisted us in any way they can.
After the blood leak ordeal, we had a half hour to kill while they set up a new machine and got everything ready start her dialysis again. Claire and I walked around outside and enjoyed a moment of quiet by the water fountain. Still smiling!
1 comment:
Too bad we can't fly John's blood in for you. Do you have people in your ward able to donate? I hope so. Oh, I feel for you today. Thankfully it's the weekend and you can be home with your family.
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